Sign up for email delivery of the
Inside Digital Media, Inc. interviews.
|
Home > Blogs > Archives
phil's archived blogs
Return to Current Blogs
May 14, 2007, 03:43 PM If you would like to learn about a professional musician who has turned his Apple computer into a symphonic orchestra, this interview is for you.
Suppose you are an aspiring film producer. You don’t have the money of a Hollywood production company. So you want to follow in the footsteps of the Florida college students who made a success of their self-produced Blair Witch Project eight years ago.
While the cost of video cameras and computerized editing equipment has dropped markedly since then, you recognize that every great movie needs a high-quality film score. But, you cannot afford to engage the services of a symphonic orchestra because that might cost $50,000 or more. However, if you know a good composer, you can perform his score at a fraction of the cost with the Fauxharmonic Orchestra.
Using digital instruments The Fauxharmonic Orchestra’s mission is to bring fresh and artistically meaningful experiences of orchestral music to a diverse, world-wide audience. Nearly 500 Gigs of MIDI notes and phrases for all instruments are stored on the Orchestra’s Apple computer. Essentially the computer functions as the orchestral instrument for the composer and conductor.
Our guest today Paul Smith who is the founder of The Fauxharmonic Orchestra.
This interview is about 22 minutes long.
Today’s interview is audio. There are two ways to listen:
(1) by clicking on the may 14th interview at the left, or
(2) Through your iPod or portable player via a podcast. Podcast subscription is available at Apple’s iTunes or on the podcast tab of our website.
May 11, 2007, 10:58 AM If you would like to learn how Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard built the company that seeded Silicon Valley, this interview is for you.
I have long been curious about the origins of Silicon Valley's dominance of the electronics industry. While I was aware that Shockley started his semiconductor company there in 1956, I sensed that it was not really the beginning. After all, Ampex, Lenkurt, Farinon, and Varian, among others, were already established in the Santa Clara valley. Even earlier, Philo Farnsworth pioneered television in San Francisco. But Farnsworth's company left no direct descendents nearby.
Therefore, by triangulation, it appears that Hewlett-Packard was the true source in 1938. Michael Malone recently published a book, entitled Bill and Dave, which explains how Bill Hewlett and David Packard got everything started and built their company into a pillar of the electronics industry.
Unlike today's swaggering VCs, the two young Stanford engineers basically formed the company merely to be gainfully employed in their chosen field, and to live in a desired geographic area. It was, after all, the Great Depression.
By comparison to later Valley entrepreneurs, their financial ambitions seem to have been secondary. Yet, after 70 years, H-P remains not only one of the World's most powerful companies, but also one of the most innovative.
I have stared a Wiki on this book at www.billanddave.wetpaint.com and you may email me for an invitation if you want to contribute.
Our guest today Michael Malone who is a noted author of a number of books about Silicon Valley.
This interview is covered in about 35 minutes.
Today’s interview is audio. There are two ways to listen:
(1) by clicking on the May 11th interview at the left or,
(2) through your iPod or portable player via a podcast. Podcast subscription is available at Apple’s iTunes or on the podcast tab of our website.
May 9, 2007, 03:45 PM If you would like to learn about a cell phone that promises to work reliably indoors, as well as outside, this interview is for you.
T-Mobile is going to start marketing cell phones that will use WiFi networks to make phone calls when you are located in a WiFi area. The best example might be the WiFi in your own home if you have such a network. But, you will also be able to use other WiFi hot spots, perhaps including Starbucks.
From my viewpoint this is significant because it holds promise to give me a cell phone that will work inside my house. Right now if someone phones me on my cell phone while I am in the house, the signal strength is so poor that the call normally gets dropped.
I don’t like the requirement to pay an additional $20 a month for the WiFi augmentation, but our guest today says many people will pay it because it will circumvent the need for an ordinary landline telephone thereby providing an offsetting savings.
Our guest today Tom Evslin who is a successful computer industry CEO. He sold one company to Microsoft and took another pubic. His latest effort is the publication of his novel, hackoff.com. Tom comments on things digital at this blog, Fractals of Change.
This interview is covered in about 18 minutes.
Today’s interview is audio. There are two ways to listen:
(1) By clicking on the May 9th interview at the left, or
(2) Through your iPod or portable player via a podcast. Podcast subscription is available at Apple’s iTunes or on the podcast tab of our website.
May 7, 2007, 03:52 PM If you would like to learn how to create your own Wiki at no charge, this interview is for you.
Recently, I read Mike Malone’s new book entitled Bill and Dave which is a history of Hewlett-Packard and a biography of the two founders. Simultaneously, I learned about a website called wetpaint.com that lets you easily build your own Wiki. Not exactly being a rocket surgeon myself (to mix metaphors), I thought I would give wetpaint a try.
As a result, I formed a Wiki about Malone’s book. If you would like to contribute, just send me an email.
In sum, wetpaint worked as advertised. Ordinary people will find that they have the skills required to set-up their own Wikis there.
In today’s interview the founder of wetpaint.com demonstrates how to construct a Wiki as I question him about the steps he takes in realtime on our computer screens.
Our guest today is Ben Elowitz who is the founder of wetpaint.com.
This video interview is covered in about 15 minutes.
Today’s interview was conducted remotely on the WebEx platform. It is available for playback by visiting by clicking on the May 7th interview at the left.
You can also get it a video podcast at iTunes, our website, or via other aggregating software.
May 4, 2007, 12:00 PM If you would like to learn why Microsoft SharePoint collaboration software might be coming of age, this interview is for you. (Part 2 of 2).
As everyone knows, Microsoft introduced its long-awaited Vista Operating System earlier this year. Along with it, they launched a new version of their Office Suite (Excel, Word, Power Point, Outlook, and etc). One of the key points about Office ’07 is that enables significantly enhanced versions of Microsoft’s collaboration software; SharePoint (for asynchronous collaboration) and LiveMeeting (for synchronous meetings).
This interview is divided into two parts.
The first part provides a summary of SharePoint and gives some illustrations by example. The second part tells us why SharePoint seems to be coming of age now, as opposed to when earlier versions were available.
Our guest today is Peter O’Kelly who is the Research Director at The Burton Group. His company is an IT consulting and market research firm specialized in computer and telecommunications software.
This video interview is covered in about 10 minutes.
Today’s interview was conducted remotely on the WebEx platform. It is available for playback by visiting by clicking on the May 4th interview at the left.
You can also get it a video podcast at iTunes, our website, or via other aggregating software.
May 2, 2007, 03:16 PM If you would like to learn why Microsoft SharePoint collaboration software might be coming of age, this interview is for you. (Part 1 of 2).
As everyone knows, Microsoft introduced its long-awaited Vista Operating System earlier this year. Along with it, they launched a new version of their Office Suite of products (Excel, Word, Power Point, Outlook, and etc). One of the key points of Office ’07 is that enables significantly enhanced versions of Microsoft’s collaboration software, SharePoint for asynchronous collaboration and LiveMeeting for synchronous meetings.
This interview is about SharePoint. It is divided into two parts.
In the first part our guest provides a summary of SharePoint and gives some illustrations by example. In the second part he tells us why SharePoint seems to be coming of age now, as opposed to when earlier versions were available, and what some to the remaining drawbacks might be.
Our guest today is Peter O’Kelly who is the Research Director at The Burton Group. His company is an IT consulting and market research firm specialized in computer and telecommunications software.
This video interview is covered in about 27 minutes.
Today’s video interview was conducted remotely on the WebEx platform. It is available for playback by clicking on the May 2nd interview at the left.
You can also get it a video podcast at iTunes, our website, or via other aggregating software.
April 30, 2007, 10:27 AM If you are interested in learning why Software-as-a-Service is replacing packaged and downloadable software in many applications, this interview is for you.
Have you ever bought a new package of shrink-wrapped software and found that after installing it, somehow your computer got all fouled-up? Have you had a similar experience after downloading a program off the Internet?
You are not alone. Many of the biggest corporations are also finding that installing new software on their IT systems can leave them so badly disabled that the only way to restore things to normal may be to consult an exorcist.
A more realistic way around the problem is to adopt new applications in the form of an online service. In such instances the service provider takes on all of the responsibilities for maintaining the software in good working order, and seeing to it that the application does not mess-up the customers’ computers.
WebEx pioneered the concept in Web Conferencing.
Salesforce.com blazed a trail in CRM software.
Concur Technologies led the way in expense account reporting.
Look for ever-broadening examples in the future.
Our guest today is Jeff Kaplan who is the founder of THINK Strategies and the Master-of-Ceremonies at the recent SaaScon Conference which is devoted to the Software-as-a-Service industry.
This interview is covered in about 19 minutes.
Today’s interview is audio. There are two ways to listen:
(1) By clicking on the April 30th interview at the left, and
(2) Through your iPod or portable player via a podcast. Podcast subscription is available at Apple’s iTunes or here.
April 27, 2007, 12:43 PM If you are interested in learning how the interactive features of the Internet might also accelerate an increasingly popular technique of collaborative selling, this interview is for you.
Popular blogs and online newspapers, such as The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times, have learned that one way to maximize their audience is to routinely provide a methodology for readers to contribute. Bloggers are learning to habitually provide a “comments” link at the end of each article, and the newspapers are also doing so with ever greater frequency.
If developing an interactive relationship with your readers optimizes the audience by empowering them to contribute, might the concept be applicable to the broader issue of customer relations?
Our guest today thinks so.
He wrote a book entitled Close Like The Pros, which teaches that selling should be an collaborative process with the customer. Unlike typical sales books, that are essentially variations on the “positive thinking” manifesto, this one emphasizes the importance of establishing a team relationship with your customers through an incremental and interactive process. The goal is to replace relationship tension with task tension.
As online collaboration builds through such features as Wikis, shared spaces, and Web Conferencing, interactive customer relations is likely to become even more important.
Our guest today is Steve Marx who is the author of Close Like The Pros, and the CEO of the Center for Sales Strategy.
This interview is covered in about 20 minutes.
Today’s interview is audio. There are two ways to listen:
(1) By clicking at the April 27th interview at the left.
(2) Through your iPod or portable player via a podcast. Podcast subscription is available at Apple’s iTunes or here.
April 25, 2007, 01:43 PM A number of industry analysts conclude that Cisco bought WebEx partly because of the promise of the WebEx Connect strategy. If you would like to learn what that’s all about, this second part of a two-part interview is for you.
Perhaps one reason Cisco Systems bought WebEx Communications is to leverage the WebEx Connect strategy into a platform that will enable third party software vendors to escalate their independently developed software apps into on-demand collaborative sessions. To the extent that software becomes more web-centric (software-as-a-service) it is thought that online collaborative functionality shall become a routine expectation.
Microsoft will have the advantage of integrating collaborative functionality in its apps with Windows and its own LiveMeeting and SharePoint software. In contrast, independent software vendors (ISVs) will have good reasons to find a more open, neutral, platform.
In part two, of this two-part interview, our guest demonstrates how a hypothetical business software application can be enhanced by the ISV to provide on-demand collaborative functionality. Moreover, we learn how the ISV can place the collaboratively-enhanced version of his software into an ecosystem marketplace promoted by WebEx itself.
Our guest today is Shanker Iyer who is the Vice President for Strategic Initiatives at WebEx Communications. One of his jobs is to develop the WebEx Connect ecosystem.
This video interview is covered in about 11 minutes.
Today’s interview was conducted remotely on the WebEx platform. It is available for playback by visiting clicking on the April 25th interview at the left.
You can also get it as a video podcast at iTunes, our website, or via other aggregating software.
April 23, 2007, 04:55 PM A number of industry analysts have said that Cisco bought WebEx partly because of the promise of the WebEx Connect strategy. If you would like to learn what that’s all about, this part one of a two-part interview is for you.
A number of industry analysts concluded that one reason Cisco Systems bought WebEx Communications is to leverage the WebEx Connect strategy into a platform that will enable third party software vendors to escalate their independently developed software apps into on-demand collaborative sessions. To the extent that software becomes more web-centric (software-as-a-service) it is thought that online collaborative functionality shall become a routine expectation.
In part one of this two-part interview, we learn just what the WebEx Connect strategy really is. Later, in part two, our guest demonstrates how a hypothetical business software application can be enhanced by the ISV to provide the on-demand collaborative functionality. Moreover, we learn how the ISV can place the collaboratively-enhanced version of his software into an ecosystem marketplace promoted by WebEx itself.
Our guest today is Shanker Iyer who is the Vice President for Strategic Initiatives at WebEx Communications. One of his jobs is to develop the WebEx Connect ecosystem.
This video interview is covered in about 12 minutes.
Today’s interview was conducted remotely on the WebEx platform. It is available for playback by visiting clicking on the April 23rd interview at the left.
You can also get it as a video podcast at iTunes, our website, or via other aggregating software.
April 20, 2007, 04:55 PM If you would like to learn what a Web 2.0 application is all about, this interview is for you.
Web 2.0 and Software-as-a-Service are two terms that are generating an increasing amount of buzz lately. Like most new terms, many of us are confused about their meaning. Even after they are explained, we may not fully “get it”.
Like most new concepts, a good understanding comes only after an experience with them.
Today’s interview provides such an experience.
Today’s guest demonstrates how his company’s digital photo-editing application can be used to edit photos that you have already uploaded to various websites like Flickr and Facebook.
Moreover, to use the application, you don’t even have to download software. It is all available as a web application that you can utilize from any Internet connected computer, wherever you happen to be at any given time.
Our guest today is Jonathan Sposato who is the CEO of Picnik.com. His company provides a photo-editing application that is available on the Web as opposed to a software program that you download or otherwise install on your computer.
Length: This video interview is covered in about 12 minutes.
Today’s interview was conducted remotely on the WebEx platform. It is available for playback by clicking on the April 20th interview at the left.
You can also get it a video podcast at iTunes, our website, or via other aggregating software.
April 19, 2007, 11:40 AM If you would like to learn how Adobe and Microsoft are heading into conflict over the software tools to be used for future Rich Internet Applications, this interview is for you.
Microsoft is concerned that Adobe (formerly Macromedia) Flash might become the software platform upon which most Rich Internet Applications are constructed.
Originally many of us regarded Flash as a player for animation like those annoying hip swiveling silhouettes promoting online mortgages. But with the advent of YouTube, Facebook, and MySpace, the Flash player began to rapidly take market share away from the Windows Media Player for video.
But, Flash is more than merely a media player. It appears to have the potential to become what the original Java was intended to be, to wit, a software platform that will work via the browser on many disparate types of computer hardware and operating systems. As such, it is a serious threat to Microsoft’s dominance if computing becomes increasingly Web-centric.
In response, Microsoft has launched its own product, termed Silverlight, designed to be used in place of Flash. For example, Silverlight has DRM built-in and that is one reason that Major League Baseball chose it over Flash.
Our guest today is Greg DeMichillie who is a Senior Analyst with Directions-on-Microsoft which is a market research firm dedicated to understanding what Microsoft will be doing in the future.
Length: This interview is covered in about 16 minutes.
Today’s interview is audio and there are two ways to listen:
(1) by clicking on the April 19th interview at the left or,
(2) Through your iPod or portable player via a podcast. Podcast subscription is available at Apple’s iTunes or on the podcast tab of our website.
April 16, 2007, 11:46 AM If you would like to learn how to webcast and podcast anything (e.g. video, animation, sound) you can capture on your computer screen, this interview is for you.
Often online collaboration workers will demonstrate computer applications to one another remotely in a Web Conference. However, since everyone who might benefit from the demonstration cannot be present at the appointed time, it is often a good idea to record the demo and make it available as a webcast, or a even a podcast.
Since the worker is basically capturing anything the screen, including video, the concept is referred to as “screencasting”. In the future, it is thought likely to become an important component of asynchronous online worker collaboration.
Our guest today is Troy Stein who is the Product Manager for Camtasia Studio software at Tech Smith Corporation. He provides a best-practices demonstration of producing a screencast.
This video is about 13 minutes long.
Today’s interview was conducted remotely on the WebEx platform. It is available for playback by visiting www.insidedigitalmedia.com and clicking on the April 16th interview.
You can also get it a video podcast at iTunes, our website, or via other aggregating software.
April 13, 2007, 02:01 PM If you would like to learn about a court case supporting your freedom to copy DVDs to a hard drive, this interview is for you.
A company named Kaleidescape manufactures an appliance that enables you to take your DVD collection and transfer it to the hard drive in the device. It will hold content from hundreds of DVDs on your hard drive.
You can then purchase a play-back box from Kaleidescape that permits the content on the hard drive to be transported across your LAN to the play-back device and thence to any connected TV or computer monitor.
Essentially Kaleidescape enables you to watch movies stored on it from anywhere in your home. Today’s model is priced for the high-end consumer.
Hollywood is annoyed with Kaleidescape. Through the DVD-Copy Control Association they sued the company for violating the copy protection license. A judge recently ruled in favor of Kaleidescape.
Subject: Our guest today is Jim Burger who is a partner with the law firm of Dow Lohnes in Washington, D. C.
Length: This interview is covered in about 15 minutes.
Today’s interview is audio. There are two ways to listen:
(1) By clicking on the April 13th interview at the left, or
(2) Through your iPod or portable player via a podcast. Podcast subscription is available at Apple’s iTunes or the podcast tab at our website.
April 11, 2007, 11:59 AM If you would like to learn about how to Webcast, or podcast, your own Power Point presentations, this interview is for you.
It takes a lot of work to put together an effective Power Point presentation. So, when many of your intended audience members can’t be present at the appointed time, your work is not as effective as it might be.
However, one way to reach those who could not be in attendance is to record your Power Point along with a video of your talking head. That way you can put it on the Internet where it will be available 24/7 on-demand to whoever is authorized to view it. You can even format it as a video podcast so that subscribers will automatically get it when they log into iTunes.
Most importantly, you can do all of this yourself without requiring technical assistance from your IT personnel or an outside Webcasting service.
Subject: Our guest today is Troy Stein who is the Product Manager for Camtasia Studio software at Tech Smith Corporation.
Length: This video is about 10 minutes long.
Today’s interview was conducted remotely on the WebEx platform. It is available for playback by visiting by clicking on the April 11th interview at the left.
You can also get it as a video podcast at iTunes, our website, or via other aggregating software.
April 9, 2007, 02:25 PM If you would like to learn how to record and podcast web conferencing sessions like WebEx, or Microsoft’s LiveMeeting, this interview is for you.
Web Conferencing is a great tool for online collaboration. However, not everyone who should be present in an online meeting can be available at the appointed time.
This interview demonstrates how either a presenter, or one of the audience participants, can record both the visual and audio elements of a web conference. Later the recording can be made available as an “on-demand” webcast for those who want to view it on their own schedule. Our guest even demonstrates how the recording can be formatted for podcasting via Apple’s iTunes.
Our guest today is Troy Stein who is the Product Manager for Camtasia Studio software at Tech Smith Corporation.
This video is about 12 minutes long.
Today’s interview was conducted remotely on the WebEx platform. It is available for playback by clicking on the April 9th interview at the left.
You can also get it as a video podcast at iTunes, our website, or via other aggregating software.
April 6, 2007, 12:09 PM If you have been hearing all the buzz about the term “mash-up” and would like to see a demo showing just what it is, this program is for you.
This video demo of a Google maps mash-up was prompted by my interview with Steve Borsch about the WebEx / Cisco deal. Steve is an expert on Web 2.0 and Enterprise 2.0 applications.
He believes that the WebEx media tone network will form a platform for mash-ups by 3rd parties providing enterprise software. While there are not yet many examples in the enterprise environment, he recommended a visit to programmableweb.com to find some mash-ups for consumer applications. They will serve for illustrative purposes.
The applications at programmableweb.com provide concrete examples of how a given underlying platform can be leveraged with mash-ups. Even though all of them are currently oriented toward consumer uses, the website illustrates the power of the open platform for inducing creative innovations.
In this video example Google Maps serves as the platform. Push-pin icons are placed at various points on the globe representing live television feeds from those cities. Users can watch live TV from each city by merely clicking on the selected push-pin icon.
Length: This video is about 7 minutes long.
Today’s program is a video. It is available for playback by visiting by clicking on the Apirl 6th interview at the left.
You can also get it a a video podcast at iTunes, our website, or via other aggregating software.
April 4, 2007, 01:01 PM If you would like to learn about some bloggers who may well merit a Pulitzer Prize, this interview is for you.
About a year ago there was torrent of overly sensationalized news reporting alleging a gang rape by members of the lacrosse team at Duke University. The reflexive reaction from nearly all conventional media was a hostile condemnation of the young men.
A year later, the accuser’s case seems to be unraveling. Except for the free press implications of the blogesphere, the lynch mentality from the establishment may have led to a rush to judgment.
Decades after reading The Kingdom and the Power my faith in the New York Times as the nation’s leading newspaper-of-record has been unshakable. But that faith was shattered as the Times’ underlying misandry boiled to the surface. It has been among the leaders of an influential mob of media properties, and other (formerly) trusted authorities, who were challenged largely by selected bloggers, such as the Friends of Duke University, Durham in Wonderland, and Liestoppers.
Contrary those who seek to discredit them, the supportive bloggers are not right wing extremists, impulsively jumping to the aid of the “Harvard of the South”. In point of fact, the guy behind Durham in Wonderland is a left wing, card-carrying Democrat, and graduate of the Harvard of the Northeast. Their voices of objectivity, amid the roar of prejudice, may well warrant a Pulitzer Prize.
Since the Prize is a creation of the newspaper industry itself, awarding the Pulitzer to a blogger would signal that the industry’s capacity for introspective criticism will not be one of the victims of this sordid affair.
Subject: Our guest today is Jason Trumpbour, who is a co-founder and the public face of the Friends of Duke University blog.
Length: This interview is about 20 minutes long.
Today’s interview is audio. There are two ways to listen:
(1) By clicking on the April 4th interview at the left, or
(2) Through your iPod or portable player via a podcast. Podcast subscription is available at Apple’s iTunes or on the podcast tab of our website.
April 2, 2007, 03:19 PM If you would like to learn about how lasers can be used as the light source in rear-projection TVs to provide better color, this interview is for you.
Consumers buying new televisions show a decided preference for big screen units. While plasma and LCD are the most elegant ones, they are costly. The folded optics of rear projection is a cheaper option and with lasers as the light source the colors are good.
Subject: Our guest today is Colin Seaton who is the Director of Business Development at Coherent, a manufacturer of lasers.
Length: This video is about 15 minutes long.
Today’s interview was conducted remotely on the WebEx platform. It is available for playback by clicking on the April 2nd interview at the left.
You can also get it as a video podcast at iTunes, our website, or via other aggregating software.
March 30, 2007, 06:16 PM If you would like to learn why one expert believes that Cisco bought WebEx, this interview is for you.
Recently Cisco announced plans to buy WebEx for $3.2 billion in cash. The price equates to about 8x the WebEx revenues for the trailing twelve months.
Our guest today believes that Cisco intends to leverage the WebEx platform to provide a host of Enterprise 2.0 applications involving telepresence, online collaboration, and unified messaging. He sees the WebEx market share leadership and media tone platform being the key factors attracting Cisco.
Moreover, the a acquisition puts Cisco in a position to foster the growth of an ecosystem whose members may independently develop mash-ups of their own applications to employ the platform for collaborative purposes. It is a direction that the Web Conferencing leader was already heading with its WebEx Connect strategy.
Subject: Our guest today is Steve Borsch who is a consultant on Web 2.0 and Enterprise 2.0 strategies. You can learn more about Steve at his blog, Connecting the Dots.
Length: This interview is about 23 minutes long.
Today’s interview is audio. There are two ways to listen,
(1) by clcking on the March 30th interview at the left, or
(2) Through your iPod or portable player via a podcast. Podcast subscription is available at Apple’s iTunes or on the podcast tab of our website.
March 28, 2007, 03:32 PM If you would like to learn about a test of the Fair Use exemption as it applies to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act involving YouTube and the NFL Super Bowl, this interview is for you.
After a YouTube registrant posted a clip from the Super Bowl featuring the Copyright Notice of the NFL, the football league sent YouTube a letter referred to as a take-down notice. The notice is used to inform YouTube that a user has posted copyrighted material and that YouTube should remove it.
In this instance, however, the posting was by a law professor who felt that the clip is a legitimate posting under the Fair Use exemption. She sent back a counter notice to YouTube explaining why she believes the clip is legitimate.
Currently YouTube is (apparently) pondering how to respond. It might become a test case for the limits of Fair Use as it applies to the take-down notice procedures of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.
Subject: Our guest today is Wendy Seltzer who is a professor of law at the Brooklyn School of Law and a fellow and Harvard’s Berkman Center for the Internet and Society.
Length: This interview is about 13 minutes long.
Today’s interview is audio. There are two ways to listen:
(1) By clicking on the March 28th interview at the left, or
(2) Through your iPod or portable player via a podcast. Podcast subscription is available at Apple’s iTunes or on the podcast tab of our website.
March 26, 2007, 01:48 PM If you would like to learn about a recent court decision that prevents Cablevision from offering DRV services within its network, this interview is for you.
It is no secret that DVRs are no longer limited to early adopters and becoming a mass market item. Although originated by TiVo, the cable TV industry has become the biggest provider of DVRs.
When cable operators sign-up new subscribers they must send a service technician out to the subscriber’s location to install the unit. This is costly for the cable company and an inconvenience for those consumers who work for a living. Cablevision’s solution was to provide a DVR capability as a service embedded within its network facilities thereby enabling the subscriber to select programs for recording by merely using his remote unit.
Some content owners did not like this and sued Cablevision for copyright infringement. A New York Federal District Court ruled that the planned Cablevision service is an infringement and not entitled to the fair use exemption.
Our guest today is Jim Burger who is a copyright attorney with Dow, Lohnes in Washington D.C.
Length: This interview is about 12 minutes long.
Today’s interview is audio. There are two ways to listen:
(1) By clicking on the March 26th interview at the left.
(2) Through your iPod or portable player via a podcast. Podcast subscription is available at Apple’s iTunes or on the podcast tab of our website.
March 23, 2007, 03:14 PM If you would like to learn about how Digital Media interests will be impacted by a court ruling that Bell Labs (Alcatel) is entitled to royalties for MP3 compression, this interview is for you.
Late last month a trial court in San Diego ruled that Microsoft must pay Alcatel $1.5 billion in royalties for the software company’s use of MP3 technology in a number of products including the Windows Media Player. Previously many industry observers had supposed that the Fraunhofer Institute in Germany controlled the patents. For example, Microsoft had paid Fraunhofer $16 million in royalties already.
So, that means that the San Diego judgment is nearly 1,000 times greater. Why so much higher when a 1956 consent decree requires Bell Labs to license its technology at reasonable rates?
Moreover, if Microsoft owns money to Alcatal, then other software and hardware manufacturers may owe them as well.
In today’s interview a prominent industry consultant shares his views on the matter. We also discuss ways by which the copyright holders may be compensated as media distribution increasingly moves to the Internet.
Our guest today is Jim Griffin who is the CEO of media industry consulting firm, OneHouse, LLC. Prior to that he was an executive with Cherry Lane Publishing, which is a major music publishing company.
Length: This interview is about 21 minutes long.
Today’s interview is audio. There are two ways to listen:
(1) By clicking on the March 23rd interview at the left, or
(2) Through your iPod or portable player via a podcast. Podcast subscription is available at Apple’s iTunes or our own website.
March 21, 2007, 01:46 PM If you would like to learn the latest about Video Conferencing and Telepresence systems, this interview is for you.
Steady advances in computer and Internet technology make it increasingly convenient for workers to collaborate online. As a result, Video Conferencing is becoming more popular. Andrew Davis of Wainhouse Research gives us his latest analysis of the market.
Specifically, Andrew updates us on the latest developments with High Definition Video Conferencing as well as Telepresence.
He concludes that HD Video Conferencing is much improved and will encourage users to stay active in a video meeting for much longer periods of time.
He defines a Telepresence system as a Video Conferencing system that creates the illusion that people separated at vast distances are meeting in the same room.
This video is about 21 minutes long.
Today’s interview was conducted remotely on the WebEx platform. It is available for playback by clicking on the March 21st interview at the left.
It is also available as a video podcast at iTunes, our website, or via other aggregating software.
March 19, 2007, 09:46 AM If you would like to learn about the increased royalties that Internet Radio operators are required to pay, this interview is for you.
Our guest today is Jon Potter who is the Executive Director of the Digital Media Association.
Length: This interview is about 16 minutes long.
Today’s interview is audio. There are two ways to listen:
(1) By clicking on the March 19th interview at the left, or
(2) Through your iPod or portable player via a podcast. Podcast subscription is available at Apple’s iTunes or on the podcasts tab at our website.
March 16, 2007, 05:21 PM Summary: (Part 2 of 2)If you would are confused about HD-TV and would like to get a clear understanding of what is going on, this interview is for you.
Apparently only half of consumers who have purchased HD-TV sets are actually watching any HD programming. Additionally, half of the half (25% of the total) who are not watching HD programming with their HD sets erroneously think that they are.
To understand what is going on we interviewed Bruce Leichtman of Leichtman Research Group. For years he has been the “go to” guy for statistics on broadband Internet penetration in the States. As today’s interview illustrates, he is also a good source of information on the latest technological trends in television.
This video is about 10 minutes long.
Today’s interview was conducted remotely on the WebEx platform. It is available for playback by visiting www.insidedigitalmedia.com and clicking on the March 16th interview.
It is also available as a video podcast at iTunes, our website, or via other aggregating software.
March 12, 2007, 08:17 PM If you would like to hear from an author who believes that Wikis will change the way we do business, this interview is for you.
Our guest today is Don Tapscott who is the co-author of the current best seller entitled Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything.
Earlier Don authored a number of books analyzing and forecasting the impact of the Internet including, Paradigm Shift, The Digital Economy, Growing Up Digital, and Digital Capital. Some consider him to be the most insightful writer about media since Marshall McLuhan.
This interview is about 13 minutes long.
Today’s interview is audio. There are two ways to listen.
(1) By clicking on the March 12th interview at the left, or
(2) Through your iPod or portable player via a podcast. Podcast subscription is available at Apple’s iTunes or on the podcast tab of our website.
March 9, 2007, 11:05 AM If you would like to learn whether the Hollywood Studios or the Internet Distributors will hold the upper-hand as Digital Media distribution comes-of-age, this interview is for you.
Our guest today is Paul Vigna who is a writer and editor for Dow Jones. Paul recently wrote an editorial for The Wall Street Journal arguing that content will be king.
This interview is about 19 minutes long.
Today’s interview is audio. There are two ways to listen:
(1) By clicking on the March 9th interview at the left, or
(2) Through your iPod or portable player via a podcast. Podcast subscription is available at Apple’s iTunes or one the podcast tab at our website.
March 7, 2007, 07:54 PM If you would like to learn how to protect your network from Instant Messaging, P2P File Trading, and other “Greynets”, this interview is for you. (Part 2 of 2).
As computer workstations have become connected to the Internet, a variety of programs proliferated offering the ability to extend communications, gather and deliver information, and to serve various needs. Among the first to emerge were instant messaging clients such as ICQ, AOL Instant Messenger and MSN Messenger. These are called greynets.
The problem with greynet programs is fourfold. First, they create network security risks by causing broad vectors for malware dissemination. Second, they create privacy issues for the network by opening large holes for information leakage. Third, greynet programs create compliance issues for a computer network by creating an invisible parallel communications network. Fourth, they create issues on local machines through the consumption of local system resources and possible operating system or program stability concerns. All of these things increase network and IT administration time and costs.
Our guest today is Kailash Ambwani who is the CEO of Face Time Communications.
This video is about 12 minutes long.
Today’s interview was conducted remotely on the WebEx platform. It is available for playback by clicking on the March 7th interview at the left.
It is also available as a video podcast at iTunes, our website, or via other aggregating software.
March 5, 2007, 08:50 PM If you would like to learn how to protect your network from Instant Messaging, P2P File Trading, and other “Greynets”, this interview is for you. (Part 1 of 2).
As computer workstations have become connected to the Internet, a variety of programs have proliferated that offer the ability to extend communications, gather and deliver information, and to serve the needs of marketing concerns. Among the first to emerge were instant messaging clients such as ICQ, AOL Instant Messenger and MSN Messenger. These are called greynets.
The problem with greynet programs is fourfold. First, they create network security risks by causing broad vectors for malware dissemination. Second, they create privacy issues for the network by opening large holes for information leakage. Third, greynet programs create compliance issues for a computer network by creating an invisible parallel communications network. Fourth, they create issues on local machines through the consumption of local system resources and possible operating system or program stability concerns. All of these things increase network and IT administration time and costs.
Our guest today is Kailash Ambwani who is the CEO of Face Time Communications.
This video is about 13 minutes long.
Today’s interview was conducted remotely on the WebEx platform. It is available for playback by clicking on the March 5th interviewat the left.
It is also available as a video podcast at iTunes, our website, or via other aggregating software.
March 2, 2007, 05:05 PM If you would like to learn whether the content rights holder or the Internet distributor will hold the upper hand as Digital Media comes of age, this interview is for you.
Google’s YouTube and Viacom have apparently squared-off in their negotiations with disagreements about whether the content rights holder or the Internet distribution site holds the upper hand.
Our guest today is a Professor of Interactive Communications at Quinnipiac University who shares his views on the topic. He is Richard Hanley.
This interview is about 14 minutes long.
Today’s interview is audio. There are two ways to listen by selecting March 2nd interview.
(1) At the Website on the left,
(2) Through your iPod or portable player via a podcast. Podcast subscription is available at Apple’s iTunes or on our website.
February 28, 2007, 12:07 PM If you would like to learn about technologies that will enable you to talk to your automobile's entertainment system when you want to tell it what to play, this interview is for you.
Our guest today is Craig Palmer who is the CEO of Gracenote.
This audio interview is about 22 minutes long.
There are two ways to listen:
(1) By clicking on the February 28th interview at the left.
(2) Through your iPod or portable player via a podcast. Podcast subscription is available at Apple’s iTunes or on the podcast tab here at our website.
February 26, 2007, 04:39 PM If you would like to learn about the future of voice recognition and voice response technology, this interview is for you.
Our guest today is Dr. Bill Meisel who is the founder of TMA Associates. His company is a market research firm specializing in computerized speech technology.
Bill specializes in analyzing commercial developments that are enabled by advanced speech technology. He is one of the computer speech industry’s best-known industry analysts.
This video is 20 minutes long.
Today’s interview was conducted remotely on the WebEx platform. It is available for playback by clicking on the February 26th interview at the left.
It is also available as a video podcast at iTunes, our website, or via other aggregating software.
February 22, 2007, 05:45 PM If you would like to learn about a family-friendly social networking site, this interview is for you.
Recently the Wall Street Journal ran a story about how websites like Digg are providing ways to popularize new products and Internet applications. For example, last summer a respected Digg commentator posted his views on a new family-oriented social networking site called Famster. As a result, Famster’s traffic skyrocketed from a trickle to a flood.
Today’s guests are three officers of Famster.com. They are Kristin Criss who is the Vice President of Operations, Brett Ratner who is the Vice President of Product Development, and Jennifer Weaver who is the Public Relations Manager.
This video is about 14 minutes long.
Today’s interview was conducted remotely on the WebEx platform. It is available for playback via Windows Media Player by clicking on the February 22 interview at the left.
It is also available as a video podcast at iTunes, our website, or via other aggregating software.
February 21, 2007, 03:24 PM If you would like to learn what an independent market research analyst thinks about Apple’s iPhone, this interview is for you.
Our guest today is Avi Greengart who is a specialist in the mobile telephone industry for the market research firm of Current Analysis.
This video is about 30 minutes long.
Today’s interview was conducted remotely on the WebEx platform. It is available for playback via Windows Media Player by clicking on the February 21st interview at the left.
February 20, 2007, 03:25 PM If you would like to learn more about the licensing agreement that permits YouTube to show vintage television programming in an advertising supported business model, this interview is for you.
Recently YouTube struck a deal to license vintage television shows like I Spy and My Favorite Martian from Digital Music Group. The shows will be available at YouTube on demand. YouTube will generate advertising revenue from those watching the program and share the revenue with Digital Music Group.
Our guest today is Mitch Koulouris who is the CEO of Digital Music Group.
This audio interview is covered in about 16 minutes.
There are two ways to listen by clicking on the February 20th interview at the left.
Or through your iPod or portable player via a podcast. Podcast subscription is available at Apple’s iTunes or here on our website.
February 9, 2007, 07:54 PM If you are interested in relaxing with great literature in your free time, this interview is for you.
According to our guest today the English departments of American colleges and universities have either minimized the importance of traditional English literature or have characterized its as extreme bigotry in religious, gender, racial, and political contexts. Therefore, the departments discourage the traditional teachings about the merits of Shakespeare, Milton, Chaucer, Johnson, Austin, Dickens and others.
Our guest today is Dr. Elizabeth Kantor who is the author of The Politically Incorrect Guide to English and American Literature.
This interview is about 27 minutes long.
Today?s interview is audio. There are two ways to listen.
First, here at our website by clicking on the interview for February 9th.
Second, through your iPod or other portable player via a podcast. Podcast subscription is available at Apple?s iTunes on our webpages. February 7, 2007, 07:42 PM If you would like to learn about TeleSpan?s ten predictions for the coming year, this interview is for you. (Part 1 of 2)
For the past 25 years Elliot Gold has been providing market research on the Electronic Conferencing market at his firm, TeleSpan. Initially he focused on the audio teleconferencing market, but now covers Video Conferencing and Web Conferencing as well.
Each January for the past dozen years Elliot has been providing ten predictions for the industry that he expects to materialize during the ensuing twelve months. At the end of the year he checks his accuracy and claims a 75% success ratio over the full 12-year period.
This video is about 6 minutes long.
Today?s interview was conducted remotely on the WebEx platform. It is available for playback via Windows Media Player by clicking on the February 7th interview at the left.
It is also available as a video podcast at iTunes, our website, or via other aggregating software.
February 6, 2007, 06:37 PM If you would like to know how to get started as a podcaster and maximize your distribution, this interview is for you.
Our guest today is Jason Van Orden who is the author of Promoting Your Podcast: The Ultimate Guide to Building An Audience of Raving Fans.
You can get it at Amazon.com and other fine book stores.
This interview is about 22 minutes long.
Today?s interview is audio. There are two ways to listen:
(1) By clicking on the interview at the left for February 6th.
(2) Via a podcast. Podcast subscription is available at no cost at Apple?s iTunes or here at or website.
February 5, 2007, 06:05 PM A number of investment bankers and venture capitalists complain that securities regulations adopted after the dot-com bust has made it hard to do IPOs in the United States.
Adam Lashinsky who is a Senior Writer for Fortune Magazine disagrees.
This audio interview is covered in about 9 minutes.
There are two ways to listen.
First, you may click on the February 5th interview at the left.
Second, you may get it as a podcast via our website, Apple's iTunes, or other podcast aggregating software.
February 2, 2007, 09:03 PM If you would like to learn how to get your podcasts to your mobile phone wirelessly, this interview is for you.
Most of us are used to having our podcasts automatically downloaded to our iTunes software in our computer. The iPod gets ?synched-up? with iTunes when we connect it to the computer. So, most of us are listening to, or watching, our podcasts on our computers or our iPods.
However, there is no technical reason why you cannot get your podcasts delivered to your cell phone wirelessly while you are on the move. Melodeo offers a service called MobilCast, through Cingular and AllTel, that enables you to just that. Our interview today describes how it works.
You can have your podcasts either (1) streamed to your phone or (2) downloaded to it. Streaming tends to provide a near real-time experience.
Our guest today is Rob Greenlee who is Senior Marketing Manager for Melodeo.
This video is about 15 minutes long.
Today?s interview was conducted remotely on the WebEx platform. It is available for playback via Windows Media Player by clicking on the February 2nd interview at the left.
It is also available as a video podcast at iTunes, our website, or via other aggregating software.
February 1, 2007, 07:41 PM Increasingly consumers want to get Internet video played on their televisions. Our video today illustrates two competing LAN technologies that can do the job and provides our comparative analysis.
Ultimately consumers will want to enjoy Internet video on their televisions as well as their computers. Most do not want to string new wires through the walls of their homes. That is why Apple TV uses wireless Wi-Fi. But the existing electrical wires in your home may provide a better solution.
In the past week or so we have provided the episodes of our interview with Intellon which is a company that makes semiconductor chips for Power Line networking. Today we provide our own analysis of the technology.
Today's video is about 8 minutes long.
You can watch our analysis via Windows Media Player by clicking on the February 1st ?interview? at the left.
It is also available as a video podcast at iTunes, our website, or via other aggregating software.
January 31, 2007, 08:41 PM If you would like to learn how to use the electrical wiring in your home to transport video from your computer to your television and other display screens around the house, this interview is for you. (Part 4 of 4).
Our guest today is Andy Melder who is the Senior Vice President for Business Development at Intellon Corporation. His company is a fabless semiconductor house that makes circuits to enable others to make devices that let the electrical wiring in our homes become reliable LANs.
The technology has advanced to the point where power line LANs are capable of transporting video from our computers to televisions and other display screens around the home or office. The hardwired connection may well be more reliable than the wireless approach that has dominated to date, and that is to be used in the new Apple TV.
In this Part 4 of a 4-Part interview, Andy concludes his presentation and leaves me time for questions and answers.
This video is about 7 minutes long.
Today?s interview was conducted remotely on the WebEx platform. It is available for playback via Windows Media Player by clicking on the January 31st interview at the left.
It is also available as a video podcast at iTunes, our website, or via other aggregating software January 30, 2007, 06:00 PM Microsoft?s introduction of its Vista Operating System today provides Apple a fresh opportunity to consider licensing its OS to PC manufactures. Those who buy PCs with Vista will have to re-learn their computer systems anyway, so why not give them a chance to learn the Apple OS that Mac fans have raved about for years?
There are a couple of other factors suggesting that this is an appropriate time. First, Michael Dell has indicated that he might be receptive to the idea. Second, Apple computers now use Intel chips, as do the PCs.
Our guest today is Tom Evslin. Earlier he sold one of his companies to Microsoft and then was in charge of the team that developed the Exchange Server. Afterward he founded, took-public, and sold a successful VoIP company. Now he writes books and comments on the industry from his website, Fractals of Change.
This interview is about 16 minutes long.
Today?s interview is audio. There are two ways to listen. First, you can click on the interview for January 30th at the left. Second, you can get it as a podcast via iTunes, our website, or other podcast aggregating software.
January 29, 2007, 07:57 PM If you would like to learn how to use the electrical wiring in your home to transport video from your computer to your television and other display screen around the house, this interview is for you. (Part 3 of 4)
Our guest today is Andy Melder who is the Senior Vice President for Business Development at Intellon Corporation. His company is a fabless semiconductor house that makes circuits to enable others to make devices that let the electrical wiring in our homes become reliable LANs.
The technology has advanced to the point where power line LANs are capable of transporting video from our computers to televisions and other display screens around the home or office. The hardwired connection may well be more reliable than the wireless approach that has dominated to date, and that is to be used in the new Apple TV.
In this Part 3 of a 4-Part interview, Andy discusses an overview of the business and the prominent venture and corporate investors in Intellon.
This video is about 7 minutes long.
Today?s interview was conducted remotely on the WebEx platform. It is available for playback via Windows Media Player by clicking on the January 27th interview at the left.
It is also available as a video podcast at iTunes, our website, or via other aggregating software January 26, 2007, 11:26 AM If you would like to learn how to use the electrical wiring in your home to transport video from your computer to your television and other display screen around the house, this interview is for you. (Part 2 of 4)
Our guest today is Andy Melder who is the Senior Vice President for Business Development at Intellon Corporation. His company is a fabless semiconductor house that makes circuits to enable others to make devices that let the electrical wiring in our homes become reliable LANs.
The technology has advanced to the point where power line LANs are capable of transporting video from our computers to televisions and other display screens around the home or office. The hardwired connection may well be more reliable than the wireless approach that has dominated to date, and that is to be used in the new Apple TV.
In this Part 2 of a 4-Part interview, Andy discusses an overview of the business and the prominent venture and corporate investors in Intellon.
This video is about 8 minutes long.
Today?s interview was conducted remotely on the WebEx platform. It is available for playback via Windows Media Player by clicking on the January 26th interview at the left.
It is also available as a video podcast at iTunes, our website, or via other aggregating software.
January 25, 2007, 07:06 PM If you would like to learn important, but subtle, implications of the iPhone and Apple TV, this interview is for you. (We have augmented our earlier video with product demos).
Essentially we believe that the iPhone is a prototype manifestation of a product concept originated by George Gilder about ten years ago. He termed the device a ?teleputer?. The teleputer is a portable communications appliance that enables the user to access information from a World Wide Network nearly instantaneously. Telephony is merely one of many applications. As such, the iPhone is hugely significant.
Apple TV appears to be well ahead of competing devices designed to transport Internet video from our computers to our televisions. However, it does not do Windows or Flash. We infer that their exclusion is a subtle, if (maybe) unintended, way for Apple to establish dominance in digital video as it did in digital music.
This video is about 6 minutes long.
Today?s interview is available for playback by clicking on the January 25th interview at the left.
It is also available as a video podcast at iTunes, our website, or via other aggregating software.
