\Maybe it was just a business editor with a sense of humor... but in any case the layout of two media stories side by side in today's times has a 'connect the dots' feeling to it.

First - there is the headline "With Popcorn, DVD's and TiVo, Moviegoers Are Staying Home"

It begins: "LOS ANGELES, May 26 - Matthew Khalil goes to the movies about once a month, down from five or six times just a few years ago... (he instead) prefers instead to watch old movies and canceled television shows on DVD.
He also spends about 10 hours a week with friends playing the video game Halo 2. And he has to study, which means hours on the Internet and reading at least a book a week." Uh, oh... maybe he's not going to go to the movies!

Then there is this article - on the same page. As TV Moves to the Web, Marketers Follow Which begins "TELEVISION programmers are looking to make the Web a lot more like TV."

I won't spoil the surprise. But if a=b, and b=c - the... you get the idea.

And I'm not even going to linke to the notice that Tivo narrowed its loss to just a penny a share.

Tivo. Home Entertainment. Advertising Revenues. TV on the Web. A good day.

The response has been tremendous. The early videos - so cool. So we decided to get a jump start and start posting the video now.

You can see what's happening at the Bicycling Web Site or if you want to jump right to to the videos - start HERE.

The project is part of Magnify Media's overall belief that readers/consumers/viewers will quickly become a significant part of the content creation universe.

Bicycling is part of the Rodale Publishing group - a really terrific collection of magazines on subjects like health, fitness, lifestyle, and wellness. Among their titles - Prevention, Men's Health and Runner's World, which are published in 36 countries, as well as Organic Style, Organic Gardening, Backpacker, BestLife, Bicycling and Mountain Bike.

Our vision is that engaged and respected content consumers are likely to be the early adopters in area of consumer content creation.

And if the fast start at Bicycling is any indication - we're on the right track.

I'm always looking for glimpses into the future of what television - or really media - can be.

And today thanks to Ypulse i found an elegant, engaging, important thing. I guess it's a channel.

Take a look for yourself: MediaThatMatters Film Festival

almost always i find media centric sites take too much effort to navigate, and in the end, by the time i find content that interests me... i have trouble seeing it. But this site is a well organized, moderated, and coherent platform. I wish there was an RSS feed to let me know when new videos get posted, since RSS is fast becoming a way for me to have the content i want pushed to me. Also, i'd like to be able to TAG entries - since del.icio.us is fast becoming part of my system of of keeping track of new content.

I've certainly known about Media Rights.org for a long while - but i didn't know about the festival -and i'm glad i found it.

But overall - it made me smile. The future isn't as far a way as some would like to believe. It may be right in front of us. Check it out.

Blogging from the CITI conf. at Columbia University.... Monday 5/23/05

Columbia University's CITI center (the Columbia Institute for
Tele-Information)

http://www.citi.columbia.edu/

Was the site of a day long conference IPTV.2: The Second Generation of TV
Over The Broadband Internet.

The description on the website detailed the event as follows:"After text and music it is the turn of video to be transmitted in volume over the Internet. Early efforts fared poorly, either for technological or economic reasons. But now, a new medium is merging and emerging. What are the implications? Just as TV was not simply radio with pictures or film over the air, the new medium is beginning to develop new content and business models. This will deeply affect existing media types, firms, and regulatory arrangements.

This conference, held at Columbia, will analyze these developments and
projections. It will bring together speakers from academia, media firms,
the tech and Internet community, and government. The regulatory dimension
will be discussed in an evening session, held at the Association of the Bar of the City of New York.

The conference is CITI¹s third event on the subject, with the first (1995) resulting in the publication ³Cyber TV², and the second, held in 2001, resulting in the book ³Internet Television.² Each anticipated the emerging trends and obstacles."

The day began with a spot on snapshot of IPTV, along with some candid
observations about IPTV.1 (2000) and how the obstacles of internet television made the success of so-called 'streaming media' unlikely even before 'black september.'

The first panel - which I participated in - was interesting, but I find it hard to judge from the stage, so i'll leave reviews of it to some other intrepid observer.
That said - there's plenty to report.

Out of the day long event - a number of observations worth blogging about -

David Burstein - of DSL Prime (http://www.dslprime.com/) was an engaging
voice, both hopeful and realistic about the challenges that face network
operators as the roll out new economic models. He is pushing hard for Verizon (who he says is building the best network on the planet) to adopt an open network philosophy - even if it makes life tougher for Terry Dennison, the EVP charged with building out Verizon's content offering.

Dennison - who arrived with a target painted on his back (as all reps of big networks do at events like this) spoke off the cuff for about 15 minutes about Verizon's dual mission of Customer Aspiration and Deployed Innovation.

While it may sound a bit like corporate double speak, Dennison made a good case for why Verizon can't afford to roll out a 'me too' network and expect to win any customers. Rather than simple engage in a price war, Dennison seemed prepared to engage in more of a niche war. He talked with conviction about delivering ultra-nitch content to unserved audience segments... and it may be that they can win consumers by providing the one single thing that customers 'aspire to'.

The panel was Moderated by Jonathan Knee, who is both Senior Managing
Director at Evercore, and Adjunct profession of Finance and Economics at
the Columbia Business School.

Next - fellow NATAS Governor Shelly Palmer ran an engaging discussion
about evolving business models for content providers. The panel (and the
day) had more information than could fit in to the time slots - giving audience members a fast-forward version of many of the thoughtful presentations.

