Apple’s waning cool

: Apple Computer’s continued dominance of the MP3 market is prompting more people to examine exactly what it is that makes the iPod so successful. Many attribute the iPod’s dominance to Apple’s coolness, but according to the report, ’Understanding iPod’s Dominance: A Consumer Perspective’, Apple’s coolness appears to be waning. The reasons most often cited for purchasing an iPod have more to do with brand familiarity than Apple’s cachet. Today’s iPod buyer is driven by practical considerations more than social status, according to Dale Gilliam III, director of primary research at the Diffusion Group, a media research and consulting company. Coolness ranked third among people aged 15 to 24, behind quality of interface and familiarity with the brand. Design aesthetics and quality of interface were the top two reasons cited by the 25- 34-year-old age group for purchasing an iPod. Among those between 35 and 50, familiarity with Apple and the iPod brand were the primary reasons they chose the iPod.

Cable TV’s double play

Despite all the talk about triple plays and grand slams, a survey released last week by In-Stat reveals that the future of the global cable TV industry depends on its original double play: video and data. According to the research firm, there are currently 44 million digital cable TV households around the world. That number will more than double to 108 million by the end of 2009. Cable modem subscribers will double worldwide from a projected 50 million at the end of 2005 to 99 million by the end of 2009. As key parts of a cable operators triple play service bundle, cable modem and digital cable video subscriber growth patterns receive a great deal of attention from the cable industry, said In-Stat analyst Mike Paxton. In most regions of the world, the near-term growth trends for both services remain positive, although alternative video and high-speed data service bundles will pose a serious challenge to the cable industry in the years to come.

Sony’s game device

Sony released software for its PlayStation Portable handheld video game device that enables players to easily transfer content between the device and their PCs. The move highlights Sony’s strategy to leverage the PSP as a multimedia device, not just a gaming product, in the $4.5-billion global portable video-game market. It’s a strategy that Sony will use to try to usurp the lead from Nintendo, its Japanese rival that has dominated the handheld video game...