January 24, 2007, 06:24 PM If you would like to learn how the electrical wiring in your home can be used to transport video from your computer to your television and other display screen around the house, this interview is for you. (Part 1 of 4)
Our guest today is Andy Melder who is the Senior Vice President for Business Development at Intellon Corporation. His company is a fabless semiconductor house that makes circuits to enable others to make devices that let the electrical wiring in our homes become reliable LANs.
The technology has advanced to the point where power line LANs are capable of transporting video from our computers to televisions and other display screens around the home or office. The hardwired connection may well be more reliable than the wireless approach that has dominated to date, and that is to be used in the new Apple TV.
In this Part 1 of a 4-Part interview, Andy discusses an overview of the business and the prominent venture and corporate investors in Intellon.
This video is about 7 minutes long.
Today?s interview was conducted remotely on the WebEx platform. It is available for playback via Windows Media Player by clicking on the January 24th interview at the left.
It is also available as a video podcast at iTunes, our website, or via other aggregating software.
January 23, 2007, 09:35 PM If you would like to learn about a company whose business is benefiting from the YouTube phenomenon, this interview is for you. (Part 3 of 3)
Our guest today is Stan Woodward who is the CEO of Reflect Systems. His company serves two markets: (1) Corporate Webcasting Services and (2) Digital Signage.
In this Part 3 of a 3-Part interview, Stan discusses the digital signage business.
This video is about 7 minutes long.
Today?s interview was conducted remotely on the WebEx platform. It is available for playback via Windows Media Player by clicking on the January 23rd interview at the left.
It is also available as a video podcast at iTunes, our website, or via other aggregating software.
January 22, 2007, 07:03 PM If you would like to learn about a company whose business is benefiting from the YouTube phenomenon, this interview is for you. (Part 2 of 3)
Our guest today is Stan Woodward who is the CEO of Reflect Systems. His company serves two markets: (1) Corporate Webcasting Services and (2) Digital Signage.
In this Part 2 of a 3-Part interview, Stan discusses the digital signage market.
This video is about 7 minutes long.
Today?s interview was conducted remotely on the WebEx platform. It is available for playback via Windows Media Player by clicking on the January 22nd interview at the left.
It is also available as a video podcast at iTunes, our website, or via other aggregating software.
January 19, 2007, 09:52 PM If you would like to learn about a company that makes an eyeglass electronic display for use with the iPod video, this interview is for you.
Our guest today Kip Kokinakis who is the CEO of Micro Optical. His company manufactures portable electronic displays. The displays are worn like goggles, or eyeglasses, on the face. They provide a front row Cinemascope type of view which you can enjoy with a portable media player like the iPod video.
The MyVu model, priced at around $300 is designed specifically for the iPod video.
This audio interview is covered in about 14 minutes.
There are two ways to listen.
(1) At the Website here click on the January 19th interview.
(2) Through your iPod or portable player via a podcast. Podcast subscription is available at Apple?s iTunes or here.
January 18, 2007, 04:39 PM If you would like to learn about a company whose business is benefiting from the YouTube phenomenon, this interview is for you. (Part 1 of 3)
Our guest today is Stan Woodward who is the CEO of Reflect Systems. His company serves two markets: (1) Corporate Webcasting Services and (2) Digital Signage.
In this Part 1 of a 3 Part interview, Stan provides an overview of the company and its markets.
This video is about 10 minutes long.
Today?s interview was conducted remotely on the WebEx platform. It is available for playback via Windows Media Player by clicking on the interview for January 18th.
The show is also available as a video podcast at iTunes, our website, or via other aggregating software.
January 17, 2007, 05:42 PM If you would like to learn whether successful start-ups normally rely on comprehensive business plans, this interview is for you.
Our guest today is Dr. Benson Honig who a professor of entrepreneurship at the Wilfrid Laurier School of Business & Economics in Ontario, Canada.
His research indicates that there is not a good correlation between successful start-ups and the length of the business plan they prepared before launch. The two factors that count are (1) network capital, and (2) prior relationships with potential customers.
This audio interview is about 16 minutes long.
January 16, 2007, 10:25 PM Today our program is a six minute video of me providing my thoughts on the iPhone and the Apple TV.
You can watch it via Windows Media Player by clicking on the icon for the January 16th interview at the left.
It is also available as a podcast at iTunes, our website, or via other aggregating software.
January 15, 2007, 07:47 PM If you would like to learn what is ahead for the electronic display market, this interview is for you (Part 3 of 3 Parts).
Our guest today is Chris Chinnock who is the President of Insight Media. His company is a market research firm specializing in the electronic display industry.
This video is about 6 minutes long.
Today?s interview was conducted remotely on the WebEx platform. It is available for playback via Windows Media Player by clicking on the Insight Media icon for January 15, 2007 at the left.
The video is also available as a podcast at iTunes, our website, or via other aggregating software.
January 12, 2006, 03:29 PM If you would like to learn what is ahead for the electronic display market, this Part 2 of a 3 Part interview is for you.
Our guest today is Chris Chinnock who is the President of Insight Media Research. His company is a market research firm specializing in the electronic display industry.
This video interview is covered in about 8 minutes.
Today?s interview was conducted remotely on the WebEx platform. It is available for playback via Windows Media Player by clicking on the Insight Media icon at the left.
It is also available as a podcast at iTunes, our website, or via other aggregating software.
January 10, 2007, 03:30 PM If you would like to learn how the major record labels are getting started with podcasting, this interview is for you.
Our guest today Jeff Daniel who is the CEO of Rock River Music. His company makes compilation CDs of popular music for retailers such as Williams-Sonoma.
Rock River recently announced a deal to do podcasts with popular music from Sony-BMG and Warner. The podcasts will be sponsored by well-known consumer brands such as Chrysler. They will be distributed for free via iTunes and other online sites.
This audio interview is covered in about 17 minutes.
January 8, 2007, 08:02 PM If you would like to learn what is ahead for the electronic display market, this interview is for you.
Our guest today is Chris Chinnock who is the President of Insight Media. His company is a market research firm specializing in the electronic display industry.
This 9 minute video is part one of a three part series.
It was conducted remotely on the WebEx platform and avialable at the left by clicking on the Insight Media interview for January 8, 2007.
The video is also available as a podcast at iTunes, our website, or via other aggregating software.
January 5, 2007, 11:49 PM If you would like to learn what one college student thinks about the new Zune portable music player from Microsoft, this interview is for you.
Our guest today is ?Trent? who is a college student at the University of Florida. He was given one of the new Zune portable music players made by Microsoft as a Christmas gift.
Trent tells us what he thinks about the Zune and compares it to the Apple iPod.
This video interview is covered in about 7 minutes.
January 3, 2007, 09:15 PM If you would like to learn what a veteran Internet industry expert thinks about YouTube and MySpace, this interview is for you.
Our guest today is Matt Ragas who is the Editor of The Value Raider Report. During the dot-com boom he was a founder of RagingBull which was sold to CMGI. Matt also authored two books published by Random House entitled Lessons from the eFront and The Power of Cult Branding.
This audio interview is covered in about 12 minutes.
December 27, 2006, 04:49 PM If you would like to learn why an ordinary consumer has found the Mac to be superior to the PC, this interview is for you.
Our guest today is ?Diane? who is a middle-aged woman who used PCs until she bought a Mac a little over a year ago. ?Diane? is college educated, but not especially skilled in the use of computers as compared to someone who has a computer science degree.
She liked the Mac so much, that she bought a second one, a laptop this time, for Christmas.
This audio-visual interview is covered in about 8 minutes.
December 22, 2006, 01:26 PM If you would like to learn about the future of computer graphics, this interview is for you.
Our guest today is Jon Peddie who is the founder of Jon Peddie Research. His company is a technically oriented marketing, research, and management consulting firm. They have worked in the graphics and multimedia fields for more than 30 years.
JPR provides specialized services to companies in high-tech fields including graphics hardware development, multimedia for professional applications and consumer electronics, entertainment technology, high-end computing, and Internet access product development.
This audio interview is covered in about 14 minutes.
December 20, 2006, 05:36 PM If you would like to learn how the Stevens Institute at the University of Southern California is working to promote entrepreneurship among its students and faculty, this interview is for you.
Our guest today is Krisztina Holly who is the Executive Director of the Stevens Institute at the University of Southern California. She is also a Vice Provost of the University. USC-Stevens Institute is charged with promoting entrepreneurship and technology transfer among the faculty and students at the university.
This audio interview is covered in about 16 minutes.
December 18, 2006, 10:42 AM If you would like to learn why some wireless carriers are starting to permit third parties, like Major League Baseball, to provide entertainment content directly to wireless subscribers, this interview is for you.
Our guest today is Linda Barrabee who is a program director for The Yankee Group. Her firm is a market research organization and she specializes in mobile entertainment.
This audio interview is covered in 18 minutes.
December 15, 2006, 02:11 PM If you would like to learn the technical requirements for a video podcast, this interview is for you.
Our guest today Jefferson Graham who is a reporter for USA Today. In addition to reporting on technology, Jeff has a weekly video podcast that he does with Ed Baig who also works for the newspaper. Typically, they review new electronic gadgets for consumers.
This audio interview is covered in about 14 minutes.
December 13, 2006, 03:41 PM If you would like to learn what kind of equipment to use for high quality recordings of telephone conversations to be used in podcasts, this interview is for you.
Our guest today is Joe Klinger who is the CEO of J.K. Audio. Founded 16 years ago, his company makes high quality audio equipment for TV and radio stations. Increasingly, podcasters are discovering that J.K. Audio has the some of the right equipment for them as well.
This audio-visual interview is covered in about 30 minutes.
December 11, 2006, 04:28 PM If you would like to learn how GPS-enabled cell phones can help you efficiently manage a mobile work force, this interview is for you.
Our guest today is Sanjay Shirole who is the CEO of Xora. His company permits customers to easily track the locations of their mobile work force. Employees simply carry their GPS-enabled cell phones with them throughout their regular activities and their location is automatically tracked and recorded.
This audio-visual interview is covered in about 25 minutes.
December 8, 2006, 08:41 PM If you would like to separate the hype from the promise of User Generated Video business opportunities, this interview is for you.
Today?s guest on Inside Digital Media is Paul Palumbo who is the Director of Research at AccuStream which is a market research firm specializing in the content delivery industry. He recently completed a report on the future of User Generated Video.
The audio-visual interview length is 23 minutes.
December 6, 2006, 07:14 PM If you own a small business and would like to learn how to use the Internet to market your company, this interview is for you.
Our guest today Lynette Chandler who is the founder of Tech-Based Marketing.
As a small business owner herself, Lynnette knows how we seem to get the short end of the stick sometimes. Information and knowledge that's available to the big guys should also be available to small business.
That is why she decided to share her knowledge because she knows that if she can show us something that'll catapult our small companies to the next level, we'll remember and regularly return to her website.
December 1, 2006, 02:45 PM If you are a habitual PC user who is considering the purchase of an Apple computer, this interview is for you.
Our guest today is a man pseudonymed Tim who worked for IBM for about 25 years. Prior to joining IBM, he obtained an Electrical Engineering degree from Purdue. In school he built his own computer and at IBM he used PCs. Earlier this year he purchased his first Mac.
In this interview, Tim shares his experiences in making the switch. While he would still purchase the Mac if he had it to do all over again, some of his unexpected experiences can enlighten those of us who are trying to decide whether, or not, a Mac is a better option for us now.
November 29, 2006, 09:51 PM If you would like to learn about a WiKi project involving Wharton and MIT that will lead to the publication of a business book, this interview is for you.
Our guest today is Barry Libert who is CEO of Shared Insights. Barry persuaded London-based Pearson, the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Sloan School to help develop a new book entitled We Are Smarter, which will be published under Pearson's Wharton School Publishing imprint.
The WeAreSmarter.org Web site, co-founded by Mr. Libert and Wharton vice dean Jon Spector, went online a month ago with initial content they shaped along with MIT management professor Thomas Malone, among others. They chose chapter headings and then wrote a few pages to create a starting point. For instance, a chapter titled "We Can Research It," tells an anecdote about an Australian man who started a mail-order brewery based on votes by 20,000 cellphone users on what makes an ideal beer. Other participants can then edit the contents or add anecdotes.
The wiki leaders expect business consultants and executives to contribute to the book site, which, like Wikipedia, doesn't pay writers for their work. The site is open to anyone, but does ask contributors to supply information.
WeAreSmarter expects to close submissions to the book wiki by the end of the first quarter next year and turn it over to paid ghostwriters to turn it into a 120-page business book aimed at the fast-growing airport bookstore market. It will go on sale next fall. Despite the free labor of the original authors, the list price will be $25.99, says Tim Moore, publisher of two of Pearson's business imprints, Wharton School Publishing and FT Press. Authors will vote on a charity to receive any profits.
November 27, 2006, 04:54 PM If you would like to learn how Telcos can deliver ultra-broadband services, like those in South Korea, to homes in America, this interview is for you.
Telephone companies like Verizon and AT&T are starting to deploy IPTV and ultra-broadband services to in selected neighborhoods of certain cites in the United States. Today?s guest company provides gateway equipment that can be installed at the home to enable those services to be distributed throughout the residence.
Our guest today is Frank Galuppo who is the CEO of Amedia Networks. His company recently announced a Broadband Entertainment Center designed to enable Telecom carriers to deliver triple-play services throughout the networked home
November 20, 2006, 07:30 PM If you would like learn about the controversy involving increased fees the stock exchanges are requiring for Internet feeds, this interview is for you.
Our guest today is Markham Erickson who is the Executive Director of Net Coalition. His organization serves as the public policy voice for some of the world's most innovative Internet companies on the key legislative and administrative proposals affecting the online world.
The stock exchanges are starting to charge sharply higher fees for stock quotation feeds to Internet websites.
November 17, 2006, 03:41 PM If you would like to learn why some business school students are pursuing Financial Engineering degrees instead of the MBA, this interview is for you.
Our guest today is Dr. Linda Kreitzman who is the Executive Director of the Masters in Financial Engineering Program at the Haas Business School of the University of California at Berkeley.
November 15, 2006, 02:28 PM If you would like to learn what one Google executive has to say about Internet video, this interview is for you.
Anybody not been stranded on a desert island during the past year knows that Internet video has come into prominence in 2006. Not only has Google paid $1.6 billion (in stock) for YouTube, but nearly every important media company is increasing their focus on Internet video. For example, the trend is obvious to even the most casual visitors to such online newspapers as The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times.
Our guest today is Gokul Rajaram who is the Product Management Director for Google AdSense.
November 3, 2006, 02:25 PM If you would like to learn how to start making money on Internet video, this interview is for you.
Last week an Advertising Age article about the Brightcove CEO stated, ?One day this guy?s company is going to be worth more than the $1.6 billion that Google will pay for YouTube?. While that?s a bold statement, after we first interviewed Brightcove a year-and-a-half ago, we felt that their focus on the B2B aspects of Internet video looked promising. Now they?re doing even more and can enable many of us to make money with Internet video.
Since our first interview Brightcove raised $32 million in venture funding from the likes of Allen & Company, AOL, Hearst, and IAC and has become an important vehicle for media companies to publish their video to the Internet. One of the best examples is The Wall Street Journal.
Both the Wall Street Journal and New York Times create good Internet videos. But the Journal does a far superior job of distributing them because it uses the Brightcove platform. The Times approach is downright annoying and damaging to the newspaper?s own interests.
Re-distribution at the Times is badly flawed. A viewer desiring to send a friend a video link via email is required to use a form at the Website. The form does not permit anyone to copy and paste an email address into the appropriate blank. Instead it must be key-stroked, in an error-prone laborious process, one recipient at a time. Also Times videos prevent the viewer from copying the url so that viewers cannot post the links to their own blogs and Websites. Basically the Times ignores the powerful viral re-distribution techniques that have made YouTube and MySpace paragon examples of rapid and low cost audience growth.
Conversely, videos from www.wsj.com play through the Brightcove platform. Significantly, Brightcove makes it easy for consumers to capture urls specific to each clip. That way, viewers can redistribute them via email, or by posting them to one?s own blog or Website.
November 1, 2006, 02:15 PM If you would like to learn about work that the University of California at Santa Barbara is doing to advance the state-of-the-art in light-wave electronics, this interview is for you.
As noted in our Webcast last week, UCSB announced jointly with Intel the development of a way to place III-V semiconductor lasers on a silicon substrate. This development is potentially so significant, that we now make the story available to you as an audio-only podcast with the leading researcher at UCSB. For a streamed audio-visual presentation by Intel, see our interview last Friday (10-27-06).
Breakthroughs in electronic component technology can be profoundly important; much more so than and a mere advance in the state-of-the-art of a computer of an electronic system. That?s because a true advance in component technology will inevitably induce price/performance advances for all electronic systems.
Consider, for example, how transistors replaced vacuum tubes. If made with tubes, a computer to match the performance of today?s laptop PC would be larger than a city skyscraper. It would also be subject to an enormously higher failure rate since each of the tubes generates considerable heat and requires repetitive wiring. Nature abhors a vacuum tube.
Another example is the development of the Integrated Circuit to replace discrete transistors, which had much the same quantum effect on system design as did the transistor replacement of the vacuum tube.
Similarly, the development of semiconductor lasers enabled fiber optic communications. The Intel-UCSB breakthrough could take it to the next level. When multiple lasers are fabricated with silicon ICs a new era of low-cost broadband communications, far beyond anything we experience today, can become a reality.
October 30, 2006, 01:47 PM If you are interested in learning what kinds of new media skills that advertising agencies and media buyers are looking for, this interview is for you.
Last Monday?s Wall Street Journal carried an article explaining how advertising agencies, media planners, and media buyers were having a hard time finding people with the right skills to be effective in the World of new media.
They need people with a combination of artistic and technical talent to create effective ads for Internet media. They also need people who understand where the ads need to be placed and what kind of ads will appeal to the targeted demographic. Additionally they need people who know how to make the interactivity endemic to the Internet lead to ads that will engage the targeted demographic with viewer interaction.
October 27, 2006, 02:53 PM If you would like to learn about how Intel and the University of California at Santa Barbara have fabricated laser components on silicon, this interview is for you.
Breakthroughs in electronic component technology can be profoundly important; much more so than and a mere advance in the state of the art of a computer of an electronic system. That?s because a true advance in component technology will inevitably lead to price/performance advances for all electronic systems.
Consider, for example, how transistors replaced vacuum tubes. If made with tubes, a computer to match the performance of today?s laptop PC would be larger than a city skyscraper. Nature abhors a vacuum tube.
Another example is the development of the Integrated Circuit to replace discrete transistors, which had much the same quantum effect as the transistor replacement of the vacuum tube.
Similarly, the development of semiconductor lasers enabled fiber optic communications. The Intel-UCSB breakthrough could take it to the next level.
October 25, 2006, 01:28 PM If you would like to learn about a public company that is seeking out independent record labels and music artists in order to distribute their music over the Internet, this interview is for you.
Digital Music Group is essentially an independent record label that is focusing primarily upon the digital distribution of the content it licenses from artists. It is a lot like The Orchard.
One way that Digital Music Group originally distinguished itself from The Orchard and other competitors was by getting the digital rights to popular ?oldies? rock & roll from independent labels. One example is Johnny Cash. Now, however, the company is anxious to take an all qualified independent artists.
After licensing the content, Digital Music Group will then make it available to the online stores like iTunes, Rhapsody, eMusic, Napster, and Yahoo Music Unlimited.
October 23, 2006, 03:05 PM If you would like to learn how you might attend conferences and educational classes as an avatar in at an online virtual campus, this interview is for you.
Once limited to the imagination of science fiction writers like Neal Stephenson, avatars have already become realities in computer entertainment for online communities. Presently they are also becoming a reality for business and educational purposes as well. One example is the Second Life online virtual world.
As explained in last month?s Popular Science magazine:
Like the computer game The Sims, Second Life is software that enables you to guide your avatar through a 3-D landscape, chat with other avatars, and build objects with tools. But SL, as it?s known to its 300,000 members, or ?residents,? isn?t a game. It?s more like an animated version of real life.
SL counts among its largest backers Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos and eBay founder Pierre Omidyar. Today a session in SL usually means play: meeting new people (everyone who?s logged in is somewhere in the SL landscape), building a rocket, even having sexual liaisons in specially marked adult areas.
But increasingly, people are logging on to work, shop, or go to class. Of course, the same thing could have been said about the Web 10 years ago. Like the Web, all but the basic infrastructure in SL is built by the people who populate it. Want a conference room where you can swap blueprints with a team around the world? Create one, and other avatars can come inside. Want to sell your band?s music? Build a jukebox, fill it with MP3s, and charge SL residents in Linden dollars (SL?s currency) to download them.
October 19, 2006, 01:46 PM The Wall Street Journal may reverse its opinion on Network Neutrality.
So far the year, the newspaper published at least two editorials and one Op-Ed opposing Network Neutrality.
For the uninitiated, the concept advocates a regulatory environment prohibiting network operators to discriminate against independent websites and consumers. For example, ISPs would not be allowed to throttle the speed of content delivery for websites refusing to pay them a priority, or metered traffic, fee. Some telephone and cable TV ISPs are considering the adoption of such charges.
The Wall Street Journal editorial staff thinks this is fine. They argue that additional charges are necessary to justify the infrastructure investment required for rich-media transport. While seemingly appealing to fundamental capitalistic ethos, the argument overlooks two points.
First, ISPs already collect incremental fees in the form of broadband access from both the originating websites and viewing consumers. They already hold the authority to raise those rates.
Second, as newspapers create ever-more Internet video, The Wall Street Journal is likely to become sensitively aware of the merits of Network Neutrality. They?re probably not going to want their online subscribers to pay the ISP an incremental fee to watch Wall Street Journal videos. Neither is wsj.com likely to welcome the idea that it should pay a metered fee, in addition to the broadband access charges already assessed, for the traffic it generates. Presently, there are about 50 video clips daily at the online Wall Street Journal. That number is almost certain to grow, as is the audience.
In short, the ancient wisdom, ?Opinions are changed by experience, and not by argument?, may soon come to apply to the Wall Street Journal.
October 18, 2006, 02:04 PM If you are interested in understanding the future of the Blogsphere and Digital Media, this interview is for you.
Do you think a blogger could win the Pulitzer Prize? Someday I think it will happen.
Our guest today is Brad Hill who is the Executive Editor of WebLogs. He has also written about 20 books, many of which are about the Internet and Digital Media. He was writing seven blogs for WebLogs before he became their Executive Editor.
October 16, 2006, 05:03 PM If you would like to learn why WebEx is opening-up its Media Tone platform to 3rd party developers, this interview is for you.
Today?s guest is David Knight who is the Vice President of WebEx Connect. He tells us how developers can use the Media Tone platform to come up with their own collaborative hooks for their conventional software packages.
October 13, 2006, 02:03 PM If you would like to learn the latest research on consumer Digital Media Habits, this interview is for you.
Parks Associates recently completed a survey and market study of consumer Digital Media Habits. So if you would like the latest information on how consumers are using Digital Media, from YouTube to iTunes, this interview is for you.
Today?s guest is John Barrett who is the Director of Research at Parks Associates. His company is a market research firm focused on consumer electronics markets.
October 11, 2006, 01:10 PM If you would like to learn about the future of Online Collaboration, this interview is for you.
Today?s guest is David Coleman who is the Managing Director of Collaborative Strategies which is a market research firm. He shares with us his vision of the future for Online Collaboration.
October 9, 2006, 06:31 PM If you would like search about a technology enabling you to search inside of audio and video clips to find the content you want, this interview is for you.
Today?s guest is Alex Laats who is the President of BBN?s PodZinger subsidiary. PodZinger enables you to search the words within the audio and video files on the Internet. That way you can find recordings that mention topics of interest to you.
October 6, 2006, 04:37 PM If you would like to get up-to-date on the Web Conferencing industry, this interview is for you.
Today?s guest is Mike Gotta who is a market research analyst with the Burton Group. His specialty is Web Conferencing and Online Collaboration.
October 4, 2006, 09:27 PM If you would like to watch briefing and interview about the latest Internet Security Threat Report from Symantec, this interview is for you.
Today?s guest is Dean Turner who is the Executive Editor of the Internet Security Threat Report that Symantec prepares every six months. The report will tell you the latest developments in the field of viruses, worms, Trojans, and all sorts of malware.
October 2, 2006, 07:34 PM If you would like to learn about an important record label that enthusiastically uses the dot-MP3 format, this interview is for you.
Naxos is the leading classical music record label in the United States. We estimate that the classical genre represents about $400 million a year in domestic sales. That represents only about 3% - 4% of the entire recorded music market. However, there are a number of interesting points.
First, classical represents a disproportionately large share of digital music sales. Naxos finds that the classical genre market share doubles online.
Second, Naxos is a big believer in the advantages of DRM-free digital files. Their music is sold on eMusic in the dot-MP3 format with no DRMs. While some piracy may occur, Naxos feels that the advantages of a DRM-free file outweigh the minimal piracy that may happen.
Third, about 20% of Naxos revenues this year will be from digital music downloads or online subscriptions. That?s about three times the proportion for the major labels like Sony, Warner, Universal, and EMI.
Fourth, Naxos became the largest classical label because they have always believed in the merits of the long-tail. Their catalog is the broadest of all classical labels. The online world only strengthens their advantage because it avoids physical inventory limitations.
September 29, 2006, 04:28 PM If you would like to learn how the DRM-free MP3 format is gaining market share in the sale of legitimate music downloads, this interview is for you.
Today?s guest is David Pakman who is the CEO of eMusic. His company is the second largest seller of legitimate music downloads over the internet, trailing only Apple?s iTunes.
September 27, 2006, 08:04 PM If you would like to learn what new steps RealNetworks and Sandisk are taking to compete more effectively with Apple?s iTunes and iPod, this interview is for you.
Today?s guest is Dan Sheeran who is Senior Vice President for Music ant RealNetworks. His company is going to make the Rhapsody DNA available to hardware manufacturers like SanDisk to provide an integrated iTunes/iPod-like experience.
September 25, 2006, 01:05 PM If you would like to learn about an advocate?s viewpoint on Network Neutrality, this interview is for you.
Today?s guest is Tom Evslin who is a leader in the pro-Network Neutrality movement. He is also a successful computer CEO. He sold one company to Microsoft and took another public. His latest effort is the publication of his novel, hackoff.com.
September 22, 2006, 08:21 PM If you would like to learn what a true Internet pioneer has to say about he future of Digital Media, this interview is for you.
Today?s guest is Michael Robertson who is a prominent pioneer in the field of Digital Media. Formerly he was the CEO of MP3.com, and now runs several ventures. Among them are MP3tunes.com, SIPphone, and Linspire, among others.
September 20, 2006, 07:02 PM If you would like to learn how to empower your own website to sell music and audio downloads, this interview is for you.
Today?s guest is Gene Goldsmith who it the CEO of MySongStore.com. His company makes it easy for you to sell music and audio files from your own website. MySongStore.com handles all the credit card processing and eCommerce software. You just fill in some templates.
MySongStore.com was set up with independent rock & roll artists in mind to permit them to sell their own songs over the Internet.
September 18, 2006, 09:28 PM If you would like to learn about the latest developments and future outlook for podcasting, this interview is for you.
Today?s guest is John Furrier who it the CEO for Podtech.net. John?s company is a pioneer in podcasting and podcasts networks.
September 15, 2006, 10:40 PM If you would like to learn about an advertising-supported website where you can legally download music free of charge, this interview is for you.
Today?s guest is Robin Kent who is the CEO of SprialFrog.com. Robin?s company recently announced a deal with Universal Music that will permit consumers to legally download music tracks for free from SpiralFrog?s advertising-supported website. After this interview was recorded, they announced a similar deal with EMI.
September 13, 2006, 04:54 PM If you would like to learn how to receive RSS feeds in your email instead of having to use an RSS reader, this interview is for you.
Today?s guest is Phil Hollows who is the founder of Feedblitz. His company enables you to receive RSS feeds in your email and thereby avoids the need for learning how to use a RSS reader.
September 11, 2006, 04:05 PM If you would like to learn how one serious runner evaluates the new Nike + iPod gadget, this interview is for you.
Today?s guest is Rob Pegoraro who is a technology columnist for The Washington Post. We talk about his experience in using the new Nike and iPod gadget that keeps track of your running distance with readouts on the iPod screen.
September 7, 2006, 05:56 PM If you would like to learn about a broadband website that enables you to watch high-profile college sports for many popular universities, this interview is for you.
Today?s guest is Samantha Stone who is the Director of Product marketing for Maven Networks. Maven recently announced that they are supporting the CBS broadband website CSTV (College Sports TeleVision).
September 6, 2006, 02:04 PM If you would like to learn how to move video files around your home from one display device to another in a wireless network, this interview is for you.
Today?s guests on Inside Digital Media is Dan Karr who is Senior Vice President of Tzero Technology which is a company that makes semiconductor chips to transport high-bandwidth video around the home and other local environments.
August 28, 2006, 11:33 PM If you would like to learn about a website where you can store your videos and edit them, this interview is for you.
There are two things I like about OneTrueMedia.com.
First, it?s an easy place for you to store your videos online. I mean it when I say it is easy. For example, the neophyte may have trouble uploading her videos, because she is unfamiliar with the uploading process. At OneTrueMedia she can simply request a prepaid mailer and send the file in via postal mail, FebEx, or related services. OneTrueMedia will upload the files to her website account free of charge.
Second, OneTrueMedia provides simple editing tools right on the website. That way the user does not have to buy some complicated program like Adobe Premiere and keep it up to date. The OneTrueMedia editing tools is easy to use and is always up to date because it is essentially software as a service maintained by OneTrueMedia.
Once I have my videos uploaded to OneTrueMedia, they are available for viewing from any Internet-connected computer. It?s a great way to share home videos with extended family and friends.
August 25, 2006, 02:21 PM If you would like to learn how Advanced Micro Devices is designing semiconductor chips to optimize Digital Media, this interview is for you.
For years Advanced Micro Devices had been known as Intel?s ?leading follower?. That was in an era when second sourcing was important to Intel. More recently, AMD has been going more on its own and has gained significant market share against Intel.
Now AMD is increasing its focus on Digital Media. They recognize that consumers want to connect to Internet media, consolidate the experience into a convenient viewing screen, and enhance the viewing experience.
As a first step, AMD developed chips to provide the ?AMD Live PC?. It is a full featured Windows Media Center PC that is ready for multiple simultaneous tasks and advanced media. It is easier to set-up and use. It is always ready and secure. It enables consumers to share and enjoy music, movies, and photos anywhere at anytime.
In sum, if you want to know what AMD?s answer is to Intel?s Viiv, this interview is for you.
August 23, 2006, 12:39 PM If you would like to learn about AOL?s new Internet vide initiative, this interview is for you.
AOL Video would like to become the ?go to? site for Internet video. They plan to do this by offering five categories of programming.
First, is user-generated content much like YouTube.
Second is licensed news programming.
Third is licensed professional entertainment and documentary videos.
Fourth is AOL original programming.
Fifth are programs from their own electronic programming guide. I particularly like the old television shows like ?Maverick? which can be viewed for free.
AOL Video also believes that they offer the best video search engine available. But you can check all of this out for yourself at their website www.aolvideo.com
August 21, 2006, 02:20 PM If you would like to learn about how to discover new music from a community of like-minded people, this interview is for you.
Not too many people like the kind of music that I do. I have some gray hair, so I like old rock and long-hair classical. It?s tough finding new music that I like, but the best experiences have come when I have made a new friend who happens to like the same kind of music.
But, as I said, there are few people who share my tastes, so I don?t meet them often. In fact, I rarely meet new people with similar tastes. While I have been hoping that the Internet could help in this context, so far not so much.
Today?s guest company, however, may be a real breakthrough. MOG is a both a website and a (legitimate) Peer-To-Peer network. Once I sign-up and download the client, the program searches the music folders on m PC that I specify. It then shares that information with other members of the P2P group. While it is not sharing the actual music, it is sharing all the data about the tracks such as artists, composer, how many times I have played it, when I added it, etc.
All of this data can be inspected automatically by anyone who visits my MOG webpage. That way they can tell if we have similar tastes. If we do, they can link to my page and invite me to link to theirs. So, in a sense, MOG is like MySpace expect that it concentrates on people who love music and want to share information about the music they love.
MOG is in the process of developing a legal way to actually play the music once you discover someone who has similar tastes and you want to try out one of the tracks they play a lot. MOG will integrate versions of Napster and Rhapsody that will be either free or advertising supported.
August 18, 2006, 08:40 PM If you would like to learn about an Internet video Applications Service Provider that can tell you which parts of your video are most often viewed and put advertisements at those ?hot-spots? (if you desire), this interview is for you.
Assume you own a newspaper. You see circulation numbers decline, so you decide to start putting your reporters to work creating their own video stories. You distribute the videos as video-podcasts.
After they are made available as podcasts you are going to want to collect as much relevant information about how the audience is viewing them. You may want to put advertisements in the videos.
Today?s guest company is an Applications Service Provider that provides the tools enabling you to do all of the above and more. For example, you may want to know which parts of the videos get viewed the most. These are termed ?hot-spots?, You may want to insert ads at those ?hot-spots?. The guest company today enables you to do that.
For a clear understanding of how this works, watch the audio-visual interview by visiting our website and choosing today?s (August 18th) interview.
August 17, 2006, 08:50 PM If you would like to learn about a website that enables you to upload video to the Net and manage the metrics and advertising, this interview is for you.
YouTube has captured the press and is the clear leader in terms of the number of viewers. However, there are other companies enabling video on the Internet.
Today?s guest company might be particularly attractive to those publishers who want to have more control over how their video is distributed. For example, the guest company today permits you to sell your video as a Pay-Per-View or as a subscription. You can also choose to be advertising supported.
Finally, if you choose to provide your Internet video for free, the guest company today will give you statistical information on the number of times viewed and etc.
August 14, 2006, 11:07 AM If you would like to learn about how you can turn any webpage into an RSS feed, this interview is for you.
Suppose that you find a website that you like. It might be a blog, your boyfriend?s MySpace page, or the page where your local Lexus dealer advertises his promotional prices. If you would like to monitor those websites constantly to see whenever the content changes you could visit them every day. But today?s gust has a better solution.
Instead of visiting those websites every day to see if anything new has been posted, you could turn them into RSS feeds. That way whenever the content changes the new web pages are automatically sent to you.
August 11, 2006, 01:23 PM If you would like to learn about how websites and bloggers can embed valuable aspects of the Rhapsody music service in their pages, this interview is for you.
Aside from the much publicized piracy issue, the record label industry has another problem. For decades they have relied upon broadcast radio to popularize new releases. But listeners are getting annoyed with radio.
First, there?s been a trend toward increased ownership concentration that has resulted in a drop in the diversity of programming. Too many stations are playing the same top forty hits. As a result, many genres are losing their chief promotional tool.
Second, there are too many commercials and obnoxious DJs. The practice of flipping channels no longer provides enough relief. This drives the audience away.
Third, the Internet is eating into radio audience. Music services like Rhapsody, Napster, and Yahoo Music Unlimited are shrinking radio listening at home. In the car, the iPod is an attractive alternative to broadcast radio, particularly with the growing significance of evermore abundant podcast programming.
Today?s guests have developed a way for music to be shared virally among affinity groups and at individual blogs and websites. Rhapsody Web Services has made it relatively easy to integrate Rhapsody tracks into websites and blogs.
August 9, 2006, 08:56 PM If you would like to learn RSS feeds can generate advertising revenue, this interview is for you.
Increasingly, consumers are learning how to use RSS feeds to gather the information that they want from the Internet. Typically the feeds tell subscribers when the content on a given website changes. Originally RSS was targeted at news websites. That way, subscribers would get fresh news every time the webpage was updated.
Many bloggers are offering their websites as RSS feeds. Since content is delivered to the subscribers every time the website is updated, the blogger would often like to do two things.
First, he would like to get statistical reports about how many people are subscribing and how actively they are looking at the updates.
Second, he would like to monetize the RSS feeds. One way to do that is to insert an advertisement.
Today?s guest company can help bloggers, or any website, get the statistical reports that they want. In this context it is similar to Feedburner. But, the today?s guest company can also insert ads into the fees and split the revenue with the website owner.
August 7, 2006, 07:20 PM If you would like to learn about how newspapers are going to become video podcasters, this interview is for you.
Newspapers have an opportunity to convert readers into audience members.
Broadband Directions recently completed a market research study about how country?s top forty newspapers are starting to offer broadband video at their websites. There are five conclusions.
First, the newspapers are beginning to recognize broadband video as a strategic growth opportunity.
Second, they have a significant diversity of approaches.
Third, they?re getting video content from third party sources as well as creating their own.
Fourth, an ad supported model, as opposed to a fee-based one, appears to provide the best money-making opportunity.
Fifth, most of the papers have not yet done a good job of integrating video links into the online reading experience.
August 4, 2006, 07:20 PM If you would like to learn about the economics of podcasting, this interview is for you.
Even though podcasting originated in the lunatic fringe less than two years ago, nearly half (47%) of consumers have heard of the term. While only 11% have actually downloaded a podcast, the percentage is almost certain to rise in the future. Partly that?s because 44% of men and 35% of women now own an iPod or similar portable digital player. In fact, over half of those owning portable digital players have more than one.
Of those who have actually downloaded podcasts, the average length of the programs they choose is a surprisingly high 45 minutes. Our guess is this partly reflects the fact that audio podcasts are often played in the car while the driver is going to, or returning from, work. It?s easier to listen to a single long podcast while driving than to play a series of short ones that require you to navigate the iPod menu while trying to keep your eyes on the road.
Unfortunately for advertisers, the survey conducted by today?s interviewee indicates that podcast subscribers will fast forward through commercials if given a chance. The survey also has bad news for the broadcast radio industry because it indicates that 38% of podcast subscribers listen to less radio.
August 3, 2006, 10:53 PM If you would like to learn about a new broadband entertainment portal on the Internet, this interview is for you.
Recently new websites concentrating on video have been popping up like mushrooms after a summer rain. The trend is likely to continue because industry experts note that the practice is both rapidly growing and highly profitable.
For example, according to Accustream Research there are already over one billion pre-roll ads streamed monthly. (A pre-roll is typically a 15-to-30 second spot that runs just prior to the selected online video program.) It appears that media buyers want even more despite the fact that prices are on par with TV. Today the average rate for reaching 1,000 Web viewers is $25 - $30, which is about the same price as a spot on ABC?s hit television show ?Desperate Housewives?.
Gotuit Media doesn?t think it?s just another of the many new broadband portals. That?s because Gotuit has software that enables video files encoded with metadata to be accessed randomly. Basically that means that the viewer can watch any segment she chooses with a mouse-click. As a by-product it gives the functional equivalence of an instant-on experience instead of the often annoying buffering and start-up delays typically associated with online video.
Gotuit?s media-file random access is similar to the chaptering provided in conventional DVDs, but it is more granular.
Finally, Gotuit believes random access technology is well developed and market tested. For example, it has been used by a number of CATV companies that are offering Video-On-Demand on their digital cable channels.
July 31, 2006, 02:42 PM If you would like to learn about software that will enable CATV set-top boxes to gather video from the Internet, this interview is for you.
The growing abundance of interesting and entertaining video on the Internet is increasingly evident. Last Friday?s (7-29-06) Wall Street Journal devoted most of an entire section of the paper to media personalities and programs that are making it big on the Net. As their popularity continues to grow, and others breakthrough to ?star? status, consumers are increasingly going to want to watch the shows on their televisions instead of their computers.
Our guest company today sells software that enables Internet video to be displayed through our televisions via familiar appliances like CATV set-top boxes. Media Mall makes software that gets embedded in such devices. Thus, their idea is to enable the consumer to watch Internet video on the TV without having to first go through a home LAN to the computer.
July 28, 2006, 05:37 PM If you would like to learn about a new line of Hewlett-Packard televisions enabling you to access Digital Media residing on your PC or the Internet, this interview is for you.
Hewlett-Packard not only believes that the television and the computer will be networked in the future; they are actually doing something to make it happen. Next month they will start selling a new line of ?Media Smart? televisions at various high-profile retailers such as Best Buy.
The units will be 37? LCDs. Aside from the conventional cable jacks, they are outfitted with Ethernet receptacles. Right out of the box consumers will be able to connect them to their computers with either wired or wireless LANs. Examples include fixed wire RJ-45 connectors and both dot-11a and dot-11g versions of Wi-Fi.
Once into your LAN they can access video on the Internet.
July 26, 2006, 05:18 PM If you would like to learn about an improved way to protect your computer from viruses and other forms of malware, this interview is for you.
Today?s guest company, Green Border, has an improved way to protect your computer from various forms of malicious code on the Internet.
Basically, Green Border sets up a virtual session with every website you visit. So long as you see the green border around your browser, you know that you are interacting with all visited websites on a virtual basis. The sessions are isolated from the files on your computer. When you exit a Green Border session, all the collected code and files that may have been drawn down from the Internet into the virtual session are automatically deleted.
Nothing has been left on your hard drive.
Should you choose to permanently download files from the Internet, Green Border permits you to do so. In other words, files are downloaded from the Net only when you actively direct the action.
July 24, 2006, 08:48 AM If you would like to learn how you can use your computer to have video phone calls and watch television remotely, this interview is for you.
Today?s guest company lets you make video phone calls from your computer over the Internet. True, a lot of companies let you do that, but SightSpeed seems to have a favorable reputation for doing a good job of it. As always with computers, the merit in such cool applications is the Devil in the Details. Does it actually work reliably? An affirmative answer is what made Apple?s iPod and iTunes the leader in digital music against all its competitors.
Beyond video telephone calls, SightSpeed added a feature to its new version that lets you watch TV programs (recorded on a Media Center PC at home) on your laptop while you travel. Actually, it lets you watch programs recorded on the Media Center TV from any Internet-connected computer.
A Media Center TV is a special type made by companies in the Microsoft ecosystem, such as Hewlett-Packard, that uses the Windows XP Media Center Edition as its operating system. A Media Center PC also has a TV tuner card in it so that you can connect it up to your CATV jack and watch television programs. Software is available from companies like SnapStream and Intervideo which will enable Media Center users to record the television programs. They essentially enable you use a Media Center PC like a TiVo.
July 21, 2006, 01:46 PM If you would like to learn how the growing popularity of Digital Entertainment Media will lead to rapid growth for home networking, this interview is for you.
Market research firm Parks & Associates believes that the number of networked households will increase from four million this year to thirty million by the end of 2010. That translates to a compound annual growth of over 65%.
Parks research indicates that about 40% of today?s broadband subscribers already want home networking. They don?t need to be sold on the idea. All that is needed is for service providers and equipment manufacturers to offer networking that simply works reliably and is easily installed.
The situation reminds me of the mobile telephone market prior to the advent of cellular. It was intuitively obvious that people wanted to carry telephones around with them, at least in their cars if not as clothing accessories. There was huge latent demand for the service.
Parks predicts that two-thirds of the 30 million home networks in 2010 will be for connecting consumer electronics devices together instead of connecting CE devices to computers. They think that the cable TV and telco companies will be the major providers of such networks since they are in a position to assume installation responsibility.
July 19, 2006, 02:30 PM If you would like to hear the opinion of an industry expert regarding the possibility that Microsoft may introduce a portable music player to compete with the iPod, this interview is for you.
Unconfirmed reports that Microsoft is developing a unit to compete with the iPod are getting ever-more specific. It looks like the project is being headed by J. Allard who was earlier in charge of the X-Box development. Our guest believes that Microsoft is seeking to develop the unit for much the same reasons that it developed the X-box. Original attempts to let hardware game makers build units on Microsoft software eventually failed to compete satisfactorily with Sony?s PlayStation or rival units from Nintendo.
Our guest today speculates that a Microsoft unit will be Wi-Fi enabled. It may have peer-to-peer capability. This would permit subscribers to a music service to share tracks with one another on the spot.
He also speculates that the unit will have video games and will play other videos like the iPod-video. Finally he speculates that Microsoft will offer its own music service to compete with Naspster 2.0, Rhapsody, and Yahoo Music Unlimited. Microsoft may have concluded that it is necessary to compete in order to insure that player, device, and online store software all function well together, just as they do between the iPod and iTunes.
July 17, 2006, 08:54 PM If you would like to learn about what the new Senior Vice President of MusicNet thinks will be the future of Digital Music, Audio, and Video on the Internet, this interview is for you.
MusicNet has appointed a new Senior Vice President of Business Development and Partner Relations named Ted Casey. He was previously with Verizon V-Cast and Lycos Music, among other places.
Ted sees growth opportunities for MusicNet in three areas.
First is internationally.
Second is in providing new audio and video content to its existing customers like Yahoo Music Unlimited, MTV Urge, and AOL Music.
Third is by making MusicNet services available on a number of different devices in addition to computers. Examples might include cellular telephones and cable TV set-top boxes.
MusicNet is basically a B2B applications service provider that enables websites to set-up online music stores to sell digital music in either the form of discrete downloads or monthly subscription services.
July 14, 2006, 02:39 PM If you would like to learn about a company that can economically write and publish your memoirs using Internet, telephony, and Digital Media technologies, this interview is for you.
As the baby-boomer population ages there is a growing interest in memoir writing. It seems that quite a number of the senior citizens want to write their memoirs, but like the skill or drive to complete the job.