Darcy Gerbarg - who organized the conf. for the Marconi Society, promised
that the powerpoints will be up on the web site, along with video segments. I'll point you to them when they're up.

On Shelly's panel -there was a spirited debate about file sharing - with Mitchell Reichgut taking the position that file sharing is a consumer behavior that can't be stopped. Robert Zitter, of HBO basically compared file sharing to drug dealers - with no patience for the file swappers or their Limewire theft of intellectual property. Just as Verizon was on the hot seat for Jonathan's panel, Andrew Moss of Microsoft was in the cross hairs during much of this conversation.

Readers of this blog know that I'm interested in the Xbox360- vs. PS movement toward the home media center functionality. After the panel, I talked with Andrew -- and asked him to sort out just what the plans were for the Xbox as and its MCE functionality. His answer was illuminating... basically that Microsoft didn't want to risk alienating gamers by putting too many home media bells and whistles in this release, and that while the platform could go that way - they're feeling their way with both MCE and Xbox as alternative paths into the living room. Interesting - and probably about right, given how early home media servers are, and how important and competitive the gamer environment is.

And finally - Ari Wallach of re:think media was on the last panel of the day - talking about politics and iptv. A few nuggets from him – including the fact that the BROADCAST: MACHINE release from ParticpatoryCulture is a product of the former Howard Dean internet team. This is interesting because Participatory culture's release is genuinely open source media sharing - and suggests that the Democrats (or some of them at least) believe that a truly open source media platform will help level the playing field in news and information.

I'm skipping tons of interesting material - lots of it driving toward one specific question, and then an answer that came at the end of the day.

Eli Noam - renowned media visionary and long term thinker - ended the day
by asking for a show of hands as to whether or not IPTV.2 would be more
than simply cable tv programs over a new pipe. The room's vote was a resounding YES. And one thing is clear - if IPTV.1 (2000) was a shot in
the dark - IPTV.2 is roaring down the tracks. No longer future think, it is clearly under construction today - and ready for prime time tomorrow.

More after I read my notes and process the whole thing in my head for a
Day or so...

I've been stewing on the Enron movie since I saw it last Saturday. I thought I'd blog about it right away - but I couldn't.

Because on one level, it's a story about yet another white collar crime that didn't effect me. After all - I never did quite get the Savings and Loan crisis that was the last big white collar crime.

But I don't feel that way about this movie. No not one bit. In fact - filmmaker Alex Gibney does something I didn't think was possible... Forcing us to think about the underlying 'morality' or lack there of, of almost every facet of our economic lives.

But - I've jumped to the end of the post, let me go back a bit.

The central thesis of the film (although I'm not sure Gibney would agree) is the Milgram Experiment. These are experiments in the Early 60's about obedience to authority. Milgram basically theorized - and proved - that average people would to horrible things if they had a person they accepted as an authority figure taking responsibility for the actions. The Milgram experiments could be used to explain Abu Ghraib, or Nazi Germany, or the pre-bust condition of the US Stock Market. People - when told by 'people in charge' that their actions (though seemingly immoral) were 'authorized' and that they were 'not responsible' went on to do horrible things.

Enron - it seems - was a group of well meaning folks. All passionate about changing the way natural gas, electricity, and other commodities were traded. And that passion - combined with a strong and charismatic leader - allowed them to embrace, even enjoy, a series of terrible acts that had very real consequences.

The intercutting of the traders laughing and joking about their obscene profits - as the power plants they took off line turned California into blacked-out nightmare - are haunting.

The truth is - those traders didn't know, and didn't care to think about, the consequences of their actions. It is only in Gibney's cutting room that the impact of the blackouts take on such vivid dimension.

But that's kind of the point.

The Savings and Loan Crisis. Abu Ghraib . Guantanamo Bay. People followed orders. People were told by their 'superiors' that they were absolved of responsibility. And then people acted in their own self interest - with the impunity of a charismatic figure who told them with a commanding tone and a clear voice that what they were doing was right.

If you take this lesson and hold it up more broadly to the ethics of American Business - it's unlikely that Enron has changed anything. The guy at the local Circuit City who tries like crazy to sell me a extended warrantee only knows that he gets a 'spiff' (cash or something free) for every x of these dogs he can pawn off. Back in corporate, they know that the odds are by the time your vcr, tv, or toaster oven breaks - you'll have long forgotten that you bought the extended warrantee. But the sales guy gets a pat on the back, and so he'll look you in the eye and swear 'it's a good deal.' It isn't.

Neither was Enron.
Neither was Abu Ghraib .

Lying has become an accepted part of the culture of American Business. Ethics are out. Uncool. Not profitable.

Hey - even a guy from Princeton has figured it out. On Bullshit is a best seller that asked the question -have we really come to accept lying as an accpeted part of our daily discourse. The answer- it appears - is yes.

Back to Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room. This film is a must see. Not as much of a laugh riot as Supersize Me, not as incendiary as Fahrenheit 911, but in its clear, thoughtful way, a deeply moving film.

Everyone at Enron thought they were doing the right thing. Everyone loved being along for the ride. No one took personal responsibility for their actions, or its impact on others. And now a bunch of conservative pensioners and utility workers are broke. And Kenny Boy isn't getting his calls returned from the White House.

