Not content to create an entirely new genre of content delivery, that of media which is captured at your home and thrown to wherever you are and dubbed placeshifting, Sling Media, which makes the elegant, popular but expensive, Sling Box, says that its next roles in life are to include thrown advertising and selling the Sling service compete with an upgraded internet line for anyone who’s line isn’t good enough for the service.
One of the clever things about Sling is that it has to sense what kind of end to end internet connection there is, and when it is not particularly good, then the service is badly affected. This is what has spurred Sling to add a virtual button to its PC and cell phone software that it says will boost home broadband service speed, CEO Blake Krikorian told the details to a Reuters technology summit. This will happen because US ISP GetConnected will upgrade Sling users’ broadband lines through existing resale relationships it has with major ISPs which includes Comcast and Time Warner Cable.
US market leader Comcast has already broken cover and said openly it will test the Sling Box devices later in the year, and that could lead to a hail of requests to include placeshifting devices in existing set tops for many of the world’s largest pay TV operators, just as they did with DVRs, prompted by DirecTV’s adoption of TiVo. Before Comcast agreed to that trial many of the pay TV operators felt that placeshifting was living off the backs of their services and were trying to work out ways to stop it. That no longer seems to be their approach.
Sling also said it may start showing ads on its service this summer, as part of its Clip and Sling service which lets users copy snippets of TV shows share them over the Internet. These snippets will now run with adverts or sponsorship. Sling said it would partner with existing major internet advertising firms to let them carry and resell the freshly created advertising inventory.