Today?s guest runs a company, Memoir Press, that will ghost write your memoirs for you and arrange to have them published. The ghost writer will meet personally with the subject and conduct a series of recorded interviews. The interviews are then transcribed and edited. The ghost writer returns to the subject for a read-back session. Through this iterative process a memoir is prepared.
Memoir Press is kind-of like Tuesday?s With Morrie for hire.
July 12, 2006, 06:18 PM If you would like to learn about the future of the Web Conferencing Market, this interview is for you.
About 90% of the Web Conferencing market is split between WebEx and Microsoft. According to our guest today about 65% of the market is controlled by WebEx and 25% by Microsoft. Of all the other vast competitors, our guest puts Adobe Breeze as the most innovative and he believes it will soon be part of the Cisco solution which they had earlier acquired from Latitude.
The Burton Group?s Mike Gotta provides a fascinating interview about the future of Web Conferencing and Collaboration. Among the items discussed are some of the collaboration practices at The Burton Group itself.
Mike is a big user of Instant Messaging. He also likes to share screens with remote workers and for that he most often uses Glance Networks.
July 10, 2006, 09:24 PM If you would like to get learn about new legislation working its way through Congress that would provide for blanket licensing for music publishers, this interview is for you.
One of the major problems for the legitimate online music subscription services like Napster 2.0, Rhapsody, and Yahoo Music Unlimited, is the uncertainty of royalty payments to the music publishers.
By way of background, in the arcane world of music there are two parties that are entitled to royalties. First is the music publisher who represents the rights of the composer. Second is the record label representing the rights of the artist who performs the composition by singing and/or playing an instrument.
The subscription services have been able to work out satisfactory deals with the labels. However, the publishers have sometimes been a problem.
Some publishers seem to feel that they are entitled to a fixed download royalty every time one of the subscribers to a subscription service downloads their song. The problem arises because the subscriber is not really getting a permanent download (like at iTunes), but merely a temporary one that lasts only so long as he pays the monthly fees to remain a subscriber.
Our guest today describes legislation that is working its way through Congress to provide for mandatory licensing.
July 7, 2006, 08:34 PM If you would like to learn how to use desktop video communications in the enterprise environment today, this interview is for you.
Avistar has long been a leader in desktop video communications. During the dot-com boom they were particularly successful in setting up PC-To-PC video communications for institutional stock brokerage firms. A typical application would permit a stock analyst to narrate an important market commentary showing a full-motion video of his talking head. He could then email the commentary to the brokerage firm?s clients. Avistar was also used to set-up video real-time communications between the brokerage firm analyst and his clients at investment management firms.
Traditionally, the Avistar application has been one of its own, separate and distinct from popular office tools like Microsoft Office and Lotus Sametime. Now Avistar is integrating its application into these more popular collaboration and office productivity tools. It would seem logical to expect that desktop video is more likely to become routine once the application is integrated into popular tools from Microsoft and Lotus.
July 5, 2006, 11:05 AM If you would like to learn how Microsoft?s new IP telephone and Unified Messaging might shape the office environment of the future, this interview is for you.
To reliably stay in touch with a business associate today you need his (1) office phone number, (2) cell phone number, (3) email address, (4) Instant Messaging moniker, and maybe even his Skype handle. With new services and communities like SightSpeed and MySpace gaining popularity, you may well need to maintain a record of a couple of other identities for him.
If the past is any guide, the trend for proliferating identities is going to get unmanageable. That is why Unified Messaging is becoming such an important concept.
With just a single identity you will be able to track down the person you want to contact. He will instruct his computer to determine the best way to reach him. You will just click on his identity (e.g. email address) and your computer will contact him the way he has requested. It might be via Instant Message, or it might be via his office phone, or it might be via his cell phone.
Moreover, the guy you are trying to contact will instruct his Unified Messaging system with the sequence by which devices are used to try and reach him. When you dial his office, it may first actually be checking his cellphone, or perhaps IMing him about a call from you.
The Unified Messaging concept is not new, but it appears as though last week Microsoft go serious about it with the introduction of a business telephone. Once Microsoft gets serious about a business application, it often becomes a dominant trend.
Our guest today is an industry expert who shares with us his analysis of the Microsoft strategy in Web Conferencing, PC-to-PC collaboration, Unified Messaging, and VoIP.
June 30, 2006, 06:06 PM If you would like to learn how to turn an ordinary XP PC into a media center computer that you can access over the Internet when you travel, this interview is for you.
Those of us who have TiVo love it. Many of us would like to access our TiVo remotely over the Internet so that when we travel we can view our recorded programs from an Internet connected PC. You can?t quite do that with TiVo-To-Go. Instead you can transfer content from your TiVo over a home network to a laptop. But that does not do you any good if TiVo records the program after you have already left on your trip.
Today?s guest company makes software that will turn most any XP machine into a media PC. Also, it has incremental software that can be loaded onto another computer, like your laptop, that will enable you to access your media PC back home whenever you travel so long as your laptop is jacked-into the Internet. Since many hotels now provide high speed Internet access, our guest company today essentially provides software that will enable you to access your recorded TV programs at home when you travel.
June 28, 2006, 03:26 PM If you would like to learn what a high level record label industry executive thinks about the future of the industry and the impact of digital trends, this interview is for you.
Ted Cohen recently left EMI to co-found a new media industry consulting firm. He has been one of the record label industry?s most outspoken executives on the topic of digital music.
June 26, 2006, 01:26 PM If you would like to learn why Adobe Flash is becoming a popular platform for streaming media, this interview is for you.
In the past year Adobe (previously Macromedia) Flash has been making sizeable market share gains against the Windows Media Player, the RealPlayer, and Apple?s Quicktime. According to our guest, Flash now has a 20% share of the market which is more than double the share of Real at 9% and Quicktime at 8%. Although the Windows Media Player remains number one with a 60% share, the Adobe Flash gains are quite remarkable.
There are a number of reasons for the growing popularity of Flash. First, it is ubiquitous being already installed on over 95% of computers. Second, it provides an ?instant-on? capability whereas the Windows, Real, and Quicktime players seem to take a few seconds to pop-up. Third, Flash doesn?t seem to have a consumer branding agenda like the media players from Microsoft, Real, and Quicktime which seem to want to pop-up in a way that make it clear to the user just which player she has chosen. Fourth, viewers can step-into a Flash video and interact with the objects.
As televisions increasingly get hooked-up to the Internet, the advantages of Flash noted above may well lead it to become the player software of choice.
June 23, 2006, 09:04 PM If you would like to get a Hollywood perspective on the future of downloadable movies, this interview is for you.
Earlier this week Variety reported that Apple Computer is in discussions with the major Hollywood studios about proposals to offer movie downloads at iTunes. This interview is with the reporter who wrote the story.
June 21, 2006, 05:10 PM If you would like to know how to simultaneously run both the Windows platform and the Mac-OS on the new Apple computers, this interview is for you.
Earlier this year Apple Computer itself introduced a technology that would enable their new Intel-based computers to run either the Apple OS-X operating system or the Windows Operating System. However, a major inconvenience of their approach was that it did not permit users to operate the Apple OS and Windows simultaneously.
Fortunately, earlier this month an independent software vendor by the name of Parallels started selling software that enables owners of the new Intel-based Apple computers to run both the Apple OS and Windows at the same time. This interview is with the Director of Marketing for Parallels.
June 19, 2006, 02:35 PM If you would like to learn how a local network television affiliate in Grand Rapids, Michigan is dealing with the challenges and opportunities of the Internet, this interview is for you.
While it is clears that TiVo and the Internet are providing challenges to the traditional television networks and cable TV systems, it is less often emphasized that they are also impacting the local broadcast affiliates.
Today?s guest is the President of a local NBC affiliate in Grand Rapids, Michigan and she tells us how she is dealing with the technological changes. One way is to use the television programming to drive the audience to the local affiliate?s website.
One initiative that has been notably successful is ?Find (where to buy) Your (new) Car?. Typically, local affiliates generate about 25% - 30% of their revenues from the local auto dealers. In this instance the TV station is providing television ads that encourage viewers to visit its website where they can search the available inventory of participating auto dealers in the area.
The subject local affiliate also believes that advertisers that have traditionally been using classified newspaper advertising may find that classified video ads on the stations website could be a superior alternative.
June 16, 2006, 03:12 PM If you would like to know what a major media buying organization thinks about the future of the television industry, this interview is for you.
There is not a shadow of doubt that the Internet and TiVo-like technology is going to radically transform television and television advertising. Today?s interview gives us a good idea of how the advertisers and sponsors are looking at the anticipated changes. The guest is a Senior Vice President with a major media buying organization, Horizon Media. ?Media buying organizations? are companies that buy advertising in television, newspapers, radio, and the Internet for companies that are selling products that they want to promote to the public.
June 14, 2006, 03:22 PM f you would like to get update on the Record Label business from the viewpoint of the RIAA Chief Executive, this interview is for you.
It is now almost seven years since Shawn Fanning unleashed Napster and kick-started the explosive growth of digital music. Over that time the Record Label industry has lost 30% in sales. Today, however, it appears that the worst is over and that the industry sees the Internet as the future of recorded music distribution.
Today?s guest is the Chairman and CEO of the Recording Industries Association of America (RIAA). He shares with us his views on the future of the industry.
June 12, 2006, 02:43 PM Summary: If you would like to learn how to read and organize all of your RSS feeds (including text, audio and video) in a single free player, this interview is for you.
Internet users are increasingly discovering the value of RSS feeds.
As Internet users, each of us is a consumer of news and entertainment. Some of it we want in a text format, some in audio, and some in video. Traditionally we get our text from the newspaper, the audio from the radio, and the video from the television. But the day is rapidly approaching when all the above sources will be routinely available on the Internet.
For example, to a large extent the newspapers have already duplicated their content onto the Net. Similarly radio stations are increasingly moving in that direction. Finally, in 2006, television programming is moving onto the Web.
The convergence of information sources on the Net offers significant benefits. One is that sources about subjects-of-interest are easily searched via sites like Google. Another is that RSS enables the new content from each selected source to be automatically ?fed? to each subscriber, much like the Dow Jones, AP, and Business Wire news feeds provide the bulk of information for newspapers. However, there are several compelling advantages of RSS.
First, anybody with an Internet connection can get the feed. You don?t have to be a big newspaper organization.
Second, RSS feeds can include text, audio, and video. You don?t have to be a big television station to get the video feeds or a big radio station to get the audio feeds.
Third, with the proliferation of blogs, podcasts, and videocasts, there is a growing abundance of original RSS content that is not created or controlled by the established news and entertainment industry. Inside Digital Media is merely one such example.
Fourth, the RSS subscriber does not have to repeatedly visit the websites of the news and entertainment sources he likes in order to gather new content because RSS will automatically deliver it to him.
Today?s guest company has developed a unique RSS reader/player that enables the consumer to manage all of his feeds in a single free interface termed Mo-Q-Vo. The demonstration that the CEO of Mo-Q-Vo provides in twenty minutes makes the compelling advantages evident.
In short, we think that Mo-Q-Vo has essentially developed a prototype that points to an entirely new Interface Metaphor. First were the esoteric commands needed for MS-DOS based computers. Second was the Icon Desktop Metaphor for Apple and Windows machines. Now, Mo-Q-Vo hints at the next paradigm shift in Interface Metaphor optimized for Digital Media. As such, it is profoundly significant.
?Just watch.
May 17, 2006, 05:45 PM If you would like to hear an expert opinion about the RIAA lawsuit against XM Satellite, this interview is for you.
Yesterday the record label industry filed a lawsuit against XM Satellite for copyright infringement.
The labels claim that a new device offered by XM and Pioneer Electronics violates their copyrights. The device is a portable XM Satellite receiver that you wear like a small transistor radio. A good description of the product and service is provided in Walt Mossberg?s column in today?s (May 17th) Wall Street Journal.
The labels are upset that the device enables users to record songs that they receive over the XM Satellite service by merely pushing a button. Even if the song is half-over before you push the button, the device will record the entire song.
The labels claim that copyright law only permits XM Satellite to broadcast the songs under the existing royalty arrangement. Essentially the labels appear to be arguing that each time a song is recorded on the portable unit, the action of recording it is actually as ?sale? (distribution) of the song. As a ?sale? the labels appear to believe that they are entitled to an incremental royalty fee above what XM pays to broadcast the song.
Our guest today has problems with the apparent record label argument noted above. Specifically, the Audio Home Recording Act of 1992 was passed, partly at the behest of the labels themselves, in order to clearly define the terms under which a device would be permitted to record digital audio. Our guest believes that the XM portable unit complies with those terms.
May 15, 2006, 11:35 PM If you would like to know how you will be able to stream audio & video from your computer to your television using the electrical power lines in your home, this interview is for you.
The lead story in the technology section of the New York Times on Friday (5-12-06) was about the imperative need to find a local area network (LAN) technology for the home that will enable the television to conveniently connect to the computer.
It is becoming increasingly evident that popular television programs are moving to the Internet. Most of us are not going to want to watch such programs on our computer monitors. Instead we are going to want to see them on our televisions, in the living room.
Unfortunately the average homeowner replaces his television about once in every ten year period. Thus, it is necessary to find a LAN technology that will work be merely plugging-in an adapter at the television and another at the computer in order to connect the two appliances.
The first efforts to do this were with wireless LANs, sometimes referred to as Wi-Fi, but officially known as a variant of the IEEE 802.11 standard.
There are two problems with the dot-11 standard. First, it is complicated to set-up. According the BestBuy, the complications are the main reason that consumers return Wi-Fi merchandise. Second, wireless is inherently unreliable as anyone who tires to talk on their cell phone throughout the house can verify.
Wi-Fi is okay for text and graphics where the TCP/IP standard permits dropped packets to be detected and resent. But for video, dropped packets cannot be resent without distorting the quality of the image (or sound) because the resent packets are out of synchronization with the original file playback.
It appears that the best solution for a consumer-friendly home LAN is provided by the electrical power wiring that is already installed in our homes for lighting, air-conditioning and etc. The company that we interview today is a leading supplier of the semiconductors that are used for such a LAN.
May 12, 2006, 10:36 AM If you would like to learn about a company that makes equipment that the Telco?s might select to provide IPTV and other fiber-delivered broadband services to the home, this interview is for you.
It is becoming increasingly evident that the conventional telephone companies are losing subscribers to Cable Television operators (and others) who are now providing Voice-Over-Internet-Protocol (VOIP) services. The continued growth of VOIP is almost as certain as tomorrow?s sunrise owing to its lower cost and potentially broader capabilities, such as video phone calls.
It is clear that the best way for the Telco?s to strike back is to adopt the Internet Protocol themselves and thereby offer broadband services over their own physical plant. Unfortunately most of that physical plant utilizes twisted-pair copper wires which have a low-bandwidth-times-distance index. This means they can provide high bandwidth within a small environment, like a home LAN, with their existing copper wire, but they can?t deliver high-bandwidth over copper pairs beyond the confines of a neighborhood.
They are solving the problem by laying fiber optic cable. Verizon is building out fiber networks all the way to the curb of the home-owner?s property. AT&T is laying fiber optic cable to selected nodes within each neighborhood.
Today?s guest company, Amedia Networks, manufactures in-the-home terminal and outside-plant switching equipment that can meet the needs of both Verizon and AT&T for their new fiber-optic-copper-pair hybrid networks. Amedia is a small company that licensed much of its technology from Lucent. Recently they came to an understanding with Motorola to help market their equipment.
While it would appear that the market opportunity before Amedia is large and likely to grow fast, it is important to bear in mind that they have large competitors. Whether they will ultimately be successful remains to be seen.
May 10, 2006, 02:19 PM If you would like to learn about legislation before Congress that could limit your rights to record music broadcasts, this interview is for you.
XM Satellite has introduced a clever device called XM-To-Go that is essentially a ?wearable? satellite receiver. One of the nifty features of the unit is that it permits the owner to record music, or other programs, from any of the XM Satellite channels. (As a point of clarification, the units are actually manufactured by companies like Samsung and Pioneer Air Wave.)
Apparently a number of Senators and Congresspeople (like the late Sony Bono?s wife) are concerned that such units will empower the consumer to pirate recorded music and re-distribute it without authorization. As a result legislation has been introduced that will require device manufacturers to ?lobotomize? their units so that they can only make copies under authorized circumstances.
For example, one provision will require that such files be transferable only over ?secure? home networks.
Unfortunately, there is no clear definition of exactly what constitutes a ?secure? home network. For example, is a ?secure? network one that is totally un-hackable? If the network is hacked, is that prima facie evidence that the network was not secure?
Our guest today is an experienced copyright attorney who explores such issues in a lively discussion.
We also touch on the latest developments in France that appear to defeat a proposal that the Apple iPod DRM?s must be made interoperable with competing DRM?s by law.
May 5, 2006, 04:10 PM If you would like to know what the ?Net Neutrality? debate is all about, this interview is for you.
In the late 1990s and early 2000s, consumers began to attach new devices to their Internet connections, and use Internet services that were not in existence in the mid-1990s. The reaction of many broadband operators was to impose various contractual limits on the activities of their subscribers. In the best known examples, Cox Cable disciplined users of virtual private networks and AT&T, as a cable operator, warned customers that using a Wi-Fi service for home-networking constituted "theft of service" and a federal crime.
A main argument in favor of network neutrality is that a discriminatory network distorts markets that depend on the network, and ultimately may slow national economic growth. For example, if a network favors search engine A over search engine B, A may become dominant even though B's technology is better. Similarly, if the network favors a usage of the network popular at a given time (say, Gopher, enormously popular in the early 1990s) that may slow the competitive arrival of a new usage (like the Wold Wide Web).
In other words, a discriminatory network may "freeze" innovation (particularly application innovation) based on today's dominant applications. The link to national economic growth is as follows: many economists believe innovation is a major catalyst of economic growth, meaning that if a discriminatory network leads to less innovation, a country will grow more slowly.
The most common argument against network neutrality suggests that discrimination may be necessary in order to encourage investment in the networks of the future. If a broadband carrier is, for example, allowed to charge more for its own email service and block, say, Gmail, it has more money to build more advanced networks. It may also be able to offer a lower-priced product.
One response to this argument concedes that discrimination results in greater profit for broadband carriers -- but asks whether the costs in terms of application innovation are worth it. In the example, the operator is exploiting a bottleneck in the network to extend its monopoly from the network service to another sector entirely, in this case messaging applications.
May 3, 2006, 05:58 PM If you would like to know what a London-based market research firm thinks about the future of recorded music on the mobile telephone platform, this interview is for you.
According to the market research firm interviewed today, Visiongain, the Worldwide market for recorded music on the mobile telephone platform was $155 million in 2005. However, they are forecasting that the market will grow to over $2 billion by 2010 ? well over a ten-fold increase.
Based on the fact that Worldwide consumers are already spending $3 billion a year on ring tones for their cell phones, Visiongain feels there is a huge latent demand for full track recorded music downloads. A number of factors will be driving the growth.
First, music and mobile phones are a natural fit. Theoretically consumers would rather not carry two devices (a mobile phone and a MP3 player) when one converged unit will provide both communications and music playback.
Second, the wireless carriers are searching for new revenue sources. The selling of recorded music could be one of them.
Third, continued technological progress in the years ahead promises to provide faster 3G wireless networks.
Fourth, the converged cellphone/MP3 Player units are constantly improving owing to the ever-declining cost of electronic functions. Although Apple?s iPod continues to dominate the market for portable digital players, our guest believes that new cell phones are emerging that can give the iPod a run for the money. One example is the Ericsson Walkman which is reviewed by PC World here.
Fifth, wireless carriers will increasingly compete with one another by providing added services, and recorded music features seems to be one to the most desired add-ons wanted by consumers.
May 1, 2006, 01:49 PM If you would like to know how to obtain written transcripts for any audio file on the Web, this interview is for you.
As podcasting, and Internet programming more generally, gets more popular, audience members may increasingly seek to obtain written transcripts of a their favorite ?talk shows?. One way to do so at reasonable cost is to use the services of enablr at www.enablr.com.
The service is a website owned by King Marketing and today?s guest is the founder, Ken King.
The website enables you to get written transcripts of any Internet-hosted audio (or audio-visual) file in three simple steps.
First, you provide your email address where you would like to have the transcript emailed.
Second, you provide the url for the location where the audio (or audio-visual) file is hosted.
For example if the audio is playing through the Windows Media Player, you merely click on ?File? and choose the ?Properties? option. Among the items that will be listed on the ?Properties? pop-up box will be the location. If the file is being obtained from an Internet-hosted website, the specific url related to the file will be listed.
Third, you ?tell? the enablr dialog box the length of the recording in minutes and you will be charged at a rate of one dollar per minute... credit card or PayPal.
That?s all there is to it. Generally you will get your transcript within 24 hours.
The transcript is prepared by workers in the Philippines. This means that the accuracy tends to be higher than you might get from a computer generated language transcription engine.
April 28, 2006, 01:35 PM If you would like know how youthful consumers might be using Avatars as a means of self-expression throughout Cyberspace, this interview is for you.
Youngsters buy baseball caps and jerseys with the names of their favorite teams stitched onto the clothing. It seems to be a popular way for them to make a public statement about their identity.
Today?s guest company thinks that such consumers are also going to want to make a similar statement in Cyberspace. Meez is a company that enables consumers to construct animated Avatars (rich media icons) as a means of self-expression. The Avatars are animated so that they are engaged in some sort of repetitive action chosen by the applicable user.
Avatars are essentially Web 2.0 versions of the emoticons that were popular in the first versions of email. However, instead of being limited to email they can be ?taken? along by the associated end user anywhere in Cyberspace. Examples might include a MySpace page, a user generated Website, or in the signature file of an email.
Today?s guest company makes it possible for individuals to create their own Avatars simply by visiting an interactive website. The basic Avatars are free. However, people choosing to ?dress up? the Avatar with a popular branded logo can opt-into a premium version that carries a charge based upon the price set by the copyright holder of the logo.
One example is the National Hockey League. Individuals creating Avatars from today?s guest company may choose to ?dress-them? in jerseys from any of the NHL teams. There will be a charge of fifty cents-to-two-dollars or so, for the branded Avatar apparel.
While critics have suggested that consumers are unlikely to pay money for virtual merchandise, today?s guest points out that they already have in the sense that the ringtone market for cell phones is already a multibillion dollar a year business on a worldwide basis.
While you also may be a skeptic, today?s guest may be able to change your mind after you have seen him demonstrate the concept of an animated Avatar. We use the power of WebEx to empower him to make such a demonstration. This is not merely a PowerPoint presentation.
April 26, 2006, 12:47 PM If you would like to know how broadband is creating a new generation of video distributors like Google, Apple, Yahoo, Real, Microsoft, and AOL, this interview is for you.
Broadband Directions just completed a 90 page research report on the developing broadband Internet video market. They came to five conclusions.
First, broadband video is the most significant disruptive influence on today?s video distribution value chain. Broadband?s open nature changes opportunities, power and economics of traditional market participants.
Second, the future for broadband video is still uncertain. One reason is that there is presently no easy connectivity between the computer and the television.
Third, successful future video distributors must have a new set of assets and competencies to succeed. In part this reflects the consumers desire for instant gratification and the increasing pervasiveness of technology that induces it.
Fourth, incumbent video distributors, such as CATV companies, are not prioritizing broadband video. This partly reflects the fact that broadband Internet video threatens their business models and culture. Examples include CATV and the IPTV initiatives of the telephone companies.
Fifth, a ?Group of Five? companies and others have emerged as well-positioned to succeed as future video distributors. The five are AOL, Google, Apple Computer, Microsoft, and Yahoo.
April 24, 2006, 07:28 PM If you would like to learn how newspapers can use the Internet to increase revenues and improve profitability in five minutes, this program is for you.
Today?s Inside Digital Media audio-visual program is different from our others in several ways.
First, it is short, only lasting about five minutes.
Second, there is no interview guest. Instead I am simply narrating a story about how a newspaper in Bowling Green, Kentucky is using Digital Media to increase its revenues and improve the profitability of its classified ads.
Third, I use the power of the WebEx platform to share an Internet application employed by the Bowling Green newspaper to show readers of its classified ads how to locate yard sales advertised in the newspaper?s classifieds.
Most of us are familiar with the yard sale. Often when individuals change residences, or just accumulate too much ?stuff?, they will host a yard sale to get rid of it. Buyers can often find good merchandise at low ?liquidation? prices.
The problem is that it is often hard to locate the homes holding the yard sales. However, the Daily News of Bowling Green started offering those who purchase a two-day ad, instead of merely a one-day one, will have their location embedded in a Google Maps application. That way instead of collecting $15 for a one-day ad, the Daily News collects $30 for a two-day classified ad.
If you are confused, you will see that it is all clearly demonstrated in the five minute program recorded in WebEx.
We extend special thanks to Jim Hopes of The Center For Sales Strategy for bringing the Daily News item to our attention.
April 21, 2006, 04:33 PM If you would like to hear an interview with one of the leading observers of the Digital Media industry, this one is for you.
Rafat Ali founded PaidContent.org around the turn of the century when many cynics were discrediting the validity of the advertising supported business model for Websites. At the time many observers felt that it would be necessary for companies like Yahoo to greatly increase their fee-supported revenues. Everyone seemed to intensify their search for ways to get paid for content and PaidContent.org was at the center of all the industry scuttlebutt.
Over time, it became clear that advertising support really would remain the main revenue source, and PaidContent.org became a place where readers could keep up-to-date with the latest trends in Internet content generally. Essentially it became a center of knowledge about current events in the Digital Media industry.
Today Rafat shares with us his views on the future of Digital Media based upon the special insights that he has gained by running PaidContent.org.
While he agrees that the year 2006 may well be the one in which Internet video comes-of-age, or at least gets firmly established among earlier adopters, he is also a big believer in the future of video in the wireless space. In time, he thinks that most of us will be rather routinely consuming video content on our mobile phones, or some future mutant form of phone/PDA.
April 19, 2006, 05:29 PM If you would like to hear an expert provide his forecast of the advertising revenues that will be generated by podcasts, RSS feeds, and blogs, this interview is for you.
It?s increasingly evident that mainline advertisers are warming up to the Internet as an ad medium. For example, Monday?s Wall Street Journal carried a front page article prominently in its right had column entitled ?Once-Wary Industry Giants Embrace Internet Advertising?.
However, as more content gets created at the edge of the network by members of the public, it seems logical to expect that some advertisers will want to place ads on selected RSS feeds, podcasts, and blogs. Generally speaking, blogs and podcasts are created by members of the general public and not so much by established companies.
Our guest today prepared a forecast of advertising for podcasts, blogs, and RSS feeds. In combination, he estimates that all three categories only generated about $21 million in ad revenues in 2005. Around 80% was with blogs and 15% with podcasts.
However, by 2010 he estimates that the three categories will generate almost $760 million in ad revenues and that podcasts will account for about 43% of the total whereas blogs will represent about 40%, with the remainder generated by RSS feeds. By that time podcasting will no longer be restricted to the ?lunatic fring? of publicly generated content, but will also be considerably more utilized by established media companies.
For example, The San Francisco Chronicle, The New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal all have podcasts now and the trend may well spread to other newspapers as they battle declining readership.
April 17, 2006, 04:01 PM If you would like to learn about a way to improve the bandwidth efficiency of the Internet and thereby make your website more speedily interactive, this interview is for you.
Today the Internet isn?t fast enough. Too often many of us get frustrated enough to characterize the World Wide Web as the World Wide Wait.
The obvious way to speed up the Net is to install more bandwidth. In truth, since the dot-com bust there has been steady progress on this front. Today nearly 60% of Internet-connected households have broadband service.
However, aside from installing more physical plant to increase bandwidth, readers might appreciate learning about ways to use the existing bandwidth of the plant more efficiently. One method of doing so that is gaining popularity is termed AJAX.
Asynchronous JavaScript And XML, or its, acronym , AJAX (Pronounced A-jax), is a Web development technique for creating interactive web applicatons. The intent is to make web pages feel more responsive by exchanging small amounts of data with the server behind the scenes, so that the entire Web page does not have to be reloaded each time the user makes a change. This is meant to increase the Web page's interactivity, speed, and useability.
A popular example for the use of AJAX is Google Maps. As the viewer moves the cursor around to view sections that are just off the screen, AJAX merely requires the incremental pixels just off the screen borders to be downloaded from the Internet server. Previous techniques required that an entirely new map with the requested co-ordinates be downloaded. Since AJAX requires only the incremental pixels, it enables Google Maps to be much more speedily interactive -- at least in a functionally equivalent context.
April 14, 2006, 07:49 PM If you would like to know what a big time advertising executive thinks about the movement of television programming to the Internet, this interview is for you.
As our regular audience members know, we have long expected that entertainment media would gravitate toward the Internet. In point of fact, we believe that the Internet will ultimately become the dominate form of electronic media instead of merely an alternative form. The connotations are far-reaching especially when one considers the McLuhan axiom that ?the medium is the message?. Our technology-centric perspective leads us to many conclusions about the message of the medium, but all are basically centered upon interactivity and on-demand access.
Today the movement of entertainment media to the Internet is becoming increasingly obvious to everyone. So today we have the privilege of getting the viewpoint from a leading advertising industry executive. Today?s guest is a man who Advertising Age Magazine named as the third most quoted executive in its 2005 ?Media Talk? listing. His name is Brad Adgate and he is a Senior Vice President at Horizon Media where he also serves as the Corporate Research Director.
Brad feels that the movement of television programming to the Internet is partly the result of encouragement by the advertisers. The advertisers like the granular targeting and accountability provided by click-through Internet ads. They are increasingly warming-up to the potential for such ads to actually trigger transactions, which is something that conventional television cannot do owing to its lack of interactivity.
Since Brad has worked a lot with the television industry, we were particularly interested to hear his thoughts on just how the local affiliates and the CATV operators might respond to networks, like Disney?s ABC, putting popular programming on the Internet.
April 12, 2006, 05:52 PM If you would like to learn about a website that operates like YouTube but insists upon distributing only originally created video, thereby avoiding copyright infringement, this interview is for you.
As noted in a number of our earlier comments, it appears that the year 2006 will become known as the first one in which Internet video comes of age. For example, the major media companies are starting to offer old television programs for free online. Additionally, the Hollywood Studios are beginning to offer recently-released motion pictures for sale as downloads about the same time they offer them for sale as DVDs.
Another trend that is catching fire is the viral distribution of humorous short-form videos created by members of the public. While YouTube has been getting a lot of the publicity in the sector, our guest company today has actually been at it longer.
Break.com distributes short-form videos that are typically of interest to young males. In March they had about 13 million unique visitors who watched the videos. Additionally, they are getting submissions of video content from the targeted public demographic that number about 300 per day.
Once a video is submitted, it becomes the property of Break.com. If it is popular, Break.com will pay the creator anywhere from $250 to $1,000. Some of the content has become popular enough so that television networks like NBC, Bravo, and VH-1 have reused it. Such networks typically pay a fee to Break.com, but the website also generates revenues through advertisements that are placed by third parties such as Google.
April 10, 2006, 11:01 PM If you would like to buy a television that will connect directly into the Internet and also enable you to watch Digital Media stored on your home network, this interview is for you.
Finally a major company is going to do something about the fact that we cannot conveniently watch on our televisions the Digital Media files that are on our networked PCs or on the Internet.
Sometime this summer Hewlett-Packard is going to start selling an LCD television that is Digital-Media-friendly. The new H-P ?MediaSmart? televisions will be sold by BestBuy and other major retailers and will feature 37 inch screens.
Most importantly, however, the ?MediaSmart? televisions will hook-into your home LAN, either wirelessly or with fixed wires at your option. Your new TV will come with a software disk that you load onto your networked home computers. The software essentially makes them servers to your new H-P television. Thus you will be able to watch, and hear, on your television all the Digital Media files that you may have on any of your network-connected televisions around the home.
Aside from functioning as a normal HD television, the ?MediaSmart? TV will offer four new features easily controlled from the sofa with a remote unit.
First, you will be able to display your still photos on your PC at the television.
Second, you will be able to play all your digital music and podcasts stored on your PC at your television.
Third, you will be able to play videos stored on your PC at your televisions.
Fourth, you will b permitted to access certain sites on the Internet where you can play Digital Media. One example is the Rhapsody online music service from RealNetworks. Another is the digital photo storage site at Snapfish.
April 7, 2006, 05:37 PM If you would like to learn about how a mesh of RF-connected intelligent sensors can be deployed in such a way as to enable physical variables, such as movement, vibration, and temperature, to communicate with people, or hierarchal computer systems, via the Internet, this interview is for you.
To date, most all of the content on the World Wide Web is created by people. However, there is now emerging a new field of Internet-connected intelligent sensors that will enable physical variables to be received and transported over the Internet.
A race to popularize a new breed of wireless sensors is spawning a slew of start-up companies, including a venture by two scientists who helped pioneer the technology.
The sensors, sometimes called "motes," are designed to monitor the environment and relay data that they gather using radios that consume little electrical power. Motes can be equipped to detect, say, motion or temperature, and potential uses include industrial controls, home automation, building security and tracking shipping containers.
Much of the work in motes has been carried out at the University of California at Berkeley, partly funded by Intel and the Defense Department's research arm. But commercial prospects have spurred the formation of at least six sensor-related start-ups with Berkeley connections.
One example is San Francisco based Arch Rock. Its chairman and chief technology officer is David Culler, who helped lead research on motes as a UC Berkeley computer-science professor. Another founder is Wei Hong, who previously led Intel's research project in sensor networks in Berkeley. The two men helped develop an operating system and database software used with many motes -- known, respectively, as TinyOS and TinyDB.
April 5, 2006, 05:14 PM If you would like to have the most recent authoritative statistics on Internet and Broadband adoption, this interview is for you.
Leichtman Research Group has become one of the most widely quoted sources of statistical data relating to Internet and Broadband ISP penetration in the country. Today we are please to have the founder, Bruce Leichtman, make a presentation from his latest update research report.
Among the topics covered are:
1. The number of households with computers by income group.
2. The number of households with Internet connections as compared to the total number of U.S. households. There is also a breakdown of ISP subscribers by either the narrowband or broadband categories.
3. Bruce provides a breakdown of broadband service by either DSL or Cable providers.
4. Highly detailed information about subscriber count in both the DSL and Cable sectors is provided by individual companies.
5. Net additions to the broadband subscriber pool over the past two years are analyzed in detail with a breakout between DSL and Cable additions.
6. Bruce provides his analysis of why some other countries like Korea and France have higher rates of broadband adoption and why their service providers are charging lower fees.
7. Bruce provides an analysis of what we can expect here in the States as regards the future trends in broadband adoption.
April 3, 2006, 02:48 PM If you would like to know why a service that provides 81 channels of television, (VoIP) telephone service, and broadband Internet access costs about half as much in France as it does here, this interview is for you.
Like the UK and Germany, France has opened its formerly monopolistic telecommunications market to competition. France Telecom now shares its space with nimbler DSL providers who also offer broadband-based phone (VoIP) and television (IPTV) services for less money. These ?triple play? services have helped push broadband adoption to more that three-fourths of all French Internet users which is the highest ratio in Western Europe. It is believed that up to 40% of all French consumers are set to use VoIP by the end of the year and IPTV use is expected to continue rising.
France?s quick shift to broadband and the oncoming storm of VoIP and IPTV make it a country to watch as a model of market transformation. Right now, France Telecom faces serious customer attrition from ISPs like Free, Neuf, and even foreign-based Telco service providers.
Given this threat, France Telecom will not sit still. It will push its own triple play (IPTV, Internet Access, and VoIP) bundles as well. As a consequence it must cannibalize its own traditional switched-network services in order to compete in an IP networked environment.
March 31, 2006, 08:07 PM If you would like to learn why Philadelphia and other cities may want to establish municipal-wide Wi-Fi service, this interview is for you.
As laptop computers and PDAs are getting ever more powerful and network friendly, many of us are feeling a latent urge to connect to the Internet just about everywhere we go. It?s kind-of like being conditioned to a TiVo. Whenever I go to the movie theaters I find that I sometimes have the urge to look for the TiVo remote in order to replay dialog that I did not hear clearly. I?m so used to the idea, that it is frustrating to find that it is not available in the movie theater.
The situation is similar for me in terms of Internet access. I do it every day from my desktop computer, but increasingly finding myself wishing I could easily access the Net whenever I leave the office to run errands or go on business appointments. The urge is even stronger when I take a laptop computer with me.
Philadelphia understands my frustration. They realize that, apparently, many other people have similar desires. So they are setting up a municipal-wide Wi-Fi network that will enable the city?s residents and visitors to get Internet access wherever they go in the area.
It?s a great idea that seems to be popular with everyone except the cable TV and telephone companies. They don?t like it because it could become competitive with their own Internet service offerings. The only place these kinds of companies feel comfortable competing is within the governing legislative and congressional bodies where regulations restricting free market competition can be imposed. Typically they are strong proponents of letting market forces determine the prices that will be charged for services, but only when they are the sole entities offering the service.
But municipal Wi-Fi offers to many advantages to so many of us, that our guest today makes a strong case for letting the concept spread to other cities across the United States.
March 29, 2006, 06:53 PM If you would like to know how a consumer panel of early adopters would value a number of services that might be offered via IPTV, this interview is for you.
Market research firm, InStat, recently conducted a survey of their ?Early Adopter? consumer panel to determine what it is that consumers are likely to want from an IPTV service. The panel is 85% men, who average 42 years of age, with higher than average income and education levels.
There were about 1,700 respondents. Seventy six percent of them have high-speed Internet access. Interestingly, more of them (50%) have wireless telephone service than have wire-line (41%) telephone service.
Only about 20% of the panel said that they would ?definitely? take IPTV service, but an additional 34% said they would take it if it were sold at a ten percent discount to a basic TV bundle.
The ability to Time-Shift TV programming (TiVo-like functionality) was the IPTV feature of most interest to them with 90% putting it first on their list. Other features of interest include Telephone Caller ID on the TV screen, Interactive Programming, and Home Surveillance. An example of Home Surveillance is the ability to see on your TV screen the person who is ringing the front doorbell.
Surprisingly, chatting with friends online while watching TV was of little interest.
The features that panel members said they were most willing to pay an extra fee in order to receive include Time Shifting, Home Surveillance, Video Telephony via the TV, and Gaming via the TV.
March 27, 2006, 08:33 PM If you would like to watch our WebEx-based interviews by selecting only the slides that you want to see instead of having to see the entire program to get the information that you want, this interview is for you.
Earlier on March 3rd we interviewed the CEO of Fugent who described how his company functions as a value-added reseller of WebEx services. Today we actually demonstrate one of the value added features that might be of particular interest to our audience.
Some audience members have told us that they would like it better if they could selectively choose the PowerPoint slides from a WebEx recorded narration so that they would be able to watch only the parts of the presentation that are of particular interest to them. While this is possible with our standard WebEx playback panel via the fast-forward and slide-forward functions, Fugent makes it possible to skip directly from one slide to the next.
In the Fugent playback each slide has an individually recorded audio file associated with it. At the end of the program they are aggregated together and converted into ?Flash? files. Flash is a Macromedia (Adobe) format that is loaded on about 95% of all computers. Once the Fugent?s PowerPoint playback begins in Flash the viewer may advance to any slide merely by clicking on the advance arrow. She may also ?go back? to earlier slides as well.
Today?s interview is essentially a narration by the Director of Training and Client Development at Fugent. For demonstration purposes we have selected a presentation that she normally gives (remotely) to new Fugent clients. At the end, we make use of the Fugent Flash file conversion process in order to create a file that will play in the manner specified above.
Basically, it looks like Fugent has combined the best aspects of Macromedia Breeze and WebEx.
March 24, 2006, 05:43 PM If you work for an independent record label and you would like to get your music distributed to online stores like Apple?s iTunes and Yahoo?s Music Unlimited, this interview is for you.
The Independent Online Distribution Alliance (IODA) is a small company in San Francisco that is focused on helping the independent record label companies get their music distributed to online stores like Apple?s iTunes and Yahoo?s Music Unlimited.
The four major record label companies, Warner, Universal, Sony-BMG, and EMI, in combination account for about 70% of all recorded music sales. Those four companies don?t have a hard time getting the attention of Apple, or Yahoo, or Rhapsody, or any of the many online stores that sell digital music. However, the independent record labels that account for 30% of the industry overall volume, often don?t find it so easy to get the attention of all the online stores. IODA was set up to aggregate all of the content from the independents and to insure that they get their music distributed to all of the important online stores. Since it seems that there an new online stores entering the market monthly, if not more often, keeping up with all of the new potential outlets can be a demanding, if not practically impossible, job for many of the small independent labels.
IODA handles that problem for many of the independents by keeping up to date with all the new outlets and the technical requirements for the file formats that they will sell.
Although IODA is located no more than a loud guitar cord away from Silicon Valley, it has been essentially funded by the founders and friends. They are doing millions of dollars a year in business and are thought to be profitable.
March 22, 2006, 08:58 PM If you would like to know how to get popular video content to ?spiff-up? your website, this interview is for you.
Assume that you own a newspaper and your circulation is declining owing to the impact of the Internet. You have set up a website to attract the readers that are no longer looking at your paper in a physical form-factor. Unfortunately, you are not able to generate as much revenue from the website to equal the amount lost by declining subscriptions to the conventional newspaper.
If you could improve the traffic to your website, you might be able to increase the revenues derived from it. Also, you might be able to increase those revenues if you could get the average website visitor to stay longer. One way to accomplish both of those objectives is to add popular video content relating to the stories in your newspaper.
While it is widely known that the Associated Press provides textual based stories for newspaper members, it is less widely understood that they also provide video. So why not include that video on your newspaper website?
One way to do this is to use the services of today?s guest company, Roo Group. Roo has negotiated video content agreements with a plethora of sources which you can use on your website. So if you are a newspaper, you get more than just the AP video, you get to use everything that Roo has to offer.
Similarly, assume that you have a popular website dedicated to Endurance Sports. To get and hold more traffic, it may be beneficial to see what kind of video stories Roo can offer you. Normally, they update their video content regularly, and if you sign-on with them the updates are simultaneously reflected on your website.
Imagine that ten years ago you had a text-only website. When you added photos, you improved the traffic. Now, you can add relevant video stories constantly updated from Roo sources and thereby boost your traffic even more.
Such is the value-proposition of Roo Group. Like all such concepts, however, the devil is in the details. Only time will tell whether Roo has really conquered the demons that confront nearly every new Internet venture.
March 20, 2006, 12:14 PM If you would like to know the ?inside story? about Wall Street, Investment Banking dominance, conflicted stock analysts, insider trading, and how top level executives apparently escape accountability, this interview is for you.
For fourteen years Dan Reingold was a top stock analyst on Wall Street covering the telecommunications industry. That means he was with firms like Morgan, Stanley, CS-First Boston, and Merrill Lynch where he was regularly voted to one of the top two spots for his sector in Institutional Investor Magazine. Together with his niece, they just published a book entitled Confessions of a Wall Street Analyst.
It is a truly fascinating story; one that begins In Media Res at the men?s restroom in a Manhattan courts building during the securities fraud trial of Bernie Ebbers of WorldCom.
Some of the themes are familiar, but some are intriguingly new. Among the familiar, are stories about how investment bankers place their stock analysts on the horns of dilemma by requiring them to serve two masters, (1) the investing public that buys stocks and (2) the issuing corporations that sell new stock in their companies to the public. The common story of how the investment banks tend to place their obligations to the stock-issuing corporations over their firm's responsibility to the investing public is told from a first hand account of Dan's participation in high profile transactions.
But the book discusses new angles as well. For example the authors believe that the investment banking conflicts created untold billions - perhaps even hundreds of billions - of dollars in unmerited profit for selected professional investors who unfairly gained access to insider information. Moreover, the professional investors were not the only culprits. The authors suggest that some of the top level executives of leading corporations may also have benefited. Sadly the authors conclude that few, if any, such business leaders were ever held accountable. Perhaps in the spirit of the times, they got the best justice money can buy.
Today Dan Reingold is working to promote more aggressive enforcement of insider trading violations. If the stock market remains a forever slanted playing field, it may well lose its ability to function as a capital raising mechanism. Then again, maybe the entire story can be summed up by an earlier wisdom expressed by Balzac and repeated by Mario Puzo in the flycover of The Godfather , ?Behind every great fortune is a crime?.
March 17, 2006, 05:16 PM If you would like to know what became of the first man to distribute recorded music over the Internet, this interview is for you.
The beginnings of digital music can be traced to the University of California at Santa Cruz in 1993. Ground zero was a student?s disheveled bedroom. It was there that Jeff Patterson and his partner Rob Lord, uploaded songs from their band into a news group on Usenet. The practice ultimately evolved into a website known as the Internet Underground Musical Archive. Patterson couldn?t get a record label contract for the music of his band, the Ugly Mugs, so he and Lord conceived of the Internet as an alternate distribution medium.
Today Rob Lord believes that one of the most important ?needs? in the Digital Media arena, is a software media player that will work much like a browser. Consider that a web browser enables you to visit and view most any web page. In contrast, many of the online sellers of recorded digital music, such as Rhapsody, Napster, Apple, and Yahoo, require you to download a software client specific to the associated store, or service. Lord?s company is developing a media player that will be more universally applicable so that music can be listened to, and purchased, from a variety of online websites without requiring the user to download a software client.