From Digital Lifestyles
Mike Slocombe

18 May 05

Pausing briefly for breath after announcing the new PlayStation today, the busy bees in the Sony hive have announced the world's smallest and lightest high definition consumer camcorder with full HD resolution based on HDV 1080i.

The HDR-HC1 is the second consumer HD camcorder from Sony with the company hoping its lower price and size will help popularise the HD video recording format.

With some skilful spatial jiggery-pokery, Sony have managed to squeeze the camcorder's size down to less than half that of their current model, the HDR-FX1, with the price falling substantially too.

The price and size economies were brought about by replacing the 3 CCD sensors with a single CMOS image sensor - a cheaper, simpler optical system that doesn't require a bulky prism to split the image to each of the sensors.

The new camera also uses a smaller and more compact Carl Zeiss lens, with a diameter of 60mm compared to 92 mm on the previous model.

The lens offers a 10X optical and 120X digital zoom, zoom ring, zebra pattern and spot focus with manually adjustable white balance, shutter speed and focus.

Depending on the recording mode, the camcorder can provide around 90 minutes of continuous recording.

A 2.7in wide hybrid, touch-panel LCD screen allows access to menu options, with an option to switch between 16:9 and 4:3 aspect ratios (in DV mode) to see exactly how the content might look on television.

There's also a built-in microphone, pop-up flash, Super SteadyShot image stabilisation and Sony's Super NightShot Plus Infrared System for filming in low/no light conditions.

A Memory Stick PRO Duo media slot is provided for transferring images captured on the camcorder's 2.8-megapixel still camera.

Even with all these features, Sony's engineers have managed to reduce the size of the camera's electronics, cutting the 5 circuit boards down to 2 and reducing the total component count from 3,000 to 2,000.

This has been achieved with some nifty integration of components into chips, said Sony.

All of this has made the HDR-HC1 into a tiny little puppy, measuring just 71 x 94 x 188mm, and weighing a mere 680g without the battery - compare that with the previous bruiser of a camcorder that measured 151 x 181 x365 mm and weighed a muscle building 2kg.

Like its predecessor, the HDR-HC1 is based on the HDV format, which uses current-generation DV tapes to store high-definition video.

DV tapes are completely compatible and can hold the same amount of video under HDV as they can under standard definition, offering advantages to current DV camcorder users looking to preserve their investment in recording media.

HD video connectivity comes in the shape of Y/Pb/Pr component video signal, Japanese D3/D4 format signal and a 4-pin iLink interface.

This output can be streamed to high-definition compatible monitors and televisions with an HDV iLink interface.

The HDR-HC1 will be launched in Japan in early July and in North America, Europe and Asia around the same time. Although costing is not confirmed, it's expected to roll out for 180,000 Yen in Japan. (~£915 ~US$1,680 ~€1,328).

Sony

I went to see Chris Anderson from Wired interview Craig Venter.

Interesting - on a bunch of levels. First of all, I'm fascinated by the fact that I knew so little about Venter. Chris introduced him as the greatest living scientist... and a I sat up in my chair. I'd known he was the man behind the sequencing of the human genome. And I'd known he'd gotten into a wrestling match with the government over who would do it first. But that's about it.

First - a few headlines. The very first sequence was completed just 10 years ago - so this is all brand new science.

Second - Venter made the point that big science is slow... and that big leaps tend to put everyone's nose out of joint. I hadn't thought about it - but it makes sense.

and Third - that the complex questions about who owns genomics data was pushed to the fore by a government edict that NIH had to patent every discovery before it was published.

Venter is now embarking on two new projects, sequencing the seas, and sequencing the air. (he's collecting samples from a 40 story building in Manhattan - but wouldn't say which one).

this is his new non-profit research foundation

Overall - i found the complexity of his work staggering in it's importance, and equally staggering in how little coverage there has been about its potential impact. (yes, lots on his 'controversies' - they make good copy).

And then finally - back to media (the place I come from). I couldn't help but think about Anderson's Long Tail thesis, and the fact that this conversation was going on without any media capture devices recording it. If Venter will be looked back on as the father of genomics - and his musings about the challenges of getting the human genome sequenced will be of historic significance to medicine, science, energy, and the environment - then what is the long tail value of this kind of material.

I think it's significant - perhaps priceless. Since you can only suppose in the middle of a scientists career how history will treat him in retrospect. What would the value of conversations with Einstein be? Alexander Graham Bell? Louis Pasteur?

In a question and answer session after the talk, someone from the audience asked how Venter felt about the current state of High School Biology Education. He answered that his greatest concern was that recent polls suggest that 60% of American's don't believe in Evolution. He saw that as the ultimate expression of our willingness to ignore science.

USA Today is all fired up - with trend pieces about television, the web, iptv, and the like.

Next via the Internet: Tailored TV

And: What's ahead for Net, digital entertainment

I have to say it made me smile to see USA Today laying out The Long Tail like it was etched into the ten commandments of media. That combined with their piece on narrow-cast programming seems to make a fate-accompli lots of what people have been prophesizing about the future of media.

But even as folks like the Wall Street Journal gush about new iptv 'narrowcast' Om Malik says they're all too far behind to catch up. Reinventing TV for Broadband? "large media companies scrambling for a broadband content strategy. Home & Garden TV, The Food Network, and CNN.com all have announced new initiatives, reports WSJ. CNN, is going to forgo the subscription fee for its videos" More...

He's right, of course. The question is simple. Are we moving into an era that changes media in a significant way - or are we just carving the existing media content into smaller slivers.

