Hashing Out The Future And Flaws Of Broadband
newsbytes.com
30 Jun 1999, 7:39 PM CST
By Laura Randall, Newsbytes.
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA, U.S.A.,
Despite its Holy Grail position in the
Internet technology sector, broadband
access still lacks focus in key areas of cost, business
strategy and general availability.
This was the consensus of, and in part the reason for, a
conference of broadband developers, Web content
programmers and cable operators who gathered to both
promote and ponder the growth and future of high-speed
Internet access.
Participants agreed on a few things during the one-day
event: that broadband access will hit its stride in 2002, that
the near-term key to broadband's success is "short and
sweet" content bits, and that more interaction among the
key players is essential.
"We want to work with you. You want to work with us. Let's
talk," said Aura Klatch, director of business development at
high-speed Internet service provider Road Runner.
The conference, which was sponsored by Road Runner,
MediaOne and Time Warner, was geared to encourage just
that.
After three panel discussions in the morning, the rest of the
event was dedicated to a leisurely lunch and private
meetings between conference sponsors and representatives
of Road Runner and MediaOne. The buoyant tone of the
event was underscored by its location on the "Wheel of
Fortune" stage at Sony Pictures Studios. TV host Vanna
White gave a taped welcome, and the show's letter board
spelled out "The Future of Broadband."
While panelists were quick to tout broadband as the
Internet's next typhoon, they were also frank about the
challenges that lie ahead. Among the problems hindering
broadband's growth are customer apprehension ("They don't
know what they don't know," said Kelly Rubble of
MediaOne); a high bit-rate cost of 5 to 25 cents a piece and
lack of a clear business model.
"Broadband breaks all known business models," said John
Gilles, producer of broadband content for Ziff-Davis' ZDTV. To
succeed, Gilles said broadband developers need to combine
multiple revenue options, focus on the "enterprise" user, gain
subsidies from high-speed service providers, and, finally,
"spend as fast as your competitors."
Robert Tercek, vice president of online services for
Columbia/TriStar Interactive, offered his "smash the grid"
take on broadband's success: He predicted there will be
more demonstration and less text, a revival of multimedia
presentations, the growth of "reality cameras" and the
evolution of video ad banners into "blip verts" that remain a
constant part of the screen.
Content that works on the Web, Tercek said, promotes
exchange between the site and its audience, offers meta
content (data about data), and features incomplete content
that requires audience input. But, "one-to-many
broadcasting content lacks these," he said.
Most of the conference speakers represented companies
that were sponsoring the event, including Microsoft,
RealNetworks, ZDTV, Intel, Columbia TriStar, Gotham
Interactive and Cache Flow.
"We've got a medium here that's still fundamentally
inefficient and costly," said Stuart Aaron, vice president of
product development at CacheFlow. He then launched into a
presentation on how CacheFlow's caching technology
ensures content control, fast response and fresh data.
The sales pitch aspect of the conference frustrated some
attendees, who came to get answers about the future of this
medium that will move digitized data, sounds and images
across cable wires at lightning speed.
"It's what I expected, but it's not what I want," said Keith
Wilson, president of Beeline, a Boston-based company that
provides e-commerce links for networks like the
soon-to-launch Oxygen Media. Wilson said he had hoped
the conference would address more issues involving the
translation of broadband over cable lines. Still, he admitted,
the conference marked the first time he had seen so many
cable operators, Web content programmers and broadband
developers gathered in the same room.
"The same people are your competitors one day and your
friends the next," Wilson said.
Reported by Newsbytes.com,
newsbytes.com19:39 CST
Reposted 21:48 CST |