The standard practice of downloading site-specific client software is not only time consuming and annoying, it might also create conflicts for your computer owing to designs that require files to be shared particularly if certain clients are set by default to try and retain a permanent association to files that the other clients also need. Under such circumstances the user may either have to uninstall all the conflicting store-front software clients, or call in an exorcist to get her computer operating properly again.
March 10, 2006, 06:17 PM If you would like to know how digital music can be delivered to the mass market cell phones, this interview is for you.
A number of companies are starting to provide music download services over wireless networks. One notable example is Verizon, which recently launched the V Cast Music store. Unfortunately, the consumers who might want to use the store may only access it via a limited number of Smart (expensive) Phones.
Today?s guest company, Beatnik, has been sonifying ring tones and other tones on mass market cell phones for years. They are now looking at the opportunity to enable the mass market phones of the future to play downloadable music tracks. The Beatnik player software only requires 30k of RAM which makes it a very efficient player for the mass market phone.
February 8, 2006, 06:34 PM If you would like to know what the wireless technology deployment plans are among the attendees at the last CTIA Conference, this interview is for you.
The CTIA is an industry trade associate founded as the Cellular Telephone Industry Association in 1984. It now calls itself The Wireless Association representing all sectors of the wireless communications industry worldwide. There last annual convention was in San Francisco this past September.
Today?s guests conducted a survey covering 10,000 of the attendees. The survey was designed to provide statistically reliable information about the wireless technology deployment plans of the respondents. The survey results yielded a number of key findings.
First, in general the respondents had aggressive technology adoption plans.
Second, there was immediate demand for mission critical applications.
Third, as a rule, the smaller companies were pursing mobile technology more vigorously than the larger ones.
Fourth, when potential customers had misgivings about adopting new mobile technologies those concerns centered on issues of security, cost justification, and interoperability.
March 6, 2006, 11:05 AM If you would like to know why our guest today thinks that 2006 will finally be the year of Video-On-Demand, this interview is for you.
Our guest today believes that a confluence of circumstances will mean that Video-On-Demand will be come a commercially significant reality this year after a protracted era of infancy.
Broadband penetration is getting to a critical mass. Moreover, the average speed of broadband facilities is increasing. Last year?s iPod video catalyzed interest in making video available for portable devices on demand.
Also, business trends are encouraging the studios to consider Video-On-Demand as an alternate revenue source. All of their other sources went into negative growth last year. By default they must seek new sources.
Competition will force the cable operators to either lower prices or increase the packaged bit rate of their broadband offerings. Telephone companies like Verizon and Bell South are laying fiber and preparing to compete with the cable guys for both high speed access and video services. Additionally, they appear to have successfully lobbied Congress to consider adopting laws that will permit them to force the local governments to act quickly in authorizing competitive network services to the historical near monopoly of the cable operators. As a result two powerful industries that are used to competing only in the political arena for protection of their monopolies will be increasingly competing in the marketplace in the future.
March 3, 2006, 06:32 PM If you would like to learn about how a value-added reseller of WebEx services adapts the platform to provide enhanced collaborative and Digital Media capabilities, this interview is for you.
Many of the interviews we conduct at Inside Digital Media are based on the WebEx platform. The technology permits the guest to narrate a PowerPoint presentation as I ask pertinent questions along the way. Beyond that, the WebEx platform permits the guests demonstrate computer applications from his PC as I record the visual and audio elements on my own PC remotely. These are pretty impressive capabilities considering that they are available to any guest interviewee who has a broadband Internet connection anywhere in the World.
However, today?s guest is the CEO of a company that has enhanced the WebEx platform with other capabilities and technologies to provide an even more versatile experience. His company, Fugent, is targeted at the financial services industry.
One sector that he serves is the mutual fund industry. Mutual funds, and their wholesalers, who want to make their products clearly understood by stockbrokers across the country can often do so by providing live and recorded WebEx PowerPoint sessions. For those stockbrokers who do not feel the need to see the entire presentation, Fugent has adapted Flash technology to enable playback on a slide-by-slide basis.
All of this can be generated right within the PowerPoint application itself. Essentially, the creator downloads a ?plug-in? that empowers PowerPoint to do all of this in conjunction with Fugent?s ASP service.
February 27, 2006, 12:11 PM If you would like to know all about Microsoft?s Real-Time Communications Strategy, this interview is for you.
Wainhouse Research has done a report on the Microsoft?s Real-Time Communications Strategy that they have subtitled: ?What Every Organization Should Know about the 800-Pound Gorilla?s Voice, Video, and Web Collaboration Solutions & Partner Ecosystem?.
It is quite an ambitious report, but today we are fortunate to have its author at hand to make a presentation and permit me to question him.
Microsoft?s goals are to fully integrate the software and services and to enable highly contextual remote collaboration among office workers. They have over 500 people employed in what they call the Unified Communications Business Unit. When communicating, Microsoft wants to enable office workers to quickly establish identity, presence, and availability status with one another via the computer screens.
The Wainhouse report looks at 12 different points about the Microsoft strategy, including an analysis about its probability for success. There are two components to the Microsoft offering, (1) Live Communications Server, and (2) Communicator 2005 which is the client piece.
The ?forcing factor? toward the adoption of Live Communications Server appears to be a widespread regulatory need for Instant Messaging platforms that will enable messages to be recorded, meditated, and audited. Many of the basic features of Live Communications Server might well only be lightly utilized at first, since the adoption was driven by a need for a secure IM platform. However, our guest believes that Microsoft customers will quickly pick-up on a number of the added communications features and thereby gradually migrate toward a usage environment that Microsoft anticipates in its fully integrated collaboration and communications vision.
Our guest believes that about 10 million people are currently using some aspect of the Live Communications Server.
February 22, 2006, 08:15 PM If you would like to learn how a consultant to the independent record label industry recommends that they distribute their recordings in the age of the Internet, this interview is for you.
Now that digital music is entering the mainstream, we are searching for informed opinions about how recorded music should be marketed. Today?s guest, Todd Beals, thinks that DRMs are going to be untenable in the long run. The mainstream consumer does not want to put up with file incompatibilities. He just wants his music to play when he want to hear it, with a minimum of difficulty.
Surprisingly, our guest also thinks that the record labels can make variable pricing work by offering more. For example, if an album download were to be offered with the ability to choose a theme from any of the tracks, consumers may well feel like paying the extra amount. Also, he feels that giving the consumer more options in terms of file compression formats may justify a higher price. Finally, he recommends that the labels provide more metadata along with pamphlets and artwork.
For example, he is impressed with the depth of metadata that the next generation of Gracenote technology will offer. It will be possible to identify the artist for each track in the composition.
Our guest also feels that copy protection for the CD is also a mistake. It reduces the value of the CD and gives the consumer the impression that, for a given price, his money is buying him something of lower value and restricted utility. However, our guest also seems to think that the Peer-to-Peer networks have seen their peak activity. The various forms of malware on them is a significant deterrent to the mainstream consumer.
February 20, 2006, 08:42 AM If you would like to learn about the unintended consequences of Web 2.0, this interview is for you.
Our guest today is a big proponent of the value he sees in the traditional media companies. The notion that Web 2.0 will empower everyone to become successful authors, publishers, film producers, and podcasters is absurd. The mainstream media companies became mainstream simply because they filtered out a lot of content that wasn?t valuable enough to see the light of day.
Now, Web 2.0 threatens the traditional media companies with obsolescence, and that is a shame. Society will lose value because of such an unintended consequence. Our guest feels that the traditional media companies are in need of legal protection.
February 17, 2006, 03:31 PM If you would like to learn how a media browser can be embedded into consumer electronics appliances and portable digital devices, this interview is for you.
Many of us are growing ever more comfortable with the concept of downloading and viewing Digital Media at our computers. However, ultimately portable devices like cell phones are going to get more software intensive. The same applies to consumer electronics appliances. At some point such units are going to be in need of an embedded browser that is capable of retrieving and displaying Digital Media that comes in from the Internet.
Today?s guest company provides just such a capability. Their name is Oregan Networks and they are headquartered in London. To date they have had their embedded Digital Media solution placed in the Sony Play Station II in the European markets.
The company was founded in 1997 and so far they have sold over three million licenses. Aside from Sony, both Phillips and NTT are customers.
Oregan believes that one of their key advantages is that their embedded browser is compatible with three important emerging environments. First is the Digital Living Network Alliance standard that will apply to home networking. Second, is IPTV. Third, is the classic embedded web browser function such as those provided by Opera and ANT.
February 15, 2006, 10:06 PM If you would like to know how a graduating senior from the Digital Media program at the Philadelphia Institute of Art views the world of Digital Media today, this interview is for you.
An audience member who has been regular at Inside Digital Media is Russell Heimlich who is a graduating senior for a Bachelor of Science Degree in Digital Media Production at the Philadelphia Institute of Art. He sent me an email and I watched a couple of his short form movies that he posted on the Internet. They were sufficiently interesting to induce me to interview him to get his perspective on the field.
Russell is 20 years old and has been producing videos and editing them on his computer since he was only 12 years old. Like a lot of his cohorts, Russell does not have a landline phone so we had to record his comments from his cell phone. The only other option that he could offer me was Skype.
Interestingly, Russell does not watch television. He prefers to watch videos that he can download over the Internet. In his case he watches independent productions that are placed on the Internet by the copyright holders and are intended to be viewed for free.
However, he notes that there is an abundance of popular television programs that are available on the Internet. It is Russell?s opinion that BitTorrent is the protocol often used for transferring the files, although he points out that BitTorrent is itself merely a software protocol that does nothing to promote piracy. Russell indicates that the real pirates at the ?Trackers? that seed the network. He believes that ?Tracker? websites have been driven away from the United States and likely are in political jurisdictions that where copyright holders will have difficulty protecting their rights.
Russell believes that ?Trackers? are abundantly available on the Internet. However, our suspicion is that any such websites may not only facilitate the unauthorized redistribution of copyrighted files, but also are likely to be loaded with adware, spyware, and various forms of other malware that all of us are well advised to avoid.
February 13, 2006, 01:48 PM If you would like to learn how your company can automate Expense Account reporting much like ADP automates payroll accounting, this interview is for you.
One of the themes that we have been exploring in recent interview is a trend toward ?software as a service? as opposed to software as a product. To this end we have interviewed WebEx CEO Subrah Iyar, and Tim Chou who is the author of a book entitled The End of Software. Confessedly, WebEx is one of our sponsors, so we wanted to interview another successful company that is also benefiting from the concept of ?software as a service?.
The result is today?s interview with Concur Technologies. The CEO explains how Concur automates the Expense Account reporting process much like ADP automates the payroll accounting function.
Originally Concur offered its software to clients as a product that was sold, installed, and licensed in the customary way. However, it eventually became apparent that the function was best handled as a Web-based service so that Concur would be responsible for maintaining the software and keeping it current as new features were added.
While the ?software as a service? model was clearly better for the customer, it also provided benefits to Concur. For example, the company?s revenues are now generated much like those of a utility ? meaning that there is a high recurring content. As a result, Concur has been exhibiting consistent and high revenue growth rates.
February 10, 2006, 05:07 PM Robert Scoble of Microsoft believes that those of us in charge of marketing who have a website that fails to use RSS should be fired.
Saying that RSS is only for geeks today is like saying in 1998 that the Web
was only for geeks.
Robert Scoble.
It may well be true that Mr. Scoble?s points are not hyperbole. Fortunately, since our podcasts are basically RSS enclosures, technically I don?t have to fire myself. But today?s guest is leading me to investigate whether I could be making a lot more constructive use of RSS.
Feedburner attracted my attention because I was having trouble keeping my podcasts iTunes compliant. Since iTunes is the software used to synch-up the iPod it is crucially important that those of us creating podcasts make it easy for users of iTunes to subscribe. More than half of our podcast recipients use iTunes.
If you are not an XML programmer, this can be difficult because iTunes has its own tag conventions. Moreover, Apple can alter those conventions anytime they wish and they may not notify the podcasters of such changes. Even if they did, for those of us who don?t know XML very well, it?s not easy to figure out how to comply.
Podcasters are likely to find that standards compliance is going to get more complicated before it gets easier. This is because other major players are likely to become involved in podcasting. It?s probable that many will have individual nuances that they will want applied to the XML tags in their applications. For example, Yahoo, AOL, Microsoft, and Google can all be expected to promote some sort of a podcast search directory. As a podcast creator, if you want to be included in their directories, you?ll have to conform to their conventions.
Today?s guest company does a lot to simplify the compliance effort. When you let Feedburner manage your XML feeds, you leave it up to them to ensure standards compliance. Fortunately, the basic level of service is free. The premium one provides more audience measurement statistics and costs money.
But Feedburner is not just about podcasting. It?s about all RSS feeds, Today?s interview is a good place to start if you want to learn about all the implications I am searching to understand myself?before I get fired!
February 8, 2006, 09:33 PM If you would like to learn about the market for selling audio books and classic radio programs as digital downloads over the Internet, this interview is for you.
Those of us with enough gray hair might be able to remember a service called ?Books on Tape?. I once listened to an entire reading of Dostoyevsky?s The Brothers Karamazov that way. There were a total of 29 tapes with, as I recall, 45 minutes per side. After I finished the first ten I would return them and get the next ten. Upon completion of the second ten I would get the last nine which also needed to be returned. It took a long time but I eventually got through the book as I jogged with my Walkman and commuted to work in my car.
I can still vividly recall parts of the novel and respect it as a profound work of art. My recall is better for Crime and Punishment which I read the regular way, but the audio book experience was good enough to create a lasting impression.
During that era the principal competitor to ?Books on Tape? was The Audio Book Club which sold the tapes instead of renting them. The Club was owned by today?s guest company, MediaBay, which also sold tapes of classic radio programs ? skits like the Abbott & Costello, ?Who?s on first??
With the advent of the Internet the business models for ?Books on Tape? and The Audio Book Club essentially became obsolete. The principal company to capitalize on the paradigm shift was Audible, which now does about $16 million per quarter in the sale of spoken word downloads.
Nonetheless, MedaiBay has not ignored the trend. The company is now focused on selling spoken word content as downloads over the Internet in direct competition with Audible. They?ve got a long way to go to catch up, but over the years they did business with almost three million individual customers. Such a list might well be a valuable resource from which to mine prospects for the new business model.
Subject: Today?s guest on Inside Digital Media is Jeffrey A. Dittus who is the CEO of MediaBay. Jeff?s company is a Digital Media and publishing company specializing in spoken word audio entertainment. They maintain a library of more than 75,000 hours of audio content, which is distributed through consumer brands such as, Soundsgood.com, AudioBookClub, Radio Spirits and Radio Classics. The content is distributed on the Internet. During 12 years of operations, MediaBay has serviced 2.9 million customers that have purchased spoken word products.
February 6, 2006, 06:54 PM Walt Mossberg thinks that the Intel ?brain transplant? into the new Apple iMacs was a success.
Like a number of other observers, we have been apprehensive that the switch to an Intel processor within future Apple computers might become a technical stumbling block. Thus, when Apple introduced its first model six months in advance of expectations, we were anxious to see just how well it performed. A number of experts reviewed it, including Ed Baig of USA Today, whom we interviewed last week. He liked it.
Today?s guest is another prominent computer guru, Walt Mossberg who writes the Personal Technology Column for The Wall Street Journal. Walt characterized the switch to the Intel processor from IBM?s PowerPC as a ?brain transplant?, and his evaluation is that the operation was a success.
Basically, Walt believes that the Rosetta translation code is working effectively. Thus, programs that were written for the PowerPC iMac are translated on the fly through Rosetta to work on the new Intel processor. While the translation might slow down the computer owing to the extra work, Walt figures that the extra work is done faster owing to the faster clock rate of the Intel microprocessor.
While some Mac owners have used Windows programs by running a ?Virtual PC? program in the background on their PowerPC Macs, the new Intel-based iMac does not offer the Virtual PC program. While this is potentially one drawback to the new iMac, Walt feels that 3rd parties will get to work making a variety of Windows based programs function effectively on the new iMac. It might mean that 3rd parties will develop a new version of Virtual PC or it might mean that they will sell versions of Windows applications programs (not offered by Apple) that will run on the new iMacs.
An important part of the new iMacs is the accompanying iLife software. The suite consists of five components (1) iPhoto, (2) iDVD, (3) iMovie HD, (4) Garage Band, and (5) iWeb. The last program, iWeb, is completely new whereas the others are updated versions of earlier products.
iWeb walks you through the steps of creating your own website. In general it is easy to use and creates a professional looking site. One aspect of iWeb is the ability to post podcasts through Garage Band. You use a section of Garage Band called ?Podcast Studio?. When you complete your recording in Podcast Studio, you use the ?Send to iWeb? command to embed the podcast in the website you created with iWeb. You must pay a fee of about $100 per year to dot-Mac for a subscription to their Internet services which include website hosting.
February 3, 2006, 06:41 PM Today it is becoming as important to flatten the knowledge chain as it was to flatten the supply chain in the 1990s. Working collaboratively on a Global basis will become a competitive necessity for many of us.
Initially companies that flattened the supply chain in the 1980s and 1990s were able to increase profits significantly. Ultimately, however, as competitors adapted to the concept a flatter supply chain became a competitive necessity.
Our guest today feels that a similar trend is emerging in ?flattening the knowledge worker chain?. Basically, collaboration on work projects will require Global resources. Many people from all over the World must learn to work collaboratively with speed and efficiency. This means companies will not be able to rely upon physical travel to bring teams together for shared work. Moreover, the telephone is not a powerful enough tool on its own to provide the needed efficiency.
Instead, computers and the Internet will become crucial components of the process. Collaborative workers in various time zones need to have presence awareness as a fundamental feature. They also need to be able to share a number of office productivity applications remotely. Examples include PowerPoint, Word, and Excel. In point of fact, we believe ultimately that telephony itself will merely become just one of many collaborative applications that knowledge workers will access with their computers on-demand over the Internet.
To remain competitive large corporations must learn to make use of high quality knowledge workers in such labor efficient markets as India and China. Worldwide collaboration will become a necessity.
As a result, software such as Microsoft Office Live Communications Server must become integrated not only with programs like Excel and Word, but also with the telecommunications network within the subject enterprise.
February 1, 2006, 04:44 PM If you would like to get a professional?s evaluation of the new Intel-based iMac Apple Computer, this interview is for you.
While there have been doubts that Apple?s switch to Intel-based processors from the traditional PowerPC chips made by IBM would go smoothly, at least one industry expert was favorably impressed with the debut of the Intel-based iMac. Today?s guest is Ed Baig who writes the personal technology column for USA Today where he recently reviewed the product.
Priced at $1700, the Intel-based iMac is thought to be an elegant successor to the PowerPC-based iMac G5. It looks the same with a 20 inch flat panel display. The guts of the machine are included in the display unit, meaning that there is no separate tower for this desktop unit. The two-inch thick display and the computer are one in the same. There are slots for DVDs and CDs, as well as a built-in camera for use with IP video-telephony (video phone calls via Apple?s IM program called iChat).
The computer comes with an innovative new suite of software termed ?iLife?, which consists of five components (1) iPhoto, (2) iDVD, (3) iMovie HD, (4) Garage Band, and (5) iWeb. The last program, iWeb, is completely new whereas the others are updated versions of earlier products.
iWeb walks you through the steps of creating your own website. In general it is easy to use and creates a professional looking site. One aspect of iWeb is the ability to post podcasts through Garage Band. You use a section of Garage Band called ?Podcast Studio?. When you complete your recording in Podcast Studio, you use the ?Send to iWeb? command to embed the podcast in the website you created with iWeb. You must pay a fee of about $100 per year to dot-Mac for a subscription to their Internet services which include website hosting.
It appears that the Intel-based iMac handles nearly all of the regular iMac programs without material glitches, or a significant slowdown in performance. To be sure, however, our guest did find some exceptions such as the inability to playback the Steve Jobs address at MacWorld last month through Apple?s own QucikTime media player software.
In sum, it appears that the first Intel-based iMac to reach the market is performing well and relatively bug free.
January 30, 2006, 11:59 AM If you would like to learn about a pragmatic way to get your video and audio content distributed over the Internet to computers and cell phones, this interview is for you.
Now that Yahoo, Apple, and Google are all getting involved in the arena of on-demand video over the Internet, it looks like the year 2006 may well be the year for an idea whose time has come. If we are indeed at a ?tipping point? then speed to market is going to be important for all content rights holders. Moreover, copyright holders are not going to limit the distribution of their stories to computers. They?re going to want to reach mobile phones as well.
The tipping-point is going to be much like a nuclear chain reaction. Nothing is going to happen in isolation. As each constituent splits open to the market, there will be collateral effects on the other constituents. For example, providing video for Internet-connected computers will likely induce a similar trend in the wireless market for PDAs and cell phones. Of course the content will have to be repackaged and formatted to conform to the technical standards and consumer expectations at the endpoints. This will not be an easy job, but the market potential is huge.
Essentially all video content rights holders will come to realize that any Internet-connected display screen represents a potential consumer end point for their programming. The market is no longer limited merely to television screens. Moreover, the Internet makes it possible to distribute the content to virtually any part of the Globe. In the context of the chain reaction metaphor, the nuclear pile is the entire planet, and nor simply a single country. Every continent, save Antarctica, will be quickly impacted.
Content rights holders are going to be stepping inside the tornado, and they?re going to need some help. Today?s guest company believes that they are the industry leader in terms of providing commercially available tools and services to help publishers of all sorts of Digital Media reach a variety of end points on the Internet.
January 27, 2006, 04:50 PM If you would like to learn about the economics of Video-On-Demand, this interview is for you.
Nielsen Entertainment Media recently completed a research report entitled The Economics of Demand Programming. The author of the report is Larry Gerbrandt who was an analyst at Paul Kagan Associates for 20 years. During much of that period, the Kagan organization was considered the prime market research firm to the cable television industry. While the full report costs $2000, Larry provides a tantalizing summary presentation for us in today?s 35 minute interview.
Larry firmly believes that there is no longer a question that on-demand video is the wave of the future. The only important question is how to best monetize the opportunity and understand the underlying economic models. In addition to selling programs to the conventional television and cable television networks, Larry identifies ten other ways to generate revenues from the content.
Among the critical findings of the study are that both broadband ISP adoption and iPod sales have reached the mass market and are creating tipping points affect for on-demand programming. Additionally, about three fourths of all households have computers and cell phones and they are upgrading their cell phones every two years.
Larry provides an analysis that leads him to a calculation of the value for the average prime time television viewer. It is a benchmark that can be used to price on-demand programming at the appropriate level to generate incremental revenues and profits. He also provides an analysis of bandwidth distribution costs based upon a client/server model.
January 25, 2006, 03:34 PM If you would like to learn how the Washington School of Law at American University is using iPods and podcasting, this interview is for you.
A number of Professors at the Washington School of Law started podcasting their lectures last August. The practice enables the students who miss the class to hear the lecture at any time that is convenient for them. While students are certainly not encouraged to skip class, the administration recognizes that sometimes they will miss owing to illness, religious holidays, or other exigencies.
Typically, participating professors have been given an iPod that they wear on their belts. An iPod-compatible recording adapter from Belkin, along with a ?tie-clasp? microphone, is also provided. At the start of the lecture, the prof merely pushes the record button. Since the iPod is unobtrusively attached to his belt he may wander about the room with complete freedom. At the end of the lecture he merely pushes the iPod?s ?stop? button. Later he gives the iPod to the school?s Office of Technology where it is formatted and posted for podcast distribution.
The school has also podcast a number of lectures provided by faculty and guests for distribution to the public at large. The audience for these events has come from all over the world.
Three fourths of the incoming students already have iPods, so podcasting is a convenient way for them to make the lectures portable. Sometimes they used the podcasts, not because they missed the class, but because they learn by repetition. The portability provided by the iPod makes repetition more feasible.
During the first four months of the program, the podcasts were downloaded almost 35,000 times. The number of professors who are expressing an interest in participating in the program is steadily growing.
January 23, 2006, 07:28 PM If you would like to learn from the experiences of a well informed reporter who is also an early adopter of Digital Media technologies, this interview is for you.
Jefferson Graham has been a reporter for USA Today during the past twenty years. In the past ten years or so he has increasingly reported on developments in the Digital Media industries. He is also an early adopter of Digital Media technologies himself. We interviewed Jeff to get some insight to what he has discovered.
First, Jeff is finding that his interest in Digital Media is intensive enough to surpass the capabilities of a laptop computer. Although he has a good laptop (IBM Thinkpad) provided by his employer, he discovered that it was necessary to get three external hard drives to accommodate all the media storage that his early adopter interests require. Jeff has about 200 Gigs of Digital Media on his various hard drives.
Jeff is also making a movie in anticipation of a big birthday this year and is finding that the video editing requirements are surpassing the horsepower of the laptop.
Second, Jeff rarely goes anywhere without a digital still camera. He loves to shoot pictures and share them with friends and relatives. He also likes to personalize conventional items like a calendar with family photos. For example, he had one of the web-based photo storage services make a number of calendars for him with photos of the Graham family.
Third, Jeff is a big digital music fan. He takes his iPod everywhere, but he also like the music subscription services like Rhapsody, Yahoo Music, and Napster. Overall, he likes Rhapsody the best, but for the ?to-go? (portable versions) he likes Napster the best. He feels the best portable player to go with the portable subscriptions is made by SanDisk.
January 20, 2006, 03:28 PM If you would like to learn about Elliot Gold?s ten predictions for the New Year relating to the teleconferencing and video conferencing industries, this interview is for you.
For the past 11 years Elliot Gold has been making annual predictions about the future developments in the "electronic conferencing" market for the ensuing calendar year.
?Electronic conferencing? encompasses the worlds of (1) audio, (2) video, and (3) web conferencing. Each year he predicts ten specific events or trends. Normally at least a few are controversial. Over the 11 year period, Elliot advertises a 75% accuracy ratio.
Some of this year?s forecasts:
First, Forgent will find that its ?672? motion JPEG patent lacks validity owing to prior art.
Second, Microsoft will offer (through partners) multipoint VoIP audio conference calls.
Third, two major voice conferencing service providers that had been using Microsoft Placeware for web conferencing will replace it with Macromedia Breeze.
Fourth, Polycom will take legal action against a competitor founded by a former Polycom executive named Craig Malloy.
January 18, 2006, 03:54 PM If you want to learn about the latest developments in the podcasting business, this interview is for you.
As we have said before, podcasting is the most significant Digital Media development to come out of the lunatic fringe since the advent of Shawn Fanning?s Napster. As long as there is more to learn about this burgeoning new field, we will continue to seek topical interviews.
Today our guest is the guy who runs podcasttools.com. As podcasting continues to evolve it is beginning to take on form and structure. It will be important that participants, from Inside Digital Media to Disney, conform to the emerging framework.
As compared to a year ago, at least three factors are emerging as crucially important.
First, iTunes is becoming the podcast-software-client-of-choice among subscribers. Any podcaster who wants to optimize his audience must, at least for now, conform to the iTunes XML standards. In our experience this is not easy to do without using a helpful tool or, alternately, possessing a firm knowledge of XML programming.
Hopefully, some day Apple will integrate podcast creation into the iTunes software. Whenever that happens it will be much easier to become a podcaster and consequently we would expect a tidal wave of new podcasts.
Second, Yahoo is getting aggressive with a podcast search function and they are conforming to the iTunes standard.
At least for the present, items one and two above imply that Apple is becoming the defacto standard in podcasting despite the traditional dominance of Microsoft in the personal computer arena. Ultimately this could be a significant challenge to the hegemony of the Microsoft ecosystem, especially since we believe that podcasting will ultimately become a major, if not dominant, form of entertainment media distribution. In our analysis, Microsoft and Real would be well advised to integrate podcast subscription and creation capabilities into their media players.
Third, we?re beginning to witness the first experimental efforts in video podcasting. It is a trend that is certain to grow.
January 16, 2006, 03:13 PM If you would like to know whether the traditional model of selling software as a product might be replaced by one that sells it as a service, this interview is for you.
Are you paying more to have someone ?fix? your computer whenever previously installed software fails to perform as expected than you paid to purchase all the software that is installed on your machine?
Are you apprehensive about installing new software out of concern that it may mess up your computer?
If you answered ?yes? to both questions there are two points you may be interested to know. First, you are typical. Second, since your response is typical, the software industry is finding it increasingly difficult to sell new programs. Industry growth is stagnating.
The implications of the situation are enormous. First, it implies that software companies are going to have a difficult time inducing growth unless they can figure out another way to deliver and maintain the customers? software. Second, any company, including Microsoft, which does not figure out some way to address the problem successfully, will lose out to others who do adapt.
Our guest today believes that in the future business models for software will increasingly take-on the characteristics of the utilities industry. Buyers will purchase ?software-as-a-service? as opposed to buying it as a product that must be (1) installed, (2) maintained, and (3) constantly debugged.
In a sense, Google, eBay, and Amazon are all ?software-as-a-service?. None of them requires you to download and install any programs, yet their functions are constantly being updated and improved. Since there is nothing to install, you merely access them through your browser. If they have ?bugs? in them, it is the responsibility of the service provider ? meaning Google, eBay, or Amazon ? to do the fix themselves.
But software-as-a-service is not merely for the consumer market. Two examples in the enterprise space are WebEx and salesforce.com.
January 13, 2006, 02:49 PM If you want to know what the Associate Chair of the Computer Science Department thinks about podcasting, this interview is for you.
Duke University was one of the first to recognize the significance of the iPod as general-purpose portable Digital Media device. A year-and-a-half ago they gave all incoming freshmen a free iPod. The units made it possible for students to download lectures and listen to them on the iPod. Also, unlike other iPods, the Duke units had a record capability that enabled students to record their own Digital Media programs.
Owing to the ongoing familiarity with the iPod resulting from the program, Duke?s Computer Science Department was one of the first to pick-up on the significance of podcasting. As a result, in September of last year they hosted a symposium on podcasting, which was probably one of, if not the, first industry conference on podcasting.
Now Duke professors and lecturers are increasingly developing their own podcasts. Students still get free iPods if they enroll in a course that requires them. Courses that required iPods are those for which the lecturing professor has prepared, and gained approval for, a proposal that will utilize the iPod as part of the teaching experience.
In a most significant trend, Duke?s Computer Science Department reports that an ever-growing number of professors from other disciplines are asking to be taught how to conduct courses that utilize the iPod. In short, there are leaning how to create and distribute podcasts.
January 11, 2006, 07:56 PM If you want to learn how to run applications similar to Microsoft Office on your (smart) cell phone, this interview is for you.
Assume you are going to be traveling around the country making PowerPoint presentations about your product, or company, to potential customers or investors. This is also a common practice for stock analysts who have PowerPoint presentations relating to their analysis of their industry sector and the associated stock recommendations.
Conventionally, you would take your laptop computer with you on the trip and have the PowerPoint already loaded. Alternately, you might have it on a CD or a stick-of-gum-sized flash memory drive. But with the alternate method you wouldn?t have your computer around when you need it?like for Mapquest or to do work in your hotel room over the Internet.
Our guest today went on such a trip to visit Venture Capital investors. He carried the entire PowerPoint presentation on his cell phone. When he arrived at the potential investor?s office he essentially used the cell phone as a remote control unit to present the PowerPoint on a television screen or a computer monitor already in the potential investor?s office. The cell phone connected to the display unit via Bluetooth. (He also brought along a Bluetooth adapter for use with conventional televisions or computer monitors that were no already Bluetooth enabled.)
The software office suite that he used also provides many of the functions of Microsoft Office. But, of course, it worked on cell phones that were not using the Windows operating system.
The point is that cell phones are getting ever more powerful, and you can look forward to the day when you won?t need to lug your laptop around with you on business trips. That will certainly make the process of getting through security at the airports a little easier.
The Venture Capitalists were so impressed with the PowerPoint-with-cell-phone-remote-control that Mayfield Fund invested in today?s subject company. Mayfield is one of the venerable Silicon Valley Venture Capital firms. It was founded by Tommy Davis who was Arthur Rock?s partner and Rock was the money behind Intel and Apple?but that?s another story, and a good one.
January 9, 2006, 02:09 PM Life is never fair?.
?and perhaps it is a good thing for most of us that it is not.
- Oscar Wilde
Of course, Wilde?s point is that most of us are better off than the great mass of humanity. A brief reflection on the Katrina or Tsunami victims will underscore the point.
Today?s interview is not about Digital Media. It?s a short biography on a man I recently met. A man who really did get a few bad cards dealt to him when he was born.
His name is Wayne Cook and he?s always had Cerebral Palsy. Although Wayne is not wheel chair bound he does have a spastic walk and limited use of his arms. Nonetheless, Wayne is a successful athlete and corporate executive at Outback Steakhouse.
Wayne has always enjoyed athletics. Despite his obvious disabilities, as a boy he eagerly sought to compete with normal children in the usual events. He played baseball and basketball on teams with ordinary boys in his hometown of Denver. Later on he took up snow skiing and was selected for the USA team in the 1998 Para-Olympics. While training he fell at 55 miles-per-hour and suffered injuries that kept him bed-ridden for weeks. His injuries kept him from participated in the games.
Wayne also took up golf and now shoots in the 80s. About ten years ago he was paired-up in a golf tournament with the Board Chairman of Outback Steakhouse, Chris Sullivan. Chris, who is the Board Chairman of Outback Steakhouse, was so impressed with Wayne that he volunteered Outback as a sponsor for Wayne?s shot at the 1998 Winter Para-Olympics.
(The Para-Olympics follow the conventional Olympics by one week at the same location. While Para-Olympic athletes are physically disabled, their mental capabilities are completely normal. Thus, Para-Olympics should not be confused with Special Olympics.)
For the last several years, Wayne has been working for Outback Steakhouse as a motivational team leader. He travels the country to meet with groups of restaurant managers and employees to help motivate them to strive for excellence.
January 6, 2006, 06:52 PM If you would like to learn about newly proposed legislation that would restrict the consumer?s ability to copy video programming to protect copyright holders from piracy and ?unauthorized? use, this interview is for you.
Last month a new bill was introduced into the House Judiciary Committee entitled the Digital Transition Content Security Act. It is intended to close the ?analog hole? and permit video copyright holders to control how their content is used by the consumer.
Although the analog hole may be an unfamiliar concept to many of us, it is one of the important ?devil in the details? of video copyright protection. Although copyrighted video content is increasingly being digitized, it must ultimately be rendered in the analog domain. Specifically, the video must be exhibited on a display screen and the sound driven into audio speakers. Both the speakers and the display screen are analog devices.
Any device that is capable of recording the video on a screen or the sound driven to the audio speakers, cannot be controlled by any Digital Rights Management (DRM) scheme. This is so because the signal at the man/machine interface is, of necessity, in the analog domain. Without an analog protection convention, devices as simple as audio and video tape recorders can copy content protected by the even the most robust DRM.
The Bill currently before the House Judiciary Committee will provide just such a convention. Moreover, the convention will be applied to all such devices sold in the United States whether they are manufactured here or not.
Our guest sees several problems with the legislation. First, it requires the manufacturers to develop the technology at their own expense and it holds them responsible for the robustness of the technology. Second, it imposes severe penalties on devices that fail to meet an arbitrary standard of robustness. Third, it essentially ?lobotomizes? future PCs and intelligent consumer electronics appliances. Capabilities such as TiVo-To-Go may not be permitted even though they appear to fall within the Fair Use exemption of the Copyright Act.
January 4, 2006, 07:22 PM If you would like to learn how Digital Media will be delivered to, and among, cell phones, this interview is for you.
Here in the States, the delivery of Digital Media to and from cell phones is only just now beginning to appear. The practice is more common in certain overseas markets, and Vidiator Technologies is one of the key enablers.
Vidiator?s Vee Stream is a rich media streaming platform that delivers high quality multimedia content for wireless broadcasting, live events and content on-demand.
But that?s not all. The company also provides a 3-D avatar technology as well. It uses a patented technology to generate a fully lip-synchronized facial animation that is language independent, powering person-to-person messaging and broadcast applications. This means that individual cell phone subscribers can create Digital Media messages to send to one another. In the Vidiator scheme-of- things, Digital Media become a peer-to-peer application as well as a client-server one.
Admittedly, there are seemingly quite a lot of companies that are focused on providing platforms to deliver Digital Media to cell phones. We have interviewed perhaps half-a-dozen on Inside Digital Media. Whether Vidiator remains one of the leaders remains to be seen.
However, Vidiator appears to be among the leaders right now. It has over one hundred employees. Management feels that since it is specialized in the mobile markets that Vidiator has learned things about the hand-off and limited (and variable) bandwidth characteristics of the market that can give them an advantage over companies like RealNetworks and even Microsoft.
December 28, 2005, 06:28 PM If you would like to learn how to add TiVo like capabilities to your existing desktop computer, this interview is for you.
Now that there are approximately 10 million Personal Video Recorders (PVRs) in use, it is no longer a cultish concept. However, since a PVR is essentially nothing more than a dedicated-application computer, many of us are recognizing that we could add TiVo-like capability to our computers. All that is necessary is to add a TV tuner card and a PVR software package.
You can get TV tuner cards from companies like Hauppauge Electronics and today?s guest company, SnapStream media, provides the requisite software. Although you won?t get the same programming guide as TiVo?s, you get one that many of the cable TV companies use with their PVRs. Additionally, with SnapStream software you can record more than one program simultaneously even if you are watching yet another one.
While SnapStream offers cool capability for those with used computers, ultimately we expect that the feature will be offered as a menu item for buyers of new computers. Given SnapStream?s focus on the aftermarket, it is not clear how such a menu item check-list for new computers will impact the SnapStream market potential.
In short, will they be able to become an OEM software vendor to the major PC manufactures, like InterVideo and Sonic Solutions are for other applications software, or will they eventually dwindle to insignificance as the aftermarket shrinks? What other opportunities can SnapStream exploit to avoid such a fate?
December 26, 2005, 01:35 PM If you are interested in understanding the market for digital (electronic display) signage, this interview is for you.
It seems like electronic advertising is spreading into ever-growing portions of our lives. You can see advertising display screens in department stores, shopping malls, airports, and even on elevators. Unlike fixed printed billboards, they enable the sponsor to sporadically change the advertising message frequently to respond to changing market conditions or promotional periods. We?re even beginning to see the signs replace traditional outdoor billboards in some locations.
Aside from the ease of changing the advertising message, digital signage provides the flexibility to distribute advertising from a central source to all participating locations electronically. That means that a new advertising campaign can be rolled out almost instantaneously since there is no need to print-up new signs and then have them laboriously pasted onto the billboard.
Major companies such as Thomson SA and Clear Channel are participating in the market. Today?s guest company is a local value-added reseller of digital signage. While their market is quite limited by comparison to other guest companies on Inside Digital Media we found the presentation to be an interesting source of information on the overall market.
December 23, 2005, 05:39 PM If you would like to learn how to inexpensively conduct good quality video telephone calls from your PC, this interview is for you.
As broadband Internet penetration steadily increases and the cost per function of semiconductor chips consistently drops, Digital Media is becoming an ever more popular application for computers and digital devices. While much of this has become evident in the form of recorded music (as with iPods) or video (as in news and entertainment), there are other applications that seem likely to become more prevalent in the future.
Chief among these is video IP telephony. Vonage, Skype, and now even the Yahoo and AOL Instant Messaging programs, are making it clear to consumers that the Internet can be used for inexpensive telephone conversations as well as email, online shopping, and web surfing.
The next logical step is to put video in the call. In point of fact, text Instant Messaging (IM) is merely a crude form of instantaneous communications. Users of IM are becoming increasingly aware that there is really no technical reason why the conversation should be limited simply to text.
Bits are bits, and they can be representative of voice and video just as well as text. The only difference is that the number of bits required to encode a voice or video signal is much larger than is required for text. But broadband ISP service makes it possible to transport larger files and ever-more powerful computers make it possible to process the files is real time. Finally, webcams are economical and average only about $50 -$60.
So it seems inevitable that voice and video will become a bigger part of our experience on the Internet. Not only will point-to-point communications be affected, but also online communities. Websites like MySpace and match.com are online communities where people share information about themselves and seek dates. Posting videos seems like a natural way to enhance one?s presence on such sites and ultimately is likely to become routine.
December 21, 2005, 10:59 PM If you want to learn more about the developing market opportunities in WiMax, this interview is for you.
Just about everybody with a modern laptop computer today realizes that WiFi is the wireless technology that enables them to connect to the Internet conveniently at various privately owned ?hot spots? around town. Perhaps the best know example is the local Starbucks Coffee Shop. But it wasn?t too many years ago when WiFi hot spots were new concepts that many of us had trouble understanding before actually using it.
It appears that the next stage in the evolutionary trend will be WiMax. But WiMax will offer much more than WiFi. First, it will support much higher data rates so that it will be suitable for video. Second, in its second (mobile) iteration it will enable cellular-telephone-like handoff so that users may stay connected from one base station to another. That provides total mobility.
WiMax basically points the way to fourth generation wireless networks in which voice is merely one application, and a prosaic one, that subscribers run on their portable devices. Various Digital Media applications involving video, audio, and music will also be routine.
One cogent industry observer, lost to memory, once said, ?The future has already arrived, its just not evenly distributed.? Our guest today points out that South Korea is well ahead in both wireless and broadband Internet. She feels that the country?s WiMax network will be fully operational by the middle part of next year and that it will provide a test case as to just how effective WiMax will be in practice.
December 19, 2005, 06:38 PM If you would like to learn whether it makes sense for Google to acquire TiVo, this interview is for you.
Tim Beyers is a Contributing Analyst to The Motley Fool and he thinks that Google should give serious consideration to buying TiVo. For one thing, the entire online advertising market is about $16 billion whereas the television advertising market is about ten-times that size.
If Google is going to keep growing fast enough to justify its current stock valuation, its going to have to get some of the money that is being spent on television advertising. An alliance with TiVo might help them do that.
TiVo needs a strong financial partner and one that can help it gain market share. Clearly, Google has the money and Tim points out that Google is also making heavy investments in broadband technologies, including home networking ones. An example is a broadband LAN for the home using the commonly available electrical power lines. Once a home has a broadband LAN, the Digital Living Room can become a reality.
In such a scenario, Google could put a browser in the TiVo and thereby enable television viewers to browse the Internet in a split screen while watching television. Viewers could use the browser to ?go to? Google to search for music and video files on the Internet, or to search the programming that is coming up on the cable TV system. The television?s ?Google Home Page? might also include a recommendation engine much like the one that Amazon.com uses for books.
For example, the (hypothetical) television Google Home Page might tell you. ?You?ve watched three Steve McQueen movies and four Paul Newman ones, maybe you want to try a James Dean movie??
December 16, 2005, 07:42 PM If you are interested in learning how the leading vendor of ?software as a service? achieved its impressive growth record and what the future might hold for the concept, this interview is for you.
Within the last week or so, both The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal have published articles describing the merits of obtaining software as service as opposed to buying it.
While the major advantage of buying software is that you own it in perpetuity. The major disadvantage is that YOU are responsible for making it work correctly and keeping it up-to-date. Basically the buyer must take on the responsibility of maintaining the software. Unfortunately, this can be a big hassle.
For example, the writer was instructed by Microsoft to download the latest Service Pack in September. He did so, and while attempting to install the updates, Microsoft asked that a disc for a software package that he never purchased (or installed or used) be loaded.
It was an endless loop. I could not install Service Pack 2 because it asked for a disc that I did not have. When I tried to skip that step, Service Park 2 refused to install and treated me like a criminal or something since I did not have the disc it asked to see.
I wrote a letter to Microsoft explaining the problem and asking for help. I sent if via postal mail thinking that it might get more serious attention. All I got back was a form letter telling me about some web sites that MIGHT be helpful. ( While I complain of Microsoft, confessedly I could not conduct my business without their software.)
WebEx does up-dates too. But when they do it they notify me in advance and take care of all the installation. If there are any bugs it?s THEIR problem to fix?not mine. I get apprehensive when I see the email notices that WebEx is going to do an upgrade, but after two years I can truthfully say that the glitches are minimal and I have never been caught in an endless Catch-22 loop.
But WebEx is only one example. The New York Times and Wall Street Journal suggest that the trend toward software as a service is a massive shifting of the ground under our feet.
December 14, 2005, 05:58 PM If you would like to learn about a video conferencing system that uses the public Internet and gets past firewalls transparently, this interview is for you.
For years Video Conferencing has been one of those obviously desirable applications that has never quite lived-up to its promise. There are a number of reasons for this, but the basic problem was that it was centered on using a dedicated network. Typically ISDN telephone lines were used to connect Video Conferencing endpoints.
Gradually, however, the basic transport capabilities of ISDN got surpassed by the broadband Internet. Moreover, since the Internet is designed to be a multimedia network it can intermingle digits of video, voice, graphics, PowerPoints, or any data and then reassemble them in the desired fashion at the endpoints. It is the multimedia capabilities of the Internet that ultimately isolated traditional Video Conferencing on a dead-end evolutionary path.
Today?s guest represents a company that has developed a Video Conferencing appliance that is optimized for the Internet. That makes it easy to set-up calls. They get through firewalls by mimicking the approach of web conferencing which basically gets participants to rendezvous at a server embedded within the network.
Beyond being a simple-to-use Video Conferencing appliance, the unit also functions as a television and local PowerPoint display screen. All of this is priced at under $5,000 with screen and camera included.