And speaking of Torrents - here's a platform that's sooo cool i can hardly stand it: it's called the BROADCAST MACHINE. LINK

Here's what a bunch of smart folks pulled together by USA Today have to say:
Chuck D, Roger McNamee of Elevation Parnters, Michael Ramsay of Tivo, Blake Ross of Firefox, and Carla Hendra of OgilvyOne North America.

Entertainment
The Internet and digital technology are changing entertainment at lightning speed. The coming years will scramble concepts of music-making, movies, TV networks and advertising. Last week, USA TODAY's Kevin Maney assembled a panel of some of the industry's most influential players to talk about what's ahead. The discussion took place in San Francisco in front of about 200 members of Silicon Valley's Churchill Club. Maney moderated. Following are excerpts.

Topic: Anyone can create media

Q: Blogs are taking off because now, anyone can create and publish text for the world to see. The same is happening in other media — it's becoming easier to make music, videos and even movies. How will that play out?

Chuck D: The fact that somebody in the Ukraine could just wake up and fall into their (home) studio and make some kind of material and submit it to a situation that can be heard worldwide — that, to me, is incredible. It's almost like a new radio. So that's what really had me understand that the music could run parallel with this new technology and create all kinds of new possibilities.

Q: In that world, how will people find the "good" music or movies?

Chuck D: A lot of people like to play basketball. I could do a different thing with a basketball than maybe Patrick Ewing or Michael Jordan. It doesn't interfere with the NBA. Eventually, the cream does rise to the top.

There's a lot of confusion in the middle part of picking and trying to find what is what. But as that becomes more solidified, then you'll see somebody finding an artist or a filmmaker or a blog writer from the middle-of-wherever in the world.

Ross: Right now, maybe people can figure out how to do basic photo sharing, but they don't know how to do recipe sharing. They don't know how to do anything else that's really interesting to them right now.

We're looking at a way to take all these different types of media, not just movies, not just animation, but anything that people like to do — and figure out how to let people manage that and share that simply and easily. For all the talk about blogs and all, to me, it's still just a buzzword. I don't think that people really know how to do a lot of this stuff.

Topic: Exploring effects of entertainment's 'long tail'

Q: What does the "long tail" mean for entertainment and media?

Ross: Companies can form around these little niche markets where they can sell this out-of-print book and make a killing just because there were enough people out there that were looking for it and couldn't find it for the last 10 years.

McNamee: The people in the middle have tried to be arbiters of what we could be entertained by.

They've been the determinants of what's a hit, what's not a hit. The great thing about the long tail is the consumers get to decide for themselves. They don't need somebody in the middle.

At the margin, what I think you'll see is a more direct relationship between content creators, artists of one kind or another and their fans.

The thing that's truly amazing about blogs is how many of them have seven, eight, 10,000 serious readers a day, which exceeds the average reader of the average column in the average local newspaper.

What's been wrong is that capital, the money, has always been tied to distribution. The reason my firm exists is to change that, to put the capital with the content, with the creative people.

You still have to get this into people's hands. But it needs to have a model that's less based on picking what people should watch and more based on giving them what they want.

Ramsay: We've discovered exactly the same thing in video.

We can measure it. There's maybe only a hundred people who watch bass fishing or speed knitting or whatever. So they watch it, and it's important to them.

What we've found is that the viewing patterns of people who watch live television — and are therefore restricted to prime time whenever they're home — are dramatically different than the viewing patterns of people who have the choice of just picking whatever they want.

Given the choice, people will migrate towards a much greater variety, and the deal is you've got to make everything available to everybody so that they're not restricted. And if you do, the market for that more esoteric, more specialized stuff is just as big as the market of the mainstream stuff.

Chuck D: If you're looking for that fourth Sam Cooke song on an album that's been out-of-print, then everybody sort of relied on file sharing for that.

But then the (record) companies came in and started to say, well, this is thiefdom. So there are brilliant possibilities, but the smoke settling and the dust clearing is a five-year picture.
Topic: Overwhelming choice

Q: If so much entertainment is available online and so much can be stored on hard disks on TiVo machines or personal computers, how will consumers react to that?

Ramsay: There's a lot of anxiety in the industry around just having infinite amounts of storage, where you can store everything and have your own server. It's ironic, because on the consumer side, what we hear is people get storage anxiety.

It's like, "I've got too much on this thing, I'll never be able to watch it." And they get worried about that. Well, why don't they erase something? No, they don't want to do that. You've got two sort of conflicting things there.

McNamee: We don't want to look at everything in real time. We just want to have a ton of stuff on some storage thing somewhere so that when the urge hits us, we can be entertained.

If any of you is an entrepreneur, I'll tell you what I want — I want TiVo for BitTorrent. I want a thing that gives me full automation so I never have to think about it, and every high-quality Cary Grant movie gets automatically downloaded on the hard drive without any intervention by me. Nobody has done that, and it's stupid that they've never done it.

Ramsay: Search becomes a problem. The search tools that you use to find information, like Google and so on, don't generally work in video.

When Yahoo put up their video capability, I looked up (the TV show) 24. I had to go through about two pages before I actually got to the TV program.

There's going to be a growing need for entertainment-oriented search technology and for personalization and recommendations — if you like this, you're going to like that. It's not about a hundred channels or 500 channels anymore; it's about 15 million.

