PC WORLD: Video is key in next year’s new gadgets
Wednesday, December 31st, 2003PC WORLD: Video is key in next year’s new gadgets
The line between the home computer and home entertainment continues to blur, according to Martyn Williams of the IDG News Service in an article for PC WORLD. The story looks at new gizmos launching in Japan next year. Unfortunately, not all will be available here, but looking at them provides a window to the future.
NEC’s latest video recorder, the PX-AX300H, is due on sale in Japan in January and packs an impressive 300GB of hard-drive-based recording space. At the lowest-quality recording setting, which uses an MPEG2 1.2-megabits-per-second stream, that’s enough space for 423 hours of video. Put another way, you can record an hour of television per day for an entire year and still have plenty of space left for those New Year’s holiday movies and specials.
The other advantage of all this space is the ability to record everything at the highest-quality setting, an 8-mbps MPEG2 stream, without having to worry about filling the disk. The device also includes a DVD-RAM/R recording function, and can be plugged into your computer network so you can watch recorded TV shows from a PC with software supplied by NEC.
IO Data’s AVLP1/DVD looks like a conventional DVD player, but if you peer a little closer at the connectors on the rear, you’ll notice something different: an Ethernet socket. This allows the device to be connected to a home network and for users to watch or access content from PCs on the network.
FCC Chairman cites what broadcasters don’t get
Tuesday, December 30th, 2003FCC Chairman cites what broadcasters don’t get
FCC Chairman Michael Powell told the San Jose Mercury News: “I have no problem if a big and venerable company no longer exists tomorrow, as long as that value is transferred somewhere else in the economy.” Hello? He’s talking about you, broadcasters (among others, to be fair), and he bases this thinking on what he calls the most powerful paradigm shift in communications’ history.
Now to be a phone company, you don’t have to weave tightly the voice service into the infrastructure. You can ride it on top of the infrastructure. So if you’re a Vonage, you own no infrastructure. You own no trucks. You roll to no one’s house. They turn voice into a application and shoot it across one of these platforms. And, suddenly, you’re in your business.
And that’s why if you’re the music industry, you’re scared. And if you’re the television studio, movie industry, you’re scared. And if you’re an incumbent infrastructure carrier, you’d better be scared. Because this application separation is the most important paradigm shift in the history of communications, and will change things forever.
USA TODAY: Bloggers rewriting the rules
Tuesday, December 30th, 2003USA TODAY: Bloggers rewriting the rules
Blogging is one of the top political stories of 2003, and this piece in USA TODAY does a thoughtful job of documenting blogging as a major new force in politics.
Their mission: to remake political journalism and, quite possibly, democracy itself. The plan: to make an end run around big media by becoming publishers on the Internet.The freewheeling, gossipy Internet sites they operate can be controversial: Matt Drudge, the wired news and gossip hound who broke the story about Monica Lewinsky’s affair with Bill Clinton, is a blogger. Many bloggers are not professional journalists. Few have editors. Most make no pretense of objectivity.
Yet they’re forcing the mainstream news media to follow the stories they’re pushing, such as the scandal that took down Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott. And they’ve created a trend that almost every major presidential candidate is following. Even President Bush’s campaign Web site hosts a blog.
Bloggers described as the “Vanity Press”
Tuesday, December 30th, 2003Bloggers described as the “Vanity Press”
As most of you know, I follow the print industry, because they’re ahead of the curve when it comes to New Media. However, newspapers are still bastions of tradition in many ways, and especially when it comes to protecting the fatted calf of professionalism. Witness this quote by Donn Friedman, Assistant Managing Editor for Production Technology and New Media Innovations, Albuquerque (N.M.) Journal. It’s from a great little article in the online Editor&Publisher about New Media New Year’s resolutions.
“Do not fall for the panacea of user-generated content. It has a limited place. Now that the world is a vanity press, quality, trustworthiness and credibility will position newspaper content above others making our products valuable enough for paid subscription models to prosper.”
You’re so vain.
You prob’ly think this blog is about you
Don’t you? Don’t you? Don’t you?
