An Ignoble Experiment

3. zeebox rebrands as Beamly to move beyond second screen into social TV

Minnesota Sen. Al Franken (D.-Minn.), the only member of the Senate Judiciary Committee to openly oppose Comcast's (NASDAQ: CMCSA) proposed $45.2 billion takeover of Time Warner Cable (NYSE: TWC) during a public hearing last week, took his offensive to the cable airwaves yesterday.

Franken speaks with CNN's Brian Stelter about the Comcast-TWC merger. View the video. (Source: CNN)

"This is a disaster," Franken said on the CNN show "Reliable Sources. "This is the number one cable TV company buying the number two. And this is the number one Internet broadband company buying the number two."

Franken brushed aside the cable TV aspects of the merger to look more deeply into the repercussions of two giant broadband service providers combining.

"It's most importantly about broadband Internet," Franken said. "And about 30 percent of the country has only one choice in broadband, and another 40 percent has only two choices. That's 70 percent of people in America that have two or fewer choices in Internet broadband. So, if you're getting your TV from DirecTV (NASDAQ: DTV), you still got to get your internet somehow. And if you want to …. watch TV, you need high-speed Internet. And that's Comcast and a combination of Comcast/Time Warner Cable."

Comcast, with executive vice president David Cohen in the lead, has maintained a massive lobbying and public relations campaign in support of the merger.

Not without irony, Franken was among a list of members of Congress to whom Comcast's political contributions were directed. In Franken's case, he accepted $5,000 from Comcast's PAC when he needed a vote recount to get elected to the Senate. Other committee members were more directly involved, according to an ars technica story that listed New York Sen. Chuck Schumer as receiving $35,000, Vermont Sen. Patrick Leahy getting $32,500, and Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch receiving $30,000. The money was distributed across the senators' campaign and leadership committees, the article said. Schumer, meanwhile, has recused himself from the merger not because of the contributions but because his lawyer brother worked on the deal.

In all, 17 of 18 committee members received money from Comcast's federal PAC, the story said.

"I think Comcast does give money to people who support them," Franken said during the cable program. "Not necessarily to buy their support, but yes, I really don't like the role of money in politics."

Aside from money, Comcast is already powerful enough to intimidate those who might oppose the merger--among them major media companies who, Franken said, are "afraid of retaliation. They think they are committing business suicide … that they'll be retaliated against, and that shows you what's wrong here."

For more:
- CNN has this video
- ars technica has this story

Read more about: Comcast
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By Jim Barthold

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4. Cable operators ally to chase cloud-based Wi-Fi, as Los Angeles resurrects its citywide plan

Conceding that the second screen is only a limited application, zeebox has relaunched itself as Beamly and will now focus on "the art of social television," the company said.

"The rebrand to Beamly is a celebration of the huge development our app has been through since launching two years ago, originally as a simple program guide and sync experience," Ernesto Schmitt, CEO and co-founder of zeebox--now Beamly--said in a news release.

That initial phase of social television and, in particular, the second screen was "limited to apps providing a companion experience while watching TV," and that wasn't enough, he said.

"People's emotional engagement with TV spans the whole day: they want to read up on stories about the shows and stars they love in the morning, discuss plotlines over the watercooler in the afternoon and carefully plan what to watch in the evening--long before ever switching on the TV itself," he said.

Once they turn on the TV, they're ready for the interactive experience.

"Beamly for the first time brings together all of these touchpoints with TV in a single app," Schmitt said.

CTO and co-founder Anthony Rose broke down viewership statistics to demonstrate the "marked progression in the behaviors of users" since zeebox first introduced its new social feature. He also said the new app will target the youth audience, particularly females.

"Almost two-thirds of our users are now female and the 16-24 age bracket is our core," he said, adding that the Beamly brand intends to capture "the zeitgeist of these millennials perfectly."

Beamly, which is available from Google Play for Android and the App Store for iPhone and iPad, as well as the company's website, will continue to work with existing partners like NBCU and Viacom while soliciting new players to syndicate its interactive capabilities.

For more:
- see this press release

Read more about: zeebox, Beamly
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By Jim Barthold

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5. Confirmed: Hotspot 2.0 is on Comcast's roadmap for its Xfinity Wi-Fi network

Cable operators are leaning towards cloud-managed Wi-Fi as a way to efficiently meet the needs of enterprises that require robust wireless connectivity.

According to a Zacks Research note, large businesses are the primary target of an alliance of Comcast (NASDAQ: CMCSA), Time Warner Cable (NYSE: TWC), Charter Communications (NASDAQ: CHTR), Google (NASDAQ: GOOG), Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) and the CEA, which have banded together as WifiForward with the goal of freeing up spectrum to more efficiently manage wireless services across adjoining networks.

A cloud-managed Wi-Fi network such as the one being proposed by WifiForward is "the most efficient technology for" enterprises because if offers "central manageability, smaller physical footprint and linear scalability," the Zacks piece noted.

Of course, the allied companies have good reason to pool their resources to chase this business. Recent findings by International Data Corp. (IDC) suggest that cloud-managed infrastructure and managed services revenue will hit $653 million this year and climb to $2.5 billion by 2018.

"Enterprises are seeing the big picture and definitely considering cloud-managed Wi-Fi for their remote sites when upgrading their networks," Rohit Mehra, vice president of network infrastructure at IDC said in a press release. "These upgraded network architectures can accommodate unique needs around bring-your-own-device (BYOD), scalability, application visibility and management."

Network simplification, an offshoot of managed Wi-Fi, is an important factor for enterprises with leaner IT staffs, IDC added.

Cable operators aren't the only ones chasing Wi-Fi. The City of Los Angeles wants to speed things along by reviving the old city-wide Wi-Fi network plan.

"We want to partner in the private sector to create high-speed access for every home in Los Angeles," Los Angeles City Councilman Bob Blumenfield said during a news conference in which the city released a request for information for "people or companies interested in helping the city build a high-speed network," Android Authority reported.

For more:
- Zacks has this research note
- see this press release
- Android Authority has this story

Read more about: enterprises, Zacks Research
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By Mike Dano

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