Hendra: Advertising agencies will be able to embed advertising within search so that we can target messages based on what people are actually searching for and their preferences as we get into a more personalized experience.

It's just the early days. There's a ton more that's going to come.

Topic: Changes in music

Q: The music industry is struggling mightily with how to handle the digital era. Can you talk about that?

Chuck D: The artist Prince — he calls himself Prince again — said it's best to be on top of technology or else it will be on top of you. Technology has always ruled the roost, but the companies who are intermediaries are never first to admit it. They always thought that they ruled the roost.

I got involved with the digital online world because I wanted to be able to go peer-to-peer. I wanted to be able to go directly to the public without having somebody judge my art. It's just opened up so many wonderful things. In 1998, I saw that having a PublicEnemy.com allowed me to go to many fans, not just in this country but throughout the world.

Roger McNamee, co-founder of Integral Capital Partners, says people want "a ton of stuff on some storage thing somewhere so that when the urge hits us, we can be entertained." Carla Hendra, of OgilvyOne North America, is on the right.

McNamee: Technology has transformed not just music, but it is gradually transforming every segment of media by making media mobile. Mobility has changed the demographics of consumption dramatically.

It used to be when you had to go to a movie theater to watch a movie or to your living room to listen to music or watch TV, that distribution could control the experience. It could control the time, place and price of your entertainment. Mobility has created time for people who previously couldn't buy or couldn't really enjoy media. It has given fans above the age of 25 — who still get minimum attention from the industry — it's given them the economic upper hand.

Ross: What the record companies are missing and the movie industry is missing, is that this is a way of life for kids. As kids grew up, (media) was always available to them. They're used to getting it on demand. They're used to going to the computer, and it's right there for them.

It's never been about oh, I don't want to pay X dollars for the CD. It's never been about undermining the record industry. It's always just been about the fact that I know the song is right there on the computer. I know I could download it.

I just can't comprehend the fact that it's there, and yet I'm supposed to go to the store and get it, because that's not the way that anything else works for us on the computer.

Q: Just curious: How do you find and buy music now?

Chuck D: For me, I have offline, online and midline. Midline is that you can order through the Web. Online means that you can go to places such as TheOrchard.com, which is an online retail shop which gets into all online retail outlets such as the Wal-Marts and the Rhapsodies and the iTunes.

Ross: On the Stanford network, there's a program that searches the network for any type of media and downloads it instantly, peer-to-peer. Of course, I only download — whatever the law is, that's only what I do. But that's how I find it. Or just through friends.

It's amazing how much content is not produced in a big warehouse but is produced by JibJab or one of these little media companies and makes the rounds on the Internet just through friends.

Topic: Video following music

Q: What do you see happening next in video and television?

Ramsay: The video world is lagging behind the music world in terms of this revolution that's occurring. It's actually evolving in very similar ways, but it's several years behind because of the technology. Obviously, video takes up a lot more bandwidth, and it's harder to distribute.

But there's no question in my mind that over the next few years, we're going to see a massive shift toward getting access to video content via broadband. You're going to see the same kinds of friction-free, self-publishing dynamic starting to happen. It's already happening. You can get on the Internet, and you can publish your video; you can make it available to anybody.

And it won't be too long before you'll be able to do that and charge for it. All the things that occur today in music are going to occur in video.

McNamee: There's a start-up called Akimbo that's about to ship a product. Its initial programming will be soccer from Europe.

It'll have things from India and from other cultures that have never been available because they don't have large-enough audiences to go on satellite or cable, but they have a plenty large-enough, and certainly devoted-enough, audience to go over the Internet.

Ramsay: Foreign programming is an interesting test case, because it fits into that same model that (Blake) was talking about a bit earlier, which is, if it's too awkward to get somewhere else and it's available on the Internet, I'm just going to download it.

If that gets to be really easy, you're going to see a flood of illegal downloading that could parallel what's been going on in music, led by foreign-language programming, because you just can't get it elsewhere.

Hendra: The networks are starting to try to figure out what they're going to do with all their content to fit the new world. They've got to figure out how to make money off it in a different way. It's going to take some people who have grown up on the computer and the Internet to change it inside those big companies.

Topic: Next-generation advertising

Q: If people have total control over their entertainment, how does advertising fit in?

Hendra: It isn't going to happen at 3 o'clock on Friday; everything's suddenly going to be a new paradigm. But I do think the next three to five years, we're going to see a massive restructuring. What's got to take place is big changes on the advertisers' side. They have to decide that they're going to join this transformational process, and they're going to change the way that they do things in terms of marketing and advertising.

Q: Is it hard to bring the advertisers around?

Hendra: There's still a whole generation of marketers and brand managers who grew up on mass media, and that has to change. It doesn't mean the 30-second TV spot will die. I don't even think that's the right question. We're still, even right now, able to use 30-second TV to drive people to that interactive experience. At the same time, we have to figure out — we're going to have these very picky and demanding audiences of one or 200 or 1,000. That takes a whole new set of skills to be able to target people that way.

Ramsay: In (the TiVo) experience, when you offer advertising to people, it's their choice. You say, here's something you might be interested in. You don't have to watch it if you don't want to.

I'm surprised at just how many people go there. You sort of have this notion that people will ignore advertising almost unilaterally, but they don't. And I think it opens up opportunities to do a lot of interactive, more personal ads, more targeted ads and more direct-response ads.

Topic: The state of the industry

Q: What else do you have to say about where the industry is going?

