There’s a lot to like with Senzari and the product should only get better with time.  While not a real competitive threat to Pandora today, it’s clearly a platform they should watch carefully.

Brands and the meteoric rise of their proliferation on various social networks never seem to deliver the returns they claim.  Their aim – to extend their brands in an effort to increase reach and engagement – is the appropriate one given the reach social networks have to offer. Like the boomerang, they’ve thrown themselves into the social cloud but will it come back to them as they intend?  Have they really accomplished anything at all?

For the past few years we’ve continually heard the broadcast community tout the advantages of mobile DTV, a “yet-be-widely-deployed” video delivery platform that enables local TV stations to deliver live, digital content to specially equipped mobile video devices such as mobile phones, portable media players, laptop computers, etc.  We’ve also been told how consumers will embrace this platform overwhelmingly.  But will they?

Recently, I re-tweeted an article on the challenges Flipboard is facing with respect to potential publisher copyright infringement (see “Flipboard CEO’s claim: We’re not building a business “on the backs of publishers”).  In my re-tweet I made the comment “Not Good!” which obviously irked Mike McCue as he responded with a “Not True” comment on my re-tweet.

As I pondered Mike’s comment, I thought I should clarify my position on this, as it may have been misconstrued.

Over the past four months or so, two companies have literally become household names in the broadcast television industry.  While most companies achieve this level of notoriety through the development of a disruptive technology or new consumer craze, both ivi and FilmOn have achieved it through an obvious disregard of US copyright, re-transmission consent and a host of other laws or rulings designed to protect both content owners and consumers.