INNOBLOG

Want to learn about hog-cooking? A Boston Globe article describes how In June you can pay a mere $1.99 to download a 45 minute video about how to "find, select, prepare and serve a whole hog." The download will be available on a service called DaveTV, which intends to offer thousands of niche programs such as the hog-cooking video. In fact, that video will be one of more than 1,000 barbecue-related programs offered by the service. Of course, the downside is the video will only be available on the Web, so you have to watch it on your computer, not your television.

Telephone companies are all trying to figure out how to respond to the incursion of the cable companies into their core telephony business using Voice over Internet Protocol. The natural response is to spend huge amounts of money trying to go directly after cable operator's core business. The more disruptive play is to follow the DaveTV approach, offering a differntiated, dare I say, disruptive, offering. Ultimately, this differentiated approach has a greater chance of creating positive growth for the phone companies. Mimicking the cable operators will lead to a zero-sum game where the "winner" will be left with a rotten business.