While 2012 was the year of mobile, 2013 is going to be the year of the living room, with tablets, TV screens, and e-readers becoming a big part of the new battlefield.
New TV screens from Apple: Rumors of an Apple TV have been rampant for years now and 2013 will be the year the company finally extends its offering into the living room. As I predicted earlier, the company will unveil a 50-60” line of TVs in the $1,999-2,999 price range. I suspect the new offering will run on iOS and include distribution of movies and TV shows through iTunes as well as a series of subscription programs to certain TV channels.
Netflix will see explosive growth: Netflix’s heavy investment in content in 2012 will pay off as it sees substantially customer growth in both the US and internationally. The company will see several million customers rush to get access to some of its exclusive streaming content. However, the DVD side of its business will continue degrading, furthering the company’s transition to streaming only.
Amazon gets more aggressive on TV: The spoiler in many fights, Amazon will continue its aggressive move to become the only stop for any online purchase with a renewed focus on the living room. 2013 will mark substantial investments in original content by the company, putting it in a head-to-head fight with Netflix. The company will also start evolving its prime membership program to offer streaming only options, or allow customers to trade slower shipping on physical goods in exchange for coupons to stream online content.
Amazon starts offering Kindle e-reader for free: Another move that will solidify Amazon’s hold into households will be further drops in price on its Kindle e-reader product line, which will have a free-with-subscription magazine or newspaper offering in 2013. To Amazon, the devices are just delivery channels for more content and the e-reader push towards lower and lower price will allow the company to throw e-readers in with the delivery of a book or a large enough commitment to a content subscription.
Google pushes new TV offering, Google glasses: While it has recently sold its Motorola’s TV set top division, Google will try to go after the living room through its GoogleTV offering, based on the Android operating system. However, the approach will be seen as overly complex and Google will still be a marginal player by the end of the year. The company will also put Googles glasses, a new form factor for computing devices, in the hands of consumers but those devices will be seen as overly geeky and fail to gain wide acceptance outside tech circles.
Connected TV applications get real: Samsung, Panasonic, and Visio have all been experimenting for a few years with connected TV applications but those efforts have largely been hobbies to date. In 2013, we will see them trying (and failing) to establish platforms for distributing content into the living room via connected TV sets. The main challenge they will encounter is the availability of content and they will work on striking partnership with the different content aggregators and even directly with some studios to get exclusivity.
Roku, Boxee either fold or get acquired: The smaller players in the set top market will continue to fight an up-hill battle for acceptance in the living room but their effort in terms of providing a complete solution will pan out as larger companies will look for strategic acquisition to add internet capabilities to TV set or other existing consumer electronic device.
Microsoft, Sony, Nintendo delve deeper into content: The big gaming stations already in the living, along with the next generation of such devices, will morph to go much beyond gaming and offer end-to-end solution to content distribution in the living room. This could take the form of integration with cable boxes and satellite TV boxes, providing one-stop-access for all the needs of a large TV screen.
Intel will make a push for the living room: With tablets and mobile phones running on ARM processors, Intel might worry that its dominance in computing world could be eroding. As a result, it will introduce an IPTV set top box in partnership with a number of larger Hollywood players. The box will not only deliver content from regular TV channels but also provide some innovative model where first-run movies could be available in an on-demand fashion and dynamic pricing based on the number of people viewing it. Hollywood, which has had a cautious but somewhat adversarial relationship with the likes of Google, Apple, and Microsoft, will see this new effort as the one to back as it will give them greater control.
