By David Poland poland@moviecitynews.com
Delivelution: June 20, 2011
Last week, there were a few things worth noting on our journey into the future.
The New York Post decided to cut off iPad access to its online content. To many this seemed extreme, but it seems to me that they were following in the footsteps of the New York Times. The Paper of Record has not cut off iPad access via Safari, but to use the paper’s iPad app. one has to pay a premium price… an extravagant premium price. And besides that seeming absurd on so many levels, it is all the more so because the iPad app isn’t very good. (As in, it ain’t the WSJ, still the best newspaper app on the market.) Everyone is looking for the right combination of free and getting people who are willing to pay to pay. Sounds of outrage seem to be coming from the one place it really matters to people, which is also a city in which there is probably a higher percentage of iPad use than anywhere else… Nueva York.
I’ve noticed an increase in ads on HuluPlus this last week, at least for their more current programming. Another service with optional payment for additional services, Box Office Mojo, seems to have a new policy on ads… which is that I am now seeing them – and having service slowed by them – even while paying for a Premier Pass. (The price for a year’s access also went up.) This seems to be the next step for these companies and no doubt others. First, they got people to pay for a mostly free service… now, they are comfortable pushing their paying customers incrementally. In both of these cases, personally, additional advertising encumbrances may change my attitude about paying for the services. And a big part of that is that neither company, while accepting my money, bothered to inform me of the changes in policy or number of ads. In my view, the #1 way to irritate your customer base – ask the record business – is to make them feel taken for granted and like your business thinks they are suckers. Yellow flag.
HBO continues to build its iPad platform, HBOGo, heavily promoting that the second episode of the new season of True Blood will be available via the service a week before airing. They did this with Game of Thrones, Episode 7 a couple of months ago. HBOGo is collaborating with the cable companies, smartly not threatening them with a tool that will promote cord cutting, but at the same time protecting themselves from cord cutting. At the same time, if Netflix or Hulu or whomever will pony up big dollars, it’s clear that HBOGo will also align with those companies to make the service available to their customers. (Ironically, the biggest cable outlet not working with HBOGo so far is Time Warner Cable.)
On a somewhat related streaming note, I tried to watch a movie on Sony’s Crackle site and found it terribly interuptive. Every 11 minutes it stopped for an ad, often right in the middle of the scene, and it took a longer than usual time to buffer back into the feature. Free with ads is one thing but the experience just reminded me why I pay for subscriptions.
I hope HBO has upgraded their servers. True Blood gets nearly twice as many viewers as Game of Thrones.
The site was so slow I had to use Comcast’s streaming aite to see EP7 a week early.
Of course TWC won’t allow HBOGo for their subscribers; corporate can’t cut off the nose to spite the face. Many clients, like me, would cut the cord happily. However, punishing 10+ year clients like myself is not the way to go either. I’ve voiced my displeasure with TWC customer service, but the people who answer the phones are, to put it kindly, morons. Complaining on twitter and Facebook is the way to go with this, which is what I intend on doing. It’s ridiculous that we are STILL being punished, in 2011 and after everything we’ve seen in the music biz, for not illegally downloading files.