I’ve downloaded and installed the software and will provide an update after it has run for awhile. It only works with PCs operating Windows XP or 2000 with the latest service pack. While a part of me believes Google to be the antichrist, I’ve got to hand it to them. If this works, it’ll be a REAL help to me and thousands of others.
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »
Alicia and I are in the market for a Sony PD170 kit, so I did a little lookie-loo over on eBay and found this too good to be true deal. So I began email correspondence with one Jake Roper in Greece. He suggested we use a 3rd party for the transaction and recommended eBay partner, Square Trade. An hour or so later, I received this email.
It’s a nice email and certainly looks legit. However, as I’ve written before, the message headers had been altered, so I knew it was bogus — meaning it didn’t come from Square Trade. Moreover, it you examine the html, you’ll notice that the author linked to tiny spacing graphics from paypal.com. If this was actually an html email from Square Trade, they would have called for such graphics from their own server. I called Square Trade, and they said the tip-off is that the seller wanted to do the deal outside eBay’s payment system. When the email said Western Union, that was an automatic red flag.
So I notified eBay and sent a little note to Jake. It said simply:
“You, sir, are a fraud. Shame on you.”
Whereupon he wrote back:
“So Terry, this is the big new thing you can come up with?You can say you just don’t want to close the deal in my terms not say that..
Good bye!”
Posted in Uncategorized | 2 Comments »
When warehouse shopping giant Costco began selling caskets at two Chicago locations in August, the scoffers scoffed and the naysayers nayed. But the move put another hole in the foundation of institutional America by offering low-cost caskets to consumers without going through funeral homes. The company has now made them available via their Website, although shipping is currently limited to just 13 states. Costco lawyers are going state-by-state to clear the way for shipment. Meanwhile, consumers can call the 800-number of Costco’s supplier and get the caskets delivered to a funeral home anywhere. We’re talking nice caskets for less than $1,000, and every consumer group should be saying it’s about time.
This is fascinating to me, because it’s just the latest power-to-the-people move made available thanks to the Internet. I recall early days of the Web when auto dealers in Florida sought legal relief from online sales offerings and when the American Medical Association created a new lobbying wing to keep medical Websites under its purview. Today, automobile dealers now welcome the Web, but the medical institution has succeeded in keeping what it believes to be “amateur” medical advice away from consumers. It’s for our own good, you know. This will change one day. Knowledge is for the people, not protected classes thereof.
What is happening in our midst is nothing short of amazing, and it shows no sign of abating. If I can now buy a casket online from Costco and have it delivered wherever I want, what’s next?
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »
MediaPost’s George Simpson, one of my favorite columnists, writes a masterful piece today on the overreaction to Internet privacy issues. Entitled, “The Beast Under The Bed,” it portrays the Web as a privacy phantom feared by all, while we voluntarily (albeit perhaps unknowingly) give away the same information in the real world. His conclusion?
Alexander Solzhenitsyn once wrote: “As every man goes through life he fills in a number of forms for the record [that become like invisible threads]. Every man, permanently aware of his own invisible threads, naturally develops a respect for the people who manipulate the threads.”He was writing about a government that he came to fear. But you should worry about the invisible threads already around you, before you start fearing the imaginary beast under the bed.
I asked Rather about the obligation of journalists to get beyond he-said, she-said “balance” and dig for verifiable, objective answers.“Fear rules almost every newsroom in the country,” Rather said. “When it comes to anything that’s hot politically - you may say, ‘Look, we need to do the piece on global warming or we need to do a piece asking some serious questions about war profiteering’ - there’s always a wee, small voice that says, ‘You do that, you’re going to pay the price.’
The truth is that the first place bias is most often revealed is in story selection — what newspeople call “the hook.” (Look at Rather’s ideas above — global warming, war profiteering.) What Rather is lamenting is the gradual loss of power in basing stories on politically hot hooks. “The piece on global warming” now requires somebody who will say “bullshit,” and that should make every one of us stop and think before leaping forward with our own versions of truth.
