Transcending the media juggernaut of the entrenched ideologies is mission one of my Personal Media Outlet (PMO). I am throwing down the gauntlet and shouting out the cry for a new revolution in media. We all need to take control of our media diet and redefine how we consume and redistribute our media.
Staring at a box of predetermined content with the only other option being more channels of preformatted consumables is a thing of the past. Why would any one want to waist and constrain there busy schedule with sitting through an hours worth of programming at a predetermined time? Especially when that same program can be digested in 35-45 minutes at a more convenient time with out 25 Viagra ads; don’t I get enough of that in my SPAM box?
With Internet usage on the rise and TV viewing shrinking the archaic ideas of what media should be is puttering out. As PVRs and TIVO’s make TV commercials only something people watch during the Super Bowl it is time to take a good hard look at what we the consumer are saying. We want on demand content; we want versatile interfaces that let us scour the known mediaverse for what we are looking for.
Why on GODS green earth did it take this long for someone like Google to finally come up with http://video.google.com I mean come on you have a multi generational demographic of couch potatoes and you cant come up with a concept like this before now? OH yes I know that my Dish has had a guide and that on cable you can wait for the TV Guide to scroll your life away looking for something worth while to watch but this is just a no brainer.
So what to do? Let’s start with a P2P system like BitTorrent. With a technology like BitTorrent you make the transfer of that data all the more accessible by distributing the load. However say the word “BitTorrent” and you will send shivers down the spine of any executive at a major media outlet. A flash back to Napster has them foaming at the mouth about how protect content. All these big boys are so afraid that the consumer might steal content that they are missing the bigger picture. People don’t need to steal what is free.
Take the concept’s of the blogoshere like podcasting and or video bloging couple that with low cost broadcasting equipment, explosive disk space capacities and you, me, anybody can become their very own Personal Media Outlet. This new empowerment may just leave us visiting the large media outlets when we want to see the latest blockbuster or a well produced series like CSI or the Sopranos.
So much content is about to be produced that the margins are radically going to shift from the previously held monopoly on media that the major studios had, to the big budget media outlets versus the Personal Media Outlets. Oh and by the way we will number in the millions when it is all said and done. Just imagine every 14 year old with a laptop broadcasting away so that all of there school mates and family can see little Jimmy break the story on the bad meat in the cafeteria. I didn’t say all this media would be consumable just available.
Major outlets need to get on board now and leverage BitTorrent and other technologies to expand services and all for MYTV to become a reality. If I am a subscriber to service “X” I should be able to download and watch at my convince episode 16 of Gilligan’s Island it should be inexpensive and easy. Last week I misses CSI well I will go grab it and pull it down or as is already the case with 1.9 million subscribers Tivo it before hand.
How much has the Internet changed the way we communicate and how simple has it become for anyone to publish information that the entire connected planet can see. The cost of equipment and prevalence of software is going to evolve this web of text and graphics into a full meal of rich media. The coming age of RSS arrogated feeds delivering to us what we want to know and what we want to see when we want it is all about options and control.
PODCAST
Tags: PMO
In this quintessential age of man and machine where the lines between fiction and fact are becoming so blurred that they are literally one and the same. The human species is evolving unlike any other time in history. Silicon and carbon are forming a new life form that is interconnected just as we are coming to a fully understanding of the basic building blocks that make up the human existence. Adapt, evolve and overcome is at the essence of that existence and we have never seen that as clearly as we are about to.
We are at a time in history where the subatomic structures that form our very being are within our grasp and the manipulation of said structures can lead to exciting and frightening new realities. We are rapidly approaching an age when the limitations of ones gray matter recall are based on the amount of extended memory we want to upgrade our wetware with. We will come to a time when intelligence is a concept that is applied beyond the biological realm it is applied to computer code and CPU cycles, when we will only be limited by the bandwidth of our 802-whatever connection to our very brains. Are you ready to be assimilated?
You may not have a choice if you wish to compete for the jobs of tomorrow. Let’s say I am an employer and am interviewing two applicants. One must rely on his some times faulty long term memory and his slow tactile interface with his workstation and one who is constantly connected to the ALLNET directly via his cerebral cortex. I ask both applicants to get me some figures on the economic growth of our biggest competitor. Employee interfaces with a terminal writes up a report and get it to me with in a few hours. Employee two accesses the information directly composes a “mind-mail” and sends it directly to my PC or directly to my very own NuralNET, I am the boss after all.
