NBC Direct Why Old Media Buys Bad Ideas

Let’s see NBC chose not to renew their contract with Apple Inc. for iTunes and started their own service NBC Direct (still in Beta). This is a prime example of how big old media heads are going to follow the path of the recording industry right down the toilet.

Consider this of the money that NBC had for selling shows on iTunes at $1.99 a pop, more then 50% of that revenue was generated by MacOS users and not Windows users. All most all of the revenue was generated as a result of the NBC shows being viewed on an Apple Device (iPod or Apple TV). So, NBC opts for a Microsoft Only, Ad supported, platform that is one unproven and two from a company that has no experience in internet digital media content delivery.

The NBC Direct platform is build on using OpenCASE (unlike the name implies it is far from an open platform other then it being an open platform to exploit the enduser’s system but, that is an issue for another post). If you just love using IE, trust .Net 2.0 and enjoy fiddling with Flash are using Windows XP and don’t mine that the Open CASE software installed on your system runs all the times consumes your bandwidth and eats up your memory then this might be the service for you.

The OpenCASE Media Agent is spying on you and exchanges lots of information about what, when and what else you’re doing on your system. While my analysis of the data that it is sends back to the motherships ExtendMedia and NBC is not complete, it is clear that it is spying on you. ExtendMedia claims that no personal information is captured or sent is an inaccurate statement at best and a bold faced lie at it’s worst. The OpenCASE Media agent has no reason to sent a list of visited URLs to a ExtendMedia IP address, nor is their any reason for it to sent a list of running applications to that same IP. I consider this type of information personal.

NBC and ExtendMedia are headed down the path the Sony and First For Internet followed. It’s not a long road and consumers don’t like that road at all. It will be a tough lesson and a lesson that the old media hucksters don’t learn easily if at all.

Installing any proprietary software for the purpose of getting, managing or collecting ads on a users system that can not be turned off and on (but really at all), is bad business. Sucking even 1 or 2 MB of RAM is a bad deal. Sucking up 10 to 15 MB of RAM is an astronomical blunder in software development (iTunes that has a full GUI and in my case is managing 9800 songs with full Album Art, 250+ Music Videos, 541 Movies, a few dozen TV episodes, 894 Video & Audio Podcasts and manages 2 Apple TV, and 5 iPods only uses 37MB total (this includes the 2MB for the iPod Helper Application that I even find an annoying amount that is used even when iTunes is not running.).

Will this be a failed service? Well only time and the customer will make that determination. But, as NBC Direct shows can only be used on Windows PC currently and the shows are laden with DMR. This rules out using the NBC Directs downloads on portable media devices like the iPod and Digital Media Devices like the Apple TV. I think these limitations alone will cause the service to fail all witout the security issues from the OpenCASE Media Agent, ads or even the DRM issues.

Until the old Media Content Czars get over their fixation with DRM and DRM scams, Mainstream Digital Delivered Content is going to remain a fringe internet curiosity. New Media Content Creators do get it. My advise to old media is to hire some real new media talent and give them the freedom to develop and create the market for the old media content in the new media world of the internet.