December 12, 2005, 04:55 PM If you are a podcaster who would like to get your show delivered to cell phones and generate advertising revenues in so doing, this interview is for you.
Podcasting to iPods and computers may only be the beginning. Based upon the objectives of today?s guest, together with the goals of earlier guests from Pod-To-Mob, and Melodeo, it looks like a number of new companies are focusing on the opportunity to deliver podcasts to cell phones.
One differentiating point for VoiceIndigo is that they are going to enable the podcasters to generate advertising revenue when podcasts are delivered over VoiceIndigo. They will do this in two ways. First, they will place an image-based (ambient) ad on the screen while the podcast is playing. Second, they may also provide intro and exit audio ads at the beginning and close of the podcast. But they will place no ads without the podcasters agreement.
While there are approximately 30 million iPods in use, the number pales in comparison to the 600 million, or so, new cell phones purchased every year. If the newer phones are enabled to connect to the Internet, then they can receive podcasts. Theoretically, that is a huge market opportunity. For example, here in the States it is estimated that about 60% of radio listening is in the automobile. Cell phones equipped with Bluetooth can play through the car stereo and thereby make podcasts a replacement for broadcast radio.
December 9, 2005, 06:43 PM If you would like to learn how Sprint is delivering full track downloads to cell phones and how the market will likely develop in the future, this interview is for you.
While Sprint has gained a lot of publicity lately regarding its new service that enables subscribers to purchase full-track recorded digital music downloads over the (wireless) Internet, it is less widely known that Groove Mobile is the Applications Service Provider (ASP) behind the new offering.
Sprint is actually Groove Mobile?s eighth customer. Although the company is HQ?ed in the Boston area their first customer was a telephone carrier in the Eastern Europe which initiated service a year-and-a-half ago. Sprint is not only Groove Mobile?s first customer in the United States, but it is also the first carrier in the U. S. to offer full-track music downloads, instead of merely ringtones.
Subscribers to the Sprint high-speed data plan will find that their purchased tracks download quite promptly. A typical experience is 15 seconds. The file size is typically one-meg as opposed to the three-megs of MP3. Groove Mobile is using the more efficient AAC+ codec.
Our guest is the CEO of Groove Mobile. There are two points that she believes merit special attention. First, she thinks that the experience will be a transformative one in the sense that there will be a lot of community and sharing aspects to the discovery of recorded music once wireless downloads become a habit. Second, she feels that other carriers will soon enter the market here in the States as well thereby significantly increasing the market opportunity for Groove and its competitors.
December 7, 2005, 06:37 PM If you would like to know how you can easily enter the podcasting business, measure your audience, and generate advertising revenues, this interview is for you.
Many radio stations, newspapers, and professional sports teams can be creating podcast programming and getting paid for it either through subscriptions or advertising. Audible has developed a technology platform, Wordcast that will enable you to quickly enter the market. Here are some of the features:
1. It provides a DRM to protect your content from being pirated.
2. The DRM plays on BOTH the iPod and Windows Media devices. This is not the case for the Apple or Windows DRM which are mutually incompatible.
3. It hosts all of your content.
4. It enables you to easily insert advertisements into the files if you wish.
5. It tracks your audience and tells you how many times the file has been downloaded and by how many audience members.
6. It gives you all the statistics required to develop your own ?rate card? for advertisers.
Essentially, Wordcast is to podcasting as MusicNet is to digital music. MusicNet is the engine behind the online music offerings of both Yahoo and AOL. In short, Wordcast is a ?make or buy? decision for the podcaster. Do you reinvent the wheel, or do you purchase one that Audible has already constructed? That will depend upon two key factors: (1) whether Wordcast is best-of-breed, and (2) the cost of Wordcast versus doing it yourself.
December 5, 2005, 10:58 PM : If you would like to learn about what kind of Digital Media services that Motorola is going to be offering in the future, this interview is for you.
Everybody knows that Motorola makes cell phones, but did you know that they are also launching a Digital Media service for mobile phones next year? Essentially they are launching a business unit that will be an ASP to wireless carriers. While they are not going to compete with on-demand delivery of recorded music along with Napster, Rhapsody, and Yahoo Music Unlimited, they are going to offer Internet radio and podcasts.
Phones that will be available from Motorola and others next year will enable this. Moreover, they will permit you to transfer any of your dot-mp3 music recordings from your computer into the phones via a USB link. The USB link will not only transfer the new mp3?s in your library to the phone, but it will also recharge the phone?s battery.
Our guest today has been working on the project at Motorola for two years. He shares with us his vision of the future on Digital Media-to-the-cell-phone delivery. Ultimately he believes that as bandwidth improves, content will increasingly be streamed real-time instead of downloaded. It is consistent with the ?software as a service? concept that is fueling the growth of many forward-looking companies like WebEx.
December 2, 2005, 06:07 PM If you want to learn what one of the leading (WNYC) National Public Radio stations is doing with podcasting and interactive media, this interview is for you.
After several years of offering their radio programs for live and on-demand streaming over the Internet, in the summer of 2004 WNYC started getting requests from listeners to make the programs available in the dot-mp3 format. The reason was that some tech-savvy audience members could not listen to the programs conveniently at their computers or at the radio during broadcast times. The dot-mp3 files would enable the tech-savvy sector of the audience to (1) download the files to a computer, (2) transfer them to a portable device (e.g. iPod), and (3) listen to the shows while commuting to work or while working-out at the gym.
A few months later Adam Curry introduced free software that would enable audience members to subscribe to Digital Media files through an RSS feed. This led some WNYC audience members to request that the dot-mp3 files be placed in RSS feeds. WNYC started doing so in October of 2004 and thereby became one of the first radio stations to podcast content. (As a point of reference, the first podcasts at Inside Digital Media were only a month later in November of 2004.)
Today?s guest tells us all about the WNYC experience. He shares with us his vision for the future of podcasting, radio, and media in general. He tells us how to organize podcasts to maximize audience penetration and optimize search engine results, which will become increasingly important as consumers search for audio and video through Google and Yahoo just as they now search for text files.
November 30, 2005, 07:12 PM If you would like to learn about whether or not record labels even have a long term future, this interview is for you.
Today?s guest poses some profound questions:
1. What if iTunes essentially becomes a record label?
2. What if recorded music is popularized and distributed via iTunes?
3. What if iTunes takes over the promotional role of the labels?
4. Does this imply that record labels may not even have a long-term future?
Our guest today believes that even though the record labels have been wining all the legal battles, they are badly losing the war. It?s not even close. They could be headed for extinction if the Internet becomes the vehicle for both promotion and distribution.
Will suing individual P2P users significantly curtail illicit file trading?
No. P2P usage is up. There are too many networks. It will be like online gambling. They (the P2P guys) will find, and operate out of, the political jurisdictions that will tolerate them.
Will copy protecting CDs work?
No. They will all be hacked. Even if they are not, they must permit at least one instance of ripping to the PC. Once that is done the consumer has a dot-MP3 copy that can be replicated infinitely. The consumer will not buy it if it can only be ripped into a proprietary format that will not play in her primary music player, which is increasingly iTunes.
Is TiVo?s plan to port programming to the iPod Video and Sony PSP significant?
The implications are hugely important. TiVo-To-Go essentially makes all television programming available on the iPod, as well as the PSP and laptop computers.
November 28, 2005, 06:46 PM If you want to learn how copyright holders can distribute large Digital Media files economically and securely over the Internet, this interview is for you.
The introduction of the iPod Video and the impending launch of Time Warner?s In2TV initiative, suggest that an ?Internet of video? may well be an idea whose time has come. While the iPod Video has received a great deal of publicity, we think the In2TV initiative is at least equally important in terms of the commencement of an ?Internet of video?. Time Warner will be releasing episodes of old Warner Brothers TV programs onto the Internet for free with only two minutes of commercials per 30 minute episode. This compares to eight minutes of commercials for regular TV. The programs include Maverick, Welcome Back Kotter, The Fugitive, and Eight Is Enough.
We have long believed that the Peer-To-Peer network architecture provides inherent economic advantages when it comes to distributing large files over the Internet. When video become a routine traffic element on the Net, the traditional client/server architecture will simply be too costly in terms of bandwidth and storage costs.
While Shawn Fanning?s Napster was the original protocol to demonstrate the sheer power of P2P distribution, more recently a group of legitimate P2P operators have emerged to address the enormous future storage and bandwidth needs of an ?Internet of video?. Among the new contenders are Kontiki, Red Swoosh, and, today?s guest, Wurld Media. (Following its recent settlement with the MPAA, it seems appropriate to add BitTorrent to the list as well.)
November 16, 2005, 11:11 PM If you want to learn what commercial broadcast radio stations can do to combat the loss of audience to the Internet and satellite radio, this interview is for you.
Our guest today believes that terrestrial broadcast stations must increasingly develop proprietary content if they hope to compete effectively with the Internet and satellite radio in the future. You cannot expect to hold your market share merely by playing the same record hits as everyone else. Our guest has been helping radio stations acquire ?on-air? personalities who can capture and hold an audience for years.
Rush Limbaugh is one of his notable successes. He encouraged one of Rush?s early stations owners to let the man transfer from being a news reporter to a political commentator. It was a major turning point for Rush and help launch him on his now long and successful career.
November 14, 2005, 05:30 PM If you would like to learn how college students are consuming Digital Media on the high speed campus networks available to them, this interview is for you.
When a college freshman arrives on campus and lives in the residence halls, she finds that the school is providing a Digital Media playground the likes of which she has never before experienced. The students typically arrive with up-to-date computers and discover that ultra high speed networks are routinely available to them.
As a result of the experience of entering the Digital Media playground, our guest today believes that the average residence hall student quickly acquires thousands of MP3 music files. She may only listen to a core of 100, or so, of them regularly, but the core repertoire is constantly evolving. The high speed networks enable a lot of experimentation and discovery. Typically, most of the computers on the network can inspect the files in the libraries of the other peers. This enhances discovery.
But the students are often aware that P2P file trading is illegitimate. This leads them to increasingly pressure the school administrators to provide legal alternatives. Today?s guest company, Ruckus Networks, is one of the few companies focused on providing legitimate Digital Media subscriptions for both music and movies to the college market.
November 9, 2005, 10:42 PM If you would like to get a perspective on the changes happening in the recorded music business from someone who worked as an attorney for a major record label, this interview is for you.
According to the RIAA, the gross domestic revenue for the recorded music business was $14.6 billion in 1999, but it had dropped to $12.2 billion last year. That?s five years of pain. Perhaps it?s only human nature for the industry participants to seek a culprit; and given the pain, a culprit that can be demonized as well. Anyone who has not been living in a cave for the past five years knows that they identified P2P file trading as precisely that devil.
The industry sought legal remedies and pursued their devil with the single minded determination of a Tomcat during rutting season. But it has proven to be an obsession as damaging as Captain Ahab?s quest for the White Whale. It has distracted them from the potentialities of other opportunities in the Digital Domain where they have still made only half-hearted efforts that are generally overpriced. This was most recently demonstrated when Sprint launched a wireless digital download service to selected cell phones and priced it at $2.50 per track.
More importantly, the demonization of P2P has led them imagine conspiracies where none exist. For example, they apparently feel since digitized recorded music has stimulated demand for computers and devices like the iPod, that the hardware manufacturers are smugly satisfied with a habituated consumer practice of piracy. Thus, they have demonized the hardware makers as well.
Where will this bunker psychology lead them? More lawsuits? Copy protected CDs? Lobbying efforts for new legislation in Washington? Evolutionary adaptation to new technologies? Our guest on Wednesday was with Sony records for ten years and provides the record label perspective on the future of the music business.
November 7, 2005, 06:12 PM If you would like to know what the future growth and feature evolution of Instant Messaging will be, this interview is for you.
Now that Yahoo and Microsoft have agreed to make their IM clients interoperable, things could get really interesting in the Instant Messaging space. Not only is our guest today a market research specialist in the sector, he has been an intensive user of Instant Messaging from his college days when he maxed-out his AOL buddy list. That means there were about 240 constantly in touch with him via Instant Messaging.
He has used IM in many ways aside from mere text chatting. Examples include file transfer, video & voice communications, and even some collaborative sessions. As a result, he predicts that IM will evolve into a collaborative platform as users gradually discover the utility of the features.
November 4, 2005, 05:17 PM If you would like to learn about a portable MP3 player that permits you to download songs directly to the device from Wi-Fi hot spots like Starbucks, this interview is for you.
iPods are great. I have three of them. But wouldn?t it be better if they could connect to the Internet so that users could get new music when they are at Wi-Fi hot spots. For example, when I go on a business trips it would be a nice convenience if I could add new songs to my iPod while I?m idling around waiting for my flight to board.
Today?s guest company (Music Gremlin) will be introducing just such a device at the Consumer Electronics Show in January. Not only will the player connect to the Internet at a Wi-Fi hot spot, but it will be able to communicate with other devices using the same technology. Thus, (if their privacy settings permit) I may examine the playlists of other Music Gremlin owners nearby, like in a subway car or an airliner. Moreover, if two (or more) Music Gremlin device owners also subscribe to the company?s music service, they can actually ?beam? tracks to one another. For example, if you are playing a song that you think I might like, you can just ?beam? it over to my device while we?re both riding the subway.
Music Gremlin has spent several years developing the technology and hopes to license it to major hardware manufactures. If they are successful, the capabilities of the device they will introduce will ultimately become features (via license agreements) in consumer electronics devices and appliances made by popular brands such as Panasonic, Phillips, and Sony.
Whether they can be as successful as that with their licensing program remains to be seen, the concept that Music Gremlin endeavors to introduce into the marketplace is truly fascinating.
November 2, 2005, 06:10 PM If you would like to know whether Google has a defensible case against the attacks launched by publishers and authors opposing Google?s plan to make millions of books searchable, this interview is for you.
Google has announced plans to digitize (scan) the entire libraries at the University of Michigan, Stanford, and others so as to make their contents searchable. Amazon.com has already done so for selected books that it sells at its website. Presumably Amazon did so by striking agreements with the individual publishers involved, because only a minority of books on sale at Amazon are searchable in this fashion. The writer has used the search-within-the-book function at Amazon and has found it to be a tremendous aid in research. It has also prompted me to buy books that I otherwise would not have, which is why Amazon enabled the capability in the first place.
Google?s concept goes well beyond Amazon?s because it encompasses millions of books. Google expects to derive revenues from the project in two ways. First, it will place conventional Google-type ad?s on the returned search page. Thus, if you search text in a Hemingway novel, you might get a return that advertises cigars, deep sea fishing equipment, or vacations with bull fighting trips. Second, you will be given the opportunity to buy the book that contains the text in your search string by being directed to the publisher or an online retailer. Google expects to be awarded a share of the purchase price, with the bulk going to the publisher and online retailer. The publisher then pays the author the appropriate royalties.
Our guest today is an expert copyright attorney who believes that Google is entitled to a Fair Use exemption to the copyright act for this new innovative application. The publishers and author?s gild disagree and have filed suit to stop Google. But our guest believes that Google is entitled to the Fair Use exemption because the use is ?transformative?.
November 1, 2005, 10:45 PM If you would like to learn about Real?s perspective on the important implications of the recent antitrust settlement between Microsoft and RealNetworks, this interview is for you.
We believe the settlement is transformative for RealNetworks for three reasons.
First, the sheer monetary value is huge. The total consideration to RealNetworks is at least $761 million which exceeded the ?enterprise? value of the company based upon the stock price at the close of business the day prior to the announcement. Moreover, the gain will have minimal cash tax consequences owing to the fact that Real has over $500 million in Net Operating Loss carry-forwards.
Second, it dramatically expands the distribution footprint for key consumer subscription services, most notably the highly regarded Rhapsody music. Microsoft will employ the popularity of various MSN Internet and Web properties to drive traffic to Rhapsody.
For example, the default configuration of the future MSN Instant Messaging client will contain a tab to a ?lite? version of Rhapsody 25 which is a free service enabling the subscriber to hear (in their entirety) up to 25 music tracks per month. Rhapsody will also be integrated into MSN Search functions and promoted on the MSN music Website. Microsoft will earn credits on future installments of cash payments to Real based upon ?bounties? for each new subscriber that it generates for Rhapsody. Over each of the next five quarters, the scheduled payments from Microsoft are nearly double the amount that Real spent on sales and marketing for the entire company during the just recently completed third quarter of 2005.
Additionally, in an effort to present a united front against the runaway success of the Apple iPod, both companies will promote the use of Windows Media portable devices for use with Rhapsody-To-Go.
Third, Microsoft and Real will collaborate in the games arena. For example, Real will create a new subscription service to be offered at MSN Games. It will also develop a new series of casual games for Xbox Live Arcade for Xbox 360.
October 31, 2005, 09:16 PM If you would like to learn about a convenient way to download podcasts to your cell phone over wireless networks instead of being reliant upon the iPod, this interview is for you.
As a number of emails from Redmond have reminded us, when it comes to Podcasts there really is nothing sacrosanct about he iPod. Basically, a podcast starts with the RSS delivery of Digital Media to ones computer. It is largely because of the convenience the iPod provides in making the podcast easily portable via the automatic synchronization with iTunes that the term ?podcast? enters the nomenclature. In reality, the Digital Media received by the computer via RSS automatic delivery is in the dot-MP3 format that can be transferred to most any portable MP3 player.
However, the practice of transferring the Digital Media to a portable MP3 player (iPod included) by synching-up the computer and the device via a cable is in reality only a limited concept of portability. For example, what if you could download podcast directly to your Internet connected cell phone? That way if you get stuck in traffic you can download the podcasts that you want to hear even if you forgot to put them in the iPod when you left your home or office.
Today?s guest company, Melodeo, provides a free service that enables you to download your favorite podcasts to your cell phone over your existing carrier?s network. You don?t have to pay for anything, unless the podcast itself has a price. All you have to do is go download the free client software from Melodeo to your cell phone. Then you can subscribe to what ever podcasts they have in the Melodeo directory, and there are over one thousand. Among them are the audio-only podcasts of Inside Digital Media.
October 28, 2005, 07:04 PM If you would like to know how computers will be used in the future for real-time collaboration, this interview is for you.
Collaborative Strategies is a consulting and market research firm that has focused on the markets for workplace collaboration over electronic networks and devices since 1990.
Their lead analyst, David Coleman, recently completed a new report that looks at market growth, and 9 trends that are radically altering the real-time collaboration and communication market. Everything from technology and market convergence to changes in buyers and buying habits is covered in this 100-page report.
The nine major trends he identifies are:
1. Convergence of audio, video, and data.
2. Expanding use of presence awareness.
3. Merging of synchronous and asynchronous tools.
4. Collaboration technologies converging within the enterprise customer. Enterprises will tend to avoid supporting a variety of different tools.
5. Collaboration to be pushed into the infrastructure ? not just a separate application.
6. Vendor consolidation.
7. Profit margins at their best in market verticals and critical processes.
8. Vendor distribution channels to change.
9. Collaboration is at the threshold of moving into the mainstream beyond early adopters.
In the future we will start to see collaboration on mobile devices. We will also begin to witness third order effects as users start to help create collaboration applications, much like users create wikipedia.
October 26, 2005, 03:12 PM If you would like to learn about how a formerly popular file-trading network plans to migrate its users onto a platform that requires them to pay for music, this interview is for you.
After Shawn Fanning?s Napster was forced to shut down, a number of other P2P file trading networks began to rise in popularity. Among them were Grokster, KaZaa, Limewire, Bearshare, eDonkey, and iMesh. The RIAA pursued legal action against a number of them, and not just the highly publicized KaZaa and Grokster. For example, in July of last year the record labels reached a settlement with iMesh.
At the time of the iMesh settlement last year, we speculated that iMesh may well emerge as the first of the major incumbent P2P networks to be licensed to sell music legally. On October 25th, that is precisely what iMesh announced.
The new iMesh will seek to migrate its users up to a new version of the software. Initially, users will merely be prompted that an new version is available. But ultimately, they will be told that if they do not upgrade from version 5.0 (which accounts for the vast majority of legacy iMesh users) that their iMesh program will no longer function as they are accustomed to. Bottom line is that without the new version of iMesh software, the version 5.0 users will no longer be able to trade files.
iMesh management believes that by gradually migrating its users to the new version, that they will be able to get ?double-digits percentages? of them to pay for content. Initially upon the upgrade, iMesh users will be able to trade files for free, just as before. But after a 30 ? 60 day trial period, they will be prompted to pay $7 per month if they want access to approximately two million tracks of copyrighted content that includes the most popular items in the catalogs of the four major labels.
October 24, 2005, 06:21 PM If you would like to learn how legitimate P2P architecture can be used to deliver Digital Media, especially video, at much lower costs than from conventional content delivery networks like Akamai, this interview is for you.
As Digital Media becomes increasingly central to the Internet, the economics of content delivery will become ever-more important. Conventional content delivery networks, like those provided by Akamai, have done a good job to date. In point of fact, Akamai is supposed to be mathematically the optimal solution available within the framework of a client/server architecture. However, Peer-to-Peer distribution may actually be a fundamentally superior architecture relative to client/server, especially in terms of the economics of content delivery.
Although Shawn Fanning?s Napster made ?P2P? become a controversial term owing to the alleged abuses of copyright infringement, it is often overlooked that one of the reasons that it was successful was because of superior economics. In point of fact, it was so economical that a college student (Fanning) was able to launch a paradigm shifting phenomenon from his college dorm room.
Essentially a P2P network utilizes the existing storage and bandwidth of the community members themselves to both store and transfer the files. Therefore, there is no centralized storage cost and no need for extremely (meaning costly) broadband pipes to a group of central servers.
Today?s guest company is an entirely legitimate content delivery provider that uses the P2P architecture to deliver content at costs that are often sharply lower than those of the conventional methods. The company serves both the consumer and enterprise markets.
October 21, 2005, 11:03 PM If you would like to get an idea about what Rupert Murdoch?s News Corp. may do in the Internet, this interview if for you.
Our guest today is Adam Lashinsky who is a Senior Writer for Fortune Magazine. Adam just completed an article about the developing Internet strategy at Rupert Murdoch?s News Corp.
News Corp generates $24 billion in revenues. It owns newspapers in the United States, Britain, and Australia, as well as Fox film and the Fox television networks and programming. It?s huge, but it largely ignored the dot-com boom and bust and has been late to get into the Internet game.
Apparently, Murdoch feels that 2005 is the year to act. He said he will invest up to $2 billion for Internet acquisitions. So far he bought MySpace and IGN. That gives him enough powder to invest another $1 billion in the sector.
Recently, News Corp held a corporate retreat in Carmel, California in order to formulate an Internet strategy. Many internal executives made presentations, but there were at least three by outsiders.
First was Vinod Khosla of Kleiner ? Perkins who advised the company to experiment. Second, was a Silicon Valley marketing guru, Richard Yanowitch, who discussed the pros-and-cons of setting up an entertainment Internet portal, much like Yahoo is an information Internet portal. Third, was the author of a recent book on Google who advised News Corp to put their content out on the Internet and figure out how to monetize it. (This last suggestion was greeted with deafening silence.)
Lashinsky thinks News Corp will focus on three areas (1) Instant Messaging, (2) Internet Telephony, and (3) Video Search. News Corp will seek to monetize these initiatives with advertising. While Rupert has not characteristically been a ?first mover? he somehow seems to add value later in the game?enough value to become a big player.
October 19, 2005, 05:27 PM If you would like to understand the implications of the Supreme Court decision in the Grokster case, this interview is for you.
At least one of our (copyright attorney) guests today believes that the Supreme Court decision to send the case back to the District Court was essentially a directive to accept the concept of ?inducement? and to hold the defendant responsible for copyright infringement.
In the future it appears that defendants accused of ?inducement? will be required to show that their product is capable of ?commercially significant non-infringing uses?. Unfortunately, it is unclear just what standard shall be applied to determine ?commercially significant.?
Justices Breyer, Stevens and O?Connor believe that absent evidence of ?active inducement? a product or service is entitled to the Sony safe harbor unless it is used ?almost exclusively? to infringe copyrights. Conversely, Justices Ginsberg, Rehnquist and Kennedy regarded such a standard as providing inadequate protection for copyright owners and suggested that a more searching evidentiary inquiry be made into the actual capabilities and uses of a product or service.
Presumably the other justices stand somewhere in between. Nobody knows how Rehnquist?s replacement, Roberts, might decide and the same applies to the as yet undetermined replacement for O?Connor.
As a result, we conclude that until a ?commercially significant? standard is established, the law shall pragmatically be on the side of those with the largest legal war-chest. Thus, as a practical matter, it will favor the established companies who will be able to rain lawyers on the innovative start-ups like the Biblical plagues of Egypt.
Consider, for example, that many tend to equate the term P2P as synonymous with the illegal practice of trading copyrighted files. However, it is actually a network architecture that has proven to have commercially significant non-infringing uses. For example, Skype uses P2P software to facilitate Internet Telephony. It has been wildly successful and was recently sold to eBay in a (presumably) ?commercially significant? transaction valued at $2.6 billion. What is less well known is that the founders of Skype are the very same individuals who created ? and later broke their connection with ? the KaZaa software that ultimately became a popular P2P vehicle for trading copyrighted files.
Thus, it is important to recognize that the first applications of a new technology may not ultimately become the dominant ones. To strangle in the cradle a newborn technology that may eventually have considerable legitimate applications merely because the first users have been ?bad guys? is contrary to the public interest.
October 17, 2005, 01:58 PM If you would like to know whether it makes sense for Comcast to acquire AOL, this interview is for you.
Our guest today believes that the broadband ISP business is currently going through an evolution that was similar to what happened in the CATV business decades ago. Originally, CATV operators did nothing more than provide a community antenna (and related coax distribution network) to provide quality TV reception in remote areas for broadcast television stations. As such, the CATV operators provided no incremental programming whatsoever.
By the mid-1970s, however, things began to change. With the advent of HBO, Showtime, ESPN, Turner?s Superstation, the Cable operators began to provide alternative programming to the broadcast networks. Unfortunately for the networks, they largely ignored the trend and in the end they lost most of their audience to the plethora of shows that are now available on Cable channels.
Our guest argues that any company that is merely providing broadband Internet access is going to find itself in the position of the old CATV operator. It?s not providing any incremental programming. As a result, the broadband ISPs who follow the evolutionary trend that lead the Cable operators to actually move away from the CATV model, will gain the subscribers. Therefore he believes that it makes sense for Comcast to acquire AOL in order to provide programming on its ISP service. Our guest believes such programming, and services such as Instant Messaging, will be an important determinant in the ISP selection process for consumers, particularly younger ones.
October 14, 2005, 04:47 PM Normally we surf the Web from our home PCs to view the content on the Net. But what if you could use the Web to connect back to your home PC so that you could view and hear the content on your PC from whatever device you are using, such as a laptop, PDA, or cell phone, to connect back to it?
About five years ago I learned about a service called Go-To-My-PC which enabled me to log-on to target (e.g. home or office) computer from any Internet connected computer. It was great. While others I worked with were lugging their laptops around with them on business trips so that they may continue working while ?on the road?, all I needed to do was sit at an unused PC at a branch office (or elsewhere) and log-on to my own PC back in my office at the HQ building. It worked great until the network police at my former employer decided that Go-To-My-PC was a security threat of some sort.
Well today?s guest company is kind-of like Go-To-My-PC except that it focused on your Digital Media files. Moreover, it permits you to access the Digital Media files located on your target PC from any Internet connected device including cell phones, laptop computers, and PDA?s. Also, instead of transferring the files to the remote Internet-connected device, it streams the content.
Streaming the content instead of actually transferring the files has two advantages. First, it permits you to start ?playing? the media (such as a song or movie) nearly immediately, instead of waiting for the entire file to download. Second, it provides extra security to the content rights holders because the files per se remain locked onto the target PC.
October 12, 2005, 12:15 PM If you are interested in why the major Consumer Electronics manufacturers are developing their own DRM standards instead of relying upon Microsoft or Apple, this interview is for you.
For everybody that has not been living in a cave for the past five years, its now pretty obvious and electronic entertainment is going to increasingly become centered on Digital Media. Certainly the Consumer Electronics manufacturers are sensitively aware of the trend, as are the media program originators like the Hollywood Studios and the record labels. In the home entertainment system of the future, it will be necessary that the purchased media files be protected.
While Microsoft offers its own DRM, hardware manufacturers have come to realize that an over-reliance on Microsoft can suck all of the added-value out of the process of assembling hardware. For example, the big money maker in the Personal Computer business is not the sector composed of the hardware manufacturers like Dell and Hewlett-Packard. Instead, it is Microsoft. Clearly the CE manufacturers, like Sony and Panasonic (Matsushita), as well as the mobile device suppliers, like Motorola and Nokia, don?t want to participate in a future market where nearly all of the value is in Microsoft software and hardware manufacturing becomes a commodity business.
Accordingly, the major CE device manufacturers are banding together to promote their own DRM standard. Also, in order to maximize utility to the consumer, they are promoting a protocol for DRM interoperability. Given the interoperability of DRMs, I will be able to play content protected on my PC with the Microsoft DRM on a (future) Sony entertainment center that uses another DRM.
Today?s guest company is InterVideo which has some of the most basic and highly valued intellectual property relating to DRM construction. For example, they won a $440 settlement against Microsoft for patent infringement. InterVideo explains what the CE manufacturers are up to and why it makes sense for them and how consumers are going to be impacted.
October 10, 2005, 02:42 PM If you would like to learn how other music digital music services are competing with Apple, this interview is for you.
Owing to the runaway success of the iPod, Apple is capturing most of the digital music download business as well as nearly all of the newspaper headlines. However, Apple does have competitors and they are growing. Today?s interview is with the Vice President in charge of Music Service at Real Networks which includes the Rhapsody music subscription business.
Real?s digital music business appears to be sustaining healthy growth despite all of the favorable publicity that Apple is getting. More importantly, as a subscription business, Real was even more directly challenged last Spring when Yahoo introduce a competitive service which is available at lower monthly rates. Despite the aggressive pricing from Yahoo, Real does not feel a need to lower its own prices. It appears that the Rhapsody subscribers remain loyal to the service because they are comfortable with the interface, and don?t want to bother learning a new one unless there is significantly more incentive than merely price.
Despite the strong market share lead that Apple?s iPod has in the portable player market, Real believes that iPod competitors are making progress and may even be closing the gap. One product that Real particularly thinks could be a robust alternative to the iPod is the new line of MP3 players from SanDisk. Real feels so strongly about the value of the new SanDisk line that Real will even subsidize subscribers who purchase them in the form of an $80 rebate.
To get the rebate from Real on the SanDisk players you must subscribe to six months of Rhapsody-To-Go, which costs about $90. (You must also fill out a rebate form on the website.) Rhapsody-To-Go is Real?s version of the Janus-enabled portable music subscription service. It permits you to transfer any tracks in the Rhapsody library to the SadDisk player as well as your PC. They will continue to play as long as you keep your subscription current.
The top-of-the-line SanDisk has the capacity of the 4-Gig nano iPod, but it retails for $200 as compared to $250 for the comparable Apple unit. Thus, with the $80 rebate from Real, you get the SanDisk unit for only $120, which is about half the price of the 4-Gig nano.
Our guest feels that the SanDisk unit interacts seamlessly with the Rhapsody client and once the Janus tracks are put on the portable player they will play promptly without the delay that was common in earlier Janus-compatible devices.
October 7, 2005, 02:06 PM If you would like to learn how Virgin intends to sell a digital music service that will play on most any Internet connected device, including mobile phones and PDAs, this interview is for you.
The iPod is cool. I love it and own thee versions. But, as of today, it is not an Internet connected device. Without such connectivity, it may well be heading for a dead-end in the evolution of technology. Consider an alternate vision at Virgin, the owner of the Virgin Megastores.
Virgin is frustrated that the digital content it sells cannot be played on the iPod. Like nearly everyone except Apple, they?re selling digital tracks and subscription services with DRMs provided by Microsoft. Since the iPod uses its own DRM it simply won?t play tracks protected with the Microsoft DRM. One way for Virgin to get around the problem, is to encourage buyers to purchase portable players that will work with the Microsoft DRM. Once example is a new player made by SanDisk. Like the iPod Nano, it uses solid-state memory instead of a tiny hard drive. Rhapsody, for example, is so enthusiastic about the SanDisk unit that it is offering to partially subsidize the cost of it for new subscribers.
However, Virgin is impatient for non-Apple MP3 players to catch-up with the iPod. Instead, they reason that if there were a way to get their subscription services to play through mobile devices that are already ubiquitous in the market, then they may have a way of effectively competing with the iPod. Here?s the Virgin idea:
First, get customers to subscribe to the Virgin Digital portable (Janus) subscription service.
Second, provide those subscribers with software that will enable them to stream the tracks over the Internet from their own computer to any Internet connected device. Examples of such connected devices might be cell phones, PDAs, or other computers.
October 5, 2005, 02:11 PM If you are interested in hearing some thought-provoking ideas about the potential for a video iPod, this interview is for you.
Many of us carry around photos of our family in our wallets. Some of us put digital photos of them in our cell phones, iPods, or PDAs.
Increasingly, some of us are putting short video clips of our family on cell phones. Now, when you are traveling, you can show interested friends and acquaintances not only what your family looks like, but also what they act and sound like, by displaying short video clips. Someday, short video clips of our families will become as ubiquitous as the family photo in our wallets. Bt this is really only a trivial example of how a video iPod might be used.
Our guest today points out that it is really a inconsequential technical advance to add video capability to the iPod. The more interesting speculation is to imagine what features and programming content might accompany a video iPod product introduction. Here are a couple of ideas.
First, since Jobs has strong connections in Hollywood through his Pixar operation, perhaps Apple will be able to persuade the studios to offer content for downloads to iTunes and hence the iPod. This could give Apple a strong start in the emerging market for digital video entertainment, much like the one it got in digital music where it has now humbled even mighty Microsoft.
Second, imagine if the iPod had Wi-Fi capabilities. This would enable the content to be played through televisions in your own household. The TV would be hooked-up to an Apple ?Airport? wireless adapter that essentially makes the TV a display screen for whatever content resides on the iPod. The iPod thereby becomes something like converged portable TiVo and remote TV controller, all in one unit.
After this interview was recorded yesterday, Apple announced that they will have some kind of important announcement next Wednesday. While many are speculating that it will be a video iPod, our guest provides his thoughts on just what features such a unit might possess and why they might be important to consumers.
September 30, 2005, 06:08 PM If you would like to get an update on the digital music business from an executive with a major industry factor, this interview is for you.
MusicNet powers the music subscription services of Yahoo, AOL, and Virgin Digital, among others. They have an important perspective on the developing digital music market. Our guest today is Senior Vice President with the company.
Recently MusicNet increased its catalog to over 2 million tracks. That?s about double the level of last year and over 25-times the size of when the service was launched late in 2001. Most all of the popular stuff is now available legitimately online expect for The Beatles and Led Zeppelin.
While Apple Computer still captures most of the headlines in the new business, MusicNet confirms that the subscription services that they support are also growing rapidly. Admittedly, the Janus technology offers a lot of potential to expand the subscription business by providing for portability, but it is likely to be the 2nd quarter of ?06 before enough Janus-enabled devices get into the market to provide a critical mass. Thereafter, our guest feels that the portable subscription business can grow rapidly and become a major segment of the market.
As for the future, our guest believes that digital music is merely the first wave of a trend toward digital distribution of other important forms of electronic entertainment such has Hollywood movies. Perhaps MusicNet will also get into that business as a technology provider.
September 16, 2005, 05:42 PM If you are a musician and would like to learn how to distribute your music over the Net as well as get concert bookings, this interview is for you.
Garageband.com helps musical artists distribute their music over the Net, but today interview is with a company that will not only do that, but will also help the artist get concert bookings and find key personnel that they may be seeking to add to their bands, or businesses.
House of Gigs is actually about as old as Garageband.com. It?s just not as well known. Today?s interview tells the House of Gigs story.
September 14, 2005, 04:32 PM If you would like to learn about Intel?s new Digital-Media-focused Viiv microprocessor, this interview is for you.
During the first quarter of next year computer and consumer electronics manufactures will be shipping products designed around a new Intel microprocessor, termed Viiv. Much like the Centrino processor was optimized for laptop commuters with wireless LAN access, the Viiv is optimized for Digital Media applications.
The Centrino was optimized along a couple of vectors such as power consumption and wireless access, both of which are likely to be more important to laptop owners as compared to owners of desktop PCs. Similarly, Viiv will be optimized along three vectors, (1) performance, (2) ease of use, and (3) connectivity.
In terms of performance, the Viiv will empower multi-user media access, provide for high definition video display, and offer home theater sound quality. As for ease of use, it will provide instant on-and-off switches (no lengthy software boot-up) as well as remote control. The connectivity features will make available easy access to online entertainment services as well as easier set-up of home networking. The Viiv will also be designed to work as a multimedia server for other display and play-back devices around the home.
The first Viiv microprocessors will be used in Window Media Edition PCs, but Intel also expects that prominent CE manufactures will offer products based on the Viiv as early as the first quarter of next year. Some products are expected to be on display at the consumer electronics show next January in Las Vegas. For those of you who might want an earlier demo from Intel, it may be constructive to attend the Digital Life Conference at the Javits Center in NYC on October 14th-through-16th.
September 12, 2005, 01:13 PM If you would like to learn about a variety of applications that add video capabilities to all forms of Internet communications, this interview is for you.
For some time we have felt that the Internet Protocol would eventually become the dominant form of communications. There are basically three reasons for this.
First, it is a universally accepted standard for data communications. It eliminates the ?Tower-of-Babel? that once plagued wide-area computer networks.
Second, it is purely ?dumb? transport. The Internet is merely transporting bits. It doesn?t know if the bits are text, graphics, voice, video, or games. The key point is that it is a multimedia transport platform. Bits of various media forms are co-mingled and their distinguishing characteristics only become manifest at the edge of the network, which leads to our final point.
Third, since the Internet is primarily ?dumb? transport, it is the increasing concentration of intelligence at the edge of the network, meaning our PCs, that enables the co-mingled multimedia bits to be translated into the appropriate media formats. For example, the PC enables bits that are text to be displayed, and bits that are voice to be heard, and bits that are video to be viewed.
Today?s guest company is focused on adding the video bits to any form of Internet communications. They try to make it easy for small businesses, and even individuals themselves, to use their services.
We use the WebEx platform today, not only to display the presenter?s PowerPoint presentation, but also to enable him to demonstrate Espre?s video email application.
September 9, 2005, 03:19 PM If you would like to learn about a Microsoft perspective on podcasting and the market for cell phones capable of playing digital music tracks, this interview is for you.
As just about everyone knows, Apple and Motorola announced the availability of a new cell phone that will initially work on Cingular networks that is both a phone and an iTunes digital music player. It looks like a good product that will cost $250 for those who will sign-up for a two year service contract with Cingular. The cost with a one year contract is $350.
Just to provide some perspective, we thought it might be interesting to talk with Microsoft about the market for cell phones that are capable of playing non-iTunes digital music tracks. We also wanted to get a perspective from someone at Microsoft on the future of podcasting. For example, we wanted to get some opinion on whether the iPod will truly dominate podcasting, or whether the phenomenon is much bigger than any single playback device.
David Caulton is a Group Product Manger with the Windows Media Division. Not only does he share with us his perspective on the market, but he also tells us how he uses his own cell phone to listen to digital music and podcasts. He provides personal experience on how he transfers the music to the cell phone, as well as discussing the other options that are available in the marketplace today, such as over-the-air wireless downloads.
David shares his knowledge regarding the state of development in the music cell phone market today, not only in the United States, but also around the World. He also elaborates upon his thinking about the ultimate uses of podcasting, the role the Windows Media Player can fulfill, and tells us how he makes the technology work effectively today in his car.
September 7, 2005, 03:55 PM If you would like a professional opinion on the potential implications of the ?Zen? patent that was recently awarded to Creative Technologies, this interview is for you.
After having read a few biographies and narrative histories of important technologies, I have learned enough to know that the entire area of patents is a confusing maze. The process of actually winning a patent and legally making it applicable is an inscrutable procedure. Consider the following examples:
The Wright Brothers fought Glenn Curtis for about a decade, asserting that the functions of their crude ?wing-warping? patent were violated by the more elegant Curtis solution that used ailerons. The Wrights won, but only after killing Wilber with emotional stress. In the end, however, the U.S. Government appropriated all airplane patents so that fighting aircraft could be manufactured (under mandatory license) for World War I. The airplane subsequently produced in the largest volume was the (Glenn) Curtis ?Jenny?, which was an Army Air Crops trainer.
For a decade Fairchild Semiconductor and Texas Instruments fought over the patent for the integrated circuit. In the end, the entire question turned upon whether a conducting surface that is ?laid down? is the same as one that is ?adherent to?. It?s even more subtle and ridiculous than asking whether the vernacular phonic ?stoo-pid? means the same as ?stupid?, IMO?or whether IMO can be taken as an abbreviation for ?in my opinion?, as it often is in IM (instant messaging). The Nobel Prize Committee evidently decided there was no real distinction between ?adherent to? and ?laid down? when it awarded its prize to Jack Kilby of Texas Instruments. At the time of the award, Robert Noyce of Fairchild, and an Intel founder, was already deceased.
Marconi was an Italian, and the domestic industrial complex apparently simply could not abide his company holding so many patents on wireless technology. After all, our country had entered World War I and surely some patriotic America icon like?say Edison?should own them. So with the Government?s blessings, General Electric (Edison?s company) set up the Radio Corporation of America (RCA) to become the sole owner of all the Marconi and GE patents. Next, RCA bought-out all the non-private shareholders in Marconi?s American company. It was an interesting case of free enterprise in our county working to the best advantage of a company that can rally government (meaning non-free enterprise) support?but, of course, this sort of thing does not happen any more.
Today?s guest is a patent attorney who will share his opinions on the matter of the ?Zen? patent and its meaning to MP3 player manufactures, including Apple Computer.
For entertaining reading involving the three patent narratives summarized above consider, Empire of the Air by Tom Lewis, To Conquer the Air by James Tobin, and The Chip by T. R. Reid.
September 2, 2005, 10:49 PM If you would like to learn how to receive podcasts at your cellphone as well as you iPod, this interview is for you.
Brad Zutaut is always looking for ?the next big thing?. He founded Xingtone which is a company that lets you download ringtones from your own computer instead of paying the high prices that the wireless carriers are asking. But the significance of the Xingtone concept extends far beyond ringtones. Basically it implies that the cell phone can be made into a computer peripheral device that communicates with your computer over a standard wireless connection. The Xingtone concept was so attractive that Brad was able to interest large industrial investors. While he retains his shareholdings in Xingtone, he has moved on to become the CEO of a new company.
Brad?s new company enables your cell phone to receive podcasts as streaming media. You?ll have to have a cell phone with Internet capability, but if you do you can subscribe to any participating podcast. Instead of having the show downloaded to your cell phone, the content is streamed over the wireless carrier?s network. For example, Brad listens to his favorite podcast shows as he rides his bicycle to-and-from work. He uses head phones (a bit risky as regards bike safety) but you can use the no-hands feature available for automobiles. Some of the no-hands kits will play the audio through the radio speakers in you car.
Notwithstanding his bike riding habit, we think that Brad is onto something really big here. Imagine the day when podcasts provide such a diversity of high quality programming that you prefer them Each morning when you get into your car you select the podcast(s) that you want to hear. Bluetooth technology connects your cell phone to the radio speakers of your car thereby enabling you to listen to the streamed programming just as though it were conventional radio.
August 31, 2005, 02:36 PM If you want to learn about a new company that is offering downloadable games for mobile phones, this interview is for you.
Everybody is aware that the video game business for computers and consoles (e.g, the X-Box and the Sony Playstation) is a huge business. It?s less well known that a market is also developing for downloadable games to be played on cellular telephones.
The leader in this market is Jamdat Mobile which is generating revenues at over a $100 million annual rate. RealNeworks is also getting to be increasingly active in the space. Both companies offer games that can be downloaded over the wireless networks. They typically charge a fee for each game which is customarily added to the cell phone subscriber?s monthly telephone bill. Jamdat and Real then share a portion of the sales price with the applicable wireless carrier.
Today?s we are interviewing a company that takes a bit different approach. They offer all of their games as free downloads. As long as you only want to play them on a solitary basis ?meaning between you and the cell phone?s microprocessor ? then there is no charge for the games. However, if you want to play against other real people, then you pay a monthly fee for access to the company?s entire library of games.
The subject company today is CelluFun and we interview three of its founders. One of the founders was also a co-founder of Spiderphone, which is a web-based teleconferencing service.
The interview today includes not only a PowerPoint presentation, but also a demonstration of one of the applicable games. Such is the power of the WebEx platform, our sponsor.
August 29, 2005, 10:58 AM If you are interested in learning how Bluetooth technology will be used in the future and what kind of security risks it may present, this interview is for you.
Bluetooth technology is beginning to be used to a measurable extent, particularly in Europe. A recent article that I read described how Bluetooth was being used in automobiles to provide hands-free operation of cell phones in the automobile. Basically, a microphone within the car is activated to receive or make a phone call. The sound from those on the phone conversation outside of the car is played through the speakers that would otherwise be used by the radio or stereo system.
