Of course I've been familiar with slingbox since its inception about 4 months ago. Of course, my original thought was, where would I be, that I would need to watch what was on my HOME tv that I couldn't get at the office, or in a hotel, or whatever.
Of course, I imagined the power of watching the NCAA Tournament, opening rounds of the Masters and US Open, and Cubs baseball from my computer on my Slingbox. But would there really be enough demand for this type of product that this would work?
Well, I just discovered another use for it. This weekend, some local network (the Mountain network which is a local station with Comcast cable I think?) is picking up the Mizzou/New Mexico Football game. By a stroke of geneous, a local station in Kansas City is going to pick up the game. But what about fans that don't live where they can pick up Mountain or live in KC? Until recently, they were out of luck.
But what if I have a Slingbox, and someone downloads the slingbox software (available online), and I give them my passcodes? Now, someone in, say, Chicago can watch the game on his computer, through my Slingbox because it's on my TV. That's pretty cool.
But what if my friend in Chicago has Internet TV, or can transmit his computer image into his big screen LCD TV? What if this friend also owns a sports bar? Theoretically, he would be able fill his bar with Mizzou or New Mexico Football fans to watch the game on my TV. If he can't right now, he will be able to soon.
What this means is that long-term, there really may be no such thing as a regional network. Even if it's a wired network, it can still be seen anywhere, at any time by anyone. This may have huge implications down the road for TV talent, and for locally branded messages.
The world is changing very fast...and those who have the ability to figure out how to use it to their advantage will benefit wildly...but they must do so from a consumer's point of view. I don't think this is at all what Slingbox imagined when it invented the product...but I can assure you that football fans have caught on that this is a very real use for this product.
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