Having our assumptions challenged is a good thing. Like other imaginary beasts under the bed, we lose our fear of such when we grow up.
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »
Off for a couple days of….fun.
Posted in Uncategorized | 4 Comments »
I’m in Lawrenceburg (by God) Tennessee, talkin’ at ya (local lingo) from the swank Best Western hotel. Alicia and I are getting married tomorrow afternoon, so we’re in town doing the last minute things. It’s amazing how such a simple thing as a wedding can be so complicated, but that’s not why I’m writing this morning. I’ve a travel story to tell that will amuse bloggers and geeks everywhere.
Best Western has a deal with a company called SpeedLinks to provide free (yes, free) High Speed Internet Access (HSIA) in every room. It was the primary reason why I chose to lay my head here instead of other even swanker places up the road. One problem. This e-mail access is for receiving only, and being an important person (in my mind), I needed to send some e-mails. Here’s their marketing concept, which is found on a little tent card on the table.
SpeedLinks™, Best Western’s High-Speed Internet connection is free to guests as US and Canadian Best Western® hotels. Now you can
- Stay in contact while traveling
- Check your e-mail
- Get that assignment completed on time (my favorite)
- Connect to your corporate network
- Browse the Internet
So I went to my Web hosting company, Earthlink (very happy with them, BTW) and got into a chat session with one of their tech people. She noticed that the connection was coming in on Bellsouth, so we entered Bellsouth’s SMTP address, mail.bellsouth.net. Viola! Immediately, my little mails went on their merry way.
There are several lessons here. Firstly, don’t try to force your business model on people who are smart enough to get around it (read: everybody). Two, if somebody “gives” you access to the Web, there’s a hitch to it. No free lunch, remember? Finally, never give up when it comes to this stuff.
Posted in Uncategorized | 2 Comments »
To TV newspeople everywhere:
My work as a new media consultant to the local TV industry gives me unique insight into the economic problems facing the industry. These problems are very real, and what you think about them doesn’t matter. What does matter is your reaction, and I hear two constant refrains that are deeply troubling as the industry makes its necessary transformation into multimedia distributors.
One, TV newspeople are reticent to get involved on the Web side of their stations. While I’m sure a lack of knowledge contributes to this, there is a sense that newsroom employees view the Internet as a bastard stepchild. If true, this is appallingly short-sighted and extremely self-destructive. I don’t care what your current priorities are, you are contributing to the demise of your industry by not personally gaining the skills necessary to compete in a multimedia world and applying them in your current position. What are you waiting for? Does somebody need to hold you by your little hand? Get a spine, for crying out loud, and jump in with both feet. Denying the realities of the shift from broadcasting to the Internet only accelerates your own obsolescence. Why on earth would you do that?
Where is the passion to get out in front of where the industry is going? TV newspeople are generally curious and intelligent, so this puzzles me. If you’re not moving in that direction, you’re moving in the opposite direction, for there is no standing still in this rapidly changing environment. I’m reminded of the FedEx commercial where the woman informs the new worker that his help is needed. Upon learning that the problem is in shipping, he says, “But I have an MBA.”
Secondly, TV newspeople are reluctant to assist in the economic well-being of the companies for which they work. This is a very dangerous time for broadcasting. 2005 is the nervous breakdown year, and yet you are concerned with your resume tape and growing your broadcasting career while the foundation upon which it’s built is crumbling. Again, you are supposedly intelligent people. Why would you do that? I cringe when I read the threads at various industry discussion boards, for they reveal a group of people oblivious to reality, taken with their own importance, and cavalier in their attitudes towards others. Topics like “What’s a good second or third station market?” drive me up the wall, because they reveal a core belief that the career ladder is unaffected by economic pressures on the industry — that everything’s better farther up the ladder. It isn’t.
I’m not talking about pay cuts and such. I’m talking about efficiencies and hard work. You are in the same boat as your employer. You can bail water or you can be dead weight. Which will it be?
