January 18th, 2012, 5 Comments »
There’s been a great deal of talk today about some proposed American legislation and its impact on the Internet. I don’t really want to add to the clamour. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, watch this 13-minute video primer from Clay Shirky, this Khan Academy video (thanks to Andy for that) or read Wikipedia’s SOPA and PIPA list of questions and answers.
I have been thinking about piracy lately, though, because I’m considering alternatives to cable television. In truth, hockey is the only thing that binds me to Shaw Cable. I’ve been poking around for alternatives to watching or recording Canucks games on our PVR.
The only legal option is NHL GameCenter LIVE (caution, autoplaying video ahead). Back in October, I could pay $169 to watch nearly any game I want on my computer, iPad or iPhone. They reduce the price throughout the year–it’s currently $119. On the face of it, this seems like a satisfactory offer. I’d rather they amortize the pricing based on the exact day I sign up, but it could be worse.
However, the fine print is pretty hostile to the average customer:
- If you want to cancel your subscription after you sign up, you have five days to do so. After that, you forfeit the entire payment.
- You only get to watch the first two rounds of the playoffs. It’s not immediately apparent, despite some diligent searching, as to how one watches the subsequent rounds.
- Because of league agreements with broadcasters, many games are blacked out. The rules around this policy are pretty inscrutable, though I did read that no games are broadcast through GameCenter in the playoffs in Canada, because they’re televised nationally. There are endless complaints from GameCenter customers on social media and online discussion forums about this practice.
- The reviews of the NHL GameCenter mobile app are not flattering. A typical review in the iTunes store reads “Huge downgrade from the 2010 version. It crashes constantly and it’s way harder to navigate than last years version.”
The NHL seems to be about 60% of the way there to a really great service that enables you to watch all games, live or recorded, over the web.
By the way, there are no current NHL (nor NBA, NFL or MLB) games available through the iTunes store. This seems like an enormous missed opportunity.
Clearly, the NHL has not found its iTunes-esque sweet spot. How do I know this? Because there are a ton of illegal ways to watch NHL games online.
There are streaming sites, usually with multiple options for streams of both the home and away broadcasts for any game, and bittorrent sites. But my favourite example is this grey-market site based in Rotterdam, Netherlands that is a generic clone of NHL GameCenter. They essentially offer the same thing as GameCenter, except with more convenience and at a moderately-lower (a year costs US $99) price point. There are no blackouts, no playoff restrictions and the site seems to be more reliable better than the GameCenter app. In short, this shady Dutch operation out-performs the NHL’s own service.
As is so often the case, when the legal options aren’t satisfactory, illegal alternatives abound. There’s clearly a huge appetite for this kind of on-demand sports content. On my site alone, more than 17,000 people have visited this site alone looking for some variation of “how to watch NHL hockey online”. Not everybody wants the all-you-can-eat package for $169, mind you, but that’s the only legal game in town.
We’ve solved online music. We’re making good progress on television and movies. It looks to me like sports leagues, or at least the NHL, still have a very 20th century attitude towards the web. What’s holding them back?
UPDATE: Coincidentally, I was poking around on my iPad tonight, looking for hockey highlights. None of the CBC, TSN or Sportsnet apps offer video highlights, and the associated sites only offer video highlights in Flash. When I visit NHL.com looking for highlights, I get forwarded to their GameCenter offering. In short, the NHL expects me to have to pay to watch video highlights on my iPad.
Of course, somebody has routed around the bogosity, and hosts a simple site for NHL highlights that runs very smoothly on my iPad.
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January 31st, 2009, 8 Comments »
A couple of weeks ago we were at the Tsawassen ferry terminal, on our way back to Victoria. Due to a mechanical problem with one of the ferries, we faced a two-hour delay in departure. Julie and I wandered into the Tsawassen Quay Market, which is kind of a mini-mall situated between the vehicle lanes at the terminal.
I poked around with my iPhone, and eventually discovered that the Salt Spring Island Coffee outlet in the market was offering an open wifi network. We scored a table, purchased cookies and coffee, and set to work. The availability of internet access transformed that two-hour period from wasted to reasonably productive.
So, just a quick public thank-you to Salt Spring Island Coffee for making some wifi free and openly available at the ferry terminal.
On the other hand, I’ve abandoned all hope of having internet access on the ferry. I can’t imagine why they don’t offer it. My back-of-the-envelope math suggests that it would become an excellent revenue source in the first couple of years.
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February 21st, 2008, 5 Comments »
What do I miss most from Vancouver? One thing is the super high-speed, reliable web access.
Here in Morocco, the Internet access has been dependable, but desperately slow. I’m surfing like it’s 1997 over here.
Three times over the past week, I’ve been unable to access sections of the web. This morning, for example, I could get to Shaw.ca and UVic.ca, but not to my own site or Jen’s. When I did a search on Flickr, only about half the photos loaded. I assume this is because their data centers are spread across the country (or world).
I’ve seen this before, but it was extremely rare in Canada. I assume it has to do with some temporary router (or whatever) failure in the network.
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November 5th, 2007, 3 Comments »
As we occasionally do, Julie and I spent a couple of hours today working in the lovely bar at the Kempinski Hotel San Lawrenz. I think it’s the only five star hotel on Gozo, and despite its peculiar location (there are no views of the sea), it’s quite posh.
I wasn’t using the web, but I happened to visit the hotel’s portal page for its wifi service. Here it is:
That looks pretty weak, doesn’t it? Why does a five-star hotel, with its spa smelling of sandalwood and lavendar, it’s beautifully-tiled pools and gorgeously-appointed rooms, have such a crappy-looking login page? The Kempinski isn’t unique in this peculiar disconnect–I’ve seen worse in plenty of four and five-star hotels.
It’s a tiny thing, but swish hotels aspire to get the tiny things right. The five-star devil, after all, is in the details. On the other hand, at least I wasn’t presented with an image of some kind of fruitophile.
Incidentally, I took that screenshot with a great little OS X program that Monique tipped me off on. It’s called Paparazzi, and all it does is make a full-length screenshot of any URL you enter. It saves you the trouble of stitching screenshots together.
3 Comments »
May 30th, 2007, 2 Comments »
Via Johnny, I just read about CBS acquiring Last.fm for 280 million simoleons:
CBS radio is the largest radio group in the United States, with 179 stations in the top 50 markets covering news, rock, country and urban music.
The firm’s president and CEO Leslie Moonves said: “Last.fm is one of the fastest growing online communities out there.”
He said Last.fm’s strength in building communities around music and syndicating content was “central to CBS”.
That’s over 18 bucks a user. Is that a lot or a little? I’d pay more attention to the details of these acquisition deals, but they don’t interest me on more than a wow-that’s-a-lot-of-cash level.
I joined Last.fm through the plug-in software with the more exotic name AudioScrobbler. Aside from exposing my shameful taste in music to the world, I didn’t really see much point. The same goes for Last.fm–it hasn’t proved particular sticky for me. I have, on rare occasions, tried to discover new music through Last.fm, but I’ve found Pandora to be more reliable.
I just visited Pandora, and see that I can’t use it because “we believe that you are in Malta”, and they’re only licensed for Americans.
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May 7th, 2007, No Comments »
He had to go up on the roof and everything. We’re back online fulltime.
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