Best Cable Deals

If you are looking for top cable deals that you can get for yourself then you are just at the right place. We are here to help you to select the best deal that would make you television viewing a wonderful experience.  In the United States there’s a boom in the cable service providers and they are having cutthroat competition just to prove that they are the best.

There are highly powerful players that are dominating the US telecom sector. These have made a special place in the consumer’s heart and the first names taken. They are Charter communication, Time Warner Cables and Comcast communications.  These are among the top ranked players in the market and also a favorite among the customers.

Out of the many, the two players that are fighting to get the top position are Time Warner Cables and Comcast.  They are facing tough competitions everyday from small players like Verizon as this newbie is always coming with new techniques to capture the market.

The strategy that these top guns are following makes them the most popular.  They provide too many services in one and because of that the customers get allured by it easily.  They give cable television, internet and telephony together at the same rate and this makes the customers go for it.

This bundle strategy has made it beneficial for the both the customers and   the business unit.

Both are benefitting mutually from this. These bundles are the crown jewels and till the time they are there you have to enjoy the monopoly in the US market. The bottom-line is that the customers will go for only those providers who offer better quality service in fewer amounts. Rest, we should refrain ourselves from speculating and focus on the strategies which is adopted by each and every player in the cable service and telecom service providing sector.

Posted in News | Leave a comment

Zennstrom in The Project Venice: Old wine in new bottle?

When it comes to Internet entrepreneurship, Niklas Zennstrom is the name that occurs first. Not only has he been hugely successful in the past two ventures that he started namely – Kazaa and Skype (subsequently sold to Sharman Networks and eBay respectively), but along with Janus Friis they look as if they have made it quite big when it comes to raking in the moolah. However, as the character Zennstrom is, he has not stopped. He has involved himself again with Friis in the high-risk business of tech startups. As it seems now, this time though, it is not an innovative idea or first one to capitalize in a big way on a novel idea. According to BusinessWeek Online, the enterprising duo is now currently working on a venture code named, CIA operation style, – The Venice Project, which is developing software for distributing TV shows and other visual content over the Internet. For this, they have reportedly hired ‘teams of top software developers from half-a-dozen cities from around the world’ who are currently in negotiations with TV networks to strike deals with them for distributing their content. Continue reading “Zennstrom in The Project Venice: Old wine in new bottle?” »

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Web 2.0 content – I: Big Media Brands vs. New Media Brands

Today CNN is expected to announce the launch of CNN Exchange – a section in its website that will feature not only user-submitted videos, but audios and articles as well! In short, it will be CNN’s first experimentation with citizen journalism that is exciting many an entrepreneur’s mind these days. In all probability, the owner of the content would be CNN. YouTube has recently announced that all the content hosted by it is owned by it and users should agree to it before uploading any video. Now the question arises why should you and I be contributing with content (many of whom may be of real news value like rare video footages, scoops etc.) to the cause of an already established media behemoth who will be making money with my contribution. Why wouldn’t you and I contribute in newer Web 2.0 media like NewsCloud and NowPublic that hardly make any money with the content that community users share with each other? Continue reading “Web 2.0 content – I: Big Media Brands vs. New Media Brands” »

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Web 2.0 and beta: Till death doeth us apart?

This post by Mayank Gupta got me to write something about something that had been in my thoughts for quite sometime now and this ‘quite sometime’ is more than 6-7 months. I am sure this hasn’t escaped your notice as well. Whenever you see a Web 2.0 service, you find the word ‘BETA’ tagged with it. No matter how many times the service has been upgraded, it doesn’t count. You still find the same ‘beta’ tag. In his post Mayank cites the example of Zoho referring to a post by mani. Even after being upgraded for the umpteenth time Zoho services – Zoho Writer, Zoho Creator, Zoho Sheet and Zoho Show are all in beta versions still. Now it seems that everything releases in beta version, and for reasons not known to me, tend to stay that way no matter how much work has been made towards the existing service/software, no matter how many upgrades followed. Continue reading “Web 2.0 and beta: Till death doeth us apart?” »

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Marketing Sherpa: Blogging, podcasting top marketing tools for tech industry

Marketing Sherpa’s annual survey of about 1,900 business technology marketing executives has revealed that the list of top five effective tools generating leads in the tech includes blogging and podcasting! Answering to the question – ‘Which offers are ‘very effective’ for generating high-quality leads?’, marketers in business software and hardware and tech services firms put podcasting and blogging in the top 5 tools. According to the survey, the top 5 tools are: 1. Free Trials: 54% business software marketers called it very effective thus ranking it very highly. 2. Webcast: 41% software marketers ranked it as their favourite. Additionally, 33% technology services and 31% related hardware firms have also rated online seminars or webinars as highly effective tool. 3. White paper: This seems to be a traditionally accepted effective tool with all business technology marketers rating white papers, ranging from 31-36%, as ‘very effective.’ 4. Blog: 35% of software and ASP (application service provider) marketers rated their blogs as very effective while 33% of technology services firms rated the same. Continue reading “Marketing Sherpa: Blogging, podcasting top marketing tools for tech industry” »

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

AJAX World Conference & Expo Charter Sponsors has some major AJAX tech concerns, but why?

