Technology360

Local TV news when you want it

Keith Reed writes:

... Local stations are following the example of broadcast and cable networks, which are rushing to make hits like ``The Sopranos" and ``Lost" available to viewers unwilling to be tethered to a schedule or their TV sets. Locally though, it's the news instead of mob dramas that is migrating to new devices. ¶  Boston TV executives say their multimedia strategies are a response to viewers who are increasingly shifting their viewing to the Web and portable devices. Doing so, they say, is a relatively cheap way to expand the reach of their programming because it usually doesn't involve investing in new equipment or in many cases even the time it takes to produce new video. ...

Link:  Boston Globe.  To which prognosticator Phillip Swann grouses that broadcasters may be too quick to jump on the bandwagon:  Local TV News Jumps Out of the Box (link:  TV Predictions).  --Dennis

Could Giving Voters On-Demand Content Get Them Interested?

Peter Grant writes:

Cable subscribers increasingly are using so-called on-demand technology to watch programs like "The Sopranos" or old movies whenever they want. But the technology also has great potential as a tool for making our democratic system work better.  ¶  Consider what was available on demand on Time Warner's cable system in Lincoln, Neb., just before that state's primary election earlier this month. Voters were able to watch the debates between candidates running for the state legislature, for treasurer and for secretary of state. While not the most scintillating television, voters who took their responsibility seriously were able to be informed, free of charge, before heading to the ballot box. ...

Link:  Wall Street Journal.

What is 'New Media'?

Vin Crosbie has a long and thoughtful essay on understanding the true divisions in media.  He posits that only three media exist:  the interpersonal medium, the mass medium (e.g., oratory, sermons, edicts, , scriptures, plays, books, newspapers, billboards, magazines, cinema, radio, television, bulletin boards, and webcasting"), and the new medium.  Crosbie writes that the hallmarks of this new medium are:

• Uniquely individualized information can simultaneously be delivered or displayed to a potentially infinite number of people.
• Each of the people involved — whether publisher, broadcasters, or consumer — shares equal and reciprocal control over that content.

Link:  Rebuilding Media.  Highly recommended.  --Dennis

Web 2.0 Is Not Media 2.0

Scott Karp writes:

... Here’s the problem — Web 2.0 is not a great platform for helping the average person consume media.  ¶  Consumer-created media is transforming the content landscape for the better, and consumer-controlled media is undoubtedly the new paradigm. But the average person does not have much time (if any) to spend creating media and has patience for only a finite amount of choice. Bloggers and others who put a lot of time and effort into media consumption and media creation are outliers — people may want something more customized than the morning paper, but they still want the simplicity and leisure feel. Media based on Web 2.0 is just too hard. ...

Link:  Publishing 2.0.  Thanks to Gens Johnson for the tip.  --Dennis

Why the Democratic Ethic of the World Wide Web May Be About to End

In an opinion piece, Adam Cohen writes:

... Last year, the chief executive of what is now AT&T sent shock waves through cyberspace when he asked why Web sites should be able to "use my pipes free." Internet service providers would like to be able to charge Web sites for access to their customers. Web sites that could not pay the new fees would be accessible at a slower speed, or perhaps not be accessible at all.  ¶  A tiered Internet poses a threat at many levels. Service providers could, for example, shut out Web sites whose politics they dislike. Even if they did not discriminate on the basis of content, access fees would automatically marginalize smaller, poorer Web sites.  ¶  Consider online video, which depends on the availability of higher-speed connections. Internet users can now watch channels, like BBC World, that are not available on their own cable systems, and they have access to video blogs and Web sites like YouTube.com, where people upload videos of their own creation. Under tiered pricing, Internet users might be able to get videos only from major corporate channels. ...

Link:  New York Times.

Sales of Home Media Servers at 50 Million Units by 2010

Press release:

Annual sales of home media servers will reach nearly 50 million units in the U.S. by the end of 2010, according to Parks Associates’ new report Media Servers: Analysis and Forecasts. The report, which defines a media server as a hard drive-based platform with media sharing software linked via a home network, finds that demand- and supply-side drivers will spur the growth of these media centralization platforms over the next five years.

««Click for larger view.  Link:  Park Associates.   Thanks to Stephen Hill for the tip.  I believe that storage and parallel improvements in compression technology will likely make home media servers and portable storage devices more important than networking as a development in the next decade.  --Dennis

Digital Maoism: The Hazards of the New Online Collectivism

Dreadlocks not withstanding, Jaron Lanier would be on, if there were such a thing, my short list of the smartest people on the planet.  He's just written what will surely be a provocative essay for Edge.org (a favorite escape of mine from tech reading) against the "hive mind" that he finds in ascendancy on the Web.  He uses Wikipedia as exempli gratia, but his real targets are the anonymity of wikis and the trend towards meta- and even meta-meta- sites.  Although a bit beyond the focus of this weblog, I'd certainly recommend this provocation to anyone interested in how the Web is developing.  Link:  Edge.org. 

Also see Ed Batista's Attribution Matters.  Link:  AttentionTrust.org. 

Updated 6/5/2006:
Umair Haque takes issue with Lanier's thesis in 2½ posts.  Don't leave this topic without reading this.  See Research Note: The New Bourgeoisie (link: Bubblegeneration), Cold War (link: Bubblegeneration), and (More) Cold War (link: Bubblegeneration).  --Dennis

Should the Net Be Neutral?

Telco lobbyist (and former Clinton press secretary) Mike McCurry and Craigslist chairman Craig Newmark debate net neutrality in the Wall Street Journal.  --Dennis

The Shorter, Faster, Cruder, Tinier TV Show

Randy Kennedy writes:

... By the most optimistic counts, there are only about 3 million people out of the almost 200 million cellphone users in the United States who now watch video on their phones. Other analysts say the number of those who watch regularly is much lower, which leads them to ask whether people really want another version of television, one they can literally take anywhere. Judging by what is happening in other parts of the world, where the mobile-television experiment is well under way, the more pertinent questions are: What are they going to want to watch? Will it be regular live television, redirected to their phones? Or typical television fare, edited and re-packaged to suit a screen smaller than a business card? It might end up being neither, but instead a new amalgam that feels little like traditional television and more like the increasingly video-dominated Web — like computer games, like the kind of shaggy user-generated video and mashed-up video clips that began as novelties for people killing time in their cubicles but are now on their way to becoming big business. ...

Link:  New York Times.

Netflix CEO confirms download plans

Timothy J. Mullaney writes:

... [Netflix CEO Reed] Hastings is hedging his bets by expanding Netflix into niches that will help it maintain an edge as new rivals emerge. He's positioning it as a film investor and source of high-quality content -- like Home Box Office for DVD rentals. He also wants to be a player in Web distribution, which it will launch by yearend even though Hastings thinks the market for downloading will be tiny for years. ...

Link:  BusinessWeek.