Category Archives: Tech

Can Tumblr make Yahoo hip again?

2 Replies

Yahoo was a name to conjure with in 1997 when I was editing the Australian NetGuide.

It sat near the centre of many people’s internet experience. That’s no longer the case.

In the time before Google, Yahoo’s directory was a popular jumping-off point for finding web content. Google sucked all the air out of that business and the rest is history.

Yahoo remains one of the more popular online destinations – especially in the US. Today it is mainly a content portal with strength in a handful of areas including sport and entertainment news. And it owns the popular Flickr photo-sharing site.

But Yahoo can’t honestly be described as hip or happening. Hell, I’m past 50 and it looks fogyish even to me. And the company’s revenue has been in decline while its online rivals continue to grow.

Tumblr on the other hand is hip. And happening. It is very much of today. And it is popular with a younger audience than most of Yahoo’s current fare.

So spending over a billion dollars on the business could make sense. Most observers expect Yahoo to find ways to make money from Tumblr – until now it has barely paid its way.

Yahoo’s challenge is to parlay all it gains from Tumblr back into the mothership without killing the hipper, younger brand. The company will want Tumblr users to link to its content channels and advertising is going to play a bigger role on their sites whether they like it or not.

Presumably part of the goal is for the lively social media blogging site to pump some adrenaline back into the Yahoo brand. There are some lucrative big data opportunities lurking in this mix as well as all those hip young things leave trails across the webs for Yahoo’s servers to mine.

The danger is that Yahoo will stifle Tumblr. That would be like watching a billion dollars flushed down the gurgler.

Related articles

Australia’s dysfunctional fibre v wireless debate

5 Replies

Thankfully New Zealand doesn’t echo Australia’s ridiculously politicised telecommunications scene.

Across the Tasman, those on the right of the political spectrum take every opportunity to dismiss government plans to build the NBN – a fibre to the premises network. Meanwhile, some NBN supporters are just as fanatical.

Things took a turn for the surreal when Australians learnt of Samsung’s 5G announcement. The company demonstrated 28GHz band wireless technology capable of delivering data at multi-gigabit rates.

The NBN’s opponents leaped on this news as evidence the fibre roll-out is a waste of time. NBN’s supporters were quick to dismiss those arguments and claim wireless data will never move beyond being an also ran technology.

As is often the case with Australian communications debates, there is more heat than light.

Where consumers have a choice – Japan is the most obvious example – wireless data networks inhibit fibre uptake. But then NBN supporters point out users share wireless bandwidth and it is impractical for high-speed applications.

Or maybe not. Samsung’s 5G…

…it will not be your grandfather’s “shared and congested” wireless, given the antenna theory behind 5G essentially mimics a point-to-point network.

- Grahame Lynch writing in CommsDay

The 28Ghz band is line-of-site and, apparently, difficult to work with. Samsung’s demo delivered 1Gbps, but only over 2 kilometres. In other words a practical 5G network means a lot of fibre will be laid to cell towers. Along the way it will pass a lot of homes and businesses.  So to some extent, a 5G roll-out could complement a fibre roll-out in New Zealand where Chorus connects homes and cell towers.

Australia’s market is so comprehensively distorted by the government’s NBN project that the prospects for any alternative network are effectively at the government’s whim. If 5G really challenged NBN, officials could simply strangle it in its infancy with a little careful policy bastardry.

New Zealand’s telecommunications market isn’t perfect, but when it comes to politics intersects with technology, few here steal jealous glances across the Tasman.

Related articles

Chorus’ brilliant VDSL gambit

11 Replies

From June 7 Chorus will sell VDSL on its copper network at the same price as ADSL.

The clue to why this is a smart move lies in the technology’s full name: Very-high-bit-rate digital subscriber line. VDSL speeds are noticeably higher than today’s ADSL services.

Theoretically, VDSL download speeds top out at 50Mbps, although to get the full benefit you need to be relatively close to an exchange or roadside cabinet. Typically users can expect to see two or three times today’s ADSL download speeds if they switch.

But that’s not the whole story. VDSL upload speeds are many times faster than ADSL upload speeds. Typically New Zealand users upload at less than 1Mbps, VDSL can upload at 16Mbps, but users will more realistically see 5 to 10Mbps.

In practice, you’ll notice the faster upload speed the first time you attempt to send a large file. Higher upload speeds will make a huge difference to people using cloud computing, social media and video applications. Gamers like it too.

The gamble could potentially pay huge dividends for Chorus on two counts as it continues its nationwide fibre to the premises roll-out.

First, VDSL will get users hooked on fast internet services like videoconferencing and keep up interest on speedy services during the six or so remaining years it will take for the UFB network to reach all urban areas.

Second, it will get people hooked on fast land-line services. This matters because overseas experience shows wireless broadband services challenge fibre uptake in places where consumers have a clear choice. Fast wireless internet will reach most urban areas much sooner than the UFB, so VDSL effectively diminishes competitive threat.

As a byproduct, VDSL will also encourage service providers to focus on high-end UFB plans. VDSL speeds will be close to the 30Mbps offered in low-end UFB plans.

Chorus says it will stop selling new VDSL connections in areas where the fibre network is completed.

Related articles

Where is the UFB killer app?

6 Replies

20130518-125645.jpg
Asian operators fret over the lack of a killer app for fibre service says Informa senior analyst Tony Brown.

They have it easy compared with New Zealand fibre service providers. As Brown says, Asians get around the problem delivering digital content.
Australian service providers have content deals with sporting codes to fall back on.

In New Zealand Sky TV has the best content locked up.

In other words, not only do New Zealand fibre service providers lack of a killer app, they can’t even offer the most obvious everyday app: content.

Consumers can work around this – and Sky TV – faking US or UK ip addresses and downloading content from Netflix, iTunes or even the BBC. That has to remain unofficial and kept out of any fibre marketing.

At some point politicians and government officials might look again at how content is regulated in New Zealand. It would be wise to do so earlier, not later.

Before anyone mentions it, high quality videoconferencing is not a killer app. At least not for consumers, it may sell fibre to businesses.

And anyway, over the top services like Skype and Apple Facetime already dominate consumer videoconferencing over copper. Things are unlikely to change with a move to fibre.

None of this should alter anything as far as UFB goes. Fibre is a sound investment in its own right. Simply running lines past every school, business and health centre in the county will pay off. Yet, it would be better if there was a compelling incentive for consumers to sign up.

Surface Pro in NZ on May 30

Leave a reply

Surface ProRetailers are already listing Microsoft’s Surface Pro which officially goes on sale in New Zealand on May 30. The 64GB model costs $1350, while the 128GB model is $1500. You need to budget an extra $150 for a keyboard-cover. 

Allowing for GST, these prices are roughly in line with those overseas. That’s a good thing.

Strictly speaking the Surface Pro is a tablet. Add the keyboard case and you effectively have a touch screen laptop – comparable with a Ultrabook. It’s thin and light with the power of a conventional laptop computer and a similar battery life at four to six hours.

Inevitably people will make comparisons with the iPad – which is cheaper, has a better screen and longer battery life.

Surface Pro is interesting because it shows off Microsoft’s vision of where personal computing is heading. It combines some of the best elements of the PC era in post-PC mobile device.

My concern is I can’t work out who Microsoft expects to buy the device. Presumably people who want the power and applications they can find on conventional computers packaged in a touch screen tablet.

Is that even a market? We’ll know soon enough.

Related articles