Google I/O 2011 Round-Up: Chromebooks and The Cloud

Google Engineering Director Chris Yerga introduces movie rentals on the Android Marketplace
Google Engineering Director Chris Yerga introduces movie rentals on the Android Marketplace

Google took us further into the digital media future with some compelling announcements at the fourth annual Google I/O developers conference in San Francisco this week. Recent Google I/O keynotes seem silly in retrospect — both Google Wave and Buzz were epic busts. But this year Google narrowed its focuses to it’s strengths, namely the Android mobile operating system and the Chrome browser and operating system. The gist was this: Use Google’s web-based tools and applications, combine with seemingly infinite storage space in the cloud, and bulky hard drives and desktop PC’s will become mere artifacts of our technological evolution. A Google account combined with a device running Android or Chrome OS will be all you need to do [almost] anything.

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Interview: Ooyala’s Chris Wong on Trends in Online Video and Advertising

Digital Hollywood took over the Ritz at Marina del Rey for its Spring 2011 conference, a nice change of scenery for the hundreds of studio execs, advertising and entertainment execs, online video creatives, technologists, SAG members and agents in attendance. (Members of the Dallas Mavericks, who could be spotted in and around the pool area, apparently enjoyed their stay as well).

Between absorbing the latest trends as discussed by multiple panels we managed to interview a few executives from top online media companies.

In the video below, Ooyala’s Vice President of Biz Dev, Chris Wong, explains the importance of streaming video solutions providers, why most companies require DRM (digital rights management) to control copyright, and ponders the meteoric rise of Netflix and the potential impact of its competitors.



Click here to view on YouTube.

Still Paying For NetFlix and I Don’t Know Why

I’ve been a NetFlix subscriber on and off since the service began… or at least soon after the demise of Kozmo.com. I’m probably on my sixth or seventh e-mail address (since I historically have closed every account within a year and then been tempted to open a new one based on some freebie offer for new accounts). But I just don’t watch many movies and if I am going to take the time to sit still and be entertained by anything other than a baseball game or a computer I’m most likely to go to the theater. Yes, even though I have viewing rights to my roommate’s killer diller digital projector.


I’ve had the same two movies for 3 and 4 months respectively and have yet to watch either of them despite taking them with me on vacations, excursions, and other potentially boring rendezvouses. I even downgraded to the $8.99/month plan but still can’t find the impetus to watch these films OR return them OR quit the membership. Perhaps it’s because of Netflix’s “watch now” on your computer capabilities — although I’ve been expecting they’d open it up for Mac OSX users (like myself) and as far as I can tell — they still haven’t, in spite of promises made months ago.

What percentage of your video viewing is Netflix / Blockbuster / TiVo / on demand / torrent / hulu / Joost nowadays?

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