Creators vs. Distributors vs. Consumers

Content on the web can be anything from the most useful, business-related document or analysis or data-set, to the most ridiculous wastes of time like kittens on a pizza.  At the end of the day however, there are only 3 groups that interact with this content. (Feel free to argue with me about this...)

As the title of the post would suggest, there are those that make content, those that distribute/disseminate/share/rate/up-vote/retweet/re-post/link-back etc, (which I'll call the distributors) and those that simply consume (watch, read, listen). These groups are not mutually exclusive, but they can be very different.

Rogers On Demand Online: Beta is interesting.

I'm going to let Rogers off bigtime here, because they put BETA on their site, and as we all know, Beta means that it's allowed to not work, have bugs, have limitations, or be limited in scope or content, until such a point that they deem it a real thing.  Google does this all the time.

Rogers recently launched Rogers On Demand Online (which is a pain to type, so I'm just going to refer to it as rodo from here on out).  Rodo is like Hulu in the US, except not quite as good.  Not as many content providers, not as much content, limitations galore (like Quebec, like Cable Subscribers having more access than Wireless subscribers...) and that sort of thing.  I also read that Rogers Internet customers have to contend with bandwidth issues as well.  Not sure what the issue is there-- if they go over no matter what they're watching they have to pay, just like Bell-- so I'm not sure what the issue is.

Anyway, I actually think it's kind of nice that Rogers has entered the arena, and done so with a platform that has lots of room to grow.  They've got many of the relationships already that will be necessary if they wish to add a content provider every week for the next year. They've also got a solid base of customers nationwide (excluding Quebec apparently) on which to build a solid base of viewers.

So wait-- what's their business model?  Those annoying pre-roll 30 second spots that run before the video? We're going back to interruption marketing? What about movies?  Are they going to interrupt every 5 minutes like TBS Superstation does with their movies, to the point of annoying?  (I don't know, because I haven't watched a movie yet.)

Another limitation that I have to mention is that the so called good content from those channels you have to pay extra for with your cable subscription, are not available on RODO unless you are a cable subscriber. WTF? If I could watch that on my TV, wouldn't I--- watch it on my TV?

I will tell you this:  We're Bell customers for Phone/Internet and Rogers for Wireless/Cable.  If someone wants to start a company with me and lay fibre to the curb to bring GOOD internet to their neighbourhood, instead of the service/quality/cost of the oligopoly---  let me know.  I'm in.

Note:  The top image is a great example of "Beta". Somehow a billion dollar technology company can't tell the difference between Witches of Eastwick and Vegas Vacation.  LOL.
/Rant