SYS-CON Events has announced the charter sponsors of the First International AJAXWorld Conference & Expo taking place October 2-4, 2006, at the Convention Center in Santa Clara, California. It includes some of the big names working on AJAX technology like:  Adobe  Apress  Backbase  ComponentArt  Google  Helmi Technologies  Laszlo Systems  Nexaweb  Parasoft  telerik  TIBCO Software Anyway, a thought crossed my mind regarding this conference. Why this AJAX-centric conference at the first place? To showcase the developments made in this technology or to say that AJAX makes the Web 2.0 thingy happen? Is AJAX the only technology for Web 2.0? I know that the rise of AJAX coincided with the catching up of the Web 2.0 idea. However, it looks really as if this particular JavaScript-based technology is attempting not only to integrate itself with the Web 2.0 idea, but to hijack the thought that when it comes to Web 2.0, the only technology to make it happen is AJAX. It would be wonderful to hear your views on this. News

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

On IPTV, bandwidth and MTNL

The Financial Express reports that MTNL is planning to strike deals with TV broadcasters like Star TV, Prasar Bharati, Zee TV, Sony Entertainment etc., for its soon to be launched IPTV services. They seem to be working hard towards this as the report says that MTNL’s IPTV service ‘Tri-Band’ is currently undergoing trial runs in pockets of Delhi and Mumbai. I will come back to MTNL again here later. First, let us see some issues regarding the price we have to pay for IPTV. One thing that comes in my mind is that when there is so much hue and cry over bandwidth usage in VoIP, which is used as a justification to charge a premium for even in this broadband age, I wonder whether video codecs would require any lesser bandwidth. Also, since IPTV data transfer would be only one way, then the ISPs would be laughing all the way to the bank as almost all of them charge for downloads than uploads. Coming back to MTNL launching IPTV, the best thing MTNL can do is to improve their dismal Internet service first. Not only MTNL is costlier than most ISPs in Delhi and Mumbai (when it comes to calculating how much data you downloaded for how much you paid), the services are shoddy to say the least. The customer care backup is virtually non-existent and is reminiscent of the sarkari babu culture plaguing many government-run concerns in the country.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Videoblogger thrown in slammer for ‘Contempt of court’

Freelance journalist Josh Wolf, 24, has landed in jail for refusing to hand over videotapes that he took during an anarchist protest in San Francisco in July 2005. The videotapes allegedly contain footage of the anarchists setting fire on a police vehicle. US District Judge William Alsop ruled that Josh Wolf, by refusing to hand over the tapes as evidence in a federal case is guilty of contempt of court. Judge Alsop ruled against all motions including 5th amendment rights, rights coming under freedom of the press, against bail or a stay. Prosecutors argued that setting fire to a police vehicle amounted to a federal crime as San Francisco Police Department receives federal funds. On the other side, Wolf and his legal team are accusing the government that it is manipulating the case to circumvent California’s shield law that allows journalists to withhold unpublished material and confidential sources from prosecutors. However, there is no federal shield law and in federal courts state laws doesn’t apply. Anyway, Josh plans to appeal against this ‘injustice’ and fight all the way, in which he estimates that the costs could be as high as $15K. He has used his blog to spread the message and solicit help from whoever can. Yesterday, Josh’s mother also sent out a passionate plea for financial and spiritual support through Josh’s blog. I am afraid, it didn’t attract many sympathetic comments. I sincerely can see the merits of the argument that says that to keep evidence of a criminal offense away from law, especially of hate groups like the anarchists is not a very appealing proposition for society at large to support. However, I am also all in favour of the rights of journalists. It would be rather very interesting to see how the case develops. Whom do you side with now? Read Picture Credits: National Lawyers Guild

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

WSJ Analysis: Top 10% of YouTube videos make 79% of plays

A Wall Street Journal analysis of companies has revealed that many companies still cling on to big hits to drive earnings. Giving examples from Pink Floyd’s all-time hit album released in 1973 – Dark Side of the Moon that is still selling around 10,000 albums a week to the current Web 2.0 businesses YouTube. It says that the top 10% videos in YouTube generate 79% of the plays. Over 5.1 million videos are uploaded in YouTube generating 7.56 billion plays. This means that 5,100,000 videos generate 5,972,400,000 plays! Take that! News: ZDNet Read

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Windows Live Spaces rolls out major updates, can it compete with MySpace et al?

Microsoft, in a bid to ride on the ever-increasing popularity of online social networks began rolling out a major update to its ‘Spaces’ blogging service. It has added new functionalities and includes features that integrates Spaces with other Live services. This includes more customization options through the addition of gadget support from the Windows Live Gallery. The member area interface is very good looking, and user-friendly. However, the best and smartest new thing in the update is the Live Contact, a feature you have in the Windows Live Messenger. It enables users to have IM conversation through the Spaces site. What’s more, Microsoft has taken utmost care to prevent some of the issues that MySpace confronted like pedophiles/child molesters cultivating victims through MySpace. Apart from the standard request for approval of adding friends, Continue reading “Windows Live Spaces rolls out major updates, can it compete with MySpace et al?” »

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment