Three completely unrelated stories caught my eye this week, and each of these has an interesting twist that should be considered as how it could relate to small business.
First up, Google Health is ironically a terminal patient. The service will officially expire on January 1, 2012. Unless you are actually a user of Google Health, chances are you might have ever heard about Google Health – and apparently you aren’t alone.
Just this week Google announced that its personal health record (PHR) service failed to gain widespread adoption and the service would be shuttered. Those in the health care industry claim that Google didn’t do enough to market the site and thus never caught on.
If you have to do a Google search to find a Google service you know there is a problem. That said Google had partnered with CVS pharmacies, which allowed patients to import their prescription history in the PHR. However, health care experts said that the service didn’t do more to allow data sharing between health care providers such as doctors.
This is worth noting because it shows that even Google can make a misstep. It also suggests that the concept of cloud based technology and data sharing needs to be marketed properly. If Google can’t succeed merely by using the mantra “if we build it they will come,” then it is proof probably no one else can.
Video Games are Art Says High Court
The highest court in the land has decreed that video games are art and thus deserve the exact same First Amendment protections as books, comics, plays and movies. The Supreme Court ruling came as a reaction of the sale of violent video games in California, where it was argued that games are different because they are interactive.
As a journalist I’ve long covered this issue for years, and as a side note would argue that games, much like movies can have artistic values and artistic content. That said, I’ll go out on a limb one more time and suggest that the ratings are essentially broken. The gamut that M-rated, or Mature, games run is incredible. A game that shows blood or has some mild language can be classified as “M” but so can a game that has you playing a cop-killing, drug dealing crime lord. I for one think there is a difference, and much could be – and should be done to correct this and make the ratings easier for parents to understand. While there now descriptions of content, this content can vary greatly. Harsh language and violence in a game where you play an American soldier is vastly different from playing a criminal sociopath.
On the business end of things this is worth considering too. The Supreme Court decision should prove good for all sorts of content developers, including app makers. To date apps aren’t really rated for content, but it is likely that they could be, especially the entertainment based apps. It will be interesting to see how the mobile phone makers and carriers respond if, and more likely when, ratings are called for.
While Apple has banned some apps, the truth is that eventually the gates will be open on smartphones and content will be rated. Now the SOTUS ruling suggests that interactive content can be considered art – making this a milestone not just for entertainment producers but for software developers as well.
Tablets Lag Ereaders
Finally, I thought it worth noting that this week a new survey shows that eReaders are outpacing the growth of tablet owners. The findings from a new Pew Internet Project phone survey show that Amazon’s Kindle and Barnes & Noble’s Nook doubled from six percent of the U.S. adult population in November of last year to 12 percent this past may.
Over the same time tablet growth went from five percent to eight percent, and more telling is the fact that in an earlier study from this winter tablet ownership was at seven percent in January, suggesting that the holiday season accounted for the growth, which has since tailed off.
Now this doesn’t spell doom or gloom for the tablets by any means. But it does suggest that many adults are still not sold as of yet. Given the economic forecast and consumer spending tapering off as was reported this week it could look like adoption of tablets could also slow.
Of course the truth is that eReaders have less of a business application than tablets. While some eReaders have offered the promise of being able to read documents, other than adding some notes there is much that can be done with content creation on an eReader.
This is likely why Amazon is already poised to enter the tablet market. So while these categories essentially compete with one another, the prospects are that these will overlap. As prices for tablets fall, and processing power increases it is hard to imagine that eReaders could survive.
The post Goodbye Google Health; Video Games Are Art and Ereaders Outpace Tablets appeared first on AllBusiness.com
The post Goodbye Google Health; Video Games Are Art and Ereaders Outpace Tablets appeared first on AllBusiness.com.