Posted in Uncategorized | 2 Comments »
Let me add my voice to those of Jeff Jarvis, Doc Searls, Dave Winer (the father of RSS), Adam Curry (former MTV jock) and others who are touting podcasting as a major new media development. Curry and Winer are pioneering the concept, which is essentially a radio show that’s included in an RSS feed for downloading (it can be automatic) to your hard drive and then loaded into an iPod for listening whenever and wherever. Why is this so important? Because it adds “where” to the Postmodern mantra of “I want what I want when I want it” and opens the door for entirely new business models.
Add to this the pending departure from radio of Howard Stern and the cloud of doom over terrestrial radio becomes evident.
Finally, in the all-you-can-do-is-shake-your-head department, the Parents Television Council (PTC) is asking the FCC to fine NBC for Dale Earnhardt Jr’s “shit” during a live interview at the end of last weekend’s NASCAR race. The idea that the airwaves are public and therefore require governmental manipulation is what’s really been under attack for the past couple of decades. Cable TV, the Internet, Satellite TV, Satellite Radio, and now podcasting are all efforts by free people to get out from under the thumb of those who have the power to decide what we can watch and listen to.
2004 will be recognized, I believe, as a watershed year in this conflict. Janet Jackson’s boob, Howard Stern’s fine and now Junior’s excited utterance are highlighting the absurdity of the government’s command and control over speech and expression. Even FCC Chairman Michael Powell has hinted that the FCC may one day be unnecessary. When that happens, the manipulators of our culture will find themselves talking only to and with themselves.
I want what I want when and WHERE I want it.
Posted in Uncategorized | 3 Comments »
Here’s an excellent commentary from Clive Thompson on Charles Leadbetter’s Fast Company article Amateur Revolution, From astronomy to computing, networks of amateurs are displacing the pros and spawning some of the greatest innovations. This is pretty important stuff, I think, because it speaks of the whole cultural change about which I write. Moreover, Leadbetter also writes of the shift from the “professionals” of the 20th century, and I would include journalism.
The 20th century was marked by the rise of professionals in medicine, science, education, and politics. In one field after another, amateurs and their ramshackle organizations were driven out by people who knew what they were doing and had certificates to prove it. Now that historic shift seems to be reversing. Even as large corporations extend their reach, we’re witnessing the flowering of Pro-Am, bottom-up self-organization.
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »
As we were watching 60 Minutes last night, Alicia asked me, “Are they talking about Pomos?” Pomos, for the uneducated here, is short for Postmoderns, people who define a new cultural era in the west. The program examined what demographers are calling “Echo Boomers,” people born between 1982 and 1995. They’re also called Generation-Y and millenials — people born of baby boomers that “echo” the generation. They make up about one-third of the population in the U.S. and account for $170 billion in commerce, according to the program.
Echo boomers are a reflection of the sweeping changes in American life over the past 20 years. They are the first to grow up with computers at home, in a 500-channel TV universe. They are multi-taskers with cell phones, music downloads, and Instant Messaging on the Internet. They are totally plugged-in citizens of a worldwide community.
This group represents the “Age of Participation” better than most, but the cultural change in our country goes beyond any particular demographic group. The problem with the institutional press version is that it can’t see beyond its own logical limits. Rather than focus on the fruit of a particular group, why not look at what’s driving it, what’s beneath the technological advances? Perhaps what you view as negative attributes aren’t really that at all.
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »
One of the saddest things about the TV News business is what happens to the people in a shop that was once the dominant leader in the market. When the ratings begin to move south, it’s the people in the newsroom who suffer most, and a lot of the pain is self-inflicted. I wrote this a few years ago to a news team that was at each other’s throats. I offer it here today, because this kind of pain is now quite widespread, as the industry goes through difficult times.
An open letter to television newsrooms:
My comments are offered as peacemaker, for your in-fighting, while typical of a station in transition, is the only problem that really matters at your station. And it’s one each of you can do something about.