Rather than deal with the reality of interactive journalism (Jeff Jarvis’s wonderful news is a conversation), people like this lift themselves out of their chairs high atop their professional pedestals and do what every spoiled child does: call us names! Last week, it was “self-important.” Now we’re the “vanity press.”
And look what he says to juxtapose his institution against the bloggers. “quality, trustworthiness and credibility?” What quality, trustworthiness and credibility? Trust in the institutional press is at an all-time low. THAT’s the reality. And do guys like this think we’re just out here driving our own trains? Where do you think the energy comes from that’s pushing news into interactivity? It’s the people, stupid! It’s the readers who’ve given up on the institutional press. We don’t need to resort to pejorative terms in this debate, because our eyes can see the cultural shifting taking place.
And we’ll gladly take our growth from the bottom up, thank you very much.
Internet commerce exploded this holiday season
Tuesday, December 30th, 2003Internet commerce exploded this holiday season
Online shoppers spent a whopping $15.8 billion through December 19th, according to Nielsen//NetRatings. That’s a staggering 37% increase over the holiday season of 2002. What did we buy?
Apparel: $3.1 billion, up 40 percent over 2002.
Toys/Video Games (hardware and software): $1.9 billion, up 21 percent.
Video/DVD: $1.4 billion, up 58 percent.
Books: $1.4 billion, up 39 percent.
Music: $790 million, up 20 percent.
(Source: Media Daily News)
Two media events this weekend
Monday, December 29th, 2003Two media events this weekend
It was a holiday weekend, for sure, but this thing called “the media” still managed to grab me a couple of times. First was Ed Bradley’s interview with Michael Jackson (transcript) on CBS’s 60 Minutes. First of all, I thought the interview itself was very well done. Ed Bradley handled Jackson better than anybody I’ve seen. No easy assignment. I loved the NATSOUND of Jackson whining occasionally, but mostly I enjoyed the opportunity to get inside his head just a bit. He came off as sincere to me, and that was something I didn’t expect. I mean, the guy looks like Edward Scissorhands without the scissorhands and then there’s all that weirdness with the young boys! His mental state notwithstanding, I saw a gentle, spiritual guy (Most people think the Bible says that money is the root of all evil. The correct quote is “the love of money is the root of all evil.” Jackson got that right. Another surprise.) who’s had the crap beat out of him. I have my opinion, but the court will decide his guilt or innocence in the legal matters. Jackson, however, did himself a favor by agreeing to this interview.
The second media event is a little more complicated to explain. Alicia and I went to see Cold Mountain at the Opry Mills Theater. The film will likely sweep the Academy Awards and justifiably so. It is a haunting tale of life in the south during the Civil War, and the movie touched me deeply. Being the information junkie that I am, I spent an hour online reading various reviews. I guess I was trying to get in touch with what I was feeling, but what I found really (I mean really) pissed me off. There was the usual disagreement amongst the critics about the film, and I had to occasionally wonder if they actually saw the same movie I did. But one review got my goat, because it so beautifully illustrates the American atrocity of political correctness. Stephanie Zacharek writes for Salon that the movie:
…is ruthless and realistic in its portrayal of the hardships faced by Southerners during the war between the states. The white ones, that is: There are about 12 African-Americans in “Cold Mountain,” and if you don’t blink you might catch them as they scoot by discreetly in a few select scenes, blending into the background in a “Don’t mind me!” blur.
…if nothing else, “Cold Mountain” reminds us of one resounding truth: In their fight for states’ rights, the white folks sure had it hard.
But why am I ranting? Perhaps it’s because I live in the south as a transplanted Yankee. I don’t know. This writer is certainly entitled to her opinion. That’s why God made critics. I just find the automatic descent into political correctness to be intellectual blindness, and it infuriates me that a writer would use the opportunity of an excellent film to relentlessly vomit such stuff. There. I’m done.
More media bias discussion
Monday, December 29th, 2003More media bias discussion
The American press is obsessed with death, destruction and trouble, according to The New Republic’s Gregg Easterbrook. “Bias in favor of trouble” is what Howard Kurtz calls it today in his Washington Post column.
