As the year approaches the end, let’s look back and review some of the impactful events in the digital media business in 2010. Many of those events generated substantial buzz when they just happened, but quickly people forget about them and move their attention on to new things. As a year-end review, this summery is intended to help us relearn these events and gauge their impact on the industry and companies in the future. Events about Google:

Google claimed it was threatened by cyber attacks originated from China in January. Following the event, Google decided to stop censoring search results in China, which put themselves in a direct confronting position with the Chinese government. As the conflict between Google and the Chinese government deepened, Google had to redirect the traffic on its China site to the Hong Kong homepage. Google had not only lost market share to its competitors in China but also lost plenty of talent due to the uncertainty of its business in China. With only a constrained access to the largest Internet market in terms of users, now Google’s growth solely relies on the expansion to other business lines, such as display advertising, Android platform and TV business.

Google’s social network initiatives remained unsuccessful. Google Buzz was introduced in the year, but even with the Gmail integration the service has been forgotten by the public. The once highly buzzed Google Wave was terminated by Google, as most people cannot figure out how to use the innovative service. Despite the popularity of Gmail, the dominant Facebook and the growing Twittier and LinkedIn will only make Google’s future in social media gloomier.

Google unveiled Google TV with its partners Sony, Intel and Logitech. While Google had depicted a splendid picture for the Google TV when it introduced the product, its lack of premium content support and the severe competition from Apple, Microsoft and Amazon already led many to question the feasibility of the product. Sony’s slash on the price in the holiday season for Google TV-embedded TVs magnified the concerns on the product’s outlook. 2011 will be the key year for Google TV’s success. And if Google could build healthy relationship with Hollywood studios for the platform, it would still gain some ground in the new TV business.

Events about Apple:

Apple’s introduction of iPad has clearly changed many aspects of digital media consumption. Publishing and news industry has found a new and more versatile content distribution platform, which seems could further offset the decline of traditional revenue streams. With a bigger screen compared to smart phones, iPad is a better device for mobile video consumption. Movie studios and pay TV companies started to put strong focus on distributing their content through iPads. We expect the iPad to continue its robust growth in the next year, along with its importance to premium content distribution.

Games have always been top-selling apps in Apple’s app store. The introduction of Game Center on iPhones and iPads makes Apple a formidable player in the social game distribution business. Going forward, the gaming piece will continue to augment the appeal of Apple’s platform.

Events about others:

Microsoft’s Kinect has shown signs of good reception in the holiday season. With the tremendous investment put in the project, it finally delivered quality gaming experience to casual gamers, dwarfing Wii’s motion censor device. Although Xbox only accounts for a relatively small portion of Microsoft’s total revenue, the success of the device could pave the way for its home entertainment strategy if implemented correctly. The solid experience of Kinect also counters the argument that Microsoft has lost the innovation capability. In addition, Microsoft struck a deal with ESPN to provide ESPN programs to Xbox Live users.

Netflix keeps up its growth and now has 16 million subscription members. Given its expansion to other devices and other countries, we expect the service to maintain the growth momentum in the coming year. On the other hand, Hulu also adopted a paid revenue model with the introduction of Hulu Plus. But given the limited content catalog, Hulu Plus faces challenges to grow its paid users.

Facebook keeps the ball rolling by introducing a number of new features and services on the platform. Meanwhile, social games gained attraction with their virtual currency revenue model. Games from Zynga and Playdom have gained millions of users, most of which are based on social networks. As the ad rates on social networks remain low, the social gaming business could help Facebook break through its profitability challenge. And the social gaming companies will surely benefit from the secular growth of social networks.

