Sleeping Giant

Internet Television has enormous potential.  Currently, I don’t think there is anything in place to overtake cable television as the dominant means of (not always) mindless entertainment and, more importantly, advertisement intake.  But the stage is being set, and all the trends are pointing towards it.

The cable companies may have made a mistake by introducing OnDemand and DVR services.  It was a great idea four years ago, when the goal was to take some business from Tivo and offer an advantage over the satellite companies.  But it set a precedent, and whet our appetites for more low-commercial, time-insensitive content.

The internet, as proven by Joost, Hulu, and a slew of others,  can deliver this content more efficiently and in greater quantity. Hulu can control whether the viewer skips the advertisements, which is a huge (and underacknowledged) advantage over cable OnDemand and DVR services.  As an advertiser and sole source of income for most of television, I want my commercial seen.

Most new High-def televisions can receive input from a computer, which makes small monitor size almost a non-issue.  PC remote controls do exist, but are not widely integrated because public awareness of internet TV is still young.  In a few years, I expect a lot of people will be sitting on their couches, watching the internet.

Internet television is immune to the FCC…sort of.  As long as it get its shows from major networks and basic cable who are regulated, then (I’m gonna create an obnoxious name now) iTV will be affected vicariously.  But as it become more popular, I would expect to see popular sites like College Humor, The Onion, or Pitchfork Media creating uncensored content for channels on Hulu, Joost, or their successors.  Maybe major networks will create uncensored programming just for the interenet, or iTV providers will create their own content.  I also expect the FCC to make a power play as iTV grows, but for now its freedom offers a large advantage.  I like objectionable material.

TV on the internet offers another huge advantage over cable and satellite, much lower overhead.  Yes, it needs a high amount of bandwidth and server maintenance.  But how much do you think Comcast pays in line and broadcast maintenance, and the hiring of tens of thousands of employees for customer support, installation, and God knows what else.  Comcast has to have offices and operations in every market they’re in.  Hulu has to have one location, I assume.  A few at the most.

Live television is the one advantage that cable and satellite have, but it’s a nut that’s almost been cracked.  We saw few services that offer it in class.  There’s a few more promising one’s out there.  Zattoo seems to have already figured it out, but its currently only available in Europe.  I’m setting up Livestation as we speak, verdict pending.  The channel list looks a little weak, unless you’re a Discovery channel addict.  When you can stream the Super Bowl you can say goodbye to Comcast.

I think the biggest setback (it’s a biggie, and a recurring theme on this blog) iTV has now is the ability to generate profit.  I think the answer lies in a subsription fee, but Hulu and Joost aren’t good enough to be able to pull that off.  People are willing to pay for it, my $60 monthly cable TV bill is proof of that.  Here’s what an iTV provider will need to have.

• Way more content than the other guys.

As long as Joost and Hulu are free, its going to be tough convincing the public to pay for internet     television.  But if the variety of programming is massive enough, I’d be glad to pony up some dough for a new service.  I’m picturing a Netflix of TV, 40,000 titles to choose from.  Have old shows, obscure cult classics, international programming, and *sigh*… Friends.

This new service should be able deliver this content for a fraction of the cost of Comcast’s overhead

• A cheaper price tag than cable and satellite…for now.
  

The aforementioned lack of overhead should allow this service to charge between $15-$25 per month, under half the cost of basic digital cable.  This would allow the networks who provide the programming to keep all of their advertising revenues (I assume Hulu keeps a portion to cover its costs), and assuming these commericals are unskippable, offer a big incentive to go with the service.  This is how the service would accrue tens of thousands of programs.

As it grows in popularity, and people switch and lose cable all together, the service could create reasons to increase the price.

• Live and local programming.

This is another thing that Hulu and Joost lack, but Zattoo and Livestation have proven it can be done.  Giving local affiliates an easy to use program for broadcasting with the service would be a must.  Live sporting broadcasts would also have the same commercials as the cable counterparts.

• Shorter, more effective advertising for non-live programming.

Fewer commericials is a big incentive for iTV, and will be key for growth in the early life of the service.  There’s no reason to fuck it up.  Instead, offer commercials in mostly shorter time blocks, 15 seconds.  Have maybe three or four minutes of commercials in a 30 minute show (13-17 commercial minutes is standard on cable.  That’s still 12-16 commericals per show, and they’re mostly immune to fast forwarding or channel surfing.  Also, the viewer picked the show from thousands of others, so the chances of him finding something better to watch are very slim.  This increases the viewing chances of advertising from cable’s 25% to around 95% (completely made up, but probably somewhat accurate figures).

This should allow programmers using the service to charge ad rates comparable with cable and satellite.

• Better tracking of viewer habits.