These fictions of our past race towards us and we can either sit like a deer stuck in the head lights and get run over by progress or we can intervene early on in this amazing journey and steer progress in productive and socially conscious ways. Now where did I put my Thomas Guide?
Tags: SDNI
A sly fox has the monkey house in an uproar and Billy G and the Redmond crew are licking their chops and hoping the OSS will start turning on each other. Here are some comments I made on Neil Deakin Blog about the Thick and Thin Mozilla browsers.
The compartmentalized approach is nice and I love FireFox for its media attention. It is a good browser as well it should be, look at its parents. The Death of SeaMonkey is a highly dangerous idea in that it is creating a rift in the community. My greatest concern is the damage this whole argument can have on taking away from the OSS browser momentum. Do you think that IE 7 will care whether it tries to snuff out a burning fox or drowned a monkey in the sea? I think this argument needs to be settled quickly and quietly the idea of a “thin” browser FireFox and a suite of tools SeaMonkey joining together is the right path. The community should define the code difference and like comments already posted join Thunderbird, Sunbird and FireFox (with a basic extensions pack) and release as _________ 2.0 you fill in the blank FireFox or Mozilla. If “thin” is what you want in the installer offer the option
“Thin” — just the browser
“Full”– the kitchen sink
“Custom” — what every developer chooses
The argument for FireFox is the press coverage and marketing hype that surrounds that flavor today so an argument could be made that FireFox 2.0 might be just the ticket to take the air out of the IE 7 release. Purest and domain name registrants, I am speaking to you Mozilla____.org/com/biz/us, Developers/Hackers/SourceForgians and the like all know the truth and you have no need to re brand your sites every one will know that at its core this 2.0 browser is Mozilla.
Tags: Mozilla
March 9th and 10th I was able to attend the InnoTech conference at the convention center here in Portland Oregon. I am not one to give up two full days with out good cause, but when I saw the track focused on the Open Source Software (OSS) movement I had to attend. With titles like “Adopt Open Source Software or Die” and “How a Phenomenon is Turning into an Exciting New Industry” how could I not go. The “How a Phenomenon is Turning into an Exciting New Industry” was a panel discussion with:
Andrew Aitken, Founder and Managing Partner, Olliance Group, a Palo Alto-based open source consulting firm
Steve Bissell, President, Axian, Inc.
Daniel Frye, VP, IBM Linux Technology Center, IBM
William C. Campbell, CEO, Partner, Ater, Wynne
LaVonne Reimer, Executive Director, The Open Technology Business Center
This discussion was very informative and honest discussion of how OSS is growing up. If you love to tinker and play with code that is all well and good and the best of the OSS solutions started out as a night time hobby but they have now grown up into a force to be dealt with.
When it comes to the bottom line Mr. Frye with IBM was succinct and to the point with his comment about how the free nature and philanthropic nature of open source is great but IBM is in the business of making money and open source translates to billions of dollars in profits. That’s right billions with a “B”. So the notion of this little cottage fringe of software developers who live in this utopia of free code has meet the board room and free may mean no cost for the actual code but how to make it work and extending it to meet customer needs is a very viable and profitable notion.
I loved an analogy that William Campbell used when speaking of Microsoft and the “charge of the light brigade” idea of attacking them head on to take the desk top for Linux. If I may paraphrase him Mr. Campbell stated that this is a foolish notion to attack head on into the 800 pound gorilla of Redmond it is a poor utilization of man power and unneeded. He said to look at OSS as water that will flow around and flow through holes or cracks until the gorilla is on it own island surrounded by a sea OSS solutions. To add my own two cents I feel that Microsoft must build bridges and dams or a much better idea is to learn how to swim and join the current. There is a small glimmer that Redmond is putting on there water wings with three open source offerings FlexWiki, Windows Installer XML and Windows Template Library. I guess we will see if Wired article “The Microsoft Memo” comes to light.
Tags: Uncategorized
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