Disney: One Tentative Step Towards the Present

I have never understand and still do not understand why putting otherwise free content on the internet is even an issue. If I were in charge of a TV network, I’d have started streaming my content back in the nineties. All of it.

If someone can receive my shows over the air for crying out loud and for free for crying out loud, what, exactly, is it that I am trying to preserve by treating this content like it’s some sort of national treasure? People have been recording and time-shifting network television since the VCR went mainstream in the early eighties.

TV networks have been hiding in the past for a couple of reasons.

One, there are a lot more content producers chasing the same number of viewers, so business expectations required that the networks proceed with caution to avoid giving away a potential revenue source. The record labels have already begun a de facto movement aimed at forcing consumers to pay for the same content multiple times.

The networks can’t really do that, since the content is primarily ad-based and has always been available for free. A corollary to the Billy Preston Rule makes it hard for the networks to take the record labels’ approach ($0 multiplied by anything is still $0).

Second, the networks were incredibly slow to appreciate the power of the internet. I’m still not sure they fully understand that the internet is a distribution method, not some mystical new business model.

Disney seems to have figured some of this out, and has announced that it will begin to stream some of its most popular shows, including Lost and Desperate Housewives at no cost to viewers. Note that the content will be streamed and that there will be non-skippable ads. Streaming gives Disney comfort (false perhaps) that it is not allowing the content to roam freely on the world “wild” web, and ads pay at least some of the costs of providing the content online.

It is important to note that this is being described as a two month trial period. Think of Disney as the Groundhog in late January. It’s about to peek out from its hole, but anything dark and scary might send it running back to a safe offline place.

Which means that I hope someone has prepared the Disney executives for the inevitable recording and redistribution of the streams. There is a way to record anything you can see or hear over a computer- and you can be sure someone will do it. I hope Disney doesn’t get spooked by that or we could be in for many more weeks of network internet-avoidance.

Just remember Disney- people can also record and redistribute content they receive over the air. The internet is no different. Say it with me. It is no different.

I think if Disney stays the course, we’ll see all of its network content online before too long. Being the first network to bow to the inevitable should and hopefully will pay off in the end.

Of course the real losers in this game are the vendors like iTunes who have been grasping for a way to make some money by reselling network content to the 10 people who actually watch TV shows on their iPods. I suppose those 10 people can still buy the right to do so, but this gives the rest of us a way to watch a show if our TIVOs crash (which, as we all know, they often do).

I’m excited about this and I applaud Disney for being at least a little progressive.

Bott vs Cringely and My Lawyer Newsome Story

I have a confession to make.

I’ve never watched much public television. Yes, I like Austin City Limits. And yes, I love PBS’s children’s shows, which my kids used to watch a lot before they learned about Sponge Bob and Scooby-Doo. But other than the mysteries that used to come on on Thursday nights, which I quit watching when that guy who played such an excellent Sherlock Holmes died, I have watched very little public television.

So I’d never heard of Robert X. Cringely until a few months ago. Apparently he’s a tech writer for PBS. While I’m in confession mode, I didn’t even realize there was one PBS. I thought PBS was a name for the various public television stations around the country who produce those great kids shows and other stuff favored by hybrid drivers and vegetarians.

But I digress.

Ed Bott came out swinging yesterday over an article Cringely wrote that touched on computer security.

It seems that Cringely mischaracterized some comments made by Mike Danseglio, program manager for the Security Solutions group at Microsoft, at the InfoSec World conference. World conference. Why not Universe conference? I know, why not Conference that Encompasses all of Time and Space? World conference. World Series. My old neighbor World B. Free. Names are the tattoos of the needle averse crowd.

Without going into a bunch of detail, Cringely quoted Danseglio as saying that the best way for companies and governments to deal with malware and spyware infestations is to put in place automated processes to wipe clean hard drives and reinstall operating systems and applications periodically.

What?

Has this guy ever even been inside a big corporate office? Does he have any idea how hard that would be to implement? It would require first and foremost a way to backup everything on every computer on the network. And here’s a news flash. Many if not most big companies store emails and documents on central servers. What they do not do is back up the hard drives of every local computer regularly, if at all.

You can’t rely on the desktop users to know how not to open an email from a stranger that says “I Love You,” so you certainly can’t expect them to know to or how to back up their hard drives. You also can’t explain to them why all of their locally stored data disappears every couple of weeks or months.

In sum, that is an unworkable solution for many companies.

