Jan 19 2010
“Samsung’s TV plant in Tianjin, China, increased productivity by two-thirds last year by standardizing parts and replacing conveyor-belt assembly lines with production in which each worker builds sets from start to finish. Using identical software, printed circuit boards, and virtually all other components has cut the time Samsung needs to roll out a model worldwide to one month, from 16 weeks four years ago. Television analyst Riddhi Patel at researcher iSuppli reckons such techniques have been instrumental in Samsung’s success in TVs: “This lets Samsung react to market needs in a very timely manner.”
Feb 2 2009
This is the second beginning of Hulu. When they first started, I and many others, mocked the unnamed joint venture mercilessly but it turned out that they had a working growth model. They’ve added a big backlog and thrived during the election season with an expansive amount of next-day content (hello, BSG). Primarily, they’ve spent a year now working on the kinks and solely relying on word of mouth and they’ve achieved some very impressive growth. Yesterday was effectively Hulu switching on the afterburners. A site that has done almost no advertising whatsoever went out and made a splashy ad on the biggest television stage of the year. Not only did the get one of the hottest television celebrities, Jack Donaghy, but it’s full of fancy CGI and cute lines. Regardless of the ad itself, Hulu has had a lot of magic going for it, the model is working, content is exploding and it’s becoming more useful everyday. To introduce Hulu to everyone beyond the word-of-mouth audience means the beginning of serious hockey-stick growth. This is a very exciting beginning when everyone says Hulu and people wonder why it’s not standard in their setup boxes and TVs themselves.
50” Samsung LCD 1080p with integrated Hulu player? Yes please.
