Monthly Archives: July 2008

High Time to Drop Cable Television!

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“Time to drop cable television? Not so fast? (Reuters 25 JUL 08)”

This Reuters story – also reprinted in Scientific American is a great example of the misconception that the “new” in new media is a technical question.

Changes in media usage behavior and acceptance of new media are almost always based on sociodynamics once the technology is reasonably affordable and usable by the target audience.

Kenneth Li mentions the “complexity of hooking up these devices [Roku, Sony Bravia Internet Link, Amazon UnBox Video on Demand (NY Times Story) lack of content and relatively high prices" [... and a] general aversion to yet another gadget in the living room [...] are other reasons why the idea has failed to catch on.”

There is way more content available than anyone has the desire, need or time to watch and high cost and even technical complexity has never kept customers from adopting new gadgets. Crystal Radios were difficult to use and expensive in the 1920 and people were excited as they offered a new source of content and entertainment. For the same reason, YouTube acceptance

Ducretet crystal radio (1923)

Ducretet crystal radio (1923)

It’s high time to get rid of CATV (and Sat TV as it is served today for that matter) – get rid of an obsolete way to consume content. Not the “limited offers” of Netflix (Roku), AMZN, … but the behavioral change to decide what to watch rather than surfing a never ending stream is the hard part.

According to 2008 Census data, the average daily TC consumption for adults is 4.7 hrs, with at least a few not watching at all, this leaves even more time to work on for the others. Anything above 2 hrs per day cannot be accomplished unless you do something else at the same time, which is easy if the box just spits out stuff, but personally programming 35-40 hrs hrs per week, selecting the content, lining it up and presenting it becomes a major task, especially as you cannot order from Netflix or any of the other systems “Three hrs of junk-content to keep the TV filled while nobody is watching”.

As TV screens move from the media armoire into your left hand, active and interactive participation increases and this triggers changes in the programming. Few people will hold their cell phone for extended periods to watch stuff they’re not really interested in.

A good way to check if you’re ready to drop your cable TV life support is to try to live without it. If you don’t want to get a Netflix (or similar) subscription as CATV is expensive enough, record a week’s worth of movies, series, sports events and complement it with content available over the Web. If after a week you find yourself on cold turkey from missing QVC and late night infomercials, then you’re probably stuck. Otherwise check the cancellation policy and you’re on your way to become an active viewer rather than a passive watcher.

Photo courtesy of Mike Peebles: Crystal Radios, Tube Radios, and Transistor Radio Kits, Parts, Plans, Vintage Publications, Books & Ready to go Sets. You can actually buy a crystal radio or radio kit from Mike Peebles.

Brainstorm Tech

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This year the Fortune Brainstorm Tech Conference coincides with the Summit and many of the usual suspects are heading for Half Moon Bay. The conference is covered by many blogers with big names, among them Joi Ito, who is unsure what to blog about the conference and rather uses his camera and make photos or Steve Jurvetson of DFJ who’s link goes directly to his Flicker page about his favorite topic, rockets. Rebecca McKinnon posts her answers to the questions every attendee received in advance – maybe one of the bloggers I did not check actually blogs live from the event as the agenda progresses. It seems that live blogging is so very 2007 that nobody remembers except people who set up conference Web sites a year in advance.

A Lot is Going on at Always On

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Always On

Tony Perkins, publisher, editor and Silicon Valley pundit today opens the 2008 Always On Stanford Summit, that has become the mid-summer event of the Valley. 250 Companies have been selected and a comprehensive program of speeches and round-table discussions will cover all aspects of the life of start-ups in the Valley and beyond: “The AlwaysOn & STVP Summit at Stanford is a two-and-a-half-day executive gathering that highlights the significant economic, political and commercial trends affecting the global technology industries.”

If you can make it – I will see you there – please come and say hello, otherwise try to find me on the live Webcast.

Cable Chaos as Art

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Dealing with CATV companies – Cable TV – is always a hassle, starting at the moment you sign the contract.

No whining here. The video with the Comcast service technician falling asleep on a customer’s couch has been viewed over 1.2 Million (!) times and several follow-on videos were posted  as well.

Comcast Cables

Quality of service is bad and this will not change until the cable and telecom companies lear the hard way that they are expendable, that we don’t need them. This photo taken at an apartment complex in the Silicon Valley is a great icon for the state of mind of cable companies. It’s a mess and nobody minds just letting it hang out in open public.

This art installation of a still life could be named “Hanging Network # 23″, mixed media, iron, copper, PVC, colored stickers.

Properly marketed, the owner of the property could host Saturday afternoon wine and cheese gatherings, small events, by invitation only where art critics and media professors elaborate on the transcendental quality of content as it leaves

all physical attachment to a medium behind. The setting couldn’t be better.

Centrally located, on a dead-end-street (for the francophones: cul-de-sac) with the necessary additional pieces to create the right ambiance.

And how did I find this jewel of post-networking art? I was in search of a violin teacher for my daughter. She was fascinated by the broken pool, cordoned off by yellow police-style tape and pondered when the men would come with their tools to fix the crack on the bottom of the pool and that they need to be careful not to swallow water while working as it is unhealthy. She is 3 1/2 and tells me she wants to come back to check out the pool soon. I got my 3 minutes to shoot the pictures that make me think about the importance of networks in our lives. There was another really neatly organized network, built by people who know if they screw up it is even more deadly:

Oldfashioned, all data copied by hand by a diligent person who fears nothing but the neighbor dog.

Here is the “Sleeping Comcast Video”:

The Mysteries of SEM

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I posted a photo “Water play with the girls in the backyard” on Twitter – trying to make it sound somewhat different what it actually was and Google picked up on it and added the most appropriate Text ad: “Is there a

Girls in the Pool

Girls in the Pool

God?” Now either Google algorithms are really smart or really stupid. Unfortunately the link results were somewhat of an anticlimax – nothing interesting to read. As Tom Stoppard had his protagonist, a professor for Ethics in “Jumpers” (1973) wonder – “what if Good has unlimited qualities, including that of all-wheel-drive but just not that of existence?”.

When you see these girls playing in the pool, you are in direct contact with a higher force – just most likely not a God that lends himself/herself to be marketed as a church and for humans to make money on selling belief.