To make matters worse, but much more interesting, Ed busts on Cringely for mischaracterizing what Danseglio said. Ed says, and based on what I read at the eWeek article I’d have to agree, that Danseglio said only that a hard drive wipe and reinstall is a last resort against a deeply infected machine. He also said that prevention was the best approach. From the eWeek article:

“The easy way to deal with this is to think about prevention. Preventing an infection is far easier than cleaning up,” he said, urging enterprise administrators to block known bad content using firewalls and proxy filtering and to ensure security software regularly scans for infections.

Ed smacks Cringely around pretty good and concludes:

If it says Cringely, you know it’s wrong.

I also didn’t know that Robert X. Cringely wasn’t this cat’s real name until I read Ed’s post. Why, exactly, does a tech writer for PBS need to pull a Marion Morrison and create a stage name? I am highly suspicious of anyone who isn’t a John Wayne-equivalent who uses an alias. A handle, like The Internet Guy, The Sports Guy or whatnot is fine because nobody believes that’s a given name. But using another name is just too Dragnet for me.

Also, I get really hacked when someone introduces themselves to me using their middle initial. “Hello, I’m Harcourt P. Livingston,” usually results in me going half caveman and half Cher by thumping my chest and saying “Kent” a couple of times.

Some people have like five names. I once met a guy who had five names and was the IVth. We didn’t hang out much.

All of this reminds me of something that happened many years ago in my wife’s hometown. We had been to her parents’ church and were standing around talking outside after the service. Some guy walks up to me and puts out his hand (now remember, this was a social setting) and says “Hello, I am Dr. So-and-so.” I shook his hand and said “Pleased to meet you, I’m lawyer Newsome.”

As I knew he would be, he was offended. My point was made.

Names. You have to love ’em.

About the Video Hosting Services

Dwight Silverman has a post this morning about the various video hosting services. He links to a post by DVguru that summarizes many of the options. I’ve looked at many of these sites as a part of my Web 2.0 Wars series and I’ve uploaded quite a few videos to test them out. Here’s my take.

I have traditionally used Castpost to host the videos I upload, because I am an alpha tester and because it was one of the first services that appeared on my radar. Castpost is still in alpha testing and has fallen behind some of the other services in the mindshare race. I hope it catches up, but in the meantime, I want to talk about the other video-related sites I use.

For finding good (and by good I generally mean funny) content, I start with YouTube and end up with Google Video. If there’s something video-related starting to create a buzz in the blogosphere, 9 times out of 10 it will be available on one of those sites. I like YouTube’s layout and interface better, but Google Video is easy to use and much better than many of Google’s recently added “me too” services.

But there’s another option for hosting video content you want to quickly add to your blog that I like better than either of those.

Stickam is neat because, in addition to uploading video files, you can create a video with your webcam directly from the Stickam application and save it directly to your Stickam account. A link is then automatically generated that will allow you to embed that video on a web page or in a blog post. The main Stickam page is too busy and not quite as intuitive as YouTube’s, but the extra features make it my choice for the creation and/or uploading of video content.

If you want to create, combine and edit videos online, the place to start is probably Jumpcut. One cool thing about Jumpcut is that you can remix other people’s videos to make your own version. I found this excellent song and equally excellent video at Jumpcut.

For me it breaks down like this:

Finding Video: YouTube; Google Video
Uploading Video: YouTube; Castpost
Creating Video for My Blog: Stickam
Editing and Remixing Video: Jumpcut

Newsome Research Report: The Sky is Still Blue

blue
Important Newsome.Org Research Report

The blogosphere is all a tither over a new Forrester Research report that says virtually nobody (percentage wise) listens to podcasts. Om says that’s OK because the glass is half full since more people listen to podcasts than use Web 2.0 applications. Look for Om’s new show on the Comedy Channel, because that was Onion funny.

Before gazing up to the sky in preparation for our new research report, those of me at Newsome Research asked a random sampling of the people at our dinner table the other night (3 families worth, with 2 iPod owners among them) if they listened to podcasts. I’ve tried to ask this question before, but people just looked at me blankly for a second or two before going back to whatever relevant conversation I had interrupted.

50% of the iPod owners knew what a podcast was, but none of them had ever listened to one. This is true notwithstanding the fact that one of the attendees (that would be me) does a podcast.

I’m almost 100% certain that, except for a couple of people who listen to my podcasts from their computers so they can tease me about the fact that I do one, no one I know in the real world has ever listened to a podcast. I am exactly 100% certain that no one I know in the real world has ever listed to a podcast on a pod.

Sometimes those of us in the tech blogosphere start believing that anyone other than us cares about the stuff we care about. That is a huge mistake. We are blogging and podcasting for each other. The 5 blog readers without a blog probably have a blog by now. Embrace the truth and it will free you. And all that.

