Bill Scott's blog

The App Store works for Apple. This is partly because the devices that Apple makes are very cool. It is also because Apple has built App Stores that are productionised, making it easy for almost anyone to publish applications and to make money from them. The Apple App Store has established a consumer experience that is sufficiently different to traditional web sites that the “I expect everything for free on the web” attitude of consumers has been reset and consumers are happy to pay for at least some applications. It is this combination of the productionised publishing model and the “apps for sale” business model that has encouraged innovation.

No keyboard. No Mouse. Relaxed, TV-watching consumers won't type stuff into a search box. We need serendipity. We need convenience and simplicity. We need Suggested Discovery.

The most successful network operators will be those that facilitate and encourage over the top video. Those that seek to retain complete ownership of the commercial relationship with the consumer will ultimately be disintermediated, as they will never be able to keep pace with consumer demand. Look at the iPhone; it was successful because it offers a more open aggregation model and not just because it was cool – the open model encourages innovation.

Every programme-maker has a desire to entertain, inform, stimulate or sometimes to shock their audience. This is both a creative challenge – “what should I create?” – and a commercial challenge – “how do I pay for it?”