’tis the Season

Last week we had our first BeBanjo Christmas party. The festivities mostly consisted of consuming obscene amounts of red meat and loads of red wine. We had T-Shirts made for everyone with something that helps us to stay focussed (WWCTBWWGT).

 However, there was also time for some serious talk. 

WWCTBWWGT - We Will Cross That Bridge When We Get There

Towards the end of the party, Jorge and I did a recap of what we accomplished this year, and gave an overview of what’s coming up for 2009.

It’s been a very stimulating time since we started the company. What I’m particularly proud of is that we managed to assemble a team of A-players who are all leaders in their fields. Everyone is fully bi-lingual and very involved in the international community whether it comes to usability/design, Ruby on Rails (our development framework), or the international TV community. 

To the BeBanjo Team: Together we’ve accomplished an amazing amount in a very short period of time. We’ve rocked in 2008, and we’ll rock even harder in 2009! Thanks and a big hug.

To those we’ve encountered on the way:  I wish you the best for 2009! Thanks for trusting in us, stimulating us, helping/supporting us and driving us to succeed in our mission.

Being Banjo we are really looking forward to make our statement , earn our respect and be successful  in each of our professional communities during 2009 and I’m positive that during next year’s Christmas party we’ll have even more things we can look back on with pride. 

Happy holidays. 

-Bastian

What if we put a button here…….?

Here at BeBanjo we create tools that for managing TV Businesses. Some of our users will have to live 30-40 hours a week with our tools. Therefore we invest in usability and look and feel, and we’ve got several people working on just that.

However….. this is what happened this morning when I walked into the office, pointed to our app and said:

 

What if we put a button here......?

 

I’m sure everyone involved in any kind of design has experienced this kind of “helpful” input at one stage or another. Your war stories and anecdotes in the comments please.

-Bastian

PayTV Business and the Crisis – Part II

In my last post I wrote about some of the talk at MIPCOM about the crisis. It’s a few weeks later right now, and I have to re-assess my original statement of the (non-advertising dependent part of the) PayTV business not being affected by the crisis.

The reason for this revision is that I keep hearing from friends in the industry, and reading in the news that PayTV operators are having a tough time. 

However, I believe that they’re having a tough time due to problems that are more financial in nature. Many of the new CableCo’s and Telco’s took on massive amounts of debt in the past to build, upgrade and roll out their networks.  Subscriber roll-out/uptake probably hasn’t been as quick as they predicted/hoped for. Most of them have gone through a bunch of re-financing rounds, and now…….. they’re out of money and in need to go through another re-financing round.

The banks obviously are asking for more guarantees and stricter measures then ever. They have to, since they’re in trouble themselves. This is why I think we’ll see more lay-offs in the PayTV industry in the future.

However, I stick to my original statement that in times of crisis, people spend relatively more money on PayTV. 

Let’s see what you think:

MIPCOM 2008: Cannes – And the crisis…..

 

This week I went to MIPCOM. MIPCOM is a tradeshow held every October, where the worlds content sellers and content buyers come together to buy and sell content. You have all the Hollywood studios, major television production companies, loads of broadcasters, cable and IPTV platforms, Indy’s and many others there.  In the words of the organizer:

MIPCOM is the global content event for creating, co-producing, buying, selling, financing and distributing entertainment content across all platforms. It provides the key decision-makers in the TV, film, digital and audiovisual content, production and distribution industry with the only market conference and networking forum to discover future trends and trade content rights on a global level.

 

Every year in May, there’s a show called MIPTV, which is basically the same as MIPCOM. So the worlds content buyers and sellers come together twice a year to do business in Cannes.

A lot of talk this year was around whether the crisis affects television business. My own take on that is that for freeTV (state and commercial broadcasters), it probably does. They have business models that depend on selling advertising space, and the advertisers are feeling the crisis right now. As a result, the broadcasters must also feel it.

For PayTV, PPV and video on demand however, it is a different story in my opinion. Once the man in the street (let’s call him Joe the Plumber) starts feeling the crisis, he stops going to the pub, restaurants, theater, holidays etc. PayTV is a very cheap form of entertainment compared to these alternatives, so I think that people will actually spend more money on televised entertainment rather then less. Many of the people I’ve spoken to at MIPCOM were of the same opinion. However….. I do recognize that many of us may be biased, because for our own livelihood we depend on this business. 

I’m very keen to learn what others think of this. Please put your opinions in the comments. 

 

 

-Bastian