Two thirds of people who are thinking of buying an iPad in the next 12 months are expecting to pay less than the current lowest retail price, according to the latest research from our Tablet and Touchscreen Strategies service. 66% say they will pay less than $500 or €500, and half of those say they want to pay less than $300 or €300. We surveyed nearly 5000 consumers across the US and 4 major European markets. These findings won't concern Apple too much as there is enough momentum from early adopters to support growing iPad sales for the next few months. But they should serve as a clear warning that today's price points are unsustainable in the longer term. Already we are seeing a proliferation of (mostly Android-based) tablets arriving on retailers' shelves, often at iPad-undercutting prices. Staples is offering a 10" Viewsonic, Android 2.2 device at $400. I am awaiting delivery of a £150 7" Android 2.2 tablet from UK electronics specialist retailer Maplin. Clearly these devices will not match Apple in every respect; many observers doubt whether the latest versions of Google's OS are up to the job. But then the question is what "job" tablets are expected to carry out. iPad behaviour so far has been truly multifunctional, with a mix of games, browsing, video, communications, and the huge variety of apps which are impossible to categorise. I overheard one potential tablet buyer in Staples inquiring (of the Viewsonic device) whether it was good for reading books, and specifically whether it could do "things like Kindle". Unfortunately she happened to address the question'to a sales assistant who claimed to be "still training" on these devices and so couldn't commit to an answer. But the fact that customers are inquiring about specific capabilities suggests that all-round superiority may not necessarily be a requirement for tablet market entrants hoping to eat into Apple's dominant market position. That's not to say that device implementations shouldn't pass the bare minimum of usability requirements. There are still too many early Android devices floating around which really are not fit for purpose, even if they are practically being given away. Consumers want to pay $300 or $400 but they expect something that does at least a few things reasonably well. The sooner Android matures and its partners introduce devices to undercut the iPad, the better for the tablet market as a whole. Client Reading: Apple's iPad: Users, Buying Intentions and Price Expectations

It’s no surprise that a majority of early iPad buyers had already bought into the Apple ecosystem, but the fact that fully 90% of people who say they will buy an iPad during the next 12 months already own an Apple device is perhaps surprising. It might have been reasonable to assume that the novelty of the tablet form factor would open up a whole new wave of potential customers attracted by its innovative design, regardless of how familiar they were with the benefits of Apple’s user interface and design. It seems, however, that in the early days at least demand for the iPad will be met almost entirely by existing Apple owners. Our survey of 2000 US consumers also suggests that a third or more of existing iPhone and Macbook owners have already gained access to an iPad (at least they say they have used one at home). And nearly a half of the early iPad adopters say they are somewhat or very likely to buy another iPad during the coming year – an indication of strong customer satisfaction if ever there was one. So how should Apple respond to this news? On the one hand the company should relax in the knowledge that so many of its core and loyal customers are saving up to buy the company’s latest device. On the other hand, there may be just the slightest concern that the iPad has so far failed to win new hearts and minds amongst the half of US homes which do not already own at least one Apple product. That may change as the tablet category becomes more widely recognised. New entrants will shortly be flooding the market with iPad alternatives which will help raise general awareness of this new category. As Apple struggles to meet demand from its existing customers, the opportunity is there for competitors to target the remaining market segments with iPad alternatives. Client Reading: Apple's iPad: Identifying Early Adopters and Intentions to Buy Meet Our Analysts: 3DTV Analyst Forum at IBC 2010

