We've moved our main blog to Tumblr, for reasons which I've detailed here.  Now, the main site is still at nextmarket.co, and you can access the blog by simply hitting blog from the top navigation above, but if you want to bookmark out blog, use this URL: http://blog.nextmarket.co Well what are you waiting for? 

As many of you now know, LG has acquired the much-travelled WebOS from HP and intends to use it across a variety of products, the first of which is smart TV. The first smart TVs with WebOS are expected to be released in 2014. Up until now, LG has used its own smart TV stack and app framework, which used to be called NetCast. NetCast, as I understand it, is based on a Linux distro and a Webkit HTML5 browser, etc.  NetCast is separate from the LG line of Google TVs, which came later. With the news they've decided to acquire...

According to Business Insider, Twitter has acquired Blue Fin Labs, a social TV analytics company.  Given how much noise Twitter has been making around social TV, no one should be surprised.  That said, since Twitter owns the watercooler and hasn't exactly been shy about competing with third party offerings built upon the Twitter data ecosystem, it's worth asking why exactly the company bought Blue Fin.  Here are three potential reasons: 1. BlueFin gives Twitter a turnkey SaaS analytics service platform While Twitter has the core data, building a proven and successful SaaS analytics services business around this data is another...

I recently had a chat with Matt McRae from Vizio, and he indicated that the company will have both DIAL and Miracast integrated into all new models of connected TVs by the end of the year.   This supports my earlier debunking of the belief DIAL is a replacement for Airplay/Miracast, showing how the technologies, while both important, are really for different use cases.   According to McRae, they've been working with Netflix on DIAL support for over six months. 

Much of the coverage about the new DIAL multiscreen protocol effort has focused on how the technology is a potential replacement for Airplay (which, by extension, would also mean it's a replacement for Miracast).  Well, here's the thing: DIAL and Airplay/Miracast are really meant to do different things and, in the end, devices like connected TVs will support both DIAL as well as content-throwing protocols like Miracast. In case you're stil not convinced, let's look at what each is meant to do. As Janko explains, DIAL is more about using your second-screen device to launch apps on your first screen....

In late 2012, we wrapped up a study of the e-reading consumer. Based on a survey of over 1200 e-reading households, we looked at reading habits (both physical and paper books), what devices they used, how many devices they owned (and how long they had them) and much more.   A few observations from the study: Many homes today are no longer just single e-reader households. In fact, only half of e-reading homes today had just a single e-reader and 17% of e-reading households had three or more e-readers. E-reading is no longer a new behavior. Many of those who...

The biggest news of the show so far from a smart TV perspective is the Roku/Time Warner announcement of the Time Warner app, which will essentially brings a full cable TV subscription package to any authenticated Time Warner subscriber with a Roku powered TV. If this idea sounds familiar, it is. It's basically what the entire cable industry wanted to achieve with Tru2way (and before that OpenCable), where consumers could buy Tru2way equipment at retail and then have cable services delivered to them at home. It was, in a sense, the cable industry's plan to get rid of the set...

On Sunday I head to CES, and while some think the big tech show has jumped the shark, I'm excited for the first time in years. Why? Because this year we're on the cusp of seeing some interesting technology that could finally spur adoption (and actual usage) of smart TVs after what seemed like a lost year in the category.    Here are a few of the technologies I expect to help reinvigorate the smart TV market in 2013: Miracast A lot of folks think the one thing Apple TV has going for it is it's mirroring technology, AirPlay and, well,...

When I wrote a little over a month ago of my decision to start my own research company at my personal Tumblr, I was surprised by the positive response from the many people who reached out with support, questions about my research, inquiries about advisory and consulting work, or just to say hi.   I guess after being in the research business for over a decade, you make some friends! While I answered many questions over email, phone and cups of coffee, it was hard to write a post about NextMarket because you need a website to do that. Well, in...

Hank Skorny was the person behind Real Networks' Unifi personal media cloud. The product never actually shipped, but now that he's at Intel, Skorny may be able to finally deliver on the vision.