In his new book “The Progress Paradox,” Easterbrook argues that establishment journalists are obsessed with bad news because the elites they serve benefit from fear-mongering. Politicians hurl charges about how awful things have become, which gets them booked on talk shows. Interest groups seize on sky-is-falling reports to boost their fundraising. And newshounds themselves feel empowered because crises get their adrenaline flowing.Journalists, Easterbrook says in an interview, “want their own work to be seen as important, as we all do. If you present something as scandalous or dangerous or frightening, that’s more compelling than a story about something that’s gone well.”
By reading the front pages, he says, “you’d get the impression that the world is going to hell.” As for cable news, “in a world of 6 billion people, something is always exploding or burning somewhere, and you get the impression everything is exploding or burning.”
In the world according to Easterbrook, almost everything is getting better: Deaths from heart attack, stroke and most cancers are down; every form of pollution except that from greenhouse gases has decreased. That, he writes, forces the media to focus on smaller and smaller dangers: “Brain damage from cell phones, extremely rare allergies, claims of all-new psychological complexes, strange turns of events that affect only tiny numbers of people — increasingly newspaper, television and newsmagazine reports dwell on one-in-a-million risks.”
And how dumb is that?
At least we’re TALKING about media bias
Monday, December 29th, 2003At least we’re TALKING about media bias
Since I’ve been writing about this subject for over 10 years, I want to add my voice to those who’ve commented thus far about Tim Rutten’s Los Angeles Times column, “Fact or opinion? Yes, it really does matter.” The piece is important, because it advances the debate over whether an objective press is a) possible and b) desirable in a democracy.
At issue is the question being posed with increasing frequency by right- and left-wing partisans: Have the American media simply failed in their decades-long effort to separate facts from opinions and to make impartial reporting the governing ethic of their news columns? Or, alternatively, has American society’s changed nature simply made the whole project irrelevant?This assault on the ethic of impartiality has two sources, one intellectual, the other social.
“It’s certainly true that we are now two Americas,” said CNN political analyst Bill Schneider, who is also a leading scholar of public opinion. “We’re seeing this with greater clarity as we move further into this election cycle. There is no attempt to find a center. On the left, the Democratic front-runner, Howard Dean, wants to purge the party of its centrists, to repudiate the ‘Third Way’ Bill Clinton advocated. On the right, not even President George W. Bush talks about compassionate conservatism anymore. Look at the bestseller lists. They’re dominated by people like Al Franken and Michael Moore on the left and Bill O’Reilly and Anne Coulter on the right.”Our nonfiction literature, in other words, is today a shouting match.
Liberal and conservative intellectuals who have sipped more Kool-Aid than they realize from the post-modern punch bowl insist that because pure objectivity does not exist, only pure subjectivity remains.
Give the guy an F in debate. Pomos are extremists only in the minds of those who are extreme in the Modernist view — people like Mr. Rutten. It is the utter failure of Modernism to deliver on its promises that has given rise to Postmodernism, just as the science of Modernism replaced faith in the church many centuries ago. It is the cultural change that’s driving all of this angst over objectivity, so it’s much, much bigger than journalism.
Finally, Mr. Rutten argues that the revenues generated by objectivity’s sterile environment have been a boon to publishers, who have reinvested in newsgathering methodologies and technologies, and that we’re better off for it. I agree completely, but in saying this, he also reveals his ignorance about Postmodernism and the cultural shift. Pomos will gladly use the technological advances Modernism has given us, and nowhere in my view of the new world do I see a wish to dismantle science and technology. Postmodernism only demands that it take its rightful place, somewhere BENEATH God status.
I hope Mr. Rutten and others keep writing about this, because this discussion has been long overdue.
Snow globe freebie makes history
Monday, December 29th, 2003Snow globe freebie makes history
One of the things I love about the Web is its unpredictability. Just ask any marketer who’s tried to apply typical reach/frequency rules to selling on the Web. Now comes this wonderful story of so-called viral marketing involving the holiday greeting found inside a snow globe. You’ve probably seen it. It’s a nice flash scene inside a snow globe, but when you follow the instructions and shake it, all hell breaks loose inside. According to a story in Media Daily News, the animation began 3 years ago as a Christmas greeting for employees, clients and friends of Internet marketing company e-tractions. Last year, somebody found it in the company’s archives and sent it to friends. 20,000 people viewed it that year. So this year, the company decided to see how far it could go.
