Roku Developer Program

[destruk]

Yeah, Roku should be concentrating on Australia, where 1 in 5 internet users still use 56K dialup access - you're going to be streaming a whole lot of netflix over the ocean at dialup speeds there! HA!

[Basil]

"destruk" wrote:
Yeah, Roku should be concentrating on Australia, where 1 in 5 internet users still use 56K dialup access - you're going to be streaming a whole lot of netflix over the ocean at dialup speeds there! HA!

In December 2012, 2% of Australians used dialup, and 98% used broadband, according to TechRadar.

[RokuJoel]

"destruk" wrote:
That's a smart business move - only doing the bare minimum that would be required to stay in business, or to expand your market by making the bare minimum attempt.

Actually we are doing a lot of things here right now and some of those things include working towards expanding regions and adding support for languages in those regions. I don't think anyone who works here does the bare minimum effort.

We spend our resources in areas that seem most likely to be fruitful.

- Joel

[destruk]

"Basil" wrote:

"destruk" wrote:
Yeah, Roku should be concentrating on Australia, where 1 in 5 internet users still use 56K dialup access - you're going to be streaming a whole lot of netflix over the ocean at dialup speeds there! HA!

In December 2012, 2% of Australians used dialup, and 98% used broadband, according to TechRadar.

Sorry Basil - they really need to update Wikipedia then, out of 8 million people, 1.3 million still used dialup there.
Also Amazon S3 service as well as most internet service is the slowest on Planet Earth to Australia because they need to use undersea cable from Australia to Asia, and then from Asia it bounces around a lot before getting to the USA.
Maybe it wouldn't be so bad if any surface packages didn't take 3 months to get to Australia - you really have to feel for their unbelievable pain from being a former prison colony.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_in_Australia

Is there anything in Australia that doesn't want to kill you? It's the poison/venomous capital of the world.
http://www.australiangeographic.com.au/ ... he-top-30/

By comparison, Russia has 10 GBit service available for most all of their citizens, so it'd probably be a better idea to actually work in Russia and get Cyrillic text implemented on roku before the end of the 21st century...

[destruk]

Roku is going to do whatever they like - but I still think 20 million broadband users in Russia (ranking 7th in the world), is probably a much better business move than 5 million (ranking 19th in the world) in Australia.
But that's just basic mathematics.

Maybe China ought to be the priority though, as I don't think Roku is in China at all, and they are #1 in the world with over 174 million people with broadband internet there (twice the USA even).

[Basil]

Since Australia uses the same alphabet, and is closely related to the UK in many ways, it would be a technically easier market, and one to establish in a lot quicker. Not trying to pump Australia, but that's a far-removed English speaking country that Roku isn't in. US, UK, Canada, and Ireland are already there. Germany would be an easier market than Russia or China, from both the culture and technical standpoint, but because of the language differences, not as easy as Australia or other English-speaking countries.

I suspect Roku is working harder to expand offerings in existing countries than expand into other countries. Again, limited resources is a major factor, as well as return on investment and speed of return (in today's climate). Anything that uses a vastly different alphabet is a technical challenge. Roku is smart to spend resources where they are, and enter new markets with a well-thought plan (learning mistakes from the UK launch).

[RokuJoel]

"Basil" wrote:
Germany would be an easier market

http://blog.roku.com/blog/2014/12/18/sk ... ne-tv-box/

Yep.

- Joel

[RokuShawnS]

"RokuJoel" wrote:

"Basil" wrote:
Germany would be an easier market

http://blog.roku.com/blog/2014/12/18/sk ... ne-tv-box/

Yep.

- Joel

Guess I better brush up on my German.

C. Shawn Smith

[dupondt]

"RokuShawnS" wrote:
Guess I better brush up on my German.

Wenn Du Nachhilfestunden brauchst, sag Bescheid 😉

Grüße
dupondt

[EnTerr]

"RokuJoel" wrote:
When we begin to sell Roku devices in countries that require it, Cyrillic support will be added to support those regions.

I think you are confused about what was asked here, Joel.

It was not about full blown localization of the UI, which one would do when opening to particular country's market. Proper i18n and L10n can be hairy.

Rather, the guy was asking about displaying Cyrillic letters in BSC components. Which pretty much is "include Cyrillic code points in the system font", easy-peasy. Why do that? We established that 250M people around the world use Cyrillic, thus there are significant numbers of Cyrrilized expats in US/CA, UK (et al. EU) which can benefit from it, as is.

I am however at a loss how Australia and Germany relate to this thread: the alphabet they use is already covered! To wit

"Das Blinkenlights" wrote:
ACHTUNG!
ALLES TURISTEN UND NONTEKNISCHEN LOOKENPEEPERS!

DAS KOMPUTERMASCHINE IST NICHT FÜR DER GEFINGERPOKEN UND MITTENGRABEN!
ODERWISE IST EASY TO SCHNAPPEN DER SPRINGENWERK, BLOWENFUSEN UND
POPPENCORKEN MIT SPITZENSPARKEN.

IST NICHT FÜR GEWERKEN BEI DUMMKOPFEN.
DER RUBBERNECKEN SIGHTSEEREN KEEPEN DAS COTTONPICKEN HÄNDER IN DAS POCKETS MUSS.

ZO RELAXEN UND WATSCHEN DER BLINKENLICHTEN.