Archive for: May, 2007

The Digital Divide

May 07 2007 Published by under Technology, The Internet

Generally the digital divide refers to the gap between those with access to information and digital content (Internet access, digital media, etc) and those without. That’s not how I’m using it here, though. There is an increasing gap in the way people think of the creation and distribution of digital content.

I’m at the Cable Show in Vegas all week. The annual Cable-fest brings together folks from across the industry to talk about everything from next generation interactive applications developed on the OCAP standard and the latest programming options for cable systems to developments in network management and policy issues affecting the industry.

I have found it interesting how much of day one brought up the same issues again and again. Digital rights management; the role for user generated content in promoting adoption of wireless technologies and broadband adoption; and the challenges of distribution of content over different platforms (to name a few) are challenges not for anyone who uses traditional media platforms to carry a message.

Oswin Eleonora, Senior Vice President for LogicaCMG Telecommunications made perhaps the best point I have ever heard at one of these conferences. He said, and I am paraphrasing because I didn’t have a recorder but was taking notes furiously, there is a huge difference between entertainment and communications. Most cable companies think of these technologies as entertainment driven.

The entertainment model assumes the user will be consuming the material in a sender/receiver model. The decisions they make regarding what to deliver over their networks (be it mobile or landline) are based on the idea that people come to a site or content channel, and consume what they are given.

The reality is all of these models are becoming communications media. People are using the Internet, wireless services, etc to communicate with one another – whether that is in the form of an e-mail, cell call, or video posted to YouTube.

Much of the discussion at the iHollywood Mobile Bootcamp was about the challenges faced in delivering existing programming to a small screen. Oswin pointed out that the European model is as much about allowing users to upload content as opposed to simply consuming what the provider decides to dole out. It’s a fundamental difference and part of the reason for greater consumption of these services overseas.

A fascinating statistic to support that idea was quoted, attributed to Michael Dell’s CES Keynote – YouTube consumes as much bandwidth today as the entire Internet consumed in 2000. That is a fascinating stat. That is a fundamental difference in how we use the Internet today.

The amount of content that is being generated – and consumed – by entities outside the normal content distribution channels is growing. Clinging to outmoded ideas that people want to be talked to, and don’t want to say anything themselves, is simply not going to work.

On of the other panelists suggested that digital rights management, and having to purchase content on a per platform basis was the biggest hurdle facing media distribution services. I’d suggest he’s wrong. having to grapple with a shifting media environment – one that sees many of your consumers becoming producers – is the biggest hurdle.

The same speaker went on to say that there is little reason to change the sender/receiver model because there are few instances you can point to where interactive media has really demonstrated its viability (his example was American Idol). It is really sort of a misguided notion. Arguing that the model is sound because there have been few successful models to prove otherwise is, historically, a specious argument.

When people who built horse drawn carriages heard about the experimentation with something called an automobile, they likely felt the same. “Well sure,” they must have said, “but there have been so few successful examples of a person getting from point A to point B with a motor car. The belief that these will someday replace carriages is simply wrong.”

The media companies need to understand that there is a new way coming. They’ll need to empower and enable it, or be made obsolete by it.

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CNN Does The Right Thing

May 06 2007 Published by under Candidates, Democrats, Elections, Politics, Republicans

CNN today announced that the footage from its debates will be made available to the public. CNN is the first major network to do so.

While NBC made it abundantly clear that they would not allow use of “their” footage, the CNN release indicates that someone there understands the point of our effort.

Due to the historical nature of presidential debates and the significance of these forums to the American public, CNN believes strongly that the debates should be accessible to the public. The candidates need to be held accountable for what they say throughout the election process. The presidential debates are an integral part of our system of government, in which the American people have the opportunity to make informed choices about who will serve them. Therefore, CNN debate coverage will be made available without restrictions at the conclusion of each live debate. We believe this is good for the country and good for the electoral process.

If only the RNC had taken a similarly principled stand.

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More GOP Voices Join the Chorus

May 04 2007 Published by under Bloggers, Democrats, Elections, Free Speech, Politics, Republicans, The Internet, The Law

Today the chorus of voices calling for the national committees to open the Presidential debates grew louder.

Patrick Ruffini, David All, Liz Mair, Robert Bluey, John Hawkins, and Matt Margolis signed on to the letter calling for the RNC to require the networks carrying presidential debates to make the debate footage available under a creative commons license following the debate. These bloggers, online operatives, and activists join Mike Krempasky (founder of RedState), Michelle Malkin, former FEC Chairman Brad Smith, me and others in calling on the RNC to make this part of their negotiations.

I will also soon launch a petition for people to sign that we can deliver to the RNC along with this request. I’ll keep you posted on that.