Since the company doesn’t do any direct marketing on behalf of themselves, e-tractions instead formed a sponsor relationship with Targeted Media Solutions (TMS), a New York-based direct marketing company. TMS hosts the Flash greeting, and once users close out of the greeting card, an ad pops up. The ad is a promotion for Columbia House; users that join can get 5 DVDs for 49 cents each plus free shipping. e-tractions also added some links at the bottom of this year’s card, one of which links viewers back to e-traction’s website and another which collects email addresses of people that want to view next year’s greeting upon completion.
While a lot could be said here about the power of viral marketing, I think the real lesson here is that the snow globe greeting was clever and well done, a quality piece of content. I passed it on to friends in my address book. Quality content will always gather an audience. Moreover — as the snow globe lesson proves — people will feel good about passing it along to their friends. Welcome to life in Postmodern America.
Personal note: the holiday is calling
Wednesday, December 24th, 2003Personal note: the holiday is calling
I’m taking a few days off to be with Alicia and bask in the glow of the holiday of love. I’ll be back blogging next week. From us to you, Merry Christmas.
More year in reviews
Tuesday, December 23rd, 2003The Advertising year in review
Here’s AdAge’s look back. Great videos, including many you never saw on TV.
Are bloggers self-important?
Tuesday, December 23rd, 2003Are bloggers self-important?
Looking back is a standard media game this time of year. The stories are generally regarded as “filler” to provide content when everybody’s on vacation. I did more than my share in 28 years in TV News. Over the next week, every news outlet in the business will present these things, and they can be both entertaining and informative. The first one comes from the folks at Editor&Publisher online, “2003 in Review: The Year’s Most Significant Press Issues.” The top issue for the press was the Iraq war, “the press fails to adequately explore the facts behind Bush administration claims on the existence of weapons of mass destruction and alleged Saddam Hussein links to 9/11.” Of the 16 issues noted, two involve New Media. The editors note that broadband is expanding, so more newspaper sites are offering multimedia. This is an important trend for TV stations to watch, because the Internet undercuts their advantage as video news providers. The editors also point to the growth of blogging, but it’s interesting to note that they do so negatively.
Blah, blah, Blogs: Probably the most hyped online development in 2003 (along with growth in site registration), but will these self-important online journals actually change the way newspapers do journalism on the Web?
Don’t you just love people on pedestals making judgments about self-importance? Sour grapes, methinks, and a fearful reaction of the media elite.
Paid local search is the ultimate cash cow
Monday, December 22nd, 2003Paid local search is the ultimate cash cow
This is something local TV stations should be taking VERY seriously. The dramatic rebirth of online advertising is being fueled by paid search advertising. The thinking is that people can type what they’re seeking in a search bar faster than they can sort through alphabetized links. This is the essential logic of Google, and it’s spot-on for the Postmodern world. Now comes The Kelsey Group (TKG) with a white paper suggesting local paid search will be a $2.5 billion industry by 2008. I couldn’t agree more, and it poses a major threat to television advertising unless local stations get in on the act. That means partnering with a search technology or building your own, because this is revenue a station cannot afford to let get away. An article in MediaPost’s MediaDailyNews quotes Greg Sterling, director of Kelsey’s Digital Directories: Interactive Local Media Continuous Advisory Service and author of the new report, “A Closer Look at Local Search.”
“It has the potential to impact the entire local market. All the media that local businesses use to advertise their products and services can be impacted.”Sterling says the local search industry will need overcome some considerable obstacles before that occurs. Among other things, Sterling predicts a series of alliances are likely to occur between major search providers looking to build a base in local markets and local Yellow Pages publishers looking to develop the kind of technology that could facilitate a local search advertising marketplace.
The RIAA’s shot finally hits its target: its own foot!