This one’s easy.  Cable needs companies like Nielsen to install equipment on consenting viewers televisions in order estimate the viewership of its programs.  This service would be able to easily track every show that every viewer watches using very basic interenet technology, making it a more accurate tool for generating ratings figures.  People would kill for that kind of information, and the service could even sell it, becoming a Nielsen competitor, and offsetting costs.

Whew, that post was a doozie.  See y’all in class.

Here’s a Great Idea (that apparently doesn’t work)

This article reaches the same conclusion as most on the matter of using Wikipedia as reference.  It’s a fine starting point, but the limitless customization guarantees a certain amount of inaccuracy.  So I had an idea:  why not have a wiki based encyclopedia that is managed exclusively by experts?

After doing a tremendous amount of research (I googled scholarly wikipedia) I found that the idea, like most I have, is unoriginal.  I found this which led me to this.  Citizendium sounds great.  A wiki (like every other application/website that we’ve covered in this class, who the hell came up with that name?) where content is generated by the community at large, but moderated by published experts.

Here’s the reality.  I looked up cancer, a very broad subject that has a little bit of relevance to me (and probably most of you) at the moment.  Here’s the Citizendium version versus the Wikipedia version.  I expected the Wikipedia version to be larger, its tremendously popular, so I don’t hold the size of the article against Citizendium.  I’m also not a doctor, so I couldn’t honestly judge the accuracy of the content.

I can count references.  Okay, that’s not entirely true.  I couldn’t count Wikipedia’s references, there’s a bunch, a gaggle, even a shit-ton.  I was able to count Citizendium’s references.  There’s one.  Chapter 56 of Principles of Human Genetics.  It’s not even a whole book, some dude just summarized a chapter from his first year med school text.  And it’s from 2005, which is almost ancient in the rapidly evolving medical field.

I might be able to understand if it was an obscure or ultra-specific subject.  But it’s friggin’ cancer, 7.6 million people die from it per year (thanks Wikipedia).  This leads me to one conclusion:  Citizendium is a miserable failure.  Here’s a list of possible reasons why.

• No one has heard of Citizendium.

It doesn’t exactly have a strong marketing push behind it; it’s not profit driven.  Even still, you’d think that they could get the word out in the academic community, who could in turn drive their students to the site.  I’d never heard of LexisNexis before either, but then I went to college.

• There’s no article on Lost.

As useful as Wikipedia is for getting a gist of an in depth academic subject, it’s used just as frequently for diving into the intricacies of clever, but ultimately unimportant pop-culture.  It was reading the biography of Mos Def or checking the episode guide to Salute Your Shorts that developed the habit of using Wikipedia.  It seemed like a natural fit when I first applied to schoolwork.  There’s a reason why the article for Lost is bigger than the article for Spain.

• It’s too inclusive.

Citizendium allegedly has expert moderators, but still relies on the general public for the body of its articles.  I believe a better alternative would exclude the unpublished masses entirely, and treat the site as an open slate for the findings of true academic experts (people with a Ph. D., professors, leaders of business, authors).  It should be promoted as an exclusive academic club with complete transparancy of results to the general public.  Someone call TED.

So basically the slot for a scholarly wikipedia is still unfilled (as far as I know).  I might try to start it up if I had any money to invest, and if I thought it could actually turn a profit.  Seriously, someone call TED.

Screencasting (feat. Rob Boss)

I just couldn’t think of a good idea to screencast, so I had my artsy hippie friend Rob Boss pick up my slack.  He’s here to show you how to create a fantastic work of art faster than you can cook two Hot Pockets.

Without further ado, Five Minute Masterpieces (with Rob Boss)….

Blognificent (Sweded!)

I wanted to write something cynical.  That’s normally what I do, and there’s a lot on YouTube to encourage pessimism.  I wanted to talk about how there’s very little intellectually stimulating material floating around the ‘Tube.  I wanted to talk about the endless repetition; the thousands of half-ass parodies of the funny, but instantly forgettable Numa Numa and Star Wars Kid (and regardless of what Wesch says, I do think that we are mocking those two, not embracing their happiness.)

Then I saw this.

Be Kind, Rewind was not the greatest film on the face of the planet (despite being directed by Michel Gondry and having Mos Def and Jack Black in leading roles), but it had some really brilliant ideas.  The premise is that Jack Black’s magnetized brain erases all of the VHS tapes at the ancient video store where Mos works.  As a quick fix, the two (and eventually their whole community) reshoot classic films like Ghostbusters and Rocky with ultra-low budgets.  They inexplicably brand these remakes as “Sweded” films, and before long they are swarmed with requests for more.  And of course, big bad Hollywood eventually swoops in and shuts them down.