The article went on to describe how hackers can break-into the Bluetooth network inside your car. Consider an example where you are driving a car with a Bluetooth hands-free cell phone kit installed. A driver in a nearby car can access your Bluetooth network to activate either the microphone or the speakers. So, if you are having a confidential discussion with other passengers in your car, a person in a nearby car can activate your microphone and eavesdrop on the conversation without your knowledge.
This, and other, security risks are not merely hypothetical. They have been demonstrated by members of trifintie.org, and our guest today is the founder of trifinite.org. He lives, and works, in Germany, where we interviewed him via WebEx last week. For those of you in the states that might like to him, he will be at a conference in Orlando in November.
August 26, 2005, 04:05 PM A recent article in The Wall Street Journal describes how some leading universities, including Stanford and Duke, are permitting gifted high school students to take courses via the Internet. A number of technology vendors were mentioned in the article and one of them, Centra Software, is our guest today.
These online courses offer classes mainly in advanced math and English, but subjects such as history, philosophy and anatomy also are offered. Programs are available for students of all ages, kindergarten through 12th grade, and some courses for high-school students follow college freshmen curricula.
Not only do these classes bring in extra revenue, but for universities competing for the nation's brightest students, online programs are a useful tool for identifying and attracting them. Colleges keep track of students in their online programs and later mail them brochures highlighting their undergraduate programs. Participating may even give students a leg up in gaining admission to popular colleges.
Online classes typically have 20 to 40 students. They usually meet at least once a week in teacher-moderated online chat rooms, and the participants sometimes speak with one another using headsets and microphones. Homework is downloaded and, once completed, either submitted to the teacher via email or posted to an online message board so that classmates can critique each other's work. Teachers usually assign real textbooks for students to read, although increasingly CD-ROMs and scholarly Web sites also are used.
As regular audience members are aware we customarily present our PowerPoint interviews via the WebEx platform owing to the fact that they are a regular sponsor. However, in this instance we are permitting Centra to use their own platform so that viewers can get first-hand experience with the teaching platform that Centra provides. It plays through the Windows Media Player.
August 24, 2005, 05:44 PM If you would like to learn about an inexpensive way to put audio on your website, this interview is for you.
Just about every responsible company has a website now with text and graphics. One way to distinguish yours from those that are just limited to text and graphics is to include some Digital Media as well. Today?s presenting company makes it easy for even the smallest companies to add spoken word content.
Youspeak.com is a service provider that enables you to add spoken word content to your website for as little as $7 per month. Additionally, you can update the content as often as you would like from your telephone. You merely dial an assigned telephone number and record your message. Next you visit your youspeak.com account on the web and ?grab? the url that represents the recording that you just made. Finally, you insert the url as a hyperlink behind text, a logo, or an icon on your website. When visitors mouse-over the hyperlink, they are given the option to click on it to hear the audio.
Importantly, the audio plays through the (website) visitor?s browser. There is no need for the message to play through a media player like those of Windows. Real, or Quicktime. This avoids the confusion that sometimes inhibits those who get a pop-up message asking which media player they want to use to playback media files like dot-mp3, dot-rm, or dot-wav.
August 22, 2005, 11:56 AM Loudeye Corporation is a provider of business-to-business digital media services that facilitate the distribution, promotion and sale of digital media content for media and entertainment, retail, wireless and enterprise customers.
The company's services enable its customers to outsource the management and distribution of audio and video Digital Media content over the Internet and other electronic networks. This service offering ranges from core Digital Media services, such as the hosting, storage, encoding, management and protection of media assets for content owners to fully outsourced digital media distribution and promotional services, such as private-labeled Digital Media store services, wireless music services, and streaming Internet radio and music sample services.
Customers for the Digital Media services include consumer electronics companies, traditional and Internet-based retailers, media and entertainment companies, wireless carriers and branded consumer products companies.
August 10, 2005, 02:09 PM If you would like to learn about an engine that can search audio and video files on the Internet much like Google searches text files, this interview is for you.
At the risk of violating the proverb ?pride goeth before the fall?, I anticipated Yahoo?s announcement last week about their launch of their audio-search capability by at least five years. In the late 1990?s I was convinced that searching audio and video files would ultimately become important and the natural successor to text searching technology.
At the time I was a stock analyst and could only discover two U. S. public companies focused in the sector: (1) Virage and (2) Excalibur. It was during the dot-com boom and both companies had big expectations. Regrettably, Virage was acquired in 2003 by a British competitor for a price only $13 million above the cash on hand at Virage. Similarly, Excalibur made a horrendous deal with the National Basketball Association that it later back-out-of incurring sinfully high losses. It also changed its name to Convera and dropped out of the video search business altogether.
I guess the experience at Virage and Excalibur underscores the old cowboy wisdom, ?You can always identify the pioneers. They?re the ones with the arrows in their backs.?
But now it looks like audio and video search technology is an idea whose time has come. Ultimately, in combination with RSS delivery, the time will come when we choose the video programming that we want to watch for the evening by first searching the available content through a search engine. Much like you now search for text articles related to a topic you want to read about, you will do the same for video.
For example, let?s say you want to watch a documentary on athletics for physically handicapped people. You will simply put the appropriate search terms into an engine like the one available from GoFish. Next a screen pop?s-up with the available movies. You click on the one you want to watch, like Murderball, and there you have it. It may be free or you may be required to pay a fee, but it is delivered via RSS.
August 8, 2005, 05:39 PM If you would like to learn what the future holds for the commercial broadcast radio industry, this interview is for you.
Dave Goldberg once contrasted the recorded music industry with the broadcast radio industry. He emphasized that in the United States the record labels generate about $13 billion a year in revenues and charge a price for their product. In contrast, the broadcast radio industry generates about $20 billion a year and gives their product away for free to the listener.
While Dave?s observation is illuminating, most all of us now recognize that the radio broadcasters are also threatened by new technologies. In point of fact, advertising revenues for the broadcasters have been flat for about the past five years. The amount of time that people spend listening to radio seems to be declining. The problems range from too many commercials, to obnoxious DeeJays, to new competing technologies such as the iPod.
Our guest today tells us how he thinks that the radio stations can adapt. He also identifies major industry trends that need to be addressed such as the emergence of the iPod and the declining interest in radio from the youth demographic.
August 5, 2005, 06:28 PM The secure computing platform will take security to the edge of the network. Instead of having credit card and ID information stored in severs within the network where such servers can be lucrative targets for malicious hackers, putting security at the edge means that the hackers will have to target each of tens of millions of PCs instead of a comparative handful of servers.
Today?s interview with the CEO of Wave Systems gives us his company?s perspective on the secure computing platform.
August 3, 2005, 06:06 PM Napster recently signed a deal with XM Radio Satellite to work co-operatively with them on a new device that will be put into the market before this year?s holiday selling season. The unit will be a converged portable MP3 player and XM Satellite receiver. Essentially it will enable its owners to carry their digital music library around with them (the MP3 player component) and also function as a ?transistor? radio for XM stations.
But there is more. Owing to the storage in the unit, the new device will basically be capable of functioning as a TiVo for XM satellite. Users will be able to record programming from any of the XM radio channels as they are being broadcast. This means that owners will be able to listen to those programs at any time that they choose, as many times as they might like.
If XM programs that are recorded also happen to contain songs that are available in the Napster catalog, then the owner will be permitted to purchase a permanent copy of any such song. For example, if you record a two-hour broadcast of XM music, the Napster software will show you just which songs are available in their catalog. Should you wish to buy the tracks, you may do so by ?clicking? on the relevant selections.
Our guest is the Chief Operating Officer of Napster. She expressed a number of opinions in response to other questions about the company and the digital music market in general. Among the topics discussed, include: (1) the impact of the Yahoo music service and its aggressive pricing, (2) the opportunities for Napster in the college and university market, and (3) the business opportunity in for digital music in devices that function as both cell phones and MP3 players.
August 1, 2005, 02:45 PM If you are interested in some thought provoking opinions about what the future may hold for Apple Computer, this interview is for you.
Steve Lang is a regular member of our audience. In the past Steve has sporadically sent us some emails with trenchant observations about some of our interviews. He has had some particularly insightful comments about Apple Computer.
I checked out his website, www.madmaxmedia.com, as noted that it had quite a few interesting posts. So I figured, ?What the heck. Let?s invite Steve onto the show and get him to share his thoughts.?
One topic that Steve put some serious thought into, is the speculation about a video iPod. He feels that Apple is almost certain to introduce one. He expects that the company will add the feature to the top-of-the-line iPod at no additional expense. The idea is that it will help keep the average selling price high and continue developing the product line in order to maintain its leadership position in the marketplace.
Steve thinks as long as people buy iPods, Apple really doesn?t care which one they buy. He speculates that in a year-and-a-half, all iPods with have video capability anyway. You won?t have to make a choice. You?ll get video capability for the same price as last year?s non-video version. This preserves the pricing structure.
As for just what kind of programming might be viewed on the small iPod screens, Steve had a really interesting idea. He feels that the video iPod will provide an entry point for the major Hollywood studios to promote recently released motion pictures. For example, they could podcast the first ten minutes of each new movie thereby potentially drawing the podcast recipients into the theaters to see the entire movie.
July 29, 2005, 05:20 PM If you would like to learn how Silicon Valley became the industrial center for the World?s high technology, this interview is for you.
Two men are credited with the invention of the Integrated Circuit. One was the recently deceased Jack Kilby of Texas Instruments, and the other was Robert Noyce, who also happened to be the lead founder of Intel.
July 27, 2005, 06:15 PM If you are interested in leaning about some cool new products and interesting new start-ups, this interview is for you.
For years, Rafe Needleman has been fascinated with interesting new gadgets and start-up companies with promising opportunities. He writes the Rafe?s Radar Column for Release 1.0 and is an editor for C-net.
Rafe is actually a guest that we have been intending to get on our show for months. Even though this interview is longer than normal and I regrettably forgot to check the volume of his headset, it is one of the best forward-looking discussions of technology on our website.
Rafe was a member of the technorati elite who witnessed and chronicled the dot-com boom and bust. He was at the epicenter. During that period and later he wrote numerous stories for Red Herring, Business 2.0, Always On, C-net, and Release 1.0 among other publications.
In today?s interview he shares his thoughts about the lessons of the dot-com era, and gives us a glimpse of the technologies and companies that he believes will be important in the future.
July 25, 2005, 11:33 PM If you would like to learn how music artists can create demand for their music without being affiliated with a major record label or publisher, this interview is for you.
Today?s guest not only published a book about how artists can survive in the new recorded music industry, but also operates a website that helps them promote and distribute their music. The website is Indie 911.
Indie 911 is a lot like GarageBand.com. However, the founder of Indie 911 used to work in A & R for Sony Music. He has a lot of experience in discovering new musicians and helping them be successful with the public. At Indie 911 for example, each artist can promote her latest news through Business Wire. Although there is a charge for the service, Indie 911 has negotiated a volume discount that it passes along to each of its registered artists.
Indie 911 has also arranged for licensing agreements that are conveniently available to the artists at the website. Parties interested in licensing content from Indie 911 artists can sample the music and reach the artist directly through the website.
The website also generates traffic for the artists by attracting listeners with download, streams, and podcasts.
July 22, 2005, 06:51 PM If you are interested in a retrospective look at the Netscape IPO that launched the dot-com boom from the perspective of the individuals responsible for it, this interview is for you.
Ten years ago Netscape went public in an IPO and essentially launched the dot-com boom. Fortune Magazine writer Adam Lahsinsky recently interviewed a number of the individuals involved in the process and provides a retrospective view of the event which essentially launched the dot-com boom that culminated five years later in a bust.
One of the interesting points is that Jim Clark founded the company and financed the payroll before he even knew what it was going to do. Andreessen basically told him that if they did not hire Marc?s classmates from the University of Illinois soon, the students would scatter to the four winds and whatever opportunity the team might have would be forever lost.
Only after the team was funded did Netscape decide to focus on the browser. The decision to give the browser away for free might well have been the origin of the broader ?open source? movement.
Clark was concerned that he was putting too much of his financial eggs in one basket. Basically he did not know if Netscape would be his dream-come-true or a White Whale. So in order to reduce his personal risk he invited NEA to provide venture funding. NEA thought the valuation was too high and sent Clark to Kleiner ? Perkins in the hopes that K-P would talk the valuation down. They didn?t and the train pulled out of the station without NEA.
Morgan Stanley?s Quattrone indicated that the big risk was that Microsoft would integrate a browser in the Windows Operating System as early as September of 1995. The apparent looming competition is what prompted the timing of the IPO a month earlier in August of 1995.
July 20, 2005, 04:46 PM If you are interested to learn how workers are likely to collaborate on projects with their PCs over networks, this interview is for you.
Although this is a lengthy interview, the content and material covered is fascinating. Our guest is a Senior Analyst with The Burton Group who specializes in Communications and Collaboration. He has been in the business for 20 years. Earlier he worked for Lotus (on Lotus Notes) and with Ray Ozzie?s Groove Networks.
Essentially our guest today believes that Communications and Collaboration will become merely feature extensions of data-base management systems. Instead of assembling a ?best of breed? package of collaborative tools, in the future IT managers will seek data-base management systems that provide a full suite of collaborative features.
Basically, the PC is evolving from being a document creation device and is becoming a universal communications and collaboration appliance. Moreover, cell phones are mutating into small form factor PCs.
Our guest believes that one manifestation of this trend is the emergence, and eventually dominance, of virtual telephony. To older guys, like me, Skype appears to be a software client that I can use in place of a telephone. But to younger people it is merely another computer application. To them it is a natural extension of e-mail and Instant Messaging. In the years ahead, youngsters today who are growing up with IM and Skype will consider it odd that people used a separate device to make a telephone call. Consider the following scenario:
You are sitting at a Starbucks with WiFi access. Next, you get a phone call via Skype at your laptop. That is merely the first step in an escalating collaboration session. Joe from your office has called. He wants to share some documents with you. You and Joe launch a WebEx session and share the documents. During the conversation, Joe touches discusses a product from company XYZ that you don?t understand. He uses WebEx to ?take? you to XYZ?s website. Together the two of you study the product literature and perhaps view some animation at XYZ that explains how their product is used.
July 18, 2005, 02:25 PM If you want to know the ways in which the Pew Internet & American Life Project predicts that the Internet will change our society, this interview is for you.
Back in the year 2000, the Pew Charitable Trusts set up a research organization to focus on how the Internet is likely to change American society. They do numerous surveys and research reports, the results of which are available for free from their website. Today we interview the Director of the Pew Internet & American Life Project.
Among the report studies we discuss is one released earlier this year that predicts the future of the Internet. It is an exhaustive survey of technology experts and scholars who evaluate where the network is headed in the next ten years. Some of the luminaries served included Vince Cerf, Esther Dyson, Bob Metcalfe, Dan Gillmore and Howard Rheingold, among others.
We also discuss a number of more recent surveys and studies. Among the more recent topics are Podcasting, the use of WebCams, and the trends in downloadable music.
July 15, 2005, 05:02 PM If you are interested in learning how a prestigious research center foresees the future of Digital Media distribution and consumption, this interview is for you.
The University of Southern California has long been a center of education for the Motion Picture and other entertainment media industries. Today?s interview is with the Executive Director of the Entertainment Technology Center at USC.
The ETC is a research center within the USC School of Cinema ? Television. It enjoys financial sponsorship from such organizations as Lucas Films, Fox, NBC, Universal, Disney and Warner Brothers among the media companies. Technology companies that sponsor the ETC include Cisco, Deluxe Labs, Laser Pacific/Kodak, Grass Valley, Thomson, and Panasonic.
As a neutral setting for the entertainment industries, the ETC has several missions. First, is to advance the use of technology. Second, is to promote the impact of technology on the creative process. Third, is the testing and evaluation of proposed technology solutions. Fourth, is to identify new business models. Fifth, is to improve the consumer experience and advance the art.
July 13, 2005, 06:41 PM If you want to understand the implications of last month?s Supreme Court decision in the Brand X case, this interview is for you.
Last month the Supreme Court essentially ruled that CATV companies are not Common Carriers with respect to Internet Access. Therefore they are not required to offer ?open access? to third party vendors who would pay the cable operators to permit the third parties to offer ISP services to consumers.
Consumer advocates are concerned that the decision will result in fewer competitive choices for the consumer. Moreover, they are concerned that the decision could retard the rate of service innovation on the CATV networks. For example, some observers question whether the CATV operators may now deny access to such innovative services as VoIP offered by Vonage, or IPTV services that might be offered by companies like Akimbo. (We interviewed Akimbo on April 21, 2005.)
Today?s guest represented on of the petitioners in the Brand X case. He provides an analysis of the case from the viewpoint of his client and also constructs the argument for the other side. Since the Supreme Court characterizes ISP capability as an Information Service instead of a Common Carrier service there will be no open access to third parties in the classical sense. However, our guest tells us that the FCC is in the process of rule-making to determine what kind of requirements will be associated with a CATV ?Information Service? as regards third-party access and other matters.
July 11, 2005, 06:33 PM If you want to learn more about how consumers are responding to the growing threat of Spam, adware, spyware, and various forms of malware on the Internet, this interview is for you.
Today?s Panelists:
Jim Griffin, CEO, Cherry Lane Digital
Blane Warrene, Technology Writer
Michael Goodman, Analyst, The Yankee Group
There is little doubt that consumers are growing ever more intolerant of adware, spyware and various forms of malware that seem to increasingly populate the Web. They are also greatly concerned about the potential for security breaches on the Internet. Identity theft and false charges to their credit cards are among the top worries. Pernicious attachments to Spam are particularly obnoxious.
July 8, 2005, 06:15 PM Wainhouse Research is one of the leading market research firms focused on the Video Conferencing, Web Conferencing, and PC-To-PC Collaboration sectors.
Wainhouse will be holding their annual client conference in Boston for three days next week. Today, here at Inside Digital Media, the Wainhouse Managing Director provides a 40 minute PowerPoint presentation regarding the key issues that will be addressed in next week?s conference.
Beyond that our guest provides his analysis of how the markets are progressing and likely to evolve in the future. July 6, 2005, 06:52 PM Conventionally we have used WebEx recorded interviews as a way to permit our guests to make PowerPoint presentations about their companies. However, we are increasingly enabling them to use the WebEx platform as a means to actually demonstrate the capabilities of the guest company. One way is by taking a ?guided tour? of their Website and recording the experience on the WebEx platform. The result is a recording of an interactive tour of the subject company?s website with a voice-over of the conversation between me and the guest company spokesman.
For example, today?s visiting company is named Blinkx. Essentially, Blinkx is a search engine for the Web that is focused on video content and podcasts. Much like Google and Yahoo will help you find the text-based content you seek by searching for key words, Blinkx permits you to find video files that match-up to key words that you use as search terms.
But how well does Blinkx actually work? Only a demonstration will let you know for sure. Fortunately, with WebEx ?application sharing? our guest can actually provide just such a demonstration to you, our audience.
In the future, we anticipate that our WebEx-based interviews will progressively more often utilize the ?application sharing? function. This is because it empowers the guest to actually demonstrate their technology as opposed to merely discussing it. While the visual aid of a PowerPoint presentation can vastly improve the communications effectiveness of an audio-only presentation, we have found that ?application sharing? can even take the usefulness to the next level.
Those of you who are unfamiliar with the capabilities of WebEx beyond the mere sharing of PowerpPoint presentations will, we trust, discover that ?application sharing? is a far more powerful feature. The only disadvantage, is that the file size for a recorded ?application sharing? presentation is about ten times as large. However, most viewers will not be impacted by the larger file size since the presentation is streamed and not downloaded.
July 5, 2005, 06:45 PM If you are interested in expert opinion about the implications of the Supreme Court?s Grokster decision, this interview is for you.
Today?s Panelists:
Jim Griffin, CEO, Cherry Lane Digital
Jefferson Graham, Business Writer, USA Today
Jon Healey, Reporter, Los Angeles Times
Rob Pegoraro, Columnist, Washington Post
Essentially the Supreme Court has ruled in a unanimous (9-to-0) decision that companies providing P2P software can be held liable for secondary copyright infringement if they are conducting their businesses in such a way so as to induce consumers to infringe copyrights. We suspect that the decision will have far reaching implications but it is unclear just how effective the ruling will be in curbing piracy.
June 30, 2005, 02:46 PM My personal music tastes are eclectic and I suspect the characteristic is true for many others. For example, I like Bruce Springsteen, Neil Diamond, Billy Joel, Fleetwood Mac, Queen, Stones, and Beatles. But I also like Mussorgsky, Wagner, von Weber, Beethoven, Bach, and Mozart. As you can imagine, I just didn?t think that a software program that analyzes music waveforms could possibly do a good job for me. I was quoted in a newspaper article expressing such an opinion.
That?s when I heard from today?s guest, Mike Papish. Mike runs a company that provides a software analytical engine for music recommendations. Customers include Napster and Mix & Burn, among others. The engine is designed to help consumers discover new music and to help retailers (and e-tailers) sell more albums.
Instead of relying upon mathematical algorithms to analyze waveforms, MediaUbound uses a variety of techniques to provide optimal results. Whether they are successful, you?ll have to judge for yourself.
As for the investment bankers and venture capitalists among us, you may be interested to know that MediaUnbound has been profitable since 2003 even thought it was founded during the dot-com boom in the year 2000. To date the capital behind the company has been obtained from angels and retained earnings.
June 29, 2005, 01:55 PM If you are looking for a truly informed opinion on the true meaning of the Supreme Court decision on P2P file sharing, this interview is for you.
Today?s guest on Inside Digital Media is Jim Burger who is a copyright attorney with the firm of Dow, Lohnes, and Albertson in Washington City. He discusses the recent 9-to-0 vote in favor of the plaintiff in the MGM vs. Grokster case.
What does this mean relative to the Sony Betamax legal precedent that was relied upon by the lower courts?
Can colleges and universities similarly be held liable for secondary copyright infringement?
Will the decision inhibit technological innovation?
Will the P2P companies merely move offshore in order to avoid prosecution?
Will the decision really do much to curb P2P usage?
Is the CD burner also a tool that has been sold to induce copyright infringement?
June 27, 2005, 10:43 PM If you are interested in expert opinion about the implications of the podcasting phenomenon, this interview is for you.
Today?s Panelists:
Dawn Chmielewski, Technology Reporter, San Jose Mercury
Rob Greenlee, Co-Founder, Web Talk Radio
Tim Bourquin, CEO, Endurance Radio
Chris McIntyre, Founder, Podcastalley.com
Like Shawn Fanning?s Napster, podcasting first emerged among the disenfranchised, but ultimately is likely to have far-reaching impact on electronic media. Unlike Fanning?s Napster there is nothing illegal about podcasting. In our analysis, podcasting is merely one form of RSS media delivery and RSS delivery is likely to become the predominant form of media delivery in the years ahead?not just merely an alternate form.
June 24, 2005, 04:53 PM Today?s interview is with Ruckus which is a company that specializes in delivering Digital Media entertainment and services to college campuses.
They have distribution agreements with the five major record label companies as well as many independents.
June 22, 2005, 04:44 PM Ordinarily our Slide Show interviews are presented on the WebEx platform owing to the fact that we like their technology and they are a sponsor. However, when a WebEx competitor wishes to showcase their own technology we normally give them the opportunity to do so.
Therefore, today?s Slide Show interview with Raindance about their new Seminar Edition is on their own platform and is Web-hosted by them as well.
June 20, 2005, 10:23 PM Today?s Panelists:
Tim Bajarin, Senior Analyst, Creative Strategies
Blane Warrene, Technology Writer
Subject: The implications of Apple Computer?s decision to start relying upon Intel microprocessors.
Apple?s decision to start utilizing Intel microprocessors instead of those from IBM may have a number of important implications. While it seems clear that the decision was partly motivated by a desire to put Apple in a position to compete more effectively in the laptop computer market, there are other possible explanations as well. The power consumption and heat generated by the IBM chips is too high to permit the production of economical laptops with satisfactory clock rates. Apparently the future IBM chips with the desired clock rates would have generated so much heat that they may have required the laptops to have liquid cooling?and that?s is simply not feasible in a portable computer.
However, our panelists look beyond the obvious explanations. For example we discuss whether or not the change is a preliminary step in making a direct challenge to Microsoft for the operating system software market. Also, we look at the possible ways that Windows applications could be used on new Apple computers with Intel processors.
Finally, we evaluate the possible impact on the sales of the current line of Apple computers owing to the fear, uncertainty, and doubt (FUD) factor that normally accompanies a radical change in designs in the computer industry. Will FUD make consumers reluctant to buy the current line of Apple computers? Will consumers be reluctant to buy the first versions of the Intel-processor-based Apples owing to the possibility that the first versions of any new computer are prone to unanticipated problems?
June 17, 2005, 02:09 PM Today's guest is J.D. Lasica who is the author of a recently published book entitled Darknet: Hollywood's War against the Digital Generation.
If you want to learn how the Hollywood studios are responding to the opportuniies and threats of a broadband Internet, this interview is for you. June 15, 2005, 04:12 PM Today?s guest on Inside Digital Media is Eric Chen who is the CEO of Persony Corporation. Eric is the former CEO of Presenter.com which was sold to WebEx. Prior to that he was the co-inventor of Apple Quicktime VR.
Persony Corporation provides Web Conferencing for the small office / home office market. Their technology permits Web Conferences to be hosted from the standard websites that most every small business has anyway. There is no need for a service provider or a specialized Web Conferencing server. There is also no need to download a software client since all the web pages play through Flash, which is already installed on nearly every computer anyway.
June 13, 2005, 07:26 PM Today?s guest is a Senior Analyst with The Yankee Group. His name is Mike Goodman and his specialty is Media and Entertainment. He is also an avid video gamer.
Mike feels that the video game console may well become the hub of future home entertainment systems. He provides a good analysis of the evolution for the industry in the past ten years. Extrapolation of the trends he observes imply that video gaming could well become a central component to bridge the home computer to the living room entertainment system.
June 10, 2005, 03:06 PM Today?s guest on Inside Digital Media is Ali Partovi who is the CEO of GarageBand.com. His company is a website where unlicensed musicians can post their tracks and have them played by visitors. All tracks must be free for download or stream, but the artists can sell full albums, through affiliates, as either digital downloads or CDs
In order to post a track at Garageband.com you must write reviews of 30 randomly selected tracks in you genre. This requirement has the effect of getting many people to listen to the music in a serious way thereby enhancing discovery and popularity.
Amateur DJs who want to podcast tracks from the Garageband repertoire can do so easily with tools available at the website.
June 8, 2005, 09:37 PM Weblogs is a network of blogs. The most popular site within the network is Engadget which is reported to be frequently visited by both Steve Jobs and Bill Gates.
Today?s guest is the publisher of Weblogs. He explains how he organizes blogs so as to provide maximum interest to visitors and optimal advertising revenues.
He narrates a PowerPoint presentation while I ask pertinent questions along the way.
We also utilize the power of WebEx by permitting the publisher to share applications on his computer and take us on a Web safari through various sites within the Weblogs network.
June 6, 2005, 09:33 PM A panel of experts discussess Hewlett-Packard and the PC Industry.
The panelests are
Michelle Kessler of USA Today
Peter Burrows of Business Week
Nitin Gupta of The Yankee Group June 3, 2005, 04:48 PM Our guest today is a Group Product Manager for the Digital Media Division at Microsoft. He provides the Microsoft perspective on Janus technology.
Janus is the enabling technology that permits online music subscription services to be portable. Essentially it enables track downloads to be transferred to selected portable devices so that music subscribers may enjoy their music libraries wherever they go. If the subscriber fails to pay the monthly fee Janus will detect the delinquency and disable the music tracks from playing.
The recently introduced Yahoo Music Unlimited uses Janus technology as do the Napster and Rhapsody services.
June 1, 2005, 06:18 PM Gerd Leonhard is the Chairman of a Panel at the Popkomm Music Conference that is responsible for providing awards to the music companies with the most innovative business models. The winner at last year?s Popkomm was PlaylouderMSP, The CEO for PlaylouderMSP is Paul Hitchman.
PlaylouderMSP is a British company. It is essentially an ISP that will be providing an unlimited music download service that permits its subscribers to legitimately trade files with conventional P2P clients. The music publishers and the record labels will be compensated from a pool of funds that is represented by a proportion of the regular ISP monthly subscription.
There is no INCREMENTAL fee above the regular broadband ISP subscription rate.
May 31, 2005, 07:46 PM Today?s interview is with the panel of Digital Media experts listed below:
Tim Bajarin, President, Creative Strategies
Eric Hellweg, Writer, MIT Technology Review
Peter Burrows, Reporter, Business Week
Rob Pegoraro, Columnist, The Washington Post
The topics include:
Apple Computer
Rumor about using Intel chips.
Support for podcasting
Release of new controversial book about Steve Jobs called iCon
Should Apple license OX-10 to Sony and H-P to let them sell Mac clones?
May 27, 2005, 03:01 PM Today?s interview is with Raul Diaz who is the Vice President of Sales for InterVideo. Raul?s company is a leading provider of Digital Media software. The company has several exciting new market opportunities.
First, is the emerging market for High Definition DVD playback software.
Second, is the market for Digital Media software among portable devices.
Third, is the market for software that enables PC users to bypass the lengthy Window boot up process when they merely want to use the PC for media applications.
May 25, 2005, 02:11 PM Today's interview is with David Frerichs who is the General Manager of U.S. Operations for Coding Technologies.
David's company is the licensing agent for the AAC+ codec.
David believes that the AAC+ codec provides the best possible sound quality in the smallest file size possible. That is why many companies that are focused on delivering music to mobile phones are using it. RealNetworks also uses it because it superior performance at the Real Download Music Store.
May 23, 2005, 06:36 PM Today?s interview is a discussion with a panel of experts. Our topics include Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, and Netflix.
The panelists are:
Jeff Graham who is a business reporter with USA Today
Brad Hill who is an author of two books on Google
Jason Fry who is a columnist for The Wall Street Journal Online.
May 18, 2005, 04:08 PM Today's interview is an exclusive one with the man who runs Yahoo Music.
We talk about the new Yahoo Music Unlimited service.
May 16, 2005, 06:26 PM Today we have a group of expert panelists discuss the Warner Music IPO and Yahoo Music Unlimited.
The experts are Jon Healey of The Los Angeles Times, Jim Griffin who is CEO of Cherry Lane Digital, Eric Hellweg who writes for the MIT Technology Review, and Mike Goodman who is an analyst at The Yankee Group. May 13, 2005, 01:32 PM MusicNet is the Applications Service Provider (ASP) behind the new Yahoo Music Unlimited subscription service. They are a Business-to-Business online music ASP. Aside from Yahoo Music Unlimited other customers include AOL Music, Virgin Digital, and the online service provided by the conventional music retailer FYE, among others.
One reason that Yahoo may have chosen MusicNet is that the latter?s technical capabilities have been battle-tested. Perhaps the best example is the two-year-old AOL Music service which is clearly one of the largest legitimate online services available today. Since MusicNet has been the ASP for the service now for about two years, they have had plenty of opportunity to work out the bugs. In this young industry, two years of real operating experience in the market means a lot.
Since MusicNet is a B2B supplier, they had nothing to do with the pricing that Yahoo announced. That was Yahoo?s decision. While all of MusicNet?s contracts with its customers are unique, our guest confirms that Yahoo received no special pricing breaks that other companies with similar capabilities and commitments would not also receive.
Our guest also believes that Yahoo Unlimited could prove to be a galvanizing influence to motivate other potentially large players to enter the market. While he did not identify any potential new entrants by name, our guess is that the usual suspects would be companies like Amazon.com, Google, and MTV, among others.
Our guest also has a strong conviction that the labels like the subscription business better than the download business owing to the better ability of the former to stimulate demand for new releases and new artists. He also speculates, purely as a personal opinion, that Apple Computer may re-evaluate its avoidance of the subscription model.
May 11, 2005, 03:51 PM Today?s guest on Inside Digital Media is Jim Burger who is a copyright attorney. Jim discusses with us the implications of a recent Appellate Court decision to deny the FCC the authority to require the use of the Broadcast Flag in digital broadcast receivers. May 9, 2005, 06:30 PM Today?s expert panel is composed of technology reports from three prominent newspapers. They include Dawn Chmielewski of The San Jose Mercury, Rob Pegararo of The Washington Post and Jeff Graham of USA Today.
The topics of discussion include Apple?s Tiger operating system, unexpected uses of the iPod, ways the reporters use RSS, ways to get technical assistance at the Apple stores, and the best business models for recorded music in the future.
May 6, 2005, 12:42 PM Today's interview is with the two autors of a new book entitled THE FUTURE OF MUSIC: A Manifesto for the Digital Music Revolution. May 4, 2005, 07:10 PM Recently Nokia introduced a cell phone with a 4-Gig hard drive. It is designed to function as a portable music player as well as a cell phone. Given the size of the drive and the compression scheme utilized (AAC+), Nokia believes that the ?converged? device will hold about 3,000 music tracks.
Of course, it is an expensive unit, costing around $500 even with a subsidy from a wireless carrier when the consumer signs-up for a lengthy service contract. Nonetheless, the unit is a wake-up call for the entire digital music industry. It implies that cell phones will ultimately become important music-playing devices. If true, then there is going to be a concomitant need for services that sell music tracks for download directly to the cell phones over wireless networks.
Once consumers get comfortable with the idea of purchasing music tracks over wireless networks for download to their cell phones, the record labels are going to want to figure out how they can use the new distribution channel to stimulate demand for new releases and new artists. Fortunately, the each cell phone has a unique identity associated with its owner. This means that the retailer ? meaning the ASP providing the download service ? will have a good handle on the tastes and purchasing patterns of each customer. Additionally, the cell phone per se enables the ASP to conveniently communicate with the consumer when new releases are announced that meet her prior purchasing patterns.
Much like Amazon.com tracks purchasing patterns when we buy books and greets us with new recommendations whenever we visit their website, the mobile music ASP can send messages to cell phone owners with purchase recommendations that match the individual owners? profile.
In short, cell phone music distribution promises to be not only a new sales channel for the record labels but also an important promotional vehicle. In the latter context it can become increasingly important as commercial broadcast radio continues to steadily lose audience.
May 2, 2005, 08:59 PM Every Monday our program is an audio discussion with a panel of experts on some topic related to Digital Media.
Today topic is the future of Video, Audio, and Web Conferencing.
The panel experts are:
Darrin Donithorne of Intel
Subrah Iyar who is the CEO of WebEx
Andrew Davis who is the Managing Director of Wainhouse Research
April 29, 2005, 08:08 PM Today?s interview is a short video presentation put together by David Pogue of The New York Times about the features that he thinks are most important with the new Tiger operating system from Apple. April 28, 2005, 11:04 PM There?s a difference between the future of IP-TV and the future of an ?Internet-of-Video?.
IP-TV is really just a new way for the telcos and cable operators to deliver video over their traditional facilities. Admittedly they?ll be upgrading their networks to handle the technique, but it essentially remains a closed system. The telcos are particularly anxious to move forward because they are starting to get competition for voice telephone service from the cable operators. But the business models, whether they be for the telcos or the cable operators, are going to be something we?re already familiar with. The operators will aggregate video and merely use IP for transport.
A future ?Internet-of-Video? is a different concept. It is not a closed system. Video files are ?treated? just like any other file on the Internet. There is no limitation to who create and distribute such files. There?s also no limitation on where within the Net that the subscribers may choose to go in order to download video files. In IP-TV the cable operators and the telcos act as gatekeepers?and they collect a fee for doing it. In an ?Internet-of-Video? there are no gatekeepers. As a result there will be far more creators of content.
This means that an ?Internet-of-Video? will be operator independent. If you?re getting IP-TV from Comcast it will likely have different content than IP-TV from Time-Warner. But in terms of accessing an ?Internet-of-Video? it won?t matter if you get your broadband access from Time-Warner or Comcast. Also, IP-TV will be device-specific since it is primarily targeted at our televisions. In contrast, an ?Internet-of-Video? is device independent. You?ll be able to play the videos on TVs, computers, and cell phones. It?s really pretty much up to the content provider and not the network operator.
An ?Internet-of-Video? will have Global reach. Basically it is merely another stage of Internet evolutionary development. It?s as natural as a child growing into adolescence and likely to provide just as much excitemen
April 27, 2005, 07:10 PM Today?s guest is the CEO of Dwango Wireless
Dwango is a small Applications Service Provider that delivers Digital Media to cell phones. Currently it is distributing ringtone for Rolling Stone and a Bass Fishing game for another company. The delivery service is available through a number of leading wireless carriers including ATT Wireless, Cingular, Nextel, Alltel and T-Mobile. Typically the subscriber is charged by the wireless carrier for each download and Dwango gets a share of the incremental revenues. The subscriber sees the full charge on his next month?s billing statement from the carrier.
Later this year Dwango will be offering additional Digital Media content from more sources. Among them will be Playboy, Napster, and belief.net which is a religious website.
Dwango competes with a number of much larger companies such as InfoSpace and Jamdat Mobile. However, unlike the others, Dwango is attempting to leverage the brands of its content partners which include the names noted above.
April 26, 2005, 11:20 AM If you want to get a good idea about how our college students are consuming and creating Digital Media on campus, this interview is for you.
Now that the RIAA has announced that they will be filing lawsuits against students who are using the Internet2 for swapping files of copyrighted material, there could well be a new wave of motivation by campus administrators to find a legitimate alternative. The motivation may be further stimulated by the unconfirmed reports that the Motion Picture Producers Association may also join the RIAA in taking legal action since they believe that a lot of P2P file sharing on Internet2 is for copyrighted video files. Examples would be popular TV programs and movies.
Today?s guest is the CEO of a company that is focused on providing a legitimate Digital Media entertainment service to our nations colleges and universities. The company is not only providing a popular online music service but is also offering Video-on-Demand on both a subscription and a la carte basis.
Our guest is particularly well informed on the Digital Media practices among college students today since his company is focused exclusively on that market. He tells us that college students are taking televisions to school with ever-decreasing frequency. One study shows that only 55% of students have TVs now as compared to over 75% a few years ago.
Apparently, students are getting the video entertainment that they want via their computers. One way would be through P2P file sharing. If so, the practice is getting students habituated to the idea of consuming TV programming and movies at times that fit their schedule as opposed to when the TV shows are broadcast or the movie exhibition times. This has enormous implications for the television industry.
April 21, 2005, 06:38 PM In recent weeks we have been interviewing companies that are focused on Video-Over-The-Internet. While the cable TV companies are moving forward with Video-on-Demand and PVR technology, a growing number of companies are looking forward to the day when video will be made available over the Internet just as text, graphic, and increasingly, audio files are today. However, for Video-Over-The-Internet to truly come of age, we must be able to see it on our TVs and not just our computers.
Today?s guest represents a company that is delivering Internet-Video to our televisions. He envisions the day when televisions and the related appliances will routinely provide Ethernet connections. When DVD Players, PVRs, Cable Set-Top Boxes, and televisions have Ethernet or USB 2.0 jacks, they can all be connected to the Internet via a home LAN. The home LAN may either be hard-wired or wireless.
In point of fact, once all of these devices have Ethernet or USB jacks, the best design would be to collapse them into a single unit. The unit will have a large hard-drive, a DVD player and DVD burner. The services that are available on such a unit will depend upon what software programs have been downloaded and installed onto it. Watch for this trend to emerge from leading Consumer Electronics manufactures including Sony, Samsung, and Panasonic. While we have no concrete knowledge of plans by such companies to introduce such products, the logic of the trend seems to be so compelling that we expect it.
Our guest company today, Akimbo, seeks to be one of the main services that will be available on such a box. Until such a universal appliance is marketed, Akimbo is selling its own version. Today?s Akimbo has an 80 Gig hard drive that will hold up to 200 hours of video programming. It costs about $230 and there is a $10 per month service charge. Subscribers simply choose whichever programs that they want to see from the 200 available hours of programming. The hard drive is gradually refreshed each day with new content. The content that gets delivered depends upon the selected preferences of the subscriber. Many programs are free and others are can be watched for an a la carte fee.
Akimbo is a totally ?on-demand? video experience. There is no need to wait for a broadcast time.
It is also capable of delivering content from a vastly larger number of sources than even the largest Cable TV system. This is because it can grab content from any participating partners on the Internet.
The service is not easily explained to the uninitiated with mere textual descriptions. However, all will be clear if you take the time to watch the presentation of this Kleiner-Perkins backed venture.
April 20, 2005, 01:13 PM Ultimately it is likely that consumers will purchase digital music tracks wirelessly to their mobile phones. While the market is only incipient right now, the evidence that it will one day be quite popular is pretty convincing. Already young adults are buying video games to play on their cell phones over the wireless carrier?s networks. Companies like Jamdat are doing quite well selling the games and the demand is rapidly rising.
Similarly, Apple?s iTunes music store, along with the services provided by RealNetworks and Napster, among others, is demonstrating that consumers are willing to buy digital music tracks over the Internet and inventory them on their computers. The Apple iPod makes it clear that people want those digital music tracks to be portable as well.
Portability is the very essence of the cell phone. Additionally, it has memory as well as onboard processing power. Moreover, the use of at least one headphone is becoming a popular way to hear the respondent during a cell phone conversation. In short, all the ingredients are present to enable the cell phone to be a portable music player with the added bonus that the wireless network itself can facilitate impulse purchasing. Since digital music tracks are often priced at about one dollar per song, impulse buying could well become a major source of revenues for the record labels.
So, it would seem that all the pieces are in place to induce the consumer to buy music tracks with her cell phone. Perhaps most importantly the wireless carriers are increasingly anxious to offer the content. It provides them a new way to generate incremental revenues by taking a share of the sales price. Finally, since the wireless carrier already has a billing relationship with the subscriber, music track purchases can be conveniently facilitated by merely adding them on to the monthly bill.
April 19, 2005, 02:44 PM Recently the RIAA announced that it would be filing lawsuits against individual students on about 20 campuses that are using a prototype of the next Internet technology, termed Internet2, to engage in very high speed file swapping of copyrighted materials. Additionally, there are strong implications that the Motion Picture Producers Association will also be filing lawsuits against the students as well.
Basically the Internet2 is an extremely high speed Wide Area Network (WAN) shared co-operatively among some 200 universities around the globe. The speed is so fast that the velocity of file transfer is actually most often limited by the Ethernet card in the student?s PC which is usually 100 Mbs. As a result, a two-hour movie can probably be downloaded in less than 15 minutes. Mere MP3 files can be transferred in seconds.
The RIAA claims that the client software most often used to enable students to engage in P2P file sharing across the Internet2 is termed i2Hub. Today?s guest is Wayne Chang who is the CEO of i2hub.
Wayne tells us that i2hub was developed as a client to enable students to engage in messaging and P2P activities across the Internet2. He believes it is similar to AOL Instant Messaging, but designed to optimize the capabilities of Interent2. Wayne discusses a number of non-infringing uses for 12hub.
First is as a social networking community. In this sense it is like Friendster except that it is real-time and optimized for the Internet2.
Second is as an ecommerce tool that enables students to sell and purchase used textbooks with one another. Wayne believes that the students are normally able to sell used texts at higher prices than the campus bookstores will pay and conversely purchase them at lower prices than the campus bookstores will charge.
If you want to hear Wayne?s side of the i2hub story, this interview is for you.
April 18, 2005, 06:28 PM Today?s Panelists:
Mike Goodman, Senior Analyst at Yankee Group
Brad Hill, author, musician, and Internet expert
Blanne Warren, expert on Apple Computer and Open Source movement
Subjects: The principal topics of discussion were the recent financial results of Apple Computer and the announcement by the RIAA that they would be suing students at about 20 colleges for P2P file sharing over Internet2 which is essentially a very high speed WAN for the university community.
Summary: Although Apple?s recent financial release exceeded the published estimates of the stock analysts by a sizeable margin, the stock dropped in price during the next two ensuing days. Our group feels that Apple did very well, but that some observers had expectations about iPod sales that were unrealistic. Also, it appears that some investors may have been disappointed that Apple brought the iPod into supply-demand balance after a chronic period of back-order status.
Our group also addressed the issue of whether or not the cell phone could become an ?iPod killer? as cell phones evolve into multifunction devices that play music, and take pictures as well as handling phone calls. There was a discussion about the reasons for the delay in introducing the Motorola iPod phone. We shared opinions about whether or not any competitors were likely to catch the iPod.
Apple reports that about 40% their new computer buyers did not have Macs before. Our group discussed whether or not the iPod is generating incremental demand for Apple computers through a Trojan Horse effect. Blane feels that the introduction of Tiger is going to be very important to Apple. As for how Apple gets into the living room, the general consensus was that it would not be by acquiring TiVo.
As regards P2P file sharing, Mike shared data that left him convinced that it was way up on a year-over-year basis. Brad felt that the RIAA lawsuits may well have the unexpected result of attracting traffic to i2hub and stimulating interest in the mechanics of P2P file sharing over Internet2. He also felt that the RIAA was putting everyone on notice that ?you can?t hide.?
April 14, 2005, 08:04 PM Radio is mostly about music. Talk-radio is only a small part of the industry. Podcasting may be the next evolutionary step in radio, but today it is mostly about ?talk? formats and not music. The reason for this is that the music licensing situation for music podcasts is unclear.
Today?s guest is a copyright attorney with a prominent Washington, D.C. law firm who makes a presentation about the legal status of podcasting copyrighted recorded music.