Two months ago, when the Hulu Plus rumor came out in the industry, we did a comparison between between Netflix and Hulu Plus here. Now that Hulu Plus is officially introduced, let’s take a further look at the new service. According to Hulu, Hulu Plus is not a replacement for Hulu.com. Hulu Plus is a new, revolutionary ad-supported subscription product that is incremental and complementary to the existing Hulu service. For almost all of the current broadcast shows on our service, Hulu Plus offers the full season. Every single episode of the current season will be available, not just a handful of trailing episodes. Moreover, Hulu Plus subscribers can now watch their favorites through more than just the browser on their Mac or PC. Hulu Plus subscribers will be able to watch all the Hulu shows on Internet connected TVs, iPhones, iPads and game consoles. In short, Hulu Plus offers a deep catalogue of TV shows and a wide range of content distribution channels. It is the TV Everywhere by broadcasters. So will consumers be willing to pay for the service? Without statistical evidence yet, a qualitative comparison among online premium video offerings could shed some light on the future of Hulu Plus. Netflix is a similar service which we’ve already compared with Hulu Plus in the previous post. As Hulu Plus has made it universally accessible, Netflix on iPhone is also coming soon. Both services are going the video everywhere approach. From the content distribution portfolio perspective, Hulu Plus is on par with Netflix streaming service. With $1 price advantage, Netflix could gain a slight edge over Hulu Plus, although a minor one. The key difference between the two services come down to content selection. While Netflix is a back-catalogue movie service, Hulu Plus is a back-catalogue TV show service, as all consumers can watch recent TV shows on regular Hulu service. So the competition could be somewhat simplified to TV shows VS movies. Netflix again has an edge over Hulu, with some of the TV shows such as Lost, 24 and Prison Break, also being included in its catalogue. Going forward, Hulu Plus could grow its catalogue significantly, but Netflix’s big user base makes it hard for broadcasters to ignore and not to sign deals with. Cable companies’ TV Everywhere is definitely a competing service to Hulu Plus. With similar content distribution portfolio in which users can access content on TVs, PCs and mobile phones, TV Everywhere could have better content selection than Hulu Plus. And for current cable subscribers, there is no incremental expense to enjoy TV Everywhere programs. But the speed of rolling out TV Everywhere service is questionable so far. Hulu Plus is clearly an experiment by the broadcasters in the hope of generating revenues by distributing content on their own. If Hulu Plus could prove its viability on profitability, there will be more content providers joining the game. And cable companies would inevitably lose their leverage in the negotiation. It is foreseeable that Hulu Plus could potentially become a formidable over-the-top TV service provider that rivals Comcast and Time Warner Cable, once all the major content providers join Hulu Plus. This could lead to the failure of cable companies’ TV Everywhere and eventually the distinction of cable companies. But right now it is still too early to tell. -Jia Wu

We've published an in-depth analysis last year examining the competition between free online video services YouTube and Hulu. We believed that Hulu was in a better position than YouTube when it comes to profitability outlook, as Hulu's premium content could charge higher ad CPM and it's lower cost for carrying User Generated Content (UGC). But apparently a pure advertising model is not the best way to maximize profit, not even sufficient for the publishing industry, let alone the TV programming and filmed entertainment industry, which carries extravagant production cost. So quite expectedly, Hulu is going to put up its pay wall as soon as May 24, according to a couple of news source. The new subscription service, Hulu Plus, would continue to provide for free the most recent episodes of shows. But viewers who want to see old episodes would have to pay $9.95 a month. $9.95? Yes, just one dollar more than the cheapest streaming plan from Netflix. We believe that it is not a coincidence for Hulu to set the price so close to Netflix. With the new subscription service, Hulu is now in head-to-head competition with Netflix. Driven by its outstanding performance in the last quarter, Netflix's stock price has surged almost by 100% since January this year. Now Netflix is one of the leading US companies in the media sector that show robust growth, primarily due to its attractive streaming service. Given Hulu's entry in the market, is Netflix going to maintain its edge in the competition? Early evidence shows that Netflix is in a strong position which might be hard for Hulu to catch up. As the subscription services from the two are mainly providing back-catalog of shows and movies, the services look almost identical, except that Netflix might sometimes have new movies for DVD rental. Although Hulu offers for free recent shows, they are also available for Netflix users. Netflix's advantages of being slightly cheaper and offering DVDs are not significant, but this could still make consumers somewhat favor Netflix over Hulu. Furthermore, Netflix has ample distribution portfolio including all major game consoles, iPad, set-top-boxes, computers and TV services such as Boxee. Netflix app on iphone is also believed to be released soon. In contrast, Hulu only distributes content through PCs despite some early attempt of multiple device access. But its owners do not want Hulu's content to be accessed on big screen TV sets at this moment, which would cannibalize their existing revenues. In addition, it is not costless for existing Netflix users to switch services, as Netflix's rating and recommendation system knows ours taste well, while switching to Hulu might require us to build up our profiles once again from scratch. Looking at users numbers, Netflix has 14 million subscribers as of Q1 2010, while Hulu has about 40 million unique viewers in February 2010 according to comScore. Industry consensus for digital media freemium model is that about 5%-10% of total users could be converted to paying users, which leads to Hulu's potential high-end subscriber number to 4 million.Based on this assumption, Hulu's annual subscription revenue could reach 4 x 10 x 12=$480 million. But of course, Netflix's competition would put pressure on Hulu's acquisition of subscribers. So maybe $200-$300 million is more realistic, if not too optimistic, number for Hulu to generate. It almost doubles Hulu's current revenue size, but is still far from people's original expectation on the company. We are sure that Hulu will eventually improve its service, distribution outlet and increase the size of catalog, while with the pressure from Netflix and its investors, Hulu has a lot to work on right now. Jia Wu

