Can Vongo jumpstart the portable video market?

Michael Gartenberg | January 03, 2006, 10:55 AM

First shot from CES is heard today with the news of the new Vongo service from the folks at STARZ in partnership with Microsoft and Sony. Lots of stuff buried in the news so let's take it one step at a time. First, the name. Vongo? Yech. Sounds like one of the characters from Blazing Saddles. Who thinks of this stuff?

The service itself sounds interesting. We know from our research that there's strong consumer interest in mobile video and in watching full length movies. I still have a lot of concerns though. While subscription video services are mainstream with consumers (you do get cable, right?) this is a harder sell. What's the playback device of choice? The PC? Well, that's fine for a tiny segment of the market but unless there's a really easy way to get the content from the PC to the TV set, it's going to be as niche a product as the earlier version was (STARZ Connect done in partnership with REAL). At the moment, this service cries out for a device to let me easily get my content from my PC to my TV (think Airport Express, but with video) or at least an MCE interface and a killer mobile device too. It's certainly not clear what devices other than the PC will work with Vongo (there's no listing of any portable devices on the market that work with the service) and without that part of the equation, it's only half a story. One thing is clear, there's no iPod support so it's already starting from a very poor position. Especially since Apple has already been evangelizing the market the mobile video content is NOT about full length movies but rather episodic TV shows.

It's also time to remind everyone that the iPod drove people to the iTunes music store, not the other way around.

As for the partnerships, it's interesting to see that Sony is on board with this as part of Connect. Now, what devices will Sony have for playback? Is this tied to the PSP perhaps? Will we see a new generation of video Walkman? Are we seeing a Sony embrace of Microsoft media technologies and what does that mean for a future alliance against Apple?

There's a lot of potential in Vongo but there's also a lot of missing parts.

UPDATE - Sean Alexander has a few comments about the service.