Monday, December 22nd, 2003The RIAA’s shot finally hits its target: its own foot!
I’ve tried to follow closely the entertainment industry’s war against its customers, because I think the story is an important lesson in Postmodern economics. Every Modernist institution is threatened by the cultural shift, which is fueled in part by technology. Courts in the U.S. and the Netherlands ruled against the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) last week, which keeps the story moving forward to its ultimate conclusion — that economic power in a Postmodern world rests with the consumer, not the institution. Silicon Valley blogger, Dan Gillmor, has been on top of this story since the beginning and has an insightful piece in his blog that’s must reading for anybody interested in this story. Dan coined the phrase “copyright cartel” to describe the many arms of the entertainment industry. Grok his perspective and your eyes will be enlightened, but in so doing, remember that this whole saga is incubating in a massive cultural change.
The Red Sox used blogging in the A-Rod negotiations
Friday, December 19th, 2003The Red Sox used blogging in the A-Rod negotiations
From Steve Safran via Lost Remote:
The old-media types are furious - but the Red Sox regularly posted on a fan site/messageboard to discuss the now-dead A-Rod for Manny Rodriguez trade. This culminated in a hilarious showdown on a local sports radio show. One sports writer was complaining how the Red Sox were trying to go “directly to the fans.” New Sox pitcher Curt Schilling called in - shut the writer up - and told him the web is the place to go if ballplayers want to get their story out unfiltered. Brilliant.
RealNetworks sues Microsoft. Yawn.
Friday, December 19th, 2003RealNetworks sues Microsoft. Yawn.
RealNetworks claims Microsoft is using its monopoly clout to force Windows Media Player on the world and, in so doing, barring them from market share. The lawsuit asks $1 billion in damages. Microsoft says, hey, you guys claim to be number one, so why are you suing us? What the folks at Real should be doing is fixing their player, in the humble opinion of this observer. I view tremendous numbers of Websites with video and have the latest version of both products. The Windows software simply outperforms RealPlayer. In fact, the difference is so stark to me that I cringe whenever I find a news Website with an exclusive deal with RealNetworks. Quicktime and Div-X play MPEG4’s (the standard) beautifully, and they’re not complaining to the courts. In terms of streaming video, however, I like the advantages of playerless technologies, like EyeWonder. Speed is everything on the Net, and I don’t care much for waiting. For fullscreen video, give me anything except RealPlayer. The lawsuit should be interesting for its soap opera value. RealNetworks’ boss, Rob Glaser, used to work for Microsoft, and the two companies were cozy until he testified against his old boss in the government’s anti-trust case.
Wal-Mart offers music downloads
Friday, December 19th, 2003Wal-Mart offers music downloads
Apple’s Steve Jobs admits that he makes no money on 99-cent downloads for his iPods. None. It all goes for royalties. So will somebody please explain how Wal-Mart can justify 88-cent downloads? Are they using math from the bubble days or what?
The Internet as historical record
Friday, December 19th, 2003The Internet as historical record
We’re still learning about this thing called the Internet, and a couple of events this week bear study. Firstly, there’s the spat between New York Times’ chief political correspondent Adam Nagourney and Stephanie Cutter, a spokesperson for the Presidential campaign of Sen. John Kerry. Stephanie’s upset, because Adam quoted her criticism of Howard Dean and, in so doing, ignored the note in the Massachusetts Democrat’s team’s email that requested the information be treated on “background,” attributed only to a Democratic campaign. The lesson here is it’s dangerous to try and manipulate people via email. Email isn’t like speaking. It’s right there in emotionless black and white, and you run the risk of it coming back to smack you in the face. Of course, Nagourney’s a schmuck for doing what he did, but, hey, he’s a bloody reporter, right?
The second event is a little more complicated. A Washington Post article Thursday smacks the White House for altering the historical record on administration Websites.
White House officials were steamed when Andrew S. Natsios, the administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development, said earlier this year that U.S. taxpayers would not have to pay more than $1.7 billion to reconstruct Iraq — which turned out to be a gross understatement of the tens of billions of dollars the government now expects to spend.Recently, however, the government has purged the offending comments by Natsios from the agency’s Web site. The transcript, and links to it, have vanished.