Ramsay: Entertainment is getting better. People have more choice. They don't have to watch stuff they don't want to watch. They don't have to listen to things they don't like. We're just at the beginning of that.

Ross: We can sit up here and talk about digital seismic earthquakes and everything, but the fact is that my grandfather still struggles with e-mail. People still hate computers and can barely figure out what we're talking about.

I want to see my grandfather blog about the war or make a movie about his experiences in his life before it's too late. People are missing that boat. We're designing (technology) for the young males and the hard-core-technology demographic.

As far as what's next for Firefox, it's about making every last bit of the Internet experience simpler until my mom is not yelling for me from the other room.

McNamee: Most major media companies define their technology strategy in terms of digital-rights management. Their view of the world is about controlling access to what they own. The next 10 years are about exactly the opposite. It's about the creative people and their fans getting together. Whatever it is you like, it will be increasingly available. It's time to give customers what they want.

It's now our job and the industry's job to actually do it. The old business models are brain-dead, and the body will die soon.

Future of Citizen news... five years from now.

I've been reading all the posts about citizen news - and watching as folks like Dan Gilmore jump off the MSM train and begin to launch local blogs. There are some natural things going on - and a likely outcome that is worth considering.

Let's start with Podcasts. I don't own an Ipod (gasp) yes, I know - should. But I don't really have that much time when having ear buds in my head would work out. Anyway, not at this moment.

So it wasn't until I discovered libsyn.com that I figured out what is obvious in hindsight - you don't need an Ipod. Ok, I might get one, in part to get podcasts into my car - but I can listen to them on my laptop. So I did. A whole bunch. And there were three categories. Good ones (well done, interesting, with good voices and good ideas) Ok ones (actually bad, but trying to be good) and Goofs (bad and bad on purpose).

My discovery is that - once my blog reader can sort out podcasts. Once there is good search mechanism. Once the good ones are really good. I'll subscribe and make them part of my media diet.

Which brings me to local news. Right now - local news is pretty bad. Sorry to my friends who toil away at local stations - but it's bad. It doesn't tell me much of what I need to know. And it always leads with car accidents or murders (often in boroughs or towns miles away from where I live). Cable news is better.

But news is local. And local is geographic. And media is mass, and that's the rub. So along comes citizen journalism. Lots of disaffected writers - some of the escapees from mainstream journalism, some of them wane be journalists, some of them kooks. I'm fine with all of them having publishing tools. Just like they had a typewriter and and a mimeograph machine before the web.

But in a few years- once the tools are all in place, and my media diet has some sort of filter/reciever/organizer to get me stuff from lots of places (blogs, vlogs, tv, cable, iptv, podcasts, whatever).

I'm going to filter OUT the 'b' and 'c' level stuff. And I won't be alone. Folks will gravitate to content that is well made, interesting, thoughtful, funny, provocative, engaging, insightful, powerful, - words like that.

And - here's the prediction. Advertisers will PAY to put messages next to their content. And because these messages will be interesting to me (one hopes) I won't mind. I may even pay a fee to subscribe to these content makers.

My point is - citizen journalists are simply what journalists always used to be, distinctly engaged citizens who will... at some point... want to make a living so that they can be citizen journalists full time (rather than in the middle of the night).

This is by no means to say that enterprises like Ohmynews won't be important. Individuals will contribute certainly - but the practice of making content for people won't become an all volunteer affair (like the fire departments in small towns) it will simply evolve as the media ecology and the advertising community figure out how to fund effective, successful local media.

And now we mean local in the true sense of the word. Stories that effect my community. Both my geographic community and my intellectual community. Oh, and my community of hobbies and interests as well.

So the idea that news is facing a time of change is real - and certainly scary for the current keepers of the space. But the idea that allow a new generation of thinkers, storytellers, and even tabloid types to have a bit of bandwidth is going to turn all of us media consumers into mindless consumers of dreck gives far too much credit to the condition of local news as it exists. It can't get much worse.

As use-video begins to make its way around, and creators begin to think about talking to new nitch audiences... networks and devices may appear in unusual places. Here's a new one:

-->From makezine "new version of iTunes (4.8) just came out and it now supports video. So it looks like we're getting one step closer to use iTunes as a way to view video blogs and TV-like content (or whatever Apple has planned too). The next podcasting applications like iPodder will likely support ways of getting the videos in an easy way automatically (I'm guessing that it might work now, I just downloaded iTunes 4.8 a minute ago). more

And more useful iTunes more

And for another look at how video may start to bounce around: Link

Sue Rubin is the kind of person you want to hang out with. She's funny. She's smart. And she's had more than her share of challenges in her life. She's afraid to walk over thresholds in doorways, she always carries a pair of plastic spoons in her hand, and she on occasion has wild outbursts.

Susie - as her parents call her - narrates a film that will premier on CNN on May 22nd. She's written the narration herself, and the honesty and raw emotion of how the world looks through her eyes is riveting.

The fact that CNN has devoted an hour of prime time to Susie Rubin's story is extraordinary. She's not famous. She hasn't been the victim of a crime. What is important about her is her point of view.

Oh, did i mention that Susie wrote the narration, but didn't record the voice for the film? That's because she doesn't speak very well. In fact, she mostly communicates with a keyboard.

Susie has Autism. And this is her World.

The film is called "Autism is a World" - and it is presented as part of the series CNN Presents, Sunday May 22nd at 8pm.

