| Today's Top 3 Stories | | #1 | Should Sonos Be Worried?
| | | Sonos pioneered the networked, multi-room home audio market 10 years ago. After nearly $400M in venture funding in the past few years, they've made big steps to enter the mainstream with a national retail and advertising presence. From what we saw at CES this year, a number of big electronics and tech companies want a piece of this market and Sonos may be in for some serious price competition. (GeekWire)
Why This Is Important: As the market gets more crowded, Sonos may have a difficult time justifying its higher prices.
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| | #2 | Spotify Now Has 15 Million Paid Subscribers
| | | Spotify now has over 15 million customers paying for its premium music subscription service, the company has announced. In a short blog post published today, Spotify also revealed that it now tallies 60 million active listeners — evidence that plenty of people are still listening to the free, ad-sponsored tier that artists like Taylor Swift are so unhappy with. Spotify last provided an update on its subscriber count back in May; at that time, it had just crossed the 10 million mark with 40 million active listeners. (The Verge)
Why This Is Important: The critics of streaming services have always maintained that music ownership was paramount and the public wouldn't embrace music rental as a business model. Safe to say that has been disproven and streaming services of all types — music, TV, movies — are ripe for growth.
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| | #3 | Curved LCD TV Sales Not Expected To Top 3M
| | | Research from Digitimes indicates that higher panel costs, limited market prospects and higher retail pricing will limit global shipments of curved LCD TV panels to only about 2.8-3 million panels shipped in 2015. Higher materials costs will keep curved OLED shipments to no more than 800K in the period, but as OLED TV panel costs drop consumers could see curved OLED TVs become the more widely accepted choice of curved TVs as early as 2018. (Digitimes)
Why This Is Important: Panel pricing for curved units with similar specs to flat TV panels is still relatively more expensive. Currently, 55- and 65-inch curved LCD TV panels have 30 percent higher costs than flat TV panels, but overall are still cheaper than OLED TV panels.
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"The old days of three networks serving the same thing over and over and over has just been blown up. People expect more." -- Doug Herzog, president, Viacom Entertainment Group
| | | Blog Post of The Day | 8 Gadgets That Might Make Your Home Smarter Than You
By Wendy Koch
In the near future, you may no longer need to remember to turn the oven off when the cake's done, switch on lights when you enter a room, or run the clothes dryer when electricity rates are cheapest. Your home will do it for you. More » |
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