Macrowikinomics is now available in paperback! 
This week’s Bloomberg Businessweek discusses Netflix’s relentless expansion as the DVD-by-mail service makes even better use of the Internet. Instead of relying on the US Postal Service to deliver its product, Netflix is increasingly streaming content online. The company is perfectly poised to profit as the Internet continues to suck the television networks and premium cable into its maw.
Hollywood is having a hard time deciding if Netflix (NFLX) is friend or foe. The fast-growing movie service has already helped drive DVD retailer Blockbuster (BBI) to the brink of Chapter 11. Now, Netflix is poised to take on premium cable giants like HBO and Showtime. Last month, Netflix bought the rights to stream films from three studios. That will make it the first true Web-based movie channel. It already has 15 million subscribers and an ad-hoc distribution network that includes Web-ready TVs like Sony’s (SNE) Bravia, game consoles like Microsoft’s (MSFT) Xbox 360, and even gadgets like Apple’s (AAPL) iPad. That makes Netflix’s $8.99 a month mail-order and online service a threat to more-expensive premium cable channels. It also poses a quandary for HBO parent Time Warner (TWC), whose Warner Bros. studio has become more reliant on Netflix as a source of revenue as overall DVD sales have declined. Netflix “is a customer for our output, and it is a potential competitor to networks like HBO,” Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes said last month. “So far it has been more of a complementary service to HBO than a competitor.”
Click here for the full article.
We have entered the age of gadgetry insofar as the internet uses are concerned. We are a long way from a steady state use of this powerful and historic milestone. As with the prnting press it took awhile “to take” ie : in terms of its full potentiality . That said may we now have a somber conversation on the negative potentialities of this new medium? Globalization of ‘the terrorism enterprise’ and everything associated with this project and we can infer what this may involve; the use of electronic laundering of illicit gains and money; the ineptness of international law enforcement in dealing with internet crimes or in keeping abreast; the proliferation of idealogies and demagoges and propaganda and the inevitable emergence of an ‘electronic totalitariat’ ….You see my concerns . Don , will you please address the ” potential dark side of the internet ” and the risk potential of a catastrosphic abuses based upon ‘information as weaponry’? The medium Is war …perhaps?
Wikileaks : Is it a force for good or harm or both?
Have we overstated the benefits shorterm of the internet blinded by apps and oethr funs things in ‘hopes ‘ and dreams of a better long term. Are we more vigarious that ever ? How will the planet and its small beings survuive the next ‘repetitious cycle of history ?
Cheers Don D.