Now back to podcasts.

Om points out correctly that podcasts are still hard to do. Doc Searls and I have talked about that as well. Don Dodge says it’s about user impatience, and I think he’s onto something. That’s why Podzinger will rule the podosphere if it can get word searching to work right.

So why do we do them?

Because we are interested in the technology and because we can. Sure, some people listen to them, but I suspect that most podcasters have little or no interaction with their listeners. You can’t leave a comment or a trackback to a podcast (sure, you can to a post talking about the podcast, but that’s different).

Podcasts are, for me, a supplemental and less interactive addition to my blog. Because I talk about music some, they let me play some of that music for people. I can assure you of one thing- if I didn’t have a blog, there’s no way I would go to all the effort of doing a podcast.

Om has 700 listeners. In podcast numbers (which are something like dog years), that’s like a million. Of course Om is well known as is his co-host Niall Kennedy. If I quit my day job and did nothing but podcast for 15 years, I might end up with half that many listeners. Then, of course, I would decide that podcasting is too hard and stop- making all that effort for naught.

So unlike blogging, where I disagree with those who claim not to care about having readers, I don’t think any sane person who isn’t Om or a near-Om would start podcasting and expect his or her numbers to get far into the triple digits. Podcasters podcast for a hundred different reasons. Ones who want to stay sane don’t do it for the traffic.

I don’t understand who is surprised by this new Forrester Research report. Perhaps the same ones who will be surprised by the latest Newsome Research Report. Tomorrow morning, I’ll look up when I go outside and do an update.

RanchoCast – April 7, 2006 Edition

I did a new podcast tonight. The theme is the Classic Rock Show.

Raina and the kids are visiting her parents this weekend, so Lucky Dog and I turned it up and played some of my favorite classic rock songs. Allman Brothers, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Grateful Dead, Mountain, a live gem from the Guess Who and much more.

64 minutes of good classic rock.

When the Music’s Over: Blogging Through a Dry Spell

When the music’s over, yeah
When the music’s over
Turn out the lights

-The Doors

The more I write this blog, the more similarities I see between songwriting and blogging. They have converged, at least in my mind, into two sides of the same coin.

Both kinds of writing are, first and foremost, about self-expression. They are about taking an idea and presenting it in a way that is hopefully a little clever, a little insightful and a little universal. They are about leaving an impression; planting a line in the listener or reader’s mind, so he or she will buy your record or subscribe to your blog.

Mostly, they are both about being heard in a noisy world.

I’ve been a songwriter since the early 70’s, when some high school buddies of mine recorded one of my songs. I still remember where I was the first time I heard that song on the radio (at the public tennis courts in my hometown- someone called me to their car when they heard the DJ introduce the song).

I wrote songs throughout high school, then took a 4 year break as I focused on other things, only some of them study-related, during college.

I spent 3 years in Nashville after college and began writing and playing more while immersed in the great music scene that was the Nashville of the mid-80’s. I’ve written songs pretty consistently since then.

Except, of course, when I don’t.

Many years ago when we first started writing songs together, I told my friend and long-time writing partner, Ronnie Jeffrey, that I went through semi-regular dry spells. Periods of time during which no songs came to me. Times when I could sit with a pen or guitar in my hand for hours on end and not one line or melody would come to me. Usually, these spells last a few months. Sometimes they last a year.

I’ve been in one now for well over a year.

When I started blogging, I had so much to say. I didn’t think I would ever have to struggle to come up with a topic I wanted to address. For a long time, it wasn’t unusual for me to post 5-6 times a day. People talked back, which led to more conversation. I thought the well was bottomless.

But alas, it is not.

Lately, I have found that the same sort of dry spells happen in blogging too. I’ve been in one for a couple of weeks now. Normally, I do most of my writing at night and on the occasional weekend day when the kids are on a sleepover or otherwise not around to play with me. I write drafts of posts or ideas, which I finish up and publish at various times during the week. Lately, when I sit down to write I find that I have less to say than normal.

Phil Sim thinks this may be because the tech-related blogosphere has peaked. I have to admit that most of what Phil says makes sense to me. I still scour my reading list and the memetrackers for interesting conversations to join- I just haven’t felt as compelled to jump into the fray lately. Dave Winer used to be a sure-fix for something to write about. Lately, I’m as bored by his blogging as he is (no offense intended to Dave- my point is that I can understand why he’s about to stop blogging). Even my always dependable buddy Mathew Ingram seems to be struggling a little to find stuff to write about.