Apple cynics seem to have taken the initiative following the announcement of Apple’s iPad internet tablet. I tend to shy away from anything as hyped as this product has been. Surely the most hyped Apple device ever... And for that reason alone I am feeling underwhelmed. Is the iPad really what this was all building up to? Let's think about the applications: Books - ok, I get this. if you want e-books this seems like a reasonable way to carry and read them. A nice way to read newspapers as well – I’m not sure the publishers will make money from it though. Web browsing and applications - I suppose the brower must work well. This is definitely the primary set of apps in my view. Consumers need an easy and fast way to get to websites quickly when they’re at home and don’t want to boot up the laptop. Music - ok, but who would rather listen to their music through a 1.5 pound portable device with (presumably) tinny speakers rather than either a) a small iPhone/Pod plus headphones, or b) plus docking device? Photos - yes of course – iPad could be a very nice digital photo frame. Games - could eventually become a killer app but control and input functions will need to be adapted to a larger screen device and iPhone app developers need to get to work to match the screen's HD resolution. Productivity applications - I'm struggling here. is this really how the iPad is going to get used? The virtual keyboard may be good, although early reports are not promising. But think about how are people going to hold or rest this device: sitting down in a chair - it would have to rest on the flat table, so you are leaning over it to use it properly. Sitting in an armchair - so it's on your lap, but again you have trouble positioning the screen at the right angle; or standing, so you hold it resting in one arm and only have one arm free to touch the screen. Or you use a stand and add-on keyboard, and it becomes... a laptop! OK, maybe the iPad could be used occasionally for productivity applications, but I just don't see this device as a breakthrough for work-based devices. and finally... Video. Video playback is reported as stunning - I can believe this. But where are the extra video content applications or TV deals? The specialised video apps like TV-transfer? No HDMI for TV connection? Apple seems to be struggling more than ever to break into the home video market in a big way. And no multi-tasking… this is crazy. I can't play music while I surf?! Form factor: maybe I was expecting too much from Apple, but really the iPad is hardly a revelation. Have they done what we expected? ie take all previous tablet-type implementations, improved on them and added innovative style and usability and content integration to create a unique package? I don't see this from what I've read and seen. And it's too heavy to be held in one hand, much heavier than some e-readers. Wireless: So the key question - how often would this device be used in truly mobile situations, and of those situations, how often would a user need to have cellular data service? The cellular service can be bought ad hoc - and I think it will be primarily. Not much new recurring revenue for carriers there then... The iPad is surely primarily a “free data” wifi device. It doesn’t need always-on connectivity for messages and voice - I'm always going to carry a phone for those. I can get online for websites and apps via hotspots when needed, and primarily use my home broadband to load it up with content. Having said all this, of course the lower than expected price points mean they will sell millions to Apple fans who won't blink at spending another $500 on the latest Jobs gizmo. (And did anyone at Apple really not investigate the unfortunate connotations of the device name for the female market? - one wonders if Jobs has really lost his touch.) Client Reading: Consumer Imperatives for Digital TV Media Browsers