Distributing popular recorded music over the Internet requires licenses from both the music publishers and the record labels.
If you are webcasting streams of recorded music you are entitled to a blanket license. You will pay the publishers (composers) through their affiliated organizations like ASCAP, BMI, or SESAC. You will pay the record labels through Sound Exchange, or a competitive organization owned by Music Records, Inc. The blanket licenses provided to webcasters of streams are made available via the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998.
However, a podcaster is not streaming content. The files are actually downloaded automatically to the subscriber?s PC, and thence to the iPod if the subscriber chooses to do so. Since the files are downloaded, the subscriber gets a permanent copy. The DMCA does not apply.
Basically, the copyright laws did not anticipate podcasting. Thus, the licensing status for copyrighted recorded music is unclear. It is in the best interests of the labels and publishers to work this out since consumers are likely to turn to radio versions of the TiVo concept on their computers to record and catalog music that are broadcast by conventional terrestrial stations. Replay Radio and Shark provide such capabilities already. There are no technical reasons why more and better versions won?t be forthcoming.
April 13, 2005, 07:10 PM David Lawrence who is a noted radio personality is our guest today. He shares with us his vision for the future of broadcast radio.
David has been a success in radio for nearly 30 years. Today he hosts two syndicated programs. First, is The David Lawrence Show and the other is Online Tonight. Both are carried by prominent broadcasters such as WGN in Chicago, and KNEW in San Francisco as well as 80 others around the country. Both Sirius and XM carry David on their satellite networks.
The award winning shows combine entertainment, information, interviews and news with the speed and humor of a Top-40 morning show. The three hour dial-in call-in shows air Monday through Saturday from 10PM to 1AM EDT.
In our interview, David shares his thoughts on the impact of the iPod, podcasting, digital radio, the Internet, and a variety of other new technologies that are impacting radio. He also provides his analysis of the importance of demographic trends away from radio listening by younger audience members.
While David firmly believes that radio will prove to be as resilient as always, he also strongly believes that the industry must be prepared to adapt to the changing environment. He feels that the trend away from individuality and local content is having an adverse impact on radio audiences and would like to see those trends reversed. Finally, he believes that the younger demographics must be made to understand that music is not free which leads to his qualified approval for the RIAA action against file-sharing on Internet2 and i2Hub.
April 12, 2005, 08:24 PM MusicNet is one of the pioneers in legitimate online music. They are essentially an Applications Service Provider (ASP) for a number of online digital music retailers.
America Online is their biggest client. AOL has about 400,000 online music subscribers paying about $9 per month for ?tethered? downloads or streams on demand from the catalog. A ?tethered? download is a download that must remain resident on the hard drive of the receiving computer. However, it the computer is a laptop, then the recorded music is portable to the extent that the laptop is portable. AOL members may also purchase tracks for permanent download so that they may be transferred to a portable device or burned to CD-R media, but the price is about one dollar per track.
Other MusicNet clients include Virgin Digital, FYE, Cdigix, and Synacor. They also recently announced that they will be adding HMV as a customer. HMV is the largest terrestrial retailer of CDs and DVDs in the United Kingdom.
The relationship with FYE encompasses the Janus capability. This means that subscribers to the FYE online service have two choices. First, they can take the regular tethered download service for a monthly fee of about $10. Second, they can have a monthly service that enables them to also store music on a number of portable devices for a fee of $15 per month.
April 11, 2005, 07:59 PM As the Internet evolves there is a growing need to collect royalties from music performances and downloads. Today?s guest is the Vice President of Business Development for Music Reports, Inc. Over the years his company has specialized in collecting royalties for music performances in television.
From a royalty collection perspective, the Internet is presenting challenges much like those that were met in the early days of radio. When music was ?played? over the radio it was considered a ?performance.? The music publishers, who normally represented the composers, were entitled to collect royalties for those ?performances?.
Radio stations paid such royalties, generally as a percent of their overall revenues. Since there were a large number of publishers and composers, they joined one of several representing organizations that were paid by the radio stations. Those organizations then paid the publishers individually based on the frequency of play. ASCAP was the oldest such organization and BMI came along later as it signed-up country and rock artists that were, at the time, beneath the dignity of ASCAP. The third organization was SESAC.
Now that music royalties are paid for webcasts over the Net, an organization by the name of Sound Exchange was set up to collect the royalties. MRI is introducing a competitive organization to Sound Exchange, termed ROI. So, the collection activities for Sound Exchange and ROI on the Net are analogous to those of ASCAP and BMI for radio.
Finally, podcasts of copyrighted material are going to deal with royalty payments, but the situation is thorny because they are downloads and not streams.
If music royalties on the Internet are going to be important to you in the future, today?s interview can help you understand how to participate and optimize your income.
March 30, 2005, 08:46 PM Two-an-a-half years ago Microsoft introduced the first version of its Windows XP Media Center and Hewlett-Packard sold the initial computers using the software. The idea was to make a computer that would be centered on media applications. The PCs could be controlled with both a keyboard-mouse combination as well a remote unit similar to those used with a television.
Initially they were popular with students who would use the Media Center PCs as both a stereo and TV as well as a computer. In a cramped dormitory room it proved to be a space saving device. It essentially functioned as an entertainment center as well as an ordinary computer that could be used for student applications.
Today the Media Center PCs are more capable than the first ones. They are also available over a wider span of price ranges from $500 up to $4,000.
Our guest today is the General Manager of the Windows Media Center team at Microsoft. At his home the Media Center PC fits in the AV rack of his living room entertainment center. His unit contains three TV tuner cards so that he can watch one TV program and record up to two others simultaneously. It has a DVD burner so that he can burn DVD discs of those programs that he has recorded. That way he can take the programs with him when he travels and play them on his laptop.
He also has a portable media player that synchs-up with the PC. This enables him to listen to a huge library of music wherever he goes with his $15-a-month Napster-To-Go subscription. Additionally, his portable player plays-back video, so it will also synch-up with his video library as well.
Finally, Microsoft has enabled manufactures like Linksys to make ?media extenders? that permit the content on the Media Center PC to be extended to other PCs around the house. Generally these require the installation of a wireless LAN and will accommodate dot-11 (a), (b) and (g) varieties. Essentially the extenders enable the PCs in the other rooms to become remote terminals of the Media Center PC in the living room. Also, the X-box game console can be used in the same way to make TVs in the other rooms become remote terminals of the living room unit.
March 29, 2005, 12:58 PM As intelligence increasingly moves toward the edge of the network, people will come to expect that electronic media can be consumed, time-shifted, and produced just about anywhere they go.
Nearly all of are familiar with the hyperlinks that can be found in online news articles connecting us to other articles or books providing additional information on the subject at hand. Increasingly, we are also discovering that some of the links lead to related videos as well. Ultimately it may be common for us to watch all video in such a way.
More importantly, once consumers get conditioned to the practice, they may wonder why they can?t watch television programs the same way?on-demand. But not just on the TV. They?ll come to expect that they should be able to view video on any device they choose, based upon whatever apparatus is convenient at the time they want to see the content. For example, if there is a major breaking news development some viewers may want the video file formatted for wireless delivery to cell phones, if there are no TVs or computers conveniently available to them.
Today?s guest has formed a company to provide just such a capability. Jeremy Allaire was one of the founders of Allaire Corporation. It was the developer of Cold Fusion which remains a popular platform for application delivery over the Internet. Allaire Corporation was later sold to Macromedia where Jeremy worked until a couple of years ago before establishing Brightcove.
Since he began working on the Web in 1990, Jeremy has consistently had a passion for evolving his interests in application delivery to the latest media form. He now feels that computers and the Internet have progressed to the point where video will become the next major form of application delivery. That is why he formed Brightcove last summer
March 28, 2005, 12:18 PM A recent article from The Los Angeles Times notes that consumers have become so worried about the risks of ID theft and fraud that the percentage of online shoppers who are willing to provide credit card numbers has recently flattened-out after several years of sharp growth.
In the beginning it took several years to get the consumer comfortable with the concept of buying merchandise with her credit card over the Internet. Companies like Amazon.com and eBay worked hard to gain our trust. Now it appears as if that trust is eroding again. Not because of anything that Amzaon or eBay, or other legitimate merchants have done; instead the confidence is weakening because of organized gangs of thieves who make a living out of stealing our credit card and ID data to run up fraudulent transactions with legitimate merchants or consumers.
Many, perhaps most, of the criminal groups are located outside the United States. One technique that they use to get your credit card data is termed phishing. For example, they will send you an email saying that your eBay account has been closed because it looks like someone has been trying to hack into your account. They will ask you to reopen your account with fresh credit card and password information. Their email will provide links to websites that look like official eBay websites. But in the end, all you have done is given the thieves the information they are trying to steal. Our guest today tells us that experts have estimated that as many as one in twenty of us fall victim to the phishing scam.
The implications relating to the consumer?s increasing reluctance to provide credit card information are profound. It may well prove to be a serious challenge to the efforts of Internet retailers to sustain growth in their businesses. Moreover, our guest today holds the opinion that things are going to get worse before they get better. March 25, 2005, 08:45 PM Increasingly the cable set-top box is offering ever-more functionality. Increasingly cable operators are offering their subscribers DVR (e.g. TiVo) capability as well. Digeo?s Moxi Media Center is a set-top box on steroids.
The Moxi Media Center is not only a set-top box. It is also a Personal Video Recorder (like TiVo). Some versions also have built-in DVD players. You can also display your digital photographs that reside on your computer through your television if you have hooked-up your Moxi to a home LAN. Moreover, the Moxi Media Center is designed to be up-gradable via software downloads. So, in the future, Moxi is going to be offering new features as well. Most importantly, they will show up on your TV just like a new television program
March 24, 2005, 11:34 AM In a recent research report the Multimedia Research Group interviewed the top eight MSO operators in the United States about their future plans for video, Internet connectivity, and telephony services. Three executives from each MSO were interviewed; one each from engineering, operations, and marketing. For a variety of specific new services they were asked about their current stage of deployment, the importance of the technology over both the near and long-term, and the expected revenues.
For example, all eight MSO are currently deploying DVRs. On a scale of one-to-five they consider the near-term importance of DVRs to average 4.0. The long-term importance of DVR is ranked even higher at an average of 4.7. On average the DVR is increasing revenue yield by $9 per month for each DVR subscriber. While the most important reason for deploying DVRs was to increase revenues, two other reasons ranked almost as high in significance. For example, it has been seen as a ?must have? competitive response to satellite TV and it is also seen as a strong ?anti-churn? device for retaining subscribers.
All eight MSOs are also deploying Video-on-Demand service as well. On the same one-to-five scale, they consider VOD service to be an average of 4.4 in importance over the near-term. Over the long-term they consider the average importance to be 4.4, which is slightly less than DVR?s 4.7.
March 23, 2005, 06:37 PM One interesting podcast program can be found at Endurance Radio. Typically about three guests are interviewed every week. They are normally serious athletes involved in some kind of endurance sport like mountain biking, triathlons, marathons, or adventure races. Other guests include specialists such as physicians and coaches who can provide concrete advice to aspiring athletes.
Our guest today shares tips on how he produces his program. This covers everything from the type of equipment and software he uses to how often he interviews guests. You will learn how he contacts his guests and schedules the interviews. Also we find out how he decides upon the appropriate length for an interview and how he edits the recordings. He tells us how he sold advertisements; what works and what doesn?t. Finally he shares his thoughts about the larger implications of podcasting on broadcast radio and other forms of electronic media.
The host of Endurance Radio is also sponsoring the Podcast & Portable Media Expo later this year in Southern California. It will showcase the present and te future of portable content with demonstration exhibits and conference sessions devoted to creating, editing, delivering, viewing and profiting from unique audio and video media.
March 21, 2005, 09:49 AM Blake Kirkorian loves the San Francisco Giants. He was really pleased a few years back when they made it to the World Series. He wanted to see all the games. The only problem was that his business required him to be traveling quite a bit.
Blake figured it would be possible to see the games over the Internet if only he could find someone offering the service. While there did, in fact, exist such a service, Major League Baseball would not permit subscribers to watch any games over the Internet of their home teams. Since Blake lived in San Mateo, his home team was considered to be San Francisco.
Well, Blake pondered the problem and concluded that their really is no technical reason why he cannot watch the TV back at his house from any Internet connected computer. Since he takes a laptop with him on his business trips, he figures that he should be able to watch his TV in San Mateo wherever he goes.
Moreover, he believes he should not have to pay any additional monthly fee in order to do this. I mean, after all, he is already paying the cable company in San Mateo for Internet access and Cable Television service. While it?s great to be on the information highway, Blake doesn?t want to be required to pay a toll every five miles.
His solution, along with co-founders, was to form Sling Media to design and manufacture an electronic gadget that connects to both the home TV and to the home LAN. Now when he goes on a trip he can boot-up his laptop in the hotel room and launch the Sling software application. He merely clicks on ?Watch My TV? and the laptop ?goes out? onto the Internet and ?finds? his TV back in San Mateo. This enables Blake to control the TV just as if he were sitting back home on the sofa. He can even use the TiVo and cable set-top box that are attached to it.
Finally, when he is home, he can watch the TV in any room he chooses via his laptop computer. That?s the way his wife often employs his invention.
The Sling Media box will be available to the public before the second half of this calendar year at a price of $250.
March 17, 2005, 04:44 PM It appears that the U.S. is making a comeback in the Consumer Electronics business. As our regular audience members well know, we have been acutely aware of the gains that Apple has made with the iPod being the apparent heir-apparent to the Sony Walkman. However, today?s guest makes a strong case that Japanese are losing their traditional grip on the entire Consumer Electronics market.
In the $125 billion Consumer Electronics market, Japan?s companies are finding that their long-time strength in manufacturing and engineering isn?t as crucial as it once was. This is because the industry is shifting from the analog to the digital domain. That means that software leadership is increasingly important. Software is an area where the United States has had a crucial advantage going back two ? three decades. As a result, leading edge products like the iPod, TiVo, and Treo mobile phone and email device are coming out of Silicon Valley.
For example, consider how Kodak has steadily gained market share in digital cameras to the point where it now trails only Sony and Canon. Kodak's digital cameras use off-the-shelf chips but marry them with proprietary software to simplify picture-taking, manipulation and printing. The software can automatically balance color, remove red-eye, and allow a photo to be cropped on a camera's screen.
Both Sony and Canon do final assembly of their cameras in company-owned factories. By contrast, Kodak moved its camera manufacturing to China beginning in 1999. More than 70% of its cameras are built today by low-cost contract manufacturers there.
Radio Shack has embraced the new business model used by Apple and Kodak. This month the retailer is bringing a home-grown product its shelves: the Cinego home-theater projector. The phonebook-sized device includes a built-in DVD player and can project a sharp, 100-inch image on a screen. It costs about $1,300 and is designed to compete with plasma-screen TVs, which are usually around 42 inches diagonally and cost $3,000 or more. "As we move from analog to digital, it's our turn to shine," says RadioShack President David J. Edmondson.
March 16, 2005, 07:51 PM About a month ago we interviewed Terry Laughlin who is the CEO of Total Immersion. Terry?s company is a swimming school for adults.
During the interview I described how I started training for an Olympic Distance Triathlon and found that the swimming leg was going to be very difficult for me. It was necessary that I be able to swim almost a mile in open water. When I jumped into the pool in February of 2004 I found that I could only swim one length before I was out of breath. This was true despite the fact that I had been doing a lot of bike riding and Stairmaster training in the prior year. For example, I put 5,000 miles on my bike in the preceding 12 months.
Somebody suggested that I contact Total Immersion where I gained the epiphany by observing the velocity equation.
Velocity = (Stroke Length) x (Stroke Rate)
Instinctively, I was focusing on stroke rate, but Total Immersion convinced me that the way to optimize the above equation was to focus on stroke length. When you optimize stroke length, you minimize effort.
So I did the Triathlon last October and was second in my age group after the swim and only 37 seconds behind the first guy with a four minute lead over number three. (There were only 4 in my age group and I ended up third after a horrible run, but as good bike ride.)
Yesterday I sent out an email that illustrated how Inside Digital Media can help those of you with esoteric product news releases better get your message across. I pointed out that a text-only release just doesn?t do the job; no more than a text only description of swimming is of much help.
Today?s video of Total Immersion freestyle makes the point. A picture is worth a thousand words. Let Inside Digital Media similarly help you do a better job of getting your message out with PowerPoint interviews embedded in your press releases.
March 15, 2005, 09:49 PM Last week Microsoft introduced an update to its RealTime collaboration software and service. Today?s show is a panel discussion moderated by Elliot Gold of Telespan that examines the implications of Microsoft?s announcement.
According to Elliot, the announcement encompasses three items.
First, is LiveMeeting 2005 which used to be known as the PlaceWare Conferencing. Second, is Communicator 2005 which used to be Microsoft Messenger which is their ?presence client.? Third, is the Live Communications Server 2005 which is an update to LCS 2003 and ties the LiveMeeting and Communicator together.
Elliot believes that Microsoft?s intent is to deliver on integrated communications by building presence awareness into all of its software applications, integrating various modes of communication (e-mail, phone, IM, SMS, videoconferencing and Web conferencing) to allow seamless transition from one mode to anoth
March 14, 2005, 07:56 PM Since Apple?s iPod has dominated the headlines in the popular press about the state-of-the-industry in digital music, it?s easy to overlook the competition. Today?s guest provides an opportunity to learn more about what?s going on outside of Apple. Eliot Van Buskirk writes a regular column for MP3.Com entitled MP3 Insider.
Yeah, Eliot owns an iPod, but he also owns several other portable digital music players. He shares with us what he likes about the others and what he likes about the iPod. For example, although I myself have waxed enthusiastically about the Shuffle, Eliot makes it clear that there are really quite a number of alternative Flash-memory-based players that he feels are just as good, if not better. But he also explains why the Shuffle is getting such a large part of the consumer?s mindshare.
March 10, 2005, 06:59 PM Many of the trends we are seeing in Digital Media are merely reflections of a principle first articulated by David Isenberg in an article he wrote for ?Computer Telephony? magazine back in 1997 entitled, The Rise of the Stupid Network. Basically, Isenberg predicted that the intelligence within the century-old telephone network would migrate to the edge. Instead having our calls routed, and services provided by, expensive electronic switches embedded within the telephone network, routing would be provided by IP packet addressing and the desired services would be programmed into the individual PCs at the edge of the network.
Once the intelligence of the network resides at the edge, the applications follow. Consider the following points.
eBay permits retailing to move to the edge of the network. Basically it enables everyone with a closet of merchandise that they want to sell to become a retailer.
Google permits advertising to migrate to the edge by targeting banner ads at participating websites based upon key-word identification. Almost every blogger can generate ad revenues, however small, by participating in the Google program.
Bloggers are essentially taking text journalism to the edge of the network. Anyone can become a journalist.
Podcasting is moving audio content creation to the edge of the network. The concept is only about half a year old and already there are perhaps 8,000 podcast creators.
When commercial protection is embedded in everyone?s PC then transactional security has migrated to the edge. Security at the edge makes the job of hacking vastly more difficult. For example, when our credit card data is on file a central servers at places like Amazon.com the Amazon servers might become rewarding targets for identity thieves. But when everybody has unique security codes in their own PCs, then it becomes impractical for hackers to try to get into everyone?s computer in order to steal the identities.
March 9, 2005, 08:39 PM Later this month the Supreme Court will hold a hearing to review the Grokster case. The plaintiffs contend that the P2P network is guilty of contributory copyright infringement. This is generally the view of the record label, music publishing, and motion picture industries.
However, two lower courts have ruled that Grokster is not responsible for the copyright infringement that occurs on the network by the individual members, no more than Xerox is guilty of the infringement that might occur on the copy machines in your office. The lower courts have relied upon the Supreme Court?s own ruling in the 1984 Sony Betamax case. In that instance the Court reasoned that the VCR was a legal product because it had substantial non-infringing uses even though individual consumers might use such units for illegal duplication of copyrighted materials. Basically, the 1984 Court ruled that recourse is against the individual infringers, and not the maker of the VCR.
Now the plaintiffs want to apply various different kinds of tests to any new technology that might be used for copying or distribution. One example would be the preponderance of use. For example, if the vast majority of use turns out to be for copyright infringement, then the technology provider would be guilty of contributory infringement. While this sounds good, one really does not know what the ultimate characteristic use of a technology will be based upon its initial use. For example, the original intent of Edison?s record machine was for dictation and playback, even though it ultimately was used mostly for recorded music.
Today?s guest prepared a brief in this case that was filed with the Court earlier this month on behalf of Intel. His name is Jim Burger, and in our interview the views he expresses are his own and not necessarily those of his firm or clients.
March 8, 2005, 06:02 PM When office workers gather together in a conference room to discuss a particular topic, typically they do so because they want to share specific information and to hear the responses of one another to that information. Admittedly, it is an added bonus that they can also see each other. But the two most important aspects of the meeting are the examination of shared information and the verbal responses of each participant to the data.
A couple of decades ago it was thought that such meetings could be held remotely via Video Conferencing. But Video Conferencing is mostly about seeing and hearing one another. It is not about seeing the information that each participant has in front of them in the form of a ?handout? or other document(s).
In the lexicon of Glance Networks, Video Conferencing is all about ?see me? whereas when I participate in a tele-meeting I am more interested in having you ?see what I see?. That is what Web Conferencing is all about and it explains why Web Conferencing is growing so much faster than Video Conferencing.
Glance Networks provides a special type of Web Conferencing that is truly simple and inexpensive. It is available for as little as $50 a month and permits up to 15 participants in each meeting. Aside from price, Glance is set apart by its more limited functionality which makes it easier to use. While it does not provide the full two-way sharing of WebEx, the Glance presenter is able to display his computer screen on those of meeting participants quite easily. All the participants have to do is ?go to? a website, click on it, and enter an optional password. Then they just sit back and watch the show.
Glance is Java-based which they believe means that its performance is not adversely impacted by the security updates included in Microsoft?s Service Pack 2. The company compares the appeal of its more limited Web Conferencing service to that of the Apple iPod Shuffle. While the iPod Shuffle contains no display screen and has less capacity than the other versions of iPod it still appeals to a sizeable market that wants low price and simplicity of operation.
March 7, 2005, 09:01 AM Ultimately we belive that podcasting is going to be profoundly significant.
First, just about anyone can create audio programs at their computers focused on any given topic. However, until the advent of podcasting there was no way that audience members could automatically have the programs downloaded to their computers and/or transferred to portable device players like the iPod. Prior to podcasting it was necessary for audience members to go to the website and either listen to the streamed files at their PCs or manually download them.
Second, while Audible.com really introduced the concept almost ten years ago, they have focused primarily on spoken word content from major publishers like Random House and The Wall Street Journal. In contrast, podcasting as it has emerged during the past nine months or so, is mostly a phenomenon of grass roots content creation in narrow niches by ordinary people like you and me. There are thousands of podcast programs in virtually every conceivable field of interest.
Third, websites such as those represented by today?s guest company, podcastalley.com, are registries that provide consumers with guides to the podcast providers. Users are able to rank the various content providers much like sellers and buyers are rated on eBay or Amazon.com.
Fourth, podcasting is going to be a serious challenge to the conventional broadcast radio industry. Increasingly, iPod owners are playing their iPods in the car through the automobile stereo system. Adapters at the Apple stores, and elsewhere, make this possible. Not only are the owners going listen to pre-recorded music from the iPods in their cars, but they are also going to discover podcast programs of special interest that they want to listen to on their commutes and while exercising.
Fifth, ultimately podcasting will be a serious challenge for television. There is no reason why a podcasted program has to be limited to audio. It can be video as well. The video files can be played that the PC instead of the iPod. Ultimately, Apple may introduce an iPod that holds video files that will enable the iPod to become a ?portable TiVo?. You could take such a device to anybody?s TV and with RCA jacks plug it in and play whatever video is on the iPod through the TV.
March 3, 2005, 08:39 PM Today?s guest, Byron Acohido, has been a business reporter for USA Today in the Seattle area for the past four years or so. As a result he has spent a lot of time watching Microsoft and computer developments in general from the Seattle perspective.
Byron believes that one of the strongest trends emerging in the field of electronic media is the migration of content creation to the edge of the network. The blogshpere is only one example. A more recent one is the rise of podcasting.
The influence of blogs is seemingly growing every day. One example is the recent resignation of a leading CNN executive owing to his controversial assertion that the U.S. military may have targeted certain reporters in Iraq. Now that podcasting introduces a sort-of audio blog, Byron feels that podcast creators may ultimately have similar impact.
Byron believes that the major computer and software companies would be well advised to accommodate the underlying trend toward content creation at the edge of the network. Should they fail to do so, the incumbent companies will create opportunities for potential competitors to meet the needs of the grass roots content originators.
March 2, 2005, 01:20 PM Today?s interview with a Parks & Associates analyst addresses The Shifting Boundaries of Media. The Slide Show presentation takes a careful look at the question of whether the PC migrates to the living room, or the TV evolves into a mutant form of Internet connected computer. It also reports some survey results involving six categories of consumer-based Digital Media applications.
One of the most consistent points learned from the survey is that consumers are increasingly willing to pay for content. This was especially true for the approximate 10 million online gaming households. But Parks also discovered that digital music users are more than three-times as likely to pay for tracks as non-digital music households. The propensity is even more obvious among users of digital video. The typical user of digital video is four-times more likely to pay for video content than the non-digital video household.
Another important discovery was the powerful interest in sharing stored content around the home. For example, over half of DVR (e.g.TiVo) owners would like to play the recordings on the unit in other rooms of the house.
The most widespread application of Digital Media among consumers is, not surprisingly, digital still photography. But the interesting discovery is that exposure to digital photography apparently increased the consumer?s interest in other aspects of Digital Media. For example, users of digital photography are twice as likely to buy a Media Center PC as people who do not have digital cameras. A Media Center PC is one with a television tuner card included along with other media-centric features such as a remote control unit that looks like one for a television instead of the infrared keyboard customarily used to remotely control a PC.
Finally, Parks discovered that home video is particularly popular with the 18 ? 24 age group even though the software packages for the application are still either hard to use or inadequate.
March 1, 2005, 11:24 PM Proponents of Peer-To-Peer file sharing have long maintained that there are legitimate applications for the network architecture.
A number of companies have been organized to distribute content legally through P2P networks. Perhaps the best known is Shawn Fanning?s new venture named SnoCap.
Another one with a unique twist is Weedshare.com. In the Weed network all tracks are originally uploaded with the understanding that anyone who downloads them can hear them three times for free. Thereafter, the listener must either buy the track or forget about hearing it again. It just won?t play anymore unless she buys it.
Additionally, those who buy tracks may alert friends to the availability of the songs. If the friend also buys the track then the referring consumer collects a commission of 20%.
To date, none of the major labels have struck a deal with Weed. However, they have recently announced an agreement with CD Baby whereby artists at CD Baby can have their content placed up for sale on the Weed Share network.
At present, we would characterize Weed Share as a mutant form of the original MP3.Com. In order to become truly successful they are likely going to have to get the major labels on board.
Subject: Today?s guest on Inside Digital Media is John Beezer who is the founder of Weed Shared Media Licensing.
February 28, 2005, 05:42 PM Today?s guest on Inside Digital Media is George Gilder who is the author of a number of books focused on the future of computer and electronics technologies. Among them are Life After Television (1990), Microcosm (1989) and Telecomsm (2000). He will soon be releasing a new book entitled The Silicon Eye.
Gilder has three basic talents.
First, he can explain complex technologies in a way that is accessible to ordinary readers. You don?t have to be an engineer to understand what he is saying. It does help, however, to be open to implied possibilities as opposed to being centered on potential obstacles. There is a spirit of manifest destiny to Gilder?s visions of the future.
Second, Gilder develops unifying themes to explain the apparent disparate effects of technological advances. Once convinced of the validity of such a principle he extrapolates the ramifications to the limit. This sometimes leads to controversial conclusions capable of leaving the conservative reader as surprised and dismayed as if he had been slapped in the face with a wet cat.
Third, George is very often correct in his analysis and years ahead of his time. However, like those of Troy?s Cassandra, despite their accuracy too often his predictions are sometimes not taken seriously by those with power and influence. For example, eight years ago he warned that the rise of IP telephony would lead to the ?hollowing out? of value in the century-old circuit switched telephone network.
February 24, 2005, 10:48 PM In 1997 David Isenberg wrote an article for Computer Telephony magazine entitled ?The Rise of the Stupid Network?. The article?s basic theme was that the ever-declining cost of the PC would mean that the intelligence of networks would ultimately move to the edge. The immediate implication was that the advent of IP telephony would obsolete the century-old circuit switched telephony model. That?s now obvious to everyone who has not been living in Antarctica for the past 10 years.
Today, however, the fascinating point is that once the technology migrated to the edge, so also has the commerce. Consider the following points:
eBay permits retailing to move to the edge of the network. Basically it enables everyone with a closet of merchandise that they want to sell to become a retailer.
Google permits advertising to migrate to the edge by targeting banner ads at participating websites based upon key-word identification. Almost every blogger can generate ad revenues, however small, by participating in the Google program.
Finally, the new phenomenon of podcasting is moving audio content creation to the edge of the network. The concept is only about half a year old and already there are perhaps 8,000 podcast creators.
In short, the movement of content creation, advertising, and commerce to the edge of the network is going to have a profound impact on nearly every business.
While today?s interview is not going to provide all the answers, it is going to identify some of the important questions. The challenge for all of us is to find the answers. But before we can do so, we at least need to know the questions.
February 22, 2005, 01:00 PM Apple Computer has about one hundred times the market value of TiVo and its revenues are also about one hundred times as large. Thus, in a stock-for-stock acquisition Apple would only need to increase its shares outstanding by one percent. It would still gain a proportional amount of incremental revenue. Given that the valuation arithmetic looks palatable, the more interesting point is whether Apple can gain much strategically by owning TiVo.
Although Apple has crossed the analog-to-digital faultline with the iPod it has made little progress in getting into the entertainment living rooms of our homes. Sure, the iPod gets there by occasionally being plugged into the stereo, but Apple?s media-centric computers are still largely used in the den or home office. That?s really too bad because they have the capabilities to make our TVs dance with exciting Digital Media applications like home movies, digital still photography, and digital music.
Experienced Mac users swear that their computers are much better at such applications than the Wintel PC. If the TiVo became an Apple appliance, then all of Apple?s popular media programs could be made to work in the living room via a network connection to the Mac. The company has repeatedly claimed that part of its success in Digital Media is the control of both the hardware and software platforms. If so, then perhaps the acquisition of TiVo is a sensible way for Apple to get into the living room.
Please feel welcome to share your thoughts with me via email.
February 16, 2005, 01:20 PM Today?s Wall Street Journal carriers a front page article describing how the telephone industry is scrambling ? scrambling - to offer television service over their conventional landline networks. The reporter points out that SBC?s ?quixotic? quest to break into television is a sign of rapid changes that are impacting the entire industry. Most notably consumers are dumping landlines for wireless phones and cable operators are invading the historical turf by offering VoIP. The story reads as if this has all been a surprise to nearly everyone.
HELLO!
In truth, there should be nothing ?quixotic? about it. But the reporter is not to be blamed. He is merely responding to the apparent dismay of the telco executives.
In point of fact, two well known authors predicted these trends years ago.
For example, in his 1995 Being Digital Nicholas Negroponte predicted the ?Negroponte Switch? which stated that the conventional voice conversation would shift to wireless networks while landline facilities would be used for broadband applications. In the earlier years broadband TV was wireless (think broadcast stations) and we all talked on landline telephones.
Similarly, five years ago George Gilder in Telecosm forecast the ?hollowing out? of value in circuited switched telephony networks by the rise of IP Telephony.
Were the heads of the major telcos not listening to these guys or what? I mean, it?s not as if Gilder and Negroponte lack notoriety.
February 15, 2005, 11:02 PM As another indication of just how popular Apple products have become, WIRED magazine recently published an article about the behavior of Hollywood star patrons in Los Angeles are Apple retail stores.
Reportedly, Melanie Griffith through a temper-tantrum because the store was out-of-stock for the color of iPod Mini that she wanted to buy.
Others, like John Stewart are well behaved. He just ?finds what he wants, smiles and leaves.?
February 10, 2005, 07:13 PM For months I have assumed that some of the popular Peer-To-Peer programs were so heavily laden with adware and various other forms of unwelcome ?malware? that users would eventually turn away from using the networks, even if they could (illegally) get popular copyrighted songs and movies over the networks.
Now it appears that even some of the people closest to KaZaa also find the adware to be objectionable. Employees at peer-to-peer provider Sharman Networks "hate" installing the company's own Kazaa software because it has ill effects on their computers, according to an internal document written by Sharman's chief technology officer.
The document, entitled "Kazaa Technology 2004" and written by Phil Morle, says that Sharman needs to be careful about installing too much adware on a computer upon the installation of Kazaa. The document is part of a bundle for which a request for confidentiality was rejected this week by Justice Murray Wilcox, the judge overseeing a copyright trial against Sharman in Australia.
The adware "slows down users' machines and can affect other activity such as browsing the Internet," Morle wrote. "We are also adding increasing p2p networks to the users' machines. These are good value to users but they use more resources and create confusion for user February 4, 2005, 06:53 PM Perhaps its time for Apple to consider licensing its operating system to major PC manufactures. Two particularly good candidates might be Sony and Hewlett-Packard. Consider the following points:
First, Apple has a rare opportunity for a second chance at greatness. Many critics have said that Apple let Windows become the defacto standard in the computer industry because the Cupertino company would not license its superior icon-based operating system during the 1980s. For most of us the past is irretrievable, but Apple can now redeem itself as applications within the computer industry evolve in the direction of Apple?s strengths.
Essentially, the PC may well have approached the end of its lifecycle as we know it. Today?s trends are toward media-centric applications as opposed to office work. When such discontinuities in the evolutionary process appear an opportunity is provided for a new species can emerge transcendent.
Second, the computer appears to be mutating into an entertainment-and- communications-centric device. Basically, the Wintel platform came into its own as an office appliance. Applications such as word processing, spreadsheets, and slide-show presentations were really the work horse practices. Email came along later. In contrast, Apple has traditionally been the preferred platform for professionals involved in media work. Now that media applications are spreading to the general public, the accumulated experience that Apple has acquired in the sector puts them in a favorable position.
As for communications both systems perform satisfactorily for prosaic uses like email. However, Apple appears to have the edge right now in video-and-voice Instant Messaging which is essentially video conferencing for the consumer market and that?s where the trends are leading us.
Third, Sony and Hewlett-Packard are both companies in search of new strategies for their computers and entertainment electronics businesses. Even after the controversial merger-for-scale with Compaq, H-P is finding it difficult to compete with Dell owing to the latter?s superior distribution model. They?re going to have to go after Dell from another angle. Entertainment and communications centric computers are a new concept to the mass of consumers. Customers could benefit from in-store sales assistance which Dell cannot provide since the Texas company sells over the phone or the Internet whereas H-P sells at walk-in retail outlets. H-P seems to recognize Apple?s superiority as evidenced by their decision to resell the iPod as opposed to inventing their own version of a portable music player.
Sony is also struggling to adapt their consumer electronics business to the emerging digital paradigm. They have already lost the leadership that Walkman gave them in the portable music player market to Apple?s iPod. Yet Sony is also big seller of video camcorders and digital still cameras. Their products in those sectors could benefit substantially if the computer industry could start selling larger volumes of units that are media-friendly and easy for the consumer to use in such applications. If the Apple operating system does so better than Windows, why not license the Apple OS?
There is no need for Sony and H-P to abandon the PC market. If Apple is agreeable, the two PC makers could offer Apple clones as a second line. For example, if you buy a Sony PC its purple, but if it?s a Sony Mac, then it?s white.
Fourth, licensing of the OS to PC makers will strengthen Apple?s distribution among prominent terrestrial retailers. For example, both Sony and H-P have solid relationships with retailers like Best Buy.
Fifth, licensing of its OS to prominent companies like H-P and Sony does not have to devalue the status of the Apple-branded Mac. No doubt, there are patented components in a Mercedes that could be licensed to other auto makers who would still not be able to match the quality reputation of the Mercedes. The styling and workmanship of an Apple-branded Mac could always be superior, just as a Mercedes is consistently of higher quality than a Chevy even though they both use the internal combustion engine as a generic standard power source.
Sixth, many PC users are highly annoyed with the proliferation of malware through the Internet on the Windows platform. Their dissatisfaction provides Apple with perhaps the best opportunity in 15 years to gain market share. If H-P and Sony are also ?out there? selling OS-X machines, then the Apple OS can more rapidly gain market share and thereby weaken the hold that Microsoft has come to enjoy on the entire industry. This could have favorable implications for Apple far beyond the computer market. Consumer electronics, media, and mobile telephone companies would all probably welcome a strong alternative to Microsoft.
January 26, 2005, 08:18 PM After getting a chance to use the new iPod Shuffle, I?ve come to the opinion that it is likely to be a runaway success despite the fact that I earlier had reservations about its prospects owing to the fact that it does not have a display screen. To be sure, I still believe that the absence of a display read-out is an annoyance. However, a number of factors more than compensate for the lack of a screen.
First, and foremost, the iPod Shuffle takes music portability to an entirely new level. The device itself is only a little larger than a pack of chewing gum. It weighs less than two ounces. I found that the most convenient way to carry the Shuffle is with the lanyard which essentially converts my music player into a hip-looking necklace that often becomes a conversation piece in public.
When wearing the lanyard, the player rests conveniently on my chest where I can plug in headphones for private listening. Alternately when I get into my car, I can unplug the headphones and insert a cassette adapter in the same jack and thereby play music through the car stereo system.
Second, the Shuffle is especially well suited for music listening while exercising. There are several reasons for this. Most importantly, the memory is solid-state Flash and is highly unlikely to be damaged no matter how many times you drop the unit. My personal exercise experience has led to the demise to two iPod Minis. Apparently, the hard drives in those devices simply could not withstand a runner?s constant jarring.
Additionally, the small size and light weight of the Shuffle means that the unit is amenable to virtually any kind of exercise save swimming. I also like to use the lanyard for exercising on stairmasters, elliptical striding machine, or stationary bikes. Since the lanyard rests the device on my chest it is much more accessible than the arm band mount of the iPod Mini. That makes it easier to change and repeat tracks during strenuous exercise.
When riding a bike on a trail where cars are not permitted, the Shuffle and lanyard are nearly optimal. There is such a trail in my hometown that extends for 42 miles. It is stunning to think that my chewing gum sized Shuffle has far more capacity than needed for me to travel the entire length of that trail, up-and-back, and not hear the same song twice. Importantly, the battery life will also easily accommodate such a ride. Perhaps Apple should get Lance Armstrong to use a Shuffle on his training rides. They could load it up with Sheryl Crow music. There could be a good TV commercial here.
Third, the iPod Shuffle is priced aggressively. Competitive flash devices with comparable memory run about $30 or more in price. The half-gig Shuffle costs $100 and the full-gig unit is $150.
Fourth, the absence of a display screen is not as likely to be a problem as I had first anticipated. One reason is that it appears that a lot of people don?t mind if the Shuffle plays their song selections in random order. When I ask other iPod owners for their thoughts on random playback, I discovered that many of them use the feature often with their existing iPods.
However, that is not my style. My taste runs into classical as well as rock. Hearing Bruce Springsteen, then the 4th movement of Tchaikovsky 1st Piano Concerto, followed by Billy Joel with the second part of Le Sacre du Printemps coming up next, sounds about as confusing as it looks as written.
Fortunately, the iPod Shuffle offers a solution to people like me who do not merely want random play or for the Shuffle to merely fill itself up with the most frequently played tracks that are stored in my iTunes library. For us, we are permitted to organize our own playlists and thereby instruct iTunes to fill-up the Shuffle with the playlists we have organized for that purpose. Also there is a switch on the back of the Shuffle that permits it to play the tracks in sequence or in random order. I choose sequence-play and listen to my playlists in order. If I want to skip around within a playlist, I use the advance or reverse button on the front of the unit.
Fifth, personal anecdotal evidence points toward enthusiastic consumer acceptance. For several days, at times when I have been dressed casually or exercising, I have been wearing the Shuffle with the lanyard. It often stimulates inquiry by others who notice it. Nearly every time that I explain the unit and answer questions, people respond enthusiastically. Their reaction has ranged from thoughtful curiosity to pondering whether to buy the Shuffle, Apple stock, or both.
January 12, 2005, 12:49 PM The iPod Shuffle surpassed my expectations in terms of small size, price, and memory capacity. But I don?t like the fact that there is no display screen. I?ve read a number of reviews praising the iPod Shuffle, but the fact that it doesn?t have a display screen keeps bugging me.
For me, the real attraction of flash storage is that it is fundamentally more reliable than a hard drive because solid state memory has no moving parts. Basically, I primarily want an iPod that is mechanically more reliable. The ideal iPod would be as rugged as my cell phone that keeps working almost no matter how many times I drop it or exercise with it. My guess is that the Shuffle provides such reliability, but I don?t want to give up other key aspects of the iPod experience.
The one-gig Shuffle will hold almost 250 songs. That?s a library big enough to require some navigation. It?s also one large enough for me to want to divide-up into playlists. Unfortunately, I can?t navigate or utilize playlists without a display screen.
Malcom Gladwell authored a popular book called The Tipping Point which helps the reader identify when new trends are emerging into the mainstream. More recently he addressed the concept of first impressions in his new book entitled Blink. Basically Gladwell advises that first impressions are often the correct ones. Often incremental information really does nothing to improve our judgments.
Unfortunately, my first impression is that Apple made a mistake by failing to include a display screen on the iPod Shuffle. What?s yours?
Place your vote in the poll above.
January 3, 2005, 03:07 PM Last week a writer for THE NEW YORK TIMES named Rachel Dodes described the corrective action she took against various forms of malware that had infected her computer. In the end, she decided to erase everything on her hard drive. It turns out that her two-year-old I.B.M. Think Pad was running about as fast at the Apple IIe she used in the mid-1980s.
Dodes indicated that she believed that the source of the malware was KaaZaa. She admitted to having used the P2P software to download the Brittney Spears-Madonna collaborative effort called ME AGAINST THE MUSIC. Anyway, Dodes makes it clear that in the future she will stay far away from KaaZaa or any other programs or websites that she suspects will provide such unwanted pests. They are like termites. At first their damage hardly seems noticeable, but by the time you get around to looking into the problem, the harm is massive.
My guess is that the spread of malware was the number one story in computer technology during 2004. The P2P software programs that spread this junk have basically shot themselves in the head.
Based upon the experience that Dodes described, there is really no reason for the RIAA to prosecute small time consumers who are trading copyrighted files over P2P networks. The malicious adware and spyware that those programs spread is in itself enough to drive consumers away from them and toward legitimate online music sources.
December 29, 2004, 01:37 PM Some things never change.
A year after the first airplane flight, a letter from the Wright brothers arrived on the desk of William Howard Taft who was, at the time, Secretary of War for Teddy Roosevelt. The brothers asked if the U.S. Government would be interested in purchasing an airplane. Despite the fact that the letter was forwarded with the endorsement of an Ohio Congressman, Taft sent it to the Bureau of Ordnance and Fortifications (BOF). The BOF responded with a form letter saying that they had no money to spend for the development of a flying machine, but implied that it was okay to contact them again once the brothers had developed a machine that actually flew.
The Wrights sent a second letter to Taft a year later and got a second identical form letter in response from the BOF. This time they wrote back and said that they already had an airplane that could fly and asked what kind of trials the BOF would require in order for the brothers to prove it. The BOF responded by declining to provide any trial parameters that they felt would qualify a machine as a legitimate airplane.
Not until France showed interest in buying an airplane more than four years after the first flight did our government show an interest in the Wright machine. This was only after someone with influence pointed out that it would be a shame for the Wrights to make their first sale to a foreign government.
Taft went on to become President of the United States. No body from the Bureau of Ordnance and Fortification was taken to task.
This story, which I learned from a book I am currently reading, made me think of Jack Valenti. Twenty years ago as head of the MPAA he told the public that the VCR was as dangerous to the Motion Picture industry as the Boston Strangler was to a woman alone. Yet six years after his notorious simile, the sales of pre-recorded video tape exceed box office receipts. Today, prerecorded DVD and video tape sales are twice as large as box office receipts.
December 22, 2004, 01:33 PM The readers of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL seem to have an important message for the record labels and for Apple Computer.
In yesterday?s edition of the newspaper, readers were asked ?What would do the most to boost online music sales??
36% said to place fewer restrictions on the use of music downloads.
21% said to make the technologies simpler to use.
17% said it is most important to increase the size of the repertoire (you still can?t get The Beatles).
In an apparently favorable revelation for Apple, only 15% said it was important to lower the price of portable digital players like the iPod.
Finally, only 10% said that the death or strangulation of the free P2P files sharing networks was the most important factor.
Presumably, readers of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL are people with some of the strongest capitalistic ethos around, yet they seem to imply that attacking the users of P2P networks, even if successful legally, is not going to do much to boost online sales.
December 16, 2004, 01:21 PM RSS (Really Simple Syndication) seems to be one of the buzz terms that is catching a lot of attention lately and I?m still learning about it. I?ll soon be posting an interview with one of the industry?s leading factors.