But somehow this feels a little familiar. As if I’ve faced the same wall before.

It feels amazingly like a songwriting dry spell. Ideas that lose steam. Draft posts unfinished. A vague apathy when I read something that normally would elicit an immediate response.

When you’re young and irresponsible, there are ways to kick-start yourself out of a dry spell. Read Carlos Castaneda, travel to India, change religions, drink mezcal. Don’t think for a minute that a musician’s inability to make music in middle age as good as the music he made in his 20’s is a coincidence. It’s not.

When a dry spell happens to a grown-up with responsibilities, about all you can do is ride it out. Write less so your quality doesn’t suffer too much. Wait for something or someone to kick start you into a flow of opinions and perspectives.

Every time I have a songwriting dry spell, I wonder if I’ve written my last song. Having been in one now for so long, I may have. I don’t want the same thing to happen to my blogging.

I want to want to write more. Someone throw me a rope. Pick a fight with me. Just do something to kick-start the conversation.

I hope the blogging dry spell will pass like the prior songwriting ones did.

In the meantime, all I can do is ride it out. And wait.

Movies for the Rich and Impatient

I have this lurking concern that I’m falling for a belated April Fool’s Date gag, but it seems that the Hollywood cartel, recognizing that the cat has left the bag, is going to start selling movies online for download.

I’ve reported before about Movielink (owned by the Hollywood cartel), where you can rent movies online for a few dollars a piece. Once you download the movie, you have around a month to begin watching it and 24 hours after you start watching it to finish it. Although it takes forever to download a movie (and that assumes a broadband connection), this is a good way to put movies on your laptop or Tablet PC for airports and airplanes.

The four people who really want to watch movies over and over on their computers have complained that the download service is a drag because of the time limits on starting and stopping the movie.

So the Hollywood cartel is going to give them what they want.

Now instead of the few bucks you pay to rent newly released DVDs from Netflix, Movielink or your neighborhood video store, you can download them from the Hollywood cartel on the day the DVD is released. For a mere “$20 to $30.”

New release DVDs cost around $20 to $25 to buy. Plus, those DVDs can be played on stand-alone DVD players, watched on TVs and used to pacify kids during long car trips.

So the downloads cost around $5 more, even though they cost around $5 less to distribute via download.

But if you meet these requirements:

1) You have a lot of money and don’t mind wasting it;

2) You want to be the first on your block to watch a newly released DVD (waiting a few days is just not an option for you);

3) You want to watch the same movies over and over on your computer;

4) You are reasonably computer proficient; and

5) You have a broadband internet connection at home (no tying up company resources for this),

then the Hollywood cartel has a treat in store for you.

Warren N. Lieberfarb, the former president of Warner Home Video and now an entertainment technology consultant, hit the nail on the head:

They are giving the consumer less and charging more for it. To me this really stacks the deck against mass consumer adoption.

The Hollywood cartel and its cousin, the record label cartel, don’t give a hoot about the consumer. They are only concerned with extending the inevitable decline of their distribution monopolies by making the consumer overpay and/or pay multiple times.

This is just more smoke and mirrors designed to extract more revenue from the same product.

My prediction is that this is met with a collective yawn by the movie buying public.

Camp Newsome

What a fun and busy weekend.

On Friday night, Cassidy’s entire Brownie Troop camped out in our yard. We had 15 Brownies, 6 Girl Scout helpers and 6 moms. The girls played games, sang songs, had a scavenger hunt and had a grand time.

Delaney and I went to the Astros exhibition game on Friday night with the Veldman boys (the girls were at the campout). Delaney loves the Astros, and it was a great chance for us to spend some Delaney/Daddy time.

On Saturday, Cassidy had a sleepover with a friend in Sugar Land, and today we had a cookout and soccer game with the Clarks. The girls (Cassidy, Delaney, Evie, Raina and Yvette) beat the boys (me, Greg and Aidan) 10-5. Afterwards the kids swam and had some blueberry pie for dessert.

Luke is too little to play soccer, but he did get in the pool for the first time today.

Big fun meant little blogging.

Work resumes tomorrow. Regular blogging resumes tomorrow night.

364 Days

Before April Fool’s Day rolls back around.

I like April Fool’s Day, but it just doesn’t translate well in the blogosphere. Lots of pranks were attempted, but the humor rate was pretty low.

Randy Morin did find one thing I thought was pretty funny.

Mike Arrington gets my award for the best April Fool’s related post. The reason his post fooled so many people is because it is so similar to stories about real Web 2.0 science projects.