This is the best idea to come out of this movie:  Once an artist (author, musician, director, whatever) releases his work to the public, it no longer belongs to him, but to the viewer, listener, or reader.  Rocky is no longer Stallone’s, it your’s;  you were the one that attached whatever emotion to it, and it currently resides in your memory and our culture.  If art belonged solely to the artist, then Stallone could force me to forget the movie.  He can’t.

This proves it.  Be Kind, Rewind has validated its own premise through YouTube.  The concept of Sweded movies no longer belongs to Gondry’s fictional universe, but to hundreds of bored, webcam-having people.  Dollars to donuts at least one of these “directors” has never even seen Be Kind (the movie had a horrible gross at the box office.)

This has improved my opinion of both Be Kind Rewind and YouTube.

The 2″ X 2″, 800 lb. Gorilla

They’re really trying to sell us on it.  We’ve got iPod Video and the matching iPhone.  We’ve got Verizon’s V Cast network.  We’ve got Zunes, and Sansa’s and Walkmen err.. Walkmans, whatever.  We’ve got thousands of options for watching our vidcasts, sports clips, music videos or stolen TV shows on the go.

All of these products have an inherent and obvious flaw that no one seems to mention.

I’ve got an iPod, and it plays videos.  My phone came with V Cast.  Aside from testing the functionality, I have never used either to watch a moving picture.  Maybe once, accidentally.  Why?  Very simple, the screen on the iPod is the size of Triscuit.  A Better Cheddar for my phone.  The iPod touch is little larger, about half a graham cracker.  Still as far as screen size goes, I want less Nabisco and more death steak.

I like podcasts and net shows.  I watch them on a semi-regular basis.  But never, after watching one on my 15″ monitor have I said “Oh shit, I gotta see that tomorrow in my friend’s car.”  I love “Goodfellas,” but I’ve never had the urge to watch Joe Pesci shoot Michael Imperioli in the foot while waiting 5 minutes for a triple double soy laté.

Go to the commons.  Look around.  You’ll see a shit-ton of iPods and their clones, most with video capability.  Now look at their people.  You’ll see a lot more head bobbing than eye scanning.  Maybe, just maybe, you’ll see some guy looking at a video on a cell phone.  Bad news V Cast, that’s no music video. The star of that video is himself, or one of his friends; probably intoxicated in some fashion, or maybe just saying some dumb, sober shit.

There’s reasons why music-on-the-move caught on.  You can do it while walking.  You can pay attention to the stops on the subway with your eyes while your ears are occupied.  Assuming you dislike ear trauma, no one really knows what your listening to, so there’s a privacy aspect.  And most importantly, no retina strain.  In all these cases mobile video fails to <insert corny chuckle here> size up.

On Twitter

Here’s a few excerpts from the “New Media” article:

“The medium that best expresses the moment we are in politically is not Facebook, but Twitter.”

“Each Twitter can be no more than 140 characters.”

“Students today are going to invent the next journalism.”

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you journalism…. of the future.

—————————————————————————

(From NYTimez48 about 1 hour ago from web)

Wash.DC. Prz. Obma gave SOTU speech tdy.  Well rcvd.  Econ bad, fam vals good.  Oil up, bad.  Evry1 gets thru if wkng tgthr. GodBlssUSA

(From WashPost703 48 minutes ago from web)

Repubs rspnd 2 Prez Obma speech:  Ecnmy bad, diff. fam vals better.  Gays, bad; guns, good.  Obma, bad, bad econ his fault somehow.

(From NatReview 37 minutes ago from web)

Anyms source in wht.hs. rveals Prez Obma eat babies, kicks puppies.  OMFG!  He bad prez, elite, hate hate hate.  He’s no saint reagan.

(From LbrlDoucheblog 19 minutes ago from web)

Repubs stupid, racist, fat.  Palin = retard.

(From CNN less than 1 minute ago from web)

Another hurricane headed towards U.S….  Sweet!

(From LaTiMeS 48 seconds ago from web)

Shit yeah!  Big Dollaz!

(From RVATD804 30 seconds ago from web)

Feeding Frenzy!

(From NewOrleansTimes less than 5 seconds ago from web)

……fuck

Newscredible?

Apparently blogs are more honest and reliable than mainstream news sources. That’s what Newscred’s Anayltics page says. As of August 3rd, blogs average a 99.6 CredRank, and the mainstream media ranks around a 99.3. This seems to be a small difference, but according to their nifty graphs nothing goes below a 99, making blogs 33% more credible.

So what conclusions can we draw? Apparently in all that editing, fact checking, and use of mostly non-anonymous (nonymous?) sources, the mainstream media loses cred. I assume this is street cred, because I always thought that standards and fear of libel is exactly what made the mainstream media credible.