I had a chance to go to an advance screening and it's an exciting peek at some of the new voices coming out of CNN.

The film is directed by Gerardine Wurzburg, and Jennifer Hyde was the Supervising Producer for the program. CNN US President Jon Klein introduced the screening - reminding audience members that he began his career in Documentary, and CNN's Sid Bedingfield moderated a remarkable question and answer period with Susie after the screening.

But - back to the movie:

Autism is a disease that is difficult to diagnose, and until recently it was assumed that most if not all autistics were mentally retarded. She was diagnosed and treated as mentally retarded until she was 13. Her mother - an amazing force of nature - then began to use facilitated communication (aids with a keyboard) and within MONTHS she was communicating in full sentences. As Susie explains it "I woke up." Wow.

The compassion of the filmmaker, the intimacy of the camera, and the voice of the film make this a surprisingly engaging and hypnotic experience. I say surprising, because the experience is very much like the one you might have if you saw Susie on the street.

Her appearance would catch your eye - but then you might look away. You might make assumptions about who she is, what she's thinking - or if she's thinking in the way you and I do.

The film invites you to look closely, to look beyond the surface, and listen to her voice. The fact that she kicked my but on the SAT's, graduated high school with a 9.8 gpa, and and can hunt and peck a searingly funny one-liner are all part of the journey that reveals itself. (ok, didn't just kick my but - but sitting in the audience, i felt like her grades - against such odds - was a personal charge to make sure i was using my gifts of speech and a health body as effectively as she has used her challenged frame.)

Autism is a World premieres on CNN Presents Sunday, May 22nd at 8pm ET

Watch it.

CREDITS:

Lensed in and around Whittier, CA where Sue makes her home, Autism Is A World was produced by State of the Art, Inc. and Producer/Director Gerardine Wurzburg, Co-Producer Douglas Biklen, Associate Producer Elissa Ewalt, Supervising Producer Jennifer Hyde, Executive Director Jody Gottlieb, Managing Editor Kathy Slobogin and Executive Producer Sid Bedingfield.

While the folks at Google and Yahoo duke it out for Video Search Supremacy... CBS has been quietly but consistently moving interesting elements of its news and entertainment offerings to the web.

After a mention that CBS News was providing almost real time links to Yahoo -as part of the launch of Yahoo Video last week, I decided it was worth a look. To my surprise, I found a build your own newscast site, complete with 60 Minutes, 48 Hours, Evening News, and the Early Show segments - all their for my viewing pleasure.

The interface is clean and easy to manage, video is offered in both Real and Windows (no QuickTime) and the experience is very TV like.

And this is before Larry Krammer joins as the head of CBS Digital Media - a new division that will oversee the content and sales of the network's online properties, including SportsLine.com, CBS.com, CBSNews.com and UPN.com. The web has rumored that Kramer's plan is to combine all of these Web sites into one group - which certainly makes sense.

"We are trying to build critical mass around our web businesses, which are all growing and already benefit from the phenomenal success CBS is having on the television network," Kramer said. "By putting all of our websites into the same group, we will be able to offer larger and more creative advertising solutions for the growing number of internet advertisers."

It will be worth watching to see if the arrival of Krammer turbo charges the already active CBS News web enterprise - seems likely.

Can't Talk, I'm Watching My Cellphone'
TV programs head to an even smaller screen as carriers scramble for mobile clips to air.

By Matea Gold, Times Staff Writer

OVERLAND PARK, Kan. — Dale Knoop works in a suburban office complex, a long way from the Hollywood suites where network officials greenlight new TV shows. But here he was on a recent drizzly morning, listening to a pitch for a new hip-hop channel called Pure Phat.

Knoop is in the vanguard of a rapidly changing medium that industry experts predict will transform the way we watch news and entertainment: mobile phone television.

As Sprint's manager of multimedia services, he decides what programs to offer subscribers of Sprint TV, a $9.99-per-month service that allows wireless users to watch a range of programs, including the Weather Channel and a live feed of Fox News.

"None of us work at a network," said Knoop after hearing the pitch, "but we know this is what they do."

Several years ago, watching television on your phone seemed futuristic and out of reach. But a flurry of activity by mobile phone carriers, software developers and media companies has made the idea a reality. link to article

Interesting... worth paying attention to...

By RACHEL KONRAD
AP Technology Writer
May 9, 11:46 AM EDT

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- The number of people who use Craigslist.org is expanding at more than 100 percent per year - a growth rate any venture capitalist would covet. But the people who run the 10-year-old community Web site, which gets 8 million unique users and more than 2 billion page views per month, seem to have little interest in exploiting new sources of revenue, going public or even adding to their 18-person staff.

More...

This months issue of The Nation features a long piece about Al Gore and the launch of "Current". The article points the genisis of the network to Gore's initial interest in UnFiltered, which i think is partly true. Certainly there are a number of things happening in the world that drive media toward user-content, blogs, podcasts, vlogs, and such.

But what i think all of the media enterprises trying to link up to user-content seem to miss is that the things that are fueling user-created content are the same things that are undermining mainstream media.

Mass distribution is fundamentally unsatisfying to creators. Would you rather give a speech (or read a poem) in a stadium with a white-hot spotlight blinding you from seeing a crowd of 60,000 or in a place like New York's Town Hall - an intimate room of 350 who can respond, cheer, and even ask questions.

Big media isn't good media.