To the old-timers, I offer this. A lack of courage is generally what causes glory day news departments to eventually implode. The market leader in any industry is in a powerful position to block ANY attempt to overtake it, but it requires courage to make difficult moves, especially regarding talent. The old adage is that you can’t take ratings away from the leader; they must give them to you. Competitors can do a whole bunch of clever things, but ultimately they’re only positioning themselves to take over when the leader makes a mistake. And the most common mistake in the news business is the refusal of the leader to attack itself at certain strategic moments in the life of a team. Aging is a fact of life in the world of television. Managers often choose to ignore obvious signs – generally brought out through research – because, after all, “we’re the 900-pound gorilla, and we don’t want to risk all that ad revenue.” It takes courage to attack yourself, but it’s absolutely necessary for any news team to remain number one, because if you wait until the slide begins, it’s too late.
The person coming in to run the shop after that is doomed, regardless of his or her expertise. Think about it. Everybody wants to go back to what made the team great, but the very thing that represented the greatness (most often the people) is the thing that’s caused the problem in the first place. The competition in such shops becomes the guy who disagrees with you, not the other stations, and then the slide is complete. News departments kill themselves. It’s foolish and counterproductive to blame a single individual. And now you have new leadership and new people around you. Do they have the answers? I don’t know, but I do know this. You’ll never return to the way it was by doing the things you used to do. You can’t behave as if you’re number one when you’re not. The best you can do is position yourself for the day that the current leader makes its blunder. To everything is a season. Trust me. It’ll happen.
To the people who’ve come in post-glory days, there are a few things you need to know as well. The people who offend you are not your enemy. Those who are left who were part of the dominance have much to offer. They’re frightened and angry, so the first move of peace is up to you. Sorry, but that’s the truth. One of the things older people in the biz fear most is a growing sense of disrespect. The great stories and victories of yesteryear seem somehow to pale in comparison to advances in storytelling and technology. Few young people appreciate, for example, the skill it used to take to just get a live remote picture on the air. The creativity and cleverness required back then are irrelevant today, and old-timers know that. A little respect goes a long way in generational differences.
You also need to realize that today’s hot reporter is tomorrow’s history and that life is short. One day that’ll be you across the room, the guy or gal huddled in his or her cubicle concerned about health insurance and needing to hang on until that last tuition payment for the youngest can be made. To everything’s a season and a time for every purpose under heaven.
Relentless infighting is demonstrative of a significantly powerful common denominator among the staff, a wonderful and intense passion. Channel it, folks. Get into the moment and kick ass. One foot in yesterday and the other in tomorrow leaves you pissing on today. And today’s the only thing you can do something about.
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »
The folks at Yahoo continue to make strides in opening up RSS for the masses. Ross Fadner writes in MediaDailyNews that “Yahoo! has quietly made several key enhancements to its RSS offerings that industry analysts say mark the first big push to take the format mainstream.” This is wonderful news for those of us who’ve been pushing the technology for years and should be a wake-up call to the naysayers of the world. The term “RSS” seems to scare a lot of folks (because it’s too different), and Yahoo! is smart to stay away from an emphasis on the technology.
When users choose to add content to their My Yahoo! page, a link to RSS feeds is prominently displayed. Then, to receive a feed, users simply click an “add” button, instead of cutting and pasting the URLs of XML-coded Web pages. Feeds are continuously updated on the My Yahoo! page.In fact, RSS is barely mentioned at all–Yahoo! simply refers to its RSS links as content feeds.
(Gartner Group Analyst Allen) Weiner noted that organizing the content in such a manner “opens up RSS, and makes the technology kind of invisible, so all you get is the benefit of it.” MessageCast’s (CEO Royal) Farros compared Yahoo!’s deployment of the technology to the way Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) effectively changed e-mail without most people realizing it. “It’s hard to make RSS sexy in the same way SMTP isn’t sexy. It’s an enabling technology,” he said.
Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment »