Sling Media To Add Upgraded Broadband, Ads
05.16.07 By Reuters, eWEEK
[ a virtual button for higher speed? ]
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NEW YORK (Reuters) - Gadget maker Sling Media, whose device relays home television programs to laptops and cell phones, plans to resell fast Internet service and may start showing ads later this year.
The company's Slingbox connects cable and satellite TV set-top boxes to the Internet. As a result, cell phones and other Web-connect devices can show what's on a customer's living room TV.
But viewing quality depends on Internet connection strength, and so later this year Sling Media will add a virtual button to its PC and cell phone software that will boost home broadband service speed.
Sling Media Chief Executive Blake Krikorian discussed the closely watched technology company's 2007 plans at the Reuters Global Technology, Media and Telecoms Summit in New York on Tuesday.
Since its launch some two years ago, big media companies have eyed Sling warily as companies attempt to forge their own Internet strategies to reach viewers wherever they spend time.
Media companies are rolling out limited programming on cell phones, Web sites and Apple Inc.'s iTunes service.
Over the past year, traditional media companies and the cable industry have started to warm up to the Allen & Co.-backed company. Top U.S. cable operator Comcast Corp. plans to include Slingboxes in its tests of next generation cable technology this year.
"I can't point to you anybody out there that has a real major issue with what we're doing," Krikorian said of media companies. "A year ago ... that wouldn't have been true."
Slingboxes costs from $130 to $250 and do not carry subscription fees, unlike wireless carriers that offer clips of TV shows for a fee, split between the wireless carrier and the content company.
"Technology is not the thing that is king. Content is not the thing that is king. The consumer is king," Krikorian said.
A deal with Boston, Massachusetts-based GetConnected Inc. will let Sling users upgrade their broadband services some time later this year, Krikorian said. GetConnected has relationships with a number of Internet providers, including Comcast and Time Warner Cable Inc.
In some respects, the strategy resembles cell phone carriers such as Virgin Mobile USA Inc., a wireless service brand that resells cell phone service over Sprint Nextel Corp..
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Sling Media also may start showing ads on its service as early as this summer, when its new Clip and Sling service launches. The new service lets its users copy snippets of TV shows and movies and share them over the Internet. CBS Corp. already has begun to test Clip and Sling.
Krikorian said Sling was in discussions with media companies to sell ad sponsorship of interactive content, such as basketball game statistics during a live broadcast.
Sling would receive a percentage of the ad sales, he said.
"What (media companies) are looking for is new (ad) inventory and so in a lot of ways it's going to be opening new opportunities for a lot of these guys," he said.
(Additional reporting by Yinka Adegoke)
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