So Current, or Kyou (san fran), or Adam Curry on Sirus all need to tell content creators why they aren't just fine building their brand, and their own economic future on an internet distribution platform.

Maybe they don't need to be embraced by mass media to feel meaningful.

article | Posted April 28, 2005
Al Gore Gets Down

During a town hall meeting on MTV in 2000, Al Gore dismissed a question about the rapper Mos Def. Throughout his career, Gore viewed hip-hop music, even when practiced by a politically conscious artist like Mos Def, as an undignified form of political expression. "Gandhi once said you must become the change you wish to see in the world," Gore said of hip-hop. "I don't think it's good enough to say, 'Well, we're just reflecting a reality.'"

Can Current be serious and dignified and appealing and popular? "On air, you're faced with the tyranny of the mass media," says Steve Rosenbaum, creator of MTV's UNfiltered, the inspiration for Current's initial vision. "Which is: If you do three pieces--one on the environment in Alaska, one on homeless people in New York and one on teenage girls getting breast implants, guess which one will do better than the others? People, especially those who watch TV, tend to be attracted to less intelligent, coarser, less thoughtful programming."

More

+ RECORD-BREAKING FESTIVAL WRAPS UP IN TORONTO

Hot Docs is delighted to announce that audience ballots compiled over the festival's 10 days give first-time director Marshall Curry's STREET FIGHT the highest rating in the annual audience poll, making it the winner of the 2005 Audience Award. STREET FIGHT was also named Best International Documentary by Hot Docs' Festival Jury.

The Audience Award is sponsored by History Television.
 
The audience picks for the top 10 films at Hot Docs 2005 are:
 
1)      STREET FIGHT (D: Marshall Curry);
2)      WATERMARKS (D: Yaron Zilberman);
3)      BETWEEN MIDNIGHT AND THE ROOSTER'S CROW (D: Nadja Drost);
4)      MURDERBALL (D: Dana Adam Shapiro, Henry Alex Rubin);
5)      THE DEVIL'S MINER (D: Kief Davidson, Richard Ladkani);
6)      VENDETTA SONG (D: Eylem Kaftan);
7)      STROKE (D: Katarina Peters);
8)      ABEL RAISES CAIN (D: Jenny Abel, Jeff Hockett);
9)      WETBACK - THE UNDOCUMENTED DOCUMENTARY (D: Arturo Perez Torres);
10)  NO MORE TEARS SISTER: ANATOMY OF HOPE AND BETRAYAL (D: Helene Klodawksy).

2005 Awards Winners Announced
The 2005 Tribeca Film Festival Awards Ceremony took place Saturday, April 30, at the Tribeca Performing Arts Center at BMCC. Awards were given for both narrative and documentary films, feature-length and shorts. Please join us on Sunday, May 1 for encore presentations of the feature winners at Regal Cinemas. For a schedule, click here.

And the winners are…

BEST NARRATIVE FEATURE
Stolen Life (Sheng Si Jie) (China)
Director: Li Shaohong

NARRATIVE FEATURE SPECIAL MENTION
My Brother’s Summer (L’estate di mio Fratello) (Italy)
Director: Pietro Reggiani

BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE
El Perro Negro: Stories from the Spanish Civil War (Netherlands/Hungary)
Director: Peter Forgacs

EMERGING NARRATIVE FILMMAKER AWARD
Alicia Scherson, Play (Chile/Argentina)

EMERGING DOCUMENTARY FILMMAKER AWARD
Jeff Zimbalist, Matt Mochary,
Favela Rising (Brazil/USA)

EMERGING DOCUMENTARY FILMMAKER SPECIAL MENTION
Kief Davidson, Richard Ladkani,
The Devil’s Miner (Germany/USA)

BEST ACTRESS IN A NARRATIVE FEATURE
Felicity Huffman, Transamerica (Director: Duncan Tucker; USA)

BEST ACTOR IN A NARRATIVE FEATURE
Cees Geel, Simon (Director: Eddy Terstall; Netherlands)

MADE IN NEW YORK
BEST NARRATIVE FEATURE
Red Doors (USA)
Director: Georgia Lee

MADE IN NEW YORK NARRATIVE FEATURE SPECIAL MENTION
Bittersweet Place (USA)
Director: Alexandra Brodsky

NEW YORK LOVES FILM
BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE
Rikers High (USA/France)
Director: Victor Buhler

NEW YORK LOVES FILM DOCUMENTARY FEATURE SPECIAL MENTION
The American Ruling Class (USA)
Director: John Kirby

AUDIENCE AWARD
Street Fight (USA)
Director: Marshall Curry

KIDS PICK FAMILY SHORT
Spandex: A Father's Tale (USA)
Director: Matthew Manson

BEST NARRATIVE SHORT
Cashback (UK)
Director: Sean Ellis

NARRATIVE SHORT SPECIAL MENTION
Jihad (USA)
Director: Michael Shapiro

BEST DOCUMENTARY SHORT
The Life of Kevin Carter (USA)
Director: Dan Krauss

BEST STUDENT VISIONARY SHORT
Dance Mania Fantastic (USA)
Director: Sasie Sealy

STUDENT VISIONARY SPECIAL MENTIONS
Draft (Israel)
Director/Screenwriter: Naomi Levari
Photo of Luzmila (Peru/USA)
Director/Producer/Screenwriter/Cinematographer/Editor: Mayu Mohanna