Akimbo Throws in the TV Towel

Joseph Laszlo | April 09, 2007, 03:15 PM

The key Internet video story for the year, if you ask me, is bridging the gap between the PC and the TV, getting Internet video to the box where consumers most want to see it. [See the outlook and mandate sections of Programming for the Three Screens, a TV and Filmed Entertainment report.] Apple TV is only the tip of a very large iceberg including SlingCatcher, Sony Bravia TVs, Xbox Live Marketplace, and products from Netgear, Sandisk, and pretty much everyone else.

So it seems a bit like swimming upstream that Akimbo's porting its service from the STBs where it's always lived, and will be delivering a PC-only version in mid-April.

Can this possibly help Akimbo improve its business? I suppose it might pick up a few marginal customers, lowering a barrier to adoption. But delivering an Internet video service on PCs is easy, Akimbo could've done it alongside its STB service. It marks a big change of strategy for them--and of course strategies tend to change more often when they're failing than when they're working. It also means Akimbo's competing with Movielink, Cinemanow, and Vongo, not to mention ABC, iTunes, Amazon, Walmart...the list goes on...in the crowded Net video arena.