Last post I mentioned that thought “connected TVs” would limit your choices too much.
This looks like an interesting little box running android.
Just a browser and media player. All you really need
Disclaimer:
I haven’t tried this box myself, but the specs look good. I had Android 2.2 on my phone and it’s pretty good.
If you know me you probably know that I dropped cable TV about two years ago.
My friends asked me how I was going to be able to see anything at all with just an antenna and an Internet connection. I had done my research, so I knew what I could get and also believed that it would only get better (and it has!)
The other day someone mentioned to me that “connected” TVs were now everywhere and asked if they should buy one. When I said no, they were quite surprised. I explained to him that connected TVs would work much like my current blue-ray player does and would only provide them with a tiny fraction of what is available on the entire web.
Sites would be available like Netflix and Hulu-Plus, but usually not regular Hulu and you would never, ever, ever get a site like tv-links.eu which is miles above Hulu-Plus, but probably not one the entertainment companies want you to know about.
I told them to get a regular HDTV, perhaps splurge on an LED model and take the savings to buy a small laptop with an HDMI port. Then just plug that into his TV. He would have the entire web at his fingertips. I also mentioned some other ideas I’ve written about before or wait until there’s a TV that’s also a regular web browser.
As an afterthought I mentioned that the players in the connected TV game were also starting to add more and more advertisements. I don’t mind a few ads, preferably something I’m interested in, but there seems to be more piling on every day. The media controlled sites like Hulu seem to be out of control. In the case of Hulu-Plus they want you to pay and still watch commercials.
I saw more evidence of all this today and I thought I would share it with you
Guest blog post by Meg Huwar, Huwar Marketing & Media Services.
They say nothing in life is free…well not anymore!
Introducing SpOfferZ! SpOfferZ (Special Offers) is a website developed by me.
SpOfferz features coupons for discounts on products and services. Unlike most of the “daily deals” this site provides advertisers with one free coupon. The coupon includes an offer that gives people a reason to try your product or service. Each coupon is good for at least 30 days and at the end of that time, advertisers can make a new SpOffer (Offer). In addition to the free Spoffer, there are opportunities to purchase additional SpOfferz or to place ads on the SpOfferZ website. For more information go to SpOfferZ.com
Go ahead give it a try…Because finally something is free!
If you know anyone who is running a non-profit organization you probably things are just as tough for them, or maybe more, as the rest of us.
Google has been offering non-profits free advertising for quite some time, but many don’t realize it. I had even forgotten about it until I saw this post. You should share this with every non-profit organization you know.
Someone in one of my groups on LinkedIn asked “what is the best way to allocate (promotional) resources?”
Asking how best to allocate their limited resources (time and $$)
I answered and thought I’d share it here, you may have heard this before.
Start with the free stuff. There are some good ones
http://www.lillicotch.com/Blog/?s=marketing
When paying, try anything that makes sense to you, but be sure to take the time to track how much/many you get from every single ad/promotion. You need to know if you are spending $1 to make $10 or $10 to make $1
Otherwise you might as well take your money to a casino.
I went to a BLX Luncheon today. The Pittsburgh Business Leads Exchange is a great networking group that I highly recommend.
Today’s speakers were addressing security, something I have a keen interest in. First, John McCool spoke about ID theft and there were some interesting ideas.
John’s talk got the next speaker Paul Gatto of Verizon Wireless Zone, on to the security track as well. He mentioned that it’s a good idea to put something on your smartphone to lock it up remotely if it’s ever lost or stolen.
That got me thinking about Prey.
Prey lets you keep track of not just your phone, but also your laptop at all times, and will help you find it if it ever gets lost or stolen. It’s lightweight so it doesn’t hog your machine’s resources, it’s open source software which I love, and free for anyone to use.
Not only will it lock up your phone (and track it), you can also run it on your laptop and have your machine take pictures of the one who has it and send them to you. Very Cool!
One of the things I try to constantly pay attention is security. Especially website security.
it’s very important that you keep the programs running on your site up to date. Ones like WordPress and their plugins are constantly updating and they make it really easy to install the upgrades. usually with one click.
What about some of the other forms and scripts you have on your site. Have an email contact form? Perhaps a script that lets your visitors print your page or recommend your site to someone else?
It’s not unusual for a website owner have these forms installed, maybe by a website designer and then forget about them. Let me assure you that while your site may have stayed the same, hackers never rest and they are always looking for their next target.
There’s plenty of help for webmasters out there and some of the best if direct from Google and it’s free. if you are not subscribed to their Webmaster Central Blog yet you should be. They had a really good post on security yesterday and i recommend it.
If you are thinking of building a new website or redesigning your old site this great post on speckyboy.com is definitely worth reading.
When starting a new site I try to ask my prospective client not just, how do you want your site to look, but what do you want your site to do? That’s important because most visitors don’t just want to see your brochure any more and maybe more importantly the search engines don’t either.
I’m one of those people who dropped cable a couple of years ago and pretty much haven’t looked back. I’ve found places to get movies, TV shows from every network and sports, sports, sports. Pretty much anything I want to see. It’s amazing really.
What continues to bother me is how so many of the networks who are broadcasting the content and who are always fighting with cable providers about the fees they have to pay, keep allowing the cable providers to lock away their programs behind these imaginary walls.
Today I read how ESPN is trying to keep people who don’t subscribe to a traditional cable service out of their online offerings via their phone apps.
I am able to access the ESPN 3 events through a program running on my network called PlayOn.tv. It’s a good service and one of only two that I pay for (the other being Netflix), but I don’t really even need it. For my main TV I have a laptop with a HDMI cable attached to it and so I don’t need anything else. PlayOn is just something I started using before I bought a digital TV with an HDMI input and I keep it because it’s convenient and I don’t have to buy another computer for every TV.
ESPN is generally paying the cable companies to have their shows for the cables subscribers and so I can’t figure out for the life of me why they would turn away these customers they can get for free.
I can see how it’s bad for the cable companies, but do the content providers think the cable companies would risk dropping them and totally alienating their customers? Not to mention the browser on my Android phone is now good enough that I don’t have to use their app to watch the streams. I do have to use a WiFi connection to get around their blocking my T-mobile connection, but I’m quite sure I could find another way if I had to (there’s probably an app for that).
Well, listen up gatekeepers. Keeping people from what they want to see just to try to squeeze a little more money out of them will only hurt you in the long run and if you won’t allow them to see your content how they choose, they’ll find a way to see it without your service and you probably won’t like that nearly as much.
The days of you telling people how and when they will get to use your programs are about over. No rules, no laws, and no other anti-competitive behavior will help you. Give the people what they want and you will be much better off, and so will we.
Every once in a while you run into such a great collection of tools online that you just have to stop and play with them for a while.
That’s what happened to me today when I discovered this post on a site called Splashnology. There are links to so many good tools here like background image makers, CSS makers and more than I can mention here.
If you are interested in some great free tools to help your website look better I highly recommend that you check out
