Will you watch Xbox TV this Christmas?

Heavy Xbox users won’t be surprised to find out that Microsoft will be expanding functionality with “Xbox TV” this Christmas (2011).

Xbox users can already rent movies and watch Netflix and Hulu Plus. It will be interesting to see how they will further their penetration into this space which has been traditionally dominated by cable companies. (Disclosure: Oceanic Time Warner Cable sponsors my Your Computer Minute vignette on the radio). Can Microsoft provide a better set-top box experience? What happens when the world’s largest software company connects the Web to TV programming on its existing installed base of 55 million devices and 35 million paying subscribers?

We’re about to find out. What do you think?

How do you feel about Netflix spinning off DVD service?

The CEO of Netflix, Reed Hastings, just penned a blog post combining an apology for how they handled recent price increases and an announcement of a new company spinoff, “Quickster”, which will handle the DVD-by-mail service. The idea is that Netflix focuses on streaming and Quickster focuses on DVD by mail.

I know a lot of people are upset about the price increase (if you did both streaming and dvd by mail you will now pay more for what you used to get) but IMO Reed did the right thing. Why? He is absolutely correct that companies rarely if ever transition from one paradigm to another. For example, IBM did not successfully transition to the PC market (they no longer produce PCs) and traditional newsprint companies are struggling to succeed in the online world. The best example of all, Blockbuster, is struggling to stay out of bankruptcy.

Why do companies fail to make the transition? Because they must “eat their own children” i.e. they must sacrifice their existing customer base in order to grow the new one. And as you might guess, nobody likes eating their own children (ETOC).

Netflix is at a point where they must either ETOC, fail like the rest, or spin off the old business. Spinning off the DVD business makes the most sense to me. Quickster now gets to compete in the DVD market where it will experience a slow and gradual decline while Netflix can really focus on the exploding streaming business. What will be particularly interesting is that as these two companies further separate themselves, will Netflix have the courage to “take out” Quickster like they would want to eliminate Blockbuster?

That will be the moment of truth for Netflix. We’ll see if they will be willing to “eat their previous offspring” or not.

What do you think about the spinoff? Lets try to keep the comments off the rate increase as I would agree nobody would support it and there’s no point in ranting about something we all agree on (we don’t like rate increases!). I’d like to get some feedback on what you think about the business concept of spinning off Quickster vs. keeping it within Netflix.

Google Apps Hawaii Users: Better Syncing with Outlook

If you love Microsoft Outlook but want to try out Google Apps for Business, the best way to go is use the free Outlook Sync application that Google supplies.  It lets you continue using Outlook but syncs your email, calendar, and notes with the Google servers.

It’s the perfect way to smoothly transition using Gmail to replace Outlook without having to go cold turkey. Let me give you my own story as an example:

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Heroku Now the Default Choice for Facebook Cloud Services

I think this is a pretty big deal for Heroku. To be the exclusive (for now) provider of “Cloud Services” for Facebook is going to give them a monster advantage. Now connect that to Salesforce’s database.com backend integration and you’ve got some serious potential horsepower to explode a whole new category of social enterprise applications that integrate your company’s backend with a Facebook frontend.

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Low-priced 10″ Archos Android Tablet coming: $399

I’m so torn between getting and iPad right now and holding off until the Android tablets drop enough in price. Here’s one more straw on the camel’s back as what looks like a nice 10″ tablet with 16gb of storage going for $100 less than an iPad w/ the same amount of memory. Is that enough to make me buy the Android’s limited app selection? Probably not (meaning that yes, fans, I would, today, buy an iPad) but if the prices keep dropping and more apps start showing up on the Android, Apple will really have to keep cranking out the hits as they have in the past to stay out in front of this tablet monster.

What do you think?

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Open Google Docs for comments only.

One of the fantastic benefits of cloud computing is that applications can continually improve over time rather than the tradition “Word 2007, 2010”, rollout. Google Docs just added a handy new features that lets you share a document but just for commenting. This is perfect when you want feedback but no changes. Great concept!

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Got Android? Get GooGoo for Goggles

Google Googles is one of those OMG! apps. You just take a picture of something in public and Google attempts to match the image against its database and provide you more information. It’s quite astounding and an indication of a “virtual assisted reality” future where our sunglasses constantly scan what we’re looking at and continually provides more in-depth information (think Terminator eyes).

Though that feature isn’t quite here yet, you can still get some pretty good functionality with this App. It’s worth the free install if only to try it out and show to your friends. Besides, it also scans QR codes too.

Let’s say that I’m going on vacation, and I decide to use my Android-powered phone as my primary camera. Goggles would identify landmarks, paintings and other interesting objects in my photos. I can share these facts about my vacation with my friends right from my Goggles search history.

  

Unlock Google Labs for Great Goodies

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If you’re using gmail, you’ve got to explore gmail labs to get fantastic productivity. Just go to settings and then click on Labs and you’re in for a real treat. My favorite is the Send and Archive add on which sends your email and archives it with a single click.

How to easily create Gmail Tasks

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If you’re using Gmail and you need to create a task based on an email you’re reading, click on more actions and then add a task. Gmail will create a task with a link it to the email you’re. If you have keyboard shortcuts on it’s a quick Shift-T.

When the Cloud Goes Down, is it Really that Bad?

Just the other week, Google Docs went down for about an hour. For me, it happened at a really bad time and luckily I was able to copy and paste the content from an open Google Doc into a Microsoft Word doc and continue working. But there were thousands of other people that were acting like the world was coming to an end.

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