So this leads to the obvious question: How do you rank credibility? According to Marisa Peacock and Newscred, its according to everybody. The community votes on credibility. Who knows more about credibility than the same people who believe in the Loch Ness Monster? Who can I trust to know honest news more than National Enquirer subscribers? Who can I rely on for fair and balanced journalism more than white supremacists?

All these people are unfortunately included in everyone, and everyone determines what’s credible on Newscred. I barely trust anyone, I definitely don’t trust everyone.

I’m not saying that bloggers aren’t credible as a whole, or that I don’t like blogs. If Hunter S. Thompson hadn’t blown his brains out, and had been born late enough to give a shit about the internet, he’d be a blogger.  But Dr. Thompson was unashamedly biased, and he thought bias was what journalism needed.  I agree to a degree.  I enjoy a nice gonzo fiery diatribe as much as the next guy, but you need some straight facts to balance it out.

In response to the responses

Wow, I didn’t expect that much feedback.  Thanks to all who posted.

I’m not really criticizing Delicious for not having pictures or for not trying to be like myspace or facebook.  For pure utility, it wouldn’t really add much.  But pure utility isn’t what makes web sites go mainstream.  Usually, anyway.

I actually like Delicious and find it pretty useful.  I just don’t think that, as it is, its going to capture the hearts and minds of millions of casual users that are removed from the tech world:  the stay at home moms, the teenage girls, and the metrosexuals.

These are the people that made myspace and facebook blow up.  They don’t know about Digg, and they didn’t mess with Google until it became a verb.  If they end up tagging and bookmarking regularly (and they very well might, but they probably won’t call it that), it won’t be through Delicious, it will be through the next social networking site that implements those ideas.

Delicious works very well, and I’m glad that it won’t be gummed up by masses.

Three Reasons Why Delicious Will Not Go Mainstream

Number One:  The Name

It’s confusing and vaguely sexual.  Delicious is a great name for a recipe database or a transvestite craigslist hooker, but it doesn’t exactly scream social bookmarking, or help to explain the concept.  And techies’ tendency to spell it del.icio.us certainly doesn’t help.

Number Two:  It’s Being Buried in Jargon

As I read through the assigned articles today, I couldn’t get away from buzzwords like metadata or Web2.0.  I could post pages on my hatred for these meaningless words (and probably will some day), but for now I’ll just say this.  When I hear those words, I turn off.  I stop listening, and start to think negative things about the producer of those words.

Other, less cynical people turn off too, because they don’t understand what metadata is or what makes Web2.0 different from the internet that they’ve been using for years.  But metadata is really just data, and Web2.0 is Amazon, Ebay, myspace, and facebook and every other site you’ve been using for years.  If you can post, vote, or make a list; if it’s even vaguely interactive, then it’s Web 2.0.

These words make simple concepts sound foreign, and as long as Delicious supporters use them in their sermon, they’ll have a hard time getting converts.

Number Three:  There’s No Pictures

What really draws people to myspace and facebook?  Is it the ability meet interesting people, or reconnect with long lost friends?  Is it the chance to express themselves through blog posts and internet poetry?  Is it because they really want to hear that 300th struggling band?

Nope, it’s the pictures stupid.  There’s a reason people always look better online.  I believe they enjoy going through hundreds of pictures of themselves, scrapping the bad, posting the good.  Trying to find that one that hides the double chin, and makes their boobs look big, or their manboobs look small.  That becomes their icon, and that’s a beautiful thing.

Then they can look at their friends’ pictures, and leave comments that their boobs do in fact look big.  This while voicing actual comments to their other friends that said boobs look way too big, and slutty.

Or they can post very embarrassing pictures of their friends looking very intoxicated, and nearly get those friends fired…for fun.

Either way, get pictures Delicious, then we’ll talk.

Readings: Week Two

Is Google making us stupid?  Maybe, it’s definitely making us unfocused.  I don’t agree that it diminishes book reading skills.  I’m still pretty able to knock out a book in a weekend if the mood strikes me.  But I know for damn sure that I wouldn’t be able to finish that book if I was sitting in front of my computer.

I probably checked five other websites and sent three pieces of e-mail while I was reading these articles.  I can quickly research any thought that pops into my head on the same device that I do my homework.  This doesn’t make for a focused reading experience.  I can’t even count the times that I’ve gone to Wikipedia for something school related, and an hour later I realize I’m knee deep in the epsiode breakdown “Salute Your Shorts.”  I never had that problem with Encyclopedia Brittanica.

I think the internet is creating a society of temporary experts on everything.  Who needs to retain knowledge when you can always access it with Wi-Fi.  This can lead to a variety of problems, of course.  It makes it very easy to spout out information on any subject, but without the understanding that years of study and experience get you.  It can also make one look very stupid when confronted with a real expert.