Okay, I understand that this is a juicy political story and that the Washington Post is just being the Washington Post. But let’s remember that the press itself has a history of covering its own ass too. Remember “DEWEY DEFEATS TRUMAN?” Historybuff.com provides this account:
Since the papers had already been shipped out for delivery to customers, staff were sent out with trucks and station wagons to get these papers from the news stands and the homes in the suburbs of Chicago. Thousands were retrieved but many remained in the hands of customers.The “recalled” papers were brought back to the warehouse and treated as regular “returns”. As was common procedure for returns, the upper right hand corner of the front page (the “ear” portion) was clipped off. In some cases, portions of the nameplate and even date area ended up being ripped off.
Next, these papers were put out in the trash to be hauled off to a dump yard. Few realized the potential value of this edition, thus, very few of these were taken home by staff or rescued from the dump yard by individuals.
The Internet as historical record
Friday, December 19th, 2003The Internet as historical record
We’re still learning about this thing called the Internet, and a couple of events this week bear study. Firstly, there’s the spat between New York Times’ chief political correspondent Adam Nagourney and Stephanie Cutter, a spokesperson for the Presidential campaign of Sen. John Kerry. Stephanie’s upset, because Adam quoted her criticism of Howard Dean and, in so doing, ignored the note in the Massachusetts Democrat’s team’s email that requested the information be treated on “background,” attributed only to a Democratic campaign. The lesson here is it’s dangerous to try and manipulate people via email. Email isn’t like speaking. It’s right there in emotionless black and white, and you run the risk of it coming back to smack you in the face. Of course, Nagourney’s a schmuck for doing what he did, but, hey, he’s a bloody reporter, right?
The second event is a little more complicated. A Washington Post article Thursday smacks the White House for altering the historical record on administration Websites.
White House officials were steamed when Andrew S. Natsios, the administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development, said earlier this year that U.S. taxpayers would not have to pay more than $1.7 billion to reconstruct Iraq — which turned out to be a gross understatement of the tens of billions of dollars the government now expects to spend.Recently, however, the government has purged the offending comments by Natsios from the agency’s Web site. The transcript, and links to it, have vanished.
Okay, I understand that this is a juicy political story and that the Washington Post is just being the Washington Post. But let’s remember that the press itself has a history of covering its own ass too. Remember “DEWEY DEFEATS TRUMAN?” Historybuff.com provides this account:
Since the papers had already been shipped out for delivery to customers, staff were sent out with trucks and station wagons to get these papers from the news stands and the homes in the suburbs of Chicago. Thousands were retrieved but many remained in the hands of customers.The “recalled” papers were brought back to the warehouse and treated as regular “returns”. As was common procedure for returns, the upper right hand corner of the front page (the “ear” portion) was clipped off. In some cases, portions of the nameplate and even date area ended up being ripped off.
Next, these papers were put out in the trash to be hauled off to a dump yard. Few realized the potential value of this edition, thus, very few of these were taken home by staff or rescued from the dump yard by individuals.
Trends to watch in 2004
Thursday, December 18th, 2003Trends to watch in 2004
British marketing communications agency Euro RSCG Worldwide looks at Postmodernism and calls it the “New Normal” in a fascinating report, “Year in Prospect: 2004.” There’s some great stuff in here for broadcasters and marketers of every ilk. Marian Salzman, Chief Strategy Officer at Euro RSCG Worldwide, says, “From demographic changes that have developed over the past few decades, including the rise of singletons, to shifts in priorities that are the result of a rapidly changing and uncertain world, we’re finding that people’s lives and objectives are significantly different today compared with even ten years ago.” The report looks at ten major trends that help define this “New Normal.” Most, if not all, fall within my understanding of a Postmodern culture: Going Local, Us vs. Them, Rise of the Singletons, Self-Gifting, Catering to Metrosexuals, Anti-Globesity Campaigns, Blogging, Google Bombing and Further Politicization of the Internet, Hot Spots and E-Wear, and Executive Coaches.