Web TV Wire » Akimbo

Akimbo sending VOD Box to the grave

Chris Tew — Tue, 08 May 2007 12:12:22 +0000

According to Om Malik, Akimbo will now be sending their hardware line to the undertakers which will see the end to the Akimbo RCA VOD box.

The company will now be switching its focus to licensing to the AT&T Homezone package, attracting new content partners and its new XP/Vista VOD software client.

IPTV Industry Interviews | IPTV Evangelist

Chris Tew — Wed, 18 Apr 2007 11:30:21 +0000

Friend of WebTVWire.com, Gilbert Hammer of IPTV Evangelist, has been very busy interviewing a selection of people working in and around the online video industry.

Interviews include:

Sibley Verbeck – CEO of The Electric Sheep Company
Jerry Paffendorf - Resident Futurist of The Electric Sheep Company
John C. Martin – Director of Product Marketing at Reallusion
Ashley Heather – CEO Entertainment Media Works
Jim Funk – Co-founder and VP of marketing at Akimbo
Robert Petty – CEO of RooTV

There’s over 2 hours of interviews with these people and more over at the IPTV Evangelist interview section (elegantly powered by Brightcove).

Interview with Jim Funk of Akimbo

To give you a taste of all the interviews here is the interview with Jim Funk, the VP of marketing over at Akimbo.

IPTV Evangelist interviews

No HD on AT&T Homezone

Chris Tew — Mon, 05 Feb 2007 14:06:50 +0000

AT&T Homezone is a mish-mash IPTV/satellite TV service which features live TV from the DISH network, movie downloads from MovieLink and TV shows from Akimbo. The Homezone box does support DVR functionality but is not High Definition (HD) ready.

A Dish rep has confirmed to a WebTVWire reader that you cannot get HD programming through the Homezone box. To get HDTV programming, you need a separate box that is NOT part of Homezone. AT&T said on Friday you will not be able to view HD programming until sometime later this year.

- How to pick the best HDTV antenna to watch HDTV channels for free.
- Discuss Satellite TV, DBS, GPS and other satellite systems.
- Read the latest Plasma Television news and Compare Plasma TV prices at www.plasmatvreviews.org.uk

Yahoo and the Living Room

Chris Tew — Mon, 15 Jan 2007 13:17:07 +0000

Yahoo! has had its eyes on entering the living room for some time and is in a much better position to do so when it compares itself to Google. Its got a good partnersip with TiVo, PC DVR software, successful internet video services and a deal with Akimbo.

Yahoo! and TiVo

Yahoo! already has a strong partnership with TiVo with a number of Yahoo! services such as Yahoo! Weather and Yahoo! photos available through the TiVo box.

Also Yahoo! partnered with TiVo to allow its Yahoo! TV Guide to work with TiVo allowing remote scheduling through the Yahoo TV guide website. Because of this already inherent relationship with TiVo it has been said before that TiVo would make a good takeover candidate for Yahoo! to really bring it into the living room.

Yahoo!’s PC PVR software

However this seems not to be so likely now considering Yahoo! is concentrating on creating its own PC DVR solution. It previously acquired Meedio which was a company that had its own PV DVR software. A week later Yahoo! released Yahoo! Go TV which was built on the Meedio platform. The Yahoo! DVR software integrated many other Yahoo! video services such as Yahoo! News and LaunchCast music videos.

At the moment Yahoo! is changing from Yahoo! Go TV to a new similar service called My Channel which appears to have a new user interface and possibly completely new software behind it. At this point in time you can’t even get to the old Yahoo! Go TV website.

Yahoo! and Online Video

It is also worthwhile pointing out that Yahoo! was leading the online video market (in terms of number of views) back in July last year. Whether this is still that case is unknown but the company still has a huge chunk of the market with the Yahoo! video search engine, LaunchCast music videos, and Yahoo! News videos which will no doubt be integrated into the new Yahoo! My Channel DVR software.

Yahoo! was also previously teamed up with Al Gore’s Web TV channel, Current TV, but this partnership recently ended — WatchMojo speculates why.

Yahoo! and Akimbo Deal

The latest attempt for Yahoo! to squeeze through the living room door is a deal with Akimbo, a company that provides an internet video on demand solution that can be used with Microsoft Media Center PCs and with the RCA Akimbo living room set top box.

The deal will allow Akimbo users to browse a regularly updated selection of Yahoo!’s popular videos, then watch the clips on their TV screens, without an extra charge. This greatly expands Akimbo which has a lack of free content and effectively brings a YouTube type service to the TV.

It also helps Yahoo! get in the living room although Akimbo themselves are not doing to well in that department, although a recent deal with AT&T will help them out a little bit.

Yahoo! Compared to Microsoft

Compared to Microsoft however Yahoo! looks dead in the water with Microsoft boasting an IPTV middleware platform, Media Center PCs, media extenders, the soapbox video sharing site, the Xbox 360 with video downloads with IPTV on the way and far more deals and partnerships with big TV related companies.

Akimbo launches on AT&T Home zone | CES2007

Chris Tew — Mon, 08 Jan 2007 18:07:20 +0000

The Consumer Electronics Show 2007 (CES2007) has kicked off today bringing us a flood of technology announcements and new hi-tech products that will be hitting the market this year.

Among the announcements is that AT&T has teamed up with Akimbo to offer the Akimbo Video on Demand service to AT&T Homezone subscribers. While this is not the biggest news from the CES today it is worth mentioning as this news will be otherwise overshadowed by the other big announcements coming out of CES this week.