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Sawyer Gets His Guy…

May 03 2007 Published by under Programming, Television

No e-mail from Anne this morning, so I’m feeling a little Lost without my weekly esoteric discussion of time travel, hell, island life, and why the hell nobody has killed Ben. Last night’s episode was, by all accounts, pretty awesome.

Sawyer finally gets his revenge on the man what banged his momma and made his daddy cry (not to mention kill his wife and take his own life). anybody who hadn’t figured out that Locke’s dad was also the con man that screwed up Sawyer’s life probably hasn’t been watching the show that long. I think most people had figured that out in Season one. Thanks to the producers for dragging out our suspicion for two more years, though.

On the subject of time, the timing of Locke’s flashback didn’t really do much for me. I think the producers and writers got themselves into a bind and had to figure a way out of it. In the episode with Juliet’s flashback of conversations with Ben, he tells her, “we’ll see you in a week.” It took her, Kate, and Jack at least a day of hiking to get back to camp, so now we’re done to six days. It was the next day that Claire had issues (down to five) assume it was the next night for her and Sun to trip to the maternity ward (down to four days), and the following day for Ben to get the tape recording from the locker (down to three days).

When Locke walks in and hears the tape Juliet made, the on screen text indicated it was “3 days ago”, yet when Locke warns Sawyer about Juliet, he tells him they’ll be coming in a few days. So we’re well over a week. For a show that seems to be dealing with “time” as a concept a lot, that’s pretty sketchy accounting.

On a couple of random notes, and things to ponder, what the hell was Rousseau going to do with a full case of dynamite, and wasn’t Locke at all concerned about that? I would think he’d give more thought to it than that. The last time we saw the French chick, she was staring forlorn at her long lost daughter. Is she planning on a mass attack on the Others?

The next big question is the plane wreckage. Some friends and I discussed the possibility that they had only found wreckage, and not the actual plane. The Others could easily have smuggled off the black box, and enough debris to make it look like the plane. However, the woman in the parachute assures us that they found the entire plane, and sent submersible cameras to see the passengers sitting in their chairs.

That may be another instance of the writers being lazy, or further evidence of the Others involvement. As this video of a large passenger jet crashing in the ocean clearly demonstrates, at 200-300 miles per hour, a plane doesn’t crash in one piece. They pretty much vaporize when they hit the water. It’s unlikely they would find “the whole plane” so much as a debris field underwater. (I know, this really makes you much more comfortable with that whole “your seat cushion becomes a flotation device” line.)

The others can arrange for a bus to take a man out at a high rate of speed on a public street. You don’t think they could plop a plane into the ocean?

Another good point to ponder is what Jack and Juliet meant when they argued about “telling her” when Kate told them about the boat.

When they brought her to the island, the Others had told Juliet that the only way to get there was the submarine. The helicopter crashed when it got close, so that leads me to believe it‚Äôs probably true. I suspect they probably would have let Jack in on this little secret since he was supposed to take the slow boat home. So they would know that there‚Äôs no way a boat could get to them. Is that what they were discussing? Did he not want to tell Kate because he’d be taking away her hope?

Finally, my remaining question is about the Other named Richard. He seems to be some sort of odd middle manager, but I suspect he’s much more than that. Rumor is we’ll be introduced to Jacob in a future episode. They’ve made him out to be the big guy behind the Others. I suspect it’s going to be Richard, or it’s going to be someone we already know.

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We Win, They Lose

May 03 2007 Published by under Congress, Government, Legislation, Terrorism, War

Ronald Reagan once described his foreign policy with regard to the Cold War in fairly simple terms – we win, they lose. It’s a simple message that is easy to understand and makes clear our commitment to the outcome.

To be perfectly clear, the Administration has truly bungled a great number of things. The war in Iraq is just one item in a long list that includes the Katrina response, the ongoing mess that is the Justice Department, the Myers nomination, social security reform, immigration, etc., etc. That said, the one thing they have gotten consistently right is their belief that the outcome in Iraq cannot be a withdrawal and surrender of the nation to extremists.

That was our approach to Somalia, and 15 years later it is still a disaster cranking out militant ideology. That was our approach to Afghanistan after the Soviets withdrew and we paid the price in the form of the Taliban and its support for terrorism.

Whether there were terrorists in Iraq prior to our military action there, the fact is there are certainly terrorists there today. Handing them the country as we head out the door is not a viable option from a military standpoint or for the sake of the world my kids will inherit.

Despite my misgivings about much this Administration has done, I stand firmly in the belief that we must not surrender Iraq, we must not allow Congress to usurp the power of the Commander in Chief, and we must not set arbitrary deadlines for a withdrawal simply because “the people” don’t like the way things are going. “The people” look at the world as they see it today. We hire the President and Congress to move us toward a future world. For their jobs, they owe us more than retreat and defeat.

As a result, I am signing onto the petition created at WeWinTheyLose.com. If you would like to join as well, the petition and a simple form to complete are provided below for your use.

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