Tanglewood Acoustic Guitar

In his first public speech since stepping down as chief executive of RealNetworks in January, Rob Glaser addressed the Mobile Breakfast event Wednesday at the Seattle Marriott, talking about changes he sees over the next five to 10 years.

Glaser said the rise of "superphones," mobile applications and the digitization of our lives (as described by John Battelle's "database of intentions") have created several business opportunities to pursue.

One is around the notion of "digital persistence," the expectation that once you create something digital you expect it to be available everywhere. Another involves providing users with universal access to their digital content across different devices. The third is making it easy to search and discover content.

"There's no question we're getting to that phase where consumers are going to expect this stuff, 'it just works everywhere,' " he said.

As an example, he mentioned an incident last year with his son, who was then 2 ½ years old. they were in the bathroom watching "Sesame Street" on a TV that didn't have a digital video recorder attached.

The son prefers the animated portions of the show over the live-action segments, one of which came on while they were in the bathroom.

"My son looked at me and said, 'Make it go back, go back.' I explained to him this is regular television; regular television doesn't go back," Glaser said. "The kids that are born this millennium — they just assume all this stuff, that it's a cloud of video, they can go back and get it."

Still to be determined is whether the next evolution will come from vertical companies like Apple or a more open, horizontal industry approach. Glaser argued that the vertical approach will result in a "much lower pace of innovation."

To avoid having carriers become commoditized into dumb pipes and handset manufacturers scrambling for the low end of the market, "it's incumbent for all of us to work together and reach across segments ... otherwise vertical's going to remain on the march."

Despite Apple's success, it's unclear which approach will eventually dominate.

"I don't think it's inevitable which way its going to go — it's still very much a jump ball," he said.

"Whereas the PC went horizontal and the MP3 player went vertical, I think it's an open question whether the industry pulls together and makes the horizontal experience as good," he said later.

A real guitar

It had to happen eventually: Mock guitars are giving way to real ones in a new "Guitar Hero"-type game announced Tuesday by a game studio affiliated with instrument maker First Act.

A specially designed electric guitar for "Power Gig: Rise of the SixString" will take input along its neck. it can also be played like a real instrument that can be connected to a standard guitar amp.

" 'Power Gig: Rise of the SixString' is meant to be the answer for all of those gamers who have wanted to take their band-game experience to the next level; we're confident that players will agree that the transition from the existing games is both seamless and exhilarating," Seven45 Studios CEO Bernard Chiu said in the release.

The game is coming to the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 in the fall. A preview was being shown this week at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco.

Sold on wellness

A price wasn't disclosed, but Seattle venture firm Maveron said it had "a successful exit in the wellness sector," selling Kinetix Living to Regence BlueShield of Washington.

Seattle-based Kinetix provides health and nutrition programs and an online wellness community for companies and individuals. The company has 40 employees, who will all stay with the company, a spokeswoman said.

"Maveron is pleased with the outcome for both its investors and the company and the employees who they believe will all be well served by the sale to Regence," Kim Hughes said via e-mail.

Maveron, started by Starbucks Chairman Howard Schultz and Dan Levitan, has about $750 million invested in 22 portfolio companies.

Brier Dudley's blog excerpts appear Thursdays. Reach him

at 206-515-5687 or bdudley@seattletimes.com.