Starbucks SDN Whaa??

A while ago we wrote in approving anticipation about Starbucks re-entry into store-based media and entertainment (“Hollywood Meets the Third Place”)

That day has apparently arrived. To quote Starbucks’ 2,000+ word press release:

Serving up a collection of hand-picked premium news, entertainment and lifestyle content along with local insights and events…

The network goes live in nearly 6,800 U.S. company-operated Starbucks on Oct. 20.

Hmmm. Judging from our unscientific scan of our RSS feeds this morning (including Starbucks own blogs), media coverage has been, er, a bit spotty?

We tried a quick walk-by at a local (company-operated) Starbucks with our iPod Touch. Log-in to AT&T Wifi (no reroute to an SDN splash screen). Went to Starbucks site. Much VIA instant coffee promotion:

Fiddled around with the AppStore – nothing SDNish on offer. Downloaded the Starbucks “app”. Ha! “SDN” button in the lower left-hand corner!

Pushed SDN: "View in Safari?” Oh well, sure, why not, guess a real app isn’t ready yet… Tried viewing the movie clip on offer (“Waiting for Superman”). Oops, Flash or something, a play button with a big slash through it. Picked what appeared to be a kids game – unreadable postage stamp view of a web page (wouldn’t most SDN usage at a store be on a mobile device?). Etc., etc.

Perhaps our launch expectations are unduly conditioned by Apple- and Google-style extravaganzas, and perhaps the Yahoo! (Starbucks “media partner”) black cloud hangs a bit too heavily over this undertaking, but really??

When Hulu Went Dark

Not only did Fox go dark (and as of this moment, still is) during the Newscorp./Cablevision carriage agreement battle but, briefly, so did Fox content on Hulu and Fox.com.

To us it came as a surprise, though in our book Television Everywhere, we speculated on how Hulu might react when subjected to conflicting forces:

The “true” relationship between Hulu and its shareholders remains, externally at least, a mystery.

While very much an independent consumer brand, its current CEO strives to position Hulu within the industry as an entrepreneurial “start up.” This is certainly politic vis-à-vis Hollywood’s relationship with the cable industry.

GigaOm’s Janko Roettgers pointed out:

The whole episode was clearly meant as a show of force — a warning shot, if you will. But this wasn’t just about getting a few extra bucks from Cablevision.

Fox had to know that blocking access to Hulu would raise more than a few eyebrows at the FCC, and cause public interest groups to ring the alarm bells about possible consequences of media concentration. Which is actually quite convenient when one of your biggest competitors is about to enter a huge merger.

In any event, the Hulu incident laid bare the power of its shareholders.

Hulu Reinvents Re-transmission Consent?

“Unfortunately Hulu is not supported on your platform”

That’s the message that is plainly visible when you attempt to use Logitech’s new Revue set top for Google TV in order to access Hulu videos.

Google TV is launching with a number of video aggregation and streaming services (Netflix, Amazon) and selective content from a few cable players (including TNT, CNBC, etc.), but nary a broadcast network in sight.

It may not be retransmission consent, exactly, but clearly Hulu and its masters would like to see negotiated arrangements with those who aspire to jump the gun and bring Hulu to the living room TV…