Essentially, as I understand it, the default setting on blogs and websites these days enables RSS. That means that a type of XML is used to describe the data in the blog or website in a way that makes sense to computers but is unintelligible at the human interface. However, since the computer can make sense of the data it can organize information that co-relate and present the results to PC screen where they do make sense to the human.
Thus, an RSS search engine can return relevant results from many more sources than even Google does at present. As a general rule, I assume that a lot of blogs don?t have really useful information or they may have information that they picked up from conventional sources that Google searches anyway. However, I?d wager $10 against a half used Cuban cigar that the general rule does not always apply and that unique and useful information does sometimes originate with blogs that can be found with RSS but not with Google.
For example, really serious stock market investors may choose to search RSS sources to obtain public information that cannot be commonly found in the conventional search engines. While I have no concrete examples of any investors gaining an edge this way, my guess is that it is only a matter of time. Thus, the opportunities for profit with RSS seem almost limitless?as do the probabilities of fraud. For example, I suppose that it is also only a matter of time before spurious rumors get spread in the same way by those who attempt to manipulate the markets for the stocks in which they have some financial interest.
December 13, 2004, 12:36 PM It is disappointing to learn that the Supreme Court is going to be reviewing the Grokster case. Two lower courts have already ruled that the 1984 Sony Betamax Supreme Court decision already applies. There are substantial non-infringing uses for P2P software. Therefore there is no reason to outlaw P2P per se.
By the narrowest of 5-to-4 margins the Supreme Court ruled in 1984 that the VCR was not an illegitimate product per se. Even though it could be used by some to infringe on copyrights, it had substantial non-infringing uses. The Motion Picture industry fought the VCR tooth-and-nail. Yet within five years of the 1984 decision, the Hollywood studios were generating more revenues from pre-recorded video tape sales than from box office receipts. Today, pre-recorded tape and DVR sales generate TWICE the revenues of box office receipts.
Established media companies seem to have a reflex negative reaction to new technologies, yet in nearly every case the fresh technologies actually boot their revenues once they adapt to the new world order. Restrictions of innovation ultimately hurt everyone. December 6, 2004, 03:06 PM Recently the Pew Internet and American Life research project released results of a survey they did with music artists about the impact of P2P file sharing on the livelihood of the artists. Interestingly two-thirds of the artists said that file sharing posed little threat to them and less that one-third said it was a major threat to creative professions generally. While 47% said that P2P file trading prevented them from earning their full royalties, almost as many, 43%, said that the file trading helped promote and distribute their material. In our analysis, after four or five years of vociferous controversy, evidence is mounting that P2P file trading, like nearly all prior technological innovations, has benefited the traditional media companies despite their vigorous opposition to the innovations when they first appear. November 29, 2004, 12:07 PM If you want to look like a winner, it?s generally not a good idea to swim up-stream. The momentum is all in the other direction. However, when the dominance of a trend becomes an accepted fact by nearly everyone, subtle weaknesses are sometimes overlooked.
A case in point may be Apple Computer. A year-and-a-half ago the stock was $12 a share. Cheap. I mean it had almost $10 per share in cash. When they introduced the iTunes music store, we noted that the date may well come to be regarded as the point at which Apple began to mutate into a Digital Media company as opposed to a computer company.
Now the stock?s about $65 a share. One important reason seems to be the strength of the iPod and the implications for the company?s potential to become something of a standard in digital music. The recorded music market in the United States alone is about $13 billion annually. Over time, there is little doubt that it will transition from one in which the content is distributed on physical artifacts like CDs to one in which distribution is over the Internet. So any company grabbing and holding a lead in digital music can look forward to years of rapid growth.
Since the Apple iTunes music stores sells tracks in the AAC format whereas almost all of its competitors sell in the WMA format, the main way that iTunes can stay on top is for the iPod retain its dominance. This is because the iPod will not play the WMA format. If you have an iPod and you want to buy tracks legitimately on the Internet, you are almost forced to use iTunes. The main exceptions are eMusic which has a small catalog in dot-MP3 and the Real music store which has a ?workaround? technology that enables their tracks to play in the iPod.
However, in order for the iPod to become a standard, in our analysis, it needs to be better than the best. It needs to be bullet-proof against the competition. This is because all of the other device manufacturers support WMA which is format with the mighty strengths of Microsoft behind it.
Unfortunately, the iPod may well fail to be bullet proof. First, it is pricey. Even the iPod Mini is $250 whereas a comparable product, the Rio Carbon is $210.
Second, it does not have a replaceable battery and it?s a hassle to get a send it back to the factory for a new one. There have also been complaints about a short battery life.
Third, in our experience we have doubts that the hard-drive can prove to be reliable enough. As the iPod moves into the mainstream market, consumers are going to expect that the device be as rugged as a cell phone. That means if they repeatedly drop it, they will still expect it to work. The best way to insure that is to eliminate moving parts. And the most obvious step is to replace the hard drive with flash memory. Admittedly, flash memory is more expensive now, but it is coming down in price, and if I can buy a flash device with 4 Gigs of memory, I?d have to give long and serious consideration to putting the iPod mini in my desktop drawer where it will gradually migrate to the back.
Finally, iTunes has not yet embraced the concept of a monthly subscription service. Ultimately I think they will find this to be a problem since subscription services enable the consumer to listen to far more music economically than does a download-only store. Subscription services, like the Rhapsody that I use, are much more conducive to the discovery of new music. For $10 per month I can listen to anything in the Rhapsody repertoire which is now up to about one million tracks. Once portable devices with Janus technology (from Microsoft) become available, I will be able to take the tracks with me wherever I go.
November 18, 2004, 05:03 PM Recently I read a biography of Guglielmo Marconi who is generally credited with being the inventor of wireless communications. For example, it was the Marconi wireless apparatus aboard the Titanic that enabled the ship to send an SOS and thereby saved the lives of over 700 people. Without the Marconi cabin, the ship may well have foundered without a trace. A couple of points in the bio seemed particularly applicable to Digital Media today. First, when Marconi first attempted wireless telegraphy across the Atlantic, he promptly received a letter from the dominant provider of cable telegraphy threatening to sue him for encroachment on the cable company?s exclusive franchise. Unfortunately he did not fight but merely waited for the exclusivity to expire. The delay may well have retarded the pace of technical progress in wireless communications. Second, during the First World War the U.S. government decided that wireless communications technology in our country was too valuable to be left largely in the hands of a company controlled by a foreigner. Marconi had to sell everything in the States to a newly formed holding company called Radio Corporation of America (RCA). It is really amazing to discover the kinds of business deals that the government will sanction in the name of ?national security.? Is ?national security? merely a code term warning the innovators to hold onto their wallets lest all of their assets become controlled by businesses with powerful connections to the government? Consider the bill termed the Inducing of Infringements Copyright Act currently before the Senate. November 15, 2004, 07:04 PM Recently we viewed a documentary about the Cold War on television. It was surprising to learn that the Soviets had actually considered building a ?doomsday? bomb like the one in the fictional story DR. STRANGELOVE. The real Soviet plans would have called for a bomb so big that it would have to be carried on a ship that would remain constantly at sea where it would regularly monitor radiation levels in the Soviet Union. If the levels got too high and widespread, the assumption would be that the US launched an attack and the Soviet ?doomsday? bomb would then self-ignite. It would be the end of the World. The documentary left me pondering how fiction sometimes really reflects a reality that the public is unaware of. Perhaps a more recent example is underscored by a novel I just completed named GIDEON by Russell Andrews (a pen name). In this story a power intoxicated media mogul, who is a dead ringer for Rupert Murdock, is pulling strings behind the scenes to gain a Satellite TV monopoly in China. But he pulls some pretty wicked levers that have impact all the way up to the oval office the President?s policy blocks him. This leads him to strike an unholy alliance with someone who bears a resemblance for the former first lady. The story is a wake-up call about the dangers of increasing media concentration and blind political ambition. It made me appreciate the potential of the Internet as a new media to broaden the contribution of content to the public without the influence of major media holding companies. By corollary it also appears to underscore the value of P2P architecture for media distribution as a concept since P2P enables the mass of humanity economically distribute Digital Media widely across the globe with a minimum of censorship. November 10, 2004, 07:30 PM I recently read OPTICAL ILLUSIONS by Lisa Endlich. It is the story of Lucent from its IPO to the end of its boom period at the turn of the century. It is fascinating reading. Two points stuck me as particularly interesting. First, it doesn?t seem that a company historically rooted in a regulated monopoly can compete in new markets without some extraordinary advantages. Sadly for Lucent, they thought they could gain such advantages by loaning their new customers the money that was needed to buy Lucent equipment. The end result was predictable to anyone with common sense and objectivity. Second, when management is caught up in the addiction of an ever-higher-earnings-necessary Bull Stock Market, then common sense is not so common. People fall into the trap of believing what they want to believe. Everyone becomes a victim of ?group think.? Thus, in a sense they are victims of themselves. November 5, 2004, 06:31 PM When addressing the frustrations of combating copyright infringement on the P2P networks, Jim Griffin of Cherry Lane Digital popularized the concept that he termed wack-a-mole. Basically his point is that attacking the infringers directly is much like trying to slam a shovel on the moles that may be infesting your yard. When you close off on hole they just come out of another. Recent research from Bay TSP seems to validate the wack-a-mole theory. Bay indicates that the popularity of KaZaa was surpassed last month by a newer P2P network called eDonkey. Reportedly, eDonkey is particularly well suited for sharing video files and is also understood to be less aggressive in placing adware on the user?s PC. It would be really great if there was some truly authoritative data about what is going on in the P2P communities. Pew says file sharing is down, and Big Champagne says it?s up. What?s the real picture? Anybody know of good sources? October 12, 2004, 06:45 PM While there are conflicting reports as to whether or not P2P infringement traffic is up in the United States since the RIAA starting filing lawsuits against individuals, I believe there is a good chance that the activity is declining. While the lawsuits may well be having some affect, my bet is that the bigger deterrent is the unhappy experience that many P2P users are getting on the networks. Specifically, I refer to the adware, pop-ups, and spyware that the installation of many of the P2P software clients put on the user?s computer. Recently I spent $500 to get a nasty email virus removed from my PC. The technician told me that 80% of his work is visiting consumers whose children have picked up an abundance of spyware, adware and other assorted junk from programs like the popular P2P clients. Once the parents start spending real money to have the offending programs removed, they strongly discourage the children from using programs that cause the problem. I guess the experience underscores the point that every success contains within it the seeds of its own destruction. Perhaps it is not an overstatement to say that the two most important unexpected developments of the Internet over the past five years were (1) the Napster phenomenon and (2) the current prevalence of obnoxious, adware, spyware, viruses, and pop-ups. October 7, 2004, 05:37 PM Only a few days ago I was reading that the stock price of Google is up about 40% - 50% from its IPO issue price which I think was sometime in August. The gain is remarkable on its own, but I am particularly impressed given the abundance of criticism leveled at the company for using a Dutch Auction pricing mechanism instead of letting the investment bankers price it in the conventional way. Of course, a conventional IPO is much more profitable for the investment bankers, but is it fair to assume that the point influenced their criticism? Well, certainly the gatekeepers of Troy wouldn?t think so, but as for you and me?? Anyway, I wonder if the Google experience represents a trend for the future and what it might imply for small Digital Media companies looking toward a public stock offering. You are welcome to email me with your thoughts. What do you think? October 6, 2004, 03:25 PM Recently Steve Balmer of Microsoft is reported to have commented that most of the music tracks on iPods are stolen because the iPod supports dot-mp3 files. Well, I don?t know about the rest of you, but most of tracks on my iPod are ripped from my existing CD collection. When I ripped them I chose to put them in the dot-mp3 format so that they would play not only in my iPod, but also in virtually any other portable player I may buy in the future as well as in most any software player that I may use on my PC, including the Windows Media player. October 5, 2004, 01:32 PM Fly business class on Air France between now and Jan. 15 and get a free iPod mini. After completing travel to one of Air France's major destinations, passengers can mail their name, address and a copy of their ticket stub and boarding passes to Air France, and one of Apple Computer's personal music players will arrive six to eight weeks later. Tickets must be booked by Nov. 15.
September 30, 2004, 02:09 PM In a recent poll here at Inside Digital Media 57% of respondents said that they would consider buying Apple computers as a way of escaping the adware, spyware, and viruses so commonly affecting the Windows operating system. Moreover, influential industry observers like Walt Mossberg of The Wall Street Journal seem to be recommending the switch for those consumers who are not too dependent upon software that will work only on Windows PCs. As Mossberg points out, the market share for Apple could triple and still represent quite a small minority of the computer market which is unlikely to attract the attention of malicious spyware, adware, and virus creators relative to Windows. In the past, Apple has been criticized for failing to license its operating system software thereby giving Microsoft the opportunity to become the dominant force it is today. Now that Apple could see a surge in demand for computers using its operating system, is it time for their management to revisit the concept of licensing he OS and becoming more of a software company while letting newly created Mac clone manufactures stimulate demand relative to the Windows PC market? September 21, 2004, 04:10 PM (Today?s thought to ponder is provided by Evan Moore, who is a member of the audience. He basically defends the Apple store as against the new MSN Music store. He also predicts that Napster will be raising their monthly subscription fees.) I just wanted to share some comments about the interview with the Senior Director of MSN Entertainment. MS users need a web browser to use the music store and windows media player to play the files. That's why they released both products at the same time. Rob Bennett is simply spinning his answers. All you need on the apple platform is iTunes.
Although the wmp 10 is in beta form, the player doesn't work on windows 2000 machines, whereas iTunes works on both xp and 2000. I don't use IE on my windows box at work, because of the holes that plague the browser. I use firefox as my browser of choice, which also features all the greatest options that leading browsers today offer.
About nine minutes into the interview Bennett said, "We?re trying to enable broad choice." If so, then why don't they enable broad web browser choice? By Microsoft only allowing internet explorer to access its music store is the equivalent to Apple only allowing its music to be played on an apple iPod.
Here's an interesting note about Napster subscription services. The subscription price is going up to $15 a month from $10 in the fall (see "Napster to go" details) and most people don't spend that kind of cash a month on music THEN additional dollars to OWN that music to play in their car, device, etc. That's why Apple has not jumped on the subscription service band-wagon. People like Microsoft will only spin their product as pros and leave the cons for you to discover yourself.
September 17, 2004, 03:01 PM I don?t know about the rest of you, but I?m getting pretty fed-up with the adware and spyware that is on my PC. Unfortunately, AdAware and Spybot don?t get rid of it. Moreover, when I send Spybot on a search & destroy mission, it disables my Rhapsody music service. I love Rhapsody and sure don?t want to disable it, but that?s what Spybot did. So I had to email Rhapsody for an answer and since it was a Friday night I heard nothing back until the next Tuesday. The solution was to uninstall Rhapsody and re-install it. Now Rhapsody works, but I am unable to run Spybot, so I still get an extremely annoying amount of unwanted pop-ups. Does it make sense for me to buy an Apple computer? Will I be able to run all the programs that I want to run, like WebEx, if I have an Apple? Unfortunately, I am afraid my problem is a dilemma. Anyone have a good solution? September 13, 2004, 02:27 PM Andy Grove once complained to George Gilder, ?George, you never met a technology that you didn?t like.? Grove?s complaint was one of many that I?ve heard from Gilder detractors over the years. Sometimes he has been characterized as a technology-loving snake oil salesman. Vintage Gilder is that the little smart guys holding the keys to a newer technology will ultimately win out over the established behemoths. For years, I have heard most stock analysts who report on the mighty industry giants that Gilder always misses the devil in the details. Yet, for my money, Gilder is often enough correct. One of his problems is that he foresees the sweeping changes so far ahead that the established analysts can deny the validity of his forecasts for years while they are seemingly obsessed with the more trivial changes in next quarter. For example, over eight years ago in a WIRED magazine article, Gilder stated flatly that if Internet telephony becomes popular, then the Internet service providers will HOLLOW OUT the regional phone companies. Well, as the newspaper headlines have been telling us repeatedly this year, its happening right now. The only difference is that the moniker has changed from Internet Telephony to VoIP. September 10, 2004, 02:46 PM Today?s Blog is from Mark Wilhelms of Drumbeat Digital in Chicago. I think the next ipod killer award will go to the one digital music/player company that effectively integrates its technology with a cell phone carrier. I know there are cell phones with MP3 players but those are novelty items right now. Verizon, Cingular, Sprint are the new record/entertainment companies of the future. Think about it, who wants to carry around all these digital music devices anyway?
One device, one service, your choice of hardware and NO credit cards! All monthly charges are charged directly to your phone bill. Heck, this monthly billing model is already in place, that why its easy to execute on. Plus the cell phone carriers have all have the one thing everybody wants - the customers! 160 million in the US alone. What does that mean? - Kids don?t need Credit Cards and can now BUY music and parents will PAY. I would look at Virgin to be the first. It?s a natural. Rob Glaser has been planning a wireless effort for over a year. Jobs is making deals, you can count on it. September 9, 2004, 07:28 PM Today?s blog is about VoIP reliability. Inside Digital Media is located in Tampa, Florida. When Frances got here she was downgraded to a tropical storm, but I still lost RoadRunner Internet service for a day. In contrast, my POTS Verizon service was active the entire time. That means if I had used VoIP, I would have had no telephone service. That?s too bad, because I really would like to take advantage of VoIP, to save money and because of its better versatility. But, until reliability improves, I cannot afford to do it. September 1, 2004, 02:53 PM For today?s blog I am posting an email from Steve Wonsiewicz who is a regular in the audience and had some comments about his frustration with broadcast radio. At first, I didn't entirely buy into your belief that MP3 files compete with radio. I've changed my tune (pun intended) within the past month. After getting so frustrated with the lack of fresh, contemporary, adult-oriented rock/pop/country music on the radio in Nashville, I started converting many of my favorite songs into MP3 files using Real Networks software. I've only converted about 325 songs and burned only four CDs. But thanks to those four CDs, I now have many of my favorite songs at my fingertips. In turn, my time spent listening to radio has plummeted. While I still scan the dial for songs just about every time I commute to work (about 30 minutes in car), very rarely do I hear enough of what I like to stick around. And if I do keep the radio on, it's tuned to the local Sports Talk radio -- the only format these days where the air talent has any passion for their audience. Additionally, it's only the rare occasion when I listen to the radio in my office. Why should I? I have a library of 325 rap, hip hop, R&B, traditional & contemporary county, hard rock, alternative rock, punk rock, rap rock, classic rock, traditional jazz, smooth jazz, reggae, and last but not least, mainstream pop, music on my PC. All I have to do is put the Real Networks software on "shuffle" and my music library beats any format hands down.
August 23, 2004, 03:51 PM The number of people who recognize the value of Web Conferencing is undoubtedly growing month to month. It is a worldwide trend that will eventually impact nearly all providers of telecommunications services and computer software. As a result, there have been a growing number of providers. Major software companies, including Microsoft, appear to be headed toward a goal of integrating the functionality into existing and future mainstream computer applications. Therefore, even though Web Conferencing is a growth market, there is inevitably going to be a shakeout and not all of today?s competitors can survive. If anytime is important to start gaining market share that time is NOW. Smaller vendors with a good product might be well advised to merge with companies that can extend the market reach. Similarly, traditional Video Conferencing companies might be well advised to face-up to the technological obsolescence challenge presented by Web Conferencing, and vigorously promote it to their existing customers before those customers get taken away by Web Conferencing competitor July 22, 2004, 05:38 PM I find myself wondering why iMesh would come to a $4 million settlement for copyright infringement when the court decisions to date seem to imply that P2P software companies are not responsible for the infringing (or for that matter non-infringing) activity of their members. The decision by the Circuit Court in Los Angeles basically concludes that P2P software is no more responsible for the infringing activities of its users than Xerox is for those who photocopy copyrighted materials on Xerox machines. While I don?t have uncontestable evidence, I?ll make a guess. My guess is that iMesh hopes to become the first major P2P network selected by the record labels, or their resellers such a MusicNet or Loudeye, to be permitted to sell protected music files. If true, this could be quite a significant development because P2P technology offers significant economic advantages in the cost of distributing digital media. Time will tell, as iMesh hopes to have its new software up and running by year end. Let us know what you think by placing your vote in the poll above. June 30, 2004, 02:52 PM There are reasons to be seriously concerned about some of the recent legislative action in the U. S. Senate. Last week Senator Hatch of Utah introduced a proposal in the Judiciary Committee. His co-sponsors are a powerful group including both the majority and minority leaders, Frist and Daschle. If enacted the bill would become the Inducing Infringement of Copyrights Act. Basically, our concern is that it may permit copyright holders to sue any organization providing technology that can be used for copyright infringement. While the target of the proposed Act may well be P2P software providers like KaZaa, experts like Congressman Rick Boucher of Virginia are concerned that the language of the bill is too broad. The result could be that companies providing fundamentally good technologies and products could be construed as ?inducing infringement.? Examples might include a Xerox copy machine, an Apple iPod, a CD-burner, or a DVD recorder. These examples are not so far-fetched. Consider that there was a time when the record labels were outraged by the ?rip, mix, burn? advertising slogan at Apple Computer. Presumably their outraged arose from some feelings that CD-burners and computers were ?inducing copyright infringement.? You can help Congressman Rick Boucher address the weaknesses of the Senate bill when it comes to the House by letting him know of concrete examples regarding how the Senate bill could be harmful. Boucher can be contacted at (ninthnet@mail.house.gov). What do you think? Place your vote in the poll above. June 15, 2004, 01:37 PM Do you think the Apple iPod would be successful if you had to listen to its music through a half-dollar sized speaker embedded in the unit? I don?t think so. I believe that the typical iPod user is listening to music through headphones. They provide a totally immersive effect. Similarly, I believe that the Portable Digital Media players that are being introduced onto the market this year are not going to be successful if consumers have to view video on a small screen. Otherwise, they will just use their laptop computers for two reasons. First, they already own them. Second, they have screen sizes bigger than the Portable Digital Media players. Thus, in order to meet with favorable consumer adoption, I believe that the Portable Digital Media players must ultimately have more immersive displays. A good example would be a display that you wear like a pair of eyeglasses. What do you think? Vote your opinion in the poll above. May 21, 2007, 02:55 PM I find myself increasingly wondering whether it makes sense for the record labels to just forget about DRMs and merely sell their tracks in unprotected formats. It may be a heretical idea, but here are some thoughts to chew on. First, InterTrust is now out asking a lot of people to pay royalties for DRMs. This can make even pretty substantial companies nervous about offering protected downloads unless they know that they will be protected from InterTrust by the vendor of the download engine. Second, there appears to be increasing Balkanization of formats most recently underscored by the entrance of Sony?s Connect service into the market. Consumers are going to want interoperability. MusicMatch has publicly stated that the number one complaint they get from legal downloaders is that tracks bought at MusicMatch won?t play on the iPod. Now they won?t play on the Sony portable devices as well. Ditto Napster, etc. Third, if the tracks are priced low enough, maybe the consumer can be trusted to pay for them thereby driving digital piracy to the fringes, especially if the legitimate stores provide a better overall consumer experience. What do you think? Place your votes above. April 20, 2004, 04:18 PM In their last press release Apple says that the annual rate of track sales approximates 130 million. At a dollar per track that translates to $130 million. So, they seem to be the clear leader in the licensed digital music business. But, is the subscription model really as unpopular as Apple suggests. MusicNet-AOL has over 250,000 and at $9 per month that is an annual revenue rate of $27 million. At RealNetworks the RadioPass and Rhapsody subscription base is over 450,000. If the average monthly rate is assumed to be $5.50, then the company is generating revenues of about $30 million from the sector. Additionally, both Roxio and MusicMatch are offering subscription services as well as downloads. Do you think Apple is right in ignoring the subscription market? Place your vote in the poll above. March 29, 2004, 02:00 PM My recent interview with Hewlett-Packard about how they were engaged by Starbucks to equip the Starbucks coffee shops to sell burned CD compilations from a virtual inventory of digital files stored at each shop got me to thinking; WHAT IF you could go to a Blockbuster store and do the same thing for movies. Specifically, what if Blockbuster were to change its business model from physical to virtual inventories? Customers would never find that the titles that they wanted to get on any given visit were out of stock. A high speed LAN would make it easier to do this at a physical store than over the Internet. The idea seems quite appealing but I see two problems. First, today?s DVD burners are slow. While I don?t have one I recall being told that it takes quite a while to burn a whole movie. Of course, in time the speeds will improve. Second, it would be hard to get the studios to sell the entire movie at a price that customers are accustomed to paying for rental. However, perhaps a DRM that destroys the content after several viewings would satisfy the movie distributors. March 26, 2004, 03:38 PM Next week we will be posting our Slide Show interview with Hewlett-Packard about the launch of digital music stores within the Starbucks Coffee Houses. By the end of the year Starbucks and Hewlett-Packard expect to have 200 such stores in operation. Essentially there will be a virtual inventory of 10,000 albums (to start) on H-P servers within the coffee shops. There will be listening stations that will use touch screen navigation. Customers will be able to burn their own CDs right there on the premises of the Starbucks Coffee House. It strikes us that the Starbucks virtual inventory is likely to be bigger than even the largest conventional CD record store. The idea sounds like a good one to me. What do you think? (vote above)
March 16, 2004, 03:23 PM We note with encouragement that Apple has announced that they?re selling 2.5 million tracks of digital music per week. This is more than we had expected. What do you think? Vote your opinion in the poll above.
February 23, 2004, 12:27 PM A New Jersey woman targeted by one of the Recording Industry Association of America's (RIAA) copyright infringement lawsuits has countersued the major record labels under U.S. racketeering laws, claiming they are extorting settlement fees from the alleged copyright infringers they have sued. Michele Scimeca says that by suing alleged file-swappers on charges that could bring damages in the millions of dollars -- and then offering to settle the suits for lesser amounts -- the labels are engaging in extortion similar to tactics used by organized crime. Legal experts have called Scimeca's strategy a novel idea, but somewhat of a long-shot defense against the record companies' copyright infringement claims. Nonetheless, the statutory damages for copyright infringement are quite high, being as much as $150,000 per incident for willful infringement. The point of statutory damages is that the infringed victim does not even need to document that the infringement resulted in any economic damage. He can merely collect the statutory amount awarded by a judge regardless of the real economic damage caused by the incident. Are the statutory damages for copyright infringement fair in the case of P2P music file trading? Place your vote above. February 20, 2004, 12:18 PM The European Commission (EC) has rejected a proposal by Microsoft that would address concerns that it is unfairly bundling the Windows Media Player within its operating system. Microsoft had offered to include competitor player software on a companion CD-ROM, a move that many say is unfair given the low probable usage rates of such CDs. The EU has rejected the proposal and will ask for greater action on Microsoft`s part. Speculation has centered on possibly harsh future EC action, including a requirement that would force Microsoft to separate Windows Media from its operating system. What do you think? Place your vote in the poll above. February 5, 2004, 11:48 AM Recent reports in the press that Microsoft and Apple may be working on ways for transcoding their respective digital music formats got me to hoping that a solution to the Balkanization of formats may be approaching. However, the press reports themselves are ambiguous as to whether anything is really going on. But the Balkanization problem is a serious one and I am wondering if any of you in the audience has a clever solution. Just email me with your ideas. Thanks. January 22, 2004, 01:51 PM The techno-savvy among our friends are increasingly accessing the Internet via their mobile phones. One man keeps his entire contacts database at Yahoo. That way whenever he is traveling he can get access to the phone numbers of people that he has to call. Another guy will get sports score, local traffic, and stock alerts sent to his mobile phone. Both of these gentlemen tell me that it is merely a matter of time before they will want to be getting streamed video over their mobile phones for things like sports events and weather, just to name two. Since Microsoft does not dominate the OS for mobile phones, we wonder whether some other vendor can become the dominant provider of player software for mobile devices. What do you think? Place your votes in the poll above. January 15, 2004, 11:45 AM We are fascinated by the announcement that Hewlett-Packard will start selling the Apple iTunes music store service on H-P and Compaq computers. Equally intriguing is that there will also be an H-P brand of the portable iPod player. It is becoming increasingly evident that the Balkanization of the legitimate online music market is getting to be a serious problem that could adversely impact the growth of the industry. Too often, music purchased at one online store will not play through the player associated with another legitimate online service. The new RealPlayer10 addresses this problem by permitting files purchased from most of the services to play through RealPlayer10, but today even content in the platform agnostic RealPlayer10 cannot be transferred to the popular iPod. It appears to us that Apple is making a serious move to establish iTunes and the iPod as a de facto industry standard and the deal with H-P is a big step in that direction. Imagine if Dell, Gateway, Toshiba, Sony, and IBM were to strike similar deals. Not only would it be a huge win for Apple but it would be a way for the PC manufacturers to gain some leverage with Microsoft that could lead the giant from Redmond to be more sensitive to issues of the PC makers have with the traditional hegemony of Microsoft. Whatever the likelihood of such a development, it is clear that some kind of standard will eventually need to emerge. Can it be Apple? January 5, 2004, 11:29 AM The Pew Internet and American Life project just released survey results indicating that there has been a drop of about 50% in the number of Americans downloading files in Peer-To-Peer networks since last May. Based on telephone surveys of about 1,400 individuals, Pew estimates that the number of Americans downloading files over P2P networks during mid-November to mid-December dropped to 18 million as compared to 35 million last May. Owing to the widely publicized lawsuits against individual consumers filed by the RIAA it is reasonable to suspect that some respondents in the November ? December survey may have been afraid to admit to downloading even if they continue doing it. However, the magnitude of the drop amounting to 50% strongly implies that the legal actions have had a deterrent affect. Moreover, SoundScan reports that year-over-year physical CD sales were up in 12 of the last 14 weeks of calendar ?03. While the recent trends may suggest that physical CD sales can grow in calendar 2004, we believe the long-term trend is still downward for two reasons. First, a drop in file sharing activity of 50% really did not lift physical CD sales very much. Second, too many people have become conditioned to using their PC ?burners? as the preferred way to manufacturer their own CDs with playlists customized to their individual tastes. December 22, 2003, 01:24 PM The decision by a Federal appeals court that the automatic subpoena powers of the DMCA are illegal is probably good case law considering the broad context in which it might apply. While the RIAA may not agree, my fear is that the subpoena powers of the DMCA can be too easily abused to target people who may be involved in nothing more than freedom of speech. It should be necessary that a judge be provided concrete evidence that an IP address is engaged in copyright infringement before the identity of the individual assigned the IP address is revealed. Sometimes anonymity is an important aspect of Freedom of Speech, as evidenced by the Federalist Papers. December 15, 2003, 10:54 AM The fact that major cable television operators are starting to provide IP telephony services could have a major impact on the conventional telephone carriers. Cheaper rates are an obvious consequence, but we believe the trend could greatly accelerate the movement toward video phone calls like those provided by VibePhone which we interviewed earlier this month. What do you think? Place your vote in the poll above. December 8, 2003, 07:17 PM Since I will be attending the iHollywood Forum on Digital Music in Los Angeles, there will be no interviews or blogs until December 12th. December 2, 2003, 10:45 AM Today?s New York Times carries an article suggesting that the current vigorous activity to set up legitimate online music stores is a speculative bubble, much like the more general Internet bubble of the late 1990s. While there is merit to this viewpoint, there is also reason to believe it is a gold rush. After all, it?s as certain as tomorrow?s sunrise that the $30 billion worldwide recorded music business is going to gradually transition away from physical distribution and toward Internet distribution. Moreover, we hold not a shadow of doubt that video media distribution will eventually follow the same path.
In our analysis, the frenzied activity in the space today is both a bubble and a gold rush. In point of fact, the dichotomy is probably characteristic of most any newly discovered field of riches. The California Gold Rush on the 19th century was both a boom and a bust. The personal computer business brought both prosperity and bankruptcy to the early participants in the 1970s and 1980s. Ditto the late Internet mania.
Despite this, Levi Strauss was smart to dash quickly into California, Guggenheim into the Klondike, Gates and Jobs into the personal computer market, and Amazon and eBay into the commercialization of the Internet. We suspect it will be the same for The Second Coming of Online Music. Historically when technology opens-up new fields of opportunity, the possibilities of profit are very nearly unlimited, as are the probabilities of failure, and even fraud. There is no denying the risk, but it is a game you are certain to lose if you don?t even try to get a seat at the table.
December 1, 2003, 09:44 AM Over the Thanksgiving holidays I went on a couple of 45 mile rides on my bicycle and wanted some new tunes for my iPod to accompany me. There is a good paved trail that starts near the county line. It has few highway crossings, so it?s great to put the iPod in the jersey pocket and plug in the headphones when I am biking alone. But it was a real hassle to get legitimate new tracks into the iPod. First, I wanted to buy the tracks at Rhapsody since I am already a subscriber and the burns are cheaper there anyway. But, to get them in the iPod I had to transfer the burns to my hard drive. When I put the newly recorded CD-R disc in the tray, I wanted MusicMatch software to pop-up because that is the software required by my iPod. But instead of MusicMatch, a competitor?s player popped-up on my screen and started play the CD. I exited the player and got a pop-up ad for one of their other services. When I finally was able to open MusicMatch, it told me that it sensed that there was a CD to be played, but it did not know the names of any of the individual tracks, and would I mind filling in all that data for them? Next, MusicMatch got confused about which portable device I wanted to synchronize. Today I am only using the iPod but months earlier I had a flash memory device from Intel. MusicMatch kept insisting that it was the Intel device that had to be synchronized, until I chose a menu item that enabled me to ?eject? the Intel device. In the end, getting nine tracks legally from Rhapsody into my iPod required about one hour. But I was happy as a boy let loose from school listening to my new playlist repeatedly on a long bike ride. Despite the hassel it was better than going to Borders and buying 3 - 4 albums from which to rip the tracks ASSUMING, that Borders even had the albums. Nonetheless, wouldn?t all of this be easier if I could just purchase files in a dot-mp3 format? November 19, 2003, 01:12 PM Today?s Wall Street Journal carriers a front page story that implies that the licensed online digital music stores are going to have a hard time making a profit. Basically, the focus is on two points. First, there are too many companies entering the space. Second, the prices that have to be paid to the labels are too high in relation to the mark-up that the new vendors are passing on to the consumer. In our analysis, when a $13 billion a year business is in the early stage of transitioning to a new distribution platform, nobody should be surprised to witness a flood of new entrants into the market. We have compared it to a gold rush and the key to profitability will be in the staking of the individual claims where they are insulated from the other prospectors. (e.g. MusicMatch?s distribution deal with Dell). The bigger problem continues to be the market power of the labels. The new online stores are marketing the product at a reasonable price of typically $0.99 per downloaded track. However, according to the Journal the labels are demanding a fee of $0.65 - $0.79 payable to them for each song. We wonder if the labels were more aggressive in competing with one another whether the $0.65 - $0.79 range could be dropped to something like $0.45 - $0.55. If the labels have too much market power already, is it in the public interest to permit Sony and Bertelsmann to merge. What do you think? Vote your opinion in the poll above and email me with your thoughts if you would like. November 18, 2003, 10:41 AM The purchase of mp3.com by C-Net is interesting. Although C-Net does not seem to be saying much about its plans for the property, we believe that the acquiring company is one of the most Internet savvy businesses around. We expect good things to come of the acquisition. However, it appears that they may be abandoning the original model for mp3.com which was to provide a website for unlicensed music artists to promote and sell their performances. We don?t think the original concept was a bad one although some referred to the first mp3.com as nothing more than a flea market for home made (music) goods in cyberspace. As a result, companies like CD Baby may be unintended beneficiaries. What do you think? Does the original mp3.com concept make sense? You can vote your opinion above. November 17, 2003, 02:25 PM Unconfirmed reports that MSN plans to enter the online music market next year should surprise no one. The original Napster demonstrated beyond a shadow of doubt years ago that the latent demand for the Internet distribution of recorded music is huge. The technology was ready as was the consumer. Shawn Fanning?s Napster was not primarily about free music. It was more about unlimited availability of content and instant gratification provided by prompt Internet delivery of requested tracks. Napster was the world?s largest record library and it was open 24/7.
Now that the labels are offering licensed sites consumer use rules and prices that are sensible, the Gold Rush begins. MSN is one of many prospectors seeking to stake their claims in every creek-bottom, mountain valley, stream-bed, and river bank in the mining district. The golden land offers an abundance of sites in which to stake claims.
November 14, 2003, 09:49 AM An article in the business section of USA TODAY suggests that a price war is looming for high-speed internet access. According to Leichtman Research the number of high-speed home subscribers now approximates 23 million as compared to about 12 million six quarters ago at the end of the first quarter of 2002. Comcast is reportedly offering $20 per month high-speed connections in selected markets with no change in the price for a full year. Similarly, the best DSL offerings around the country have reportedly dropped to about $27 per month. Apparently broadband access is beyond the early adopter stage and the ISPs are dropping prices to keep the growth rates up. Of course, another way to stimulate demand is to offer services like digital music and movie downloads that can give subscribers a new reason to opt-into broadband service. From a profitability perspective, one would think the broadband ISPs would prefer to stimulate demand with such offering as opposed to decreasing prices. November 12, 2003, 12:32 PM Today?s announcement that Cisco Systems is acquiring Latitude Communications is significant. It seems to imply that enterprise-wide Web Conferencing is an idea whose time has come. More importantly, it may well suggest that Web Conferencing within the enterprise is reaching a mutation point at which it really might become redefined as ?Desktop Conferencing?. In such a scenario, real-time collaboration at your PC might encompass various elements such as voice-over-IP and video-over-IP, as well as conventional Web Conferencing media such as PowerPoint slides. The various elements will be used in any combination that suits the bandwidth of the connecting networks, which is an area where Cisco tends to have a major influence, perhaps even rivaling Microsoft. November 10, 2003, 01:38 PM The deal that Napster recently struck with Penn State hits me as quite significant. Basically the students are going to get unlimited streaming for free. That means they?ll be able to play anything in the Napster repertoire without having to resort to potential copyright infringements over the unlicensed Peer-To-Peer networks. We suspect that?s going to make dad, mom, and the college administrators rest a little easier. The RIAA may even choose to back-off its bellicose legal posturing with the college community for a while and give the new arrangement some time to gain traction. I suspect that the kids are going to be mostly satisfied with what Napster will be offering except for some holes in the catalog. If so, I would expect colleges and universities all over the country to begin replicating the Penn State model. However, Napster is likely going to encounter competition from other vendors since it is becoming evident that the Second Coming of Online Music is now transitioning into the Gold Rush stage. Everybody is going to be out staking claims in every streambed, valley, gulch, and mountain they can find. Domestically, alone, there is $13 billion of gold to be picked-up and internationally another $17 billion. November 4, 2003, 02:36 PM What?s going on with streaming media? Over a period of about three years RealNetworks built up a subscription business to more than 1.1 million members by the end of this past September. Earlier this year Yahoo decided to compete with Real and offered its Platinum service to provide streaming media content for an extra monthly fee. Then Microsoft announced that it would offer streaming media content for free and AOL seems to be doing the same thing. Earlier this year the growth of the RealNetworks service seemed to have stalled. Last month Yahoo decided to pull the plug on the Platinum service. What is behind all of these conflicting trends? Maybe AOL and MSN have decided that free streaming media is a way to keep subscribers in their predominantly dial-up services. Maybe the much discredited advertising revenue model has legitimate place after all. Maybe the next big growth wave in digital media content is in recorded music owing to the lower bandwidth requirements. What do you think? Feel free to email me with your comments. October 31, 2003, 01:11 PM Upon reflection, it would appear that the deal that MusicMatch has struck with Dell Computer is one of the strongest distribution arrangements that the fledgling digital music stores could obtain. While we do not know the details of the arrangement, we presume it involves little up-front cost to MusicMatch while giving them distribution to millions, if not tens of millions, of computer buyers in the next year. Thus, it will be interesting to see what kind of arrangements Hewlett-Packard and Compaq make for co-branding a digital music service. This entire concept echoes back to a time when AOL and Microsoft struck a deal to have the AOL icon included in every OEM Windows version shipped. It was a great deal for AOL and really gave them the edge over other ISPs. Do you think it is possible that Microsoft might strike a similar deal with one of the new digital music services? Do you think the PC manufactures would object and could stop them? October 29, 2003, 03:55 PM It is interesting to note that today?s Wall Street Journal contains an article by Walter Mossberg comparing two new portable digital music players to the iPod. Mossberg gives a slight nod to the iPod, but notes that the margin of superiority over its competition is much narrower than in the past. The products from Samsung-Napster and Dell have closed the gap. All this leaves me wondering whether a tipping point is being reached for the digital players. Although they?ve been around for 4 -5 years, it appears that they are only now at a place where they?re crossing the threshold of a curiosity for early adopters into a product that the mainstream consumer might actually consider buying. Since about 60% of music listening is in the car, I wonder whether those companies providing digital players for automobiles will be the beneficiaries of the next wave in the digital music paradigm shift. What do you think? October 23, 2003, 03:23 PM Yesterday?s Wall Street Journal carried a review of three of the new online music services in the high profile Walter Mossberg column. Interestingly, he chose Apple, Napster, and MusicMatch. There is no review of Rhapsody, which we consider to be one of the best options available to fee-paying consumers. It seems that the mantra out of Cupertino about the consumer preference for a la carte downloads over subscription services is becoming the preferred flavor of Kool-Aide for the newer industry commentators. However, our interview with InsightExpress earlier this month, indicates that consumers actually give a slight edge to the subscription model. According to a survey InsigthExpress conducted in September, 45% of respondents said that they liked the all-you-can-eat subscription approach, whereas 38% said they prefer a la carte downloads. The remainder had no opinion. October 21, 2003, 09:38 AM About a year ago I bought an iPod for Windows. It has become one of my favorite digital media devices, perhaps only surpassed by TiVo. I was already accustomed to the MusicMatch software that Apple chose to use with it. However, now that Apple has introduced iTunes for Windows, I?m getting reports that it disables the MusicMatch jukebox. If true, it means that those of us who put iTunes for Windows on our PCs will not be able to use MusicMatch. So what happens to all my music (dot-mp3) files in MusicMatch? Do they get converted to the Apple format and then become playable through my iPod? Was all this an unintended consequence of the iTunes mission to simplify the consumer experience in the iTunes environment?
What do you think? Email me with your thoughts
October 14, 2003, 10:15 AM Even though some of us use Web Conferencing routinely, I have observed that the uninitiated are sometimes confused by the term. Often people mistake the moniker for a webcast, such as the familiar stock analyst briefing that public companies provide following the release of quarterly financial results. I suspect that there is a huge latent demand for Web Conferencing that can spring from two sources. First, are those of us who are now using it but increasing our frequency of use as we gain more experience. The second source is those of us that have not yet employed the technology. The point of the survey above is to discover how many of us have not yet experienced a Web Conference except what we have viewed here at Inside Digital Media. October 13, 2003, 09:14 AM Microsoft has always lurked in the background as an ever present threat to the conventional Web Conferencing vendors like WebEx, Raindance, Genesys, and Latitude, among others. The graveyards are full of PC applications that were successfully pioneered by others only to be dominated in the long run by Microsoft. Examples include Lotus 1-2-3, Eudora, Word Perfect, and Netscape. Similarly, RealNetworks appears to be seriously challenged by the apparently rising popularity of the Windows Media platform.
Have we seen this movie before, or will things be different with Web Conferencing?
Voice you opinion in the poll above and feel welcome to share your thoughts in an email.
October 9, 2003, 10:44 AM Conventional Video Conferencing is either a concept with one heck of a protracted infancy or it?s an idea whose time may never really come. Our bet is that the ship never arrives owing to technological obsolescence.
Classically, Video Conferencing requires participants to congregate in especially equipped rooms where small groups of people view one another on television monitors. The problem is that office workers are generally working together on documents and Video Conferencing is more about sharing facial images than document images.
Unfortunately for the Video Conferencing suppliers, Web Conferencing is a much more convenient way to share documents. Its works right at your desktop PC and in a software environment that is familiar to you everyday. It?s also cheaper and generates far fewer headaches for your network or telecom administrator.
Finally, Web Conferencing can be ubiquitous since there are 65 million Internet-connected PCs in the US alone. By comparison the number of Video Conferencing rooms is probably measured in the hundreds-of-thousands. Just as the PC eroded the market for the minicomputer, we believe that Web Conferencing may well displace Video Conferencing.
Take a look at the presentation by Glance Networks to get a cogent understanding of what?s happening to Video Conferencing.
What do you think? You may vote your opinion in the poll above.
October 7, 2003, 12:29 PM Upon inspecting our first poll (above) you'll see that we're asking
participants to vote their opinions on whether or not the RIAA lawsuits
will have a deterrent affect on unauthorized Peer-To-Peer file sharing.
Please take a moment to vote, and feel welcome to express your reasons for deciding
how you voted in the comments section....
If the lawsuits fail to have a deterrent affect, then they were a
fool's errand. Additionally, even if they deter P2P activity and fail to lift
sales of prepackaged CDs, then the RIAA may well have made the worst decision
since the Judgment of Paris. That decision launched the Trojan War. So far,
this one has induced Congressional hearings. Despite the characteristic
tendency that a politician just naturally has to graze in any pasture where the
gates left open, what's the danger that the backlash escalates?
While I don't know what comes next, I feel that the lawsuits are likely
to have some kind of significant unintended consequences, but I can't
predict exactly what they will be. Stay tuned.
|
