Talking Sense to the "Content" Industry

Grok Headline matches for Talking Sense to the "Content" Industry

Why Charging For Newspaper Content
Online Doesn't Make Sense

Why Charging For Newspaper Content
Online Doesn't Make Sense 11/07/2003 04:16 AM
One of the arguments that shows up here repeatedly is on the backwardness of local newspapers charging for online content. There are a number of reasons why it's a bad idea - from the level of taking yourself out of the online discussion and believing that walled garden content can survive to misunderstanding the very basic economics of the internet. Still, many newspapers are trying to do so, and some even believe that it's going well. Along comes Vin Crosbie, who knows both the newspaper business and the online content world, to smack a little sense into them. The Albuquerque Journal explained why they thought they were brilliant for creating a "successful" operation charging for their online content, and Crosbie picks apart the argument, bit by bit, and explains how they're actually losing money on this plan - and how all their other examples of newspapers charging for online content are bad (or irrelevant) examples. If you're interested in the economics of online content, it's worth a read.

Microsoft Talking To The Recording
Industry About Copy Protection

Microsoft Talking To The Recording
Industry About Copy Protection 09/17/2004 02:31 PM
It looks like Cory Doctorow's talk to Microsoft about why copy protection is bad for everyone -- including the recording industry, customers, and Microsoft itself -- didn't have much of an impact. Microsoft is now in talks with the recording industry about how to build copy protection into their next generation operating system to make sure you can't actually do what you want with the music you buy. Of course, this is likely to be an expensive waste of time that will only annoy legitimate buyers by causing problems. The people who really want to copy music will figure out workarounds. The large counterfeiters will already have big workarounds, so it won't impact their business at all. The only people impacted will be people who want to do perfectly legitimate things with the music they bought, but find out they're blocked because Microsoft and the recording industry doesn't trust them.

Content Industry Outlook

Content Industry Outlook 04/11/2005 08:36 PM
Notes from an industry overview session at the Buying and Selling eContent conference in Scottsdale, Arizona.  I just arrived so I might have missed a little of the intro, and already missed David Weinberger's keynote (podcast).  Here's what I...

How The Copyright Gap Harms The Content
Delivery Industry

How The Copyright Gap Harms The Content
Delivery Industry 08/02/2004 04:42 AM
Tim Wu is subbing for Lawrence Lessig on his own blog, and comes up with an interesting theory about how different forms of regulation impact the telephony and content industries in different ways -- something he labels as a "copyright gap." Basically, the argument is that the government seems to favor new entrants in the telecom world, which has created success stories like Vonage and Skype, where they can come up with new innovations in order to compete, without (for the most part) worrying about government regulations holding them back. However, in the content industry, government regulations tend towards favoring the incumbents heavily, such that companies need to ask permission to innovate, because the content industry has somehow convinced politicians that any innovation will completely destroy, rather than reinvent the industry. It's for this reason that Wu believes VoIP and email have succeeded while interactive TV and internet libraries have faltered.

How The Content Industry Is Trying To
Prevent TiVo From Innovating

How The Content Industry Is Trying To
Prevent TiVo From Innovating 07/22/2004 12:57 PM
It's an innovation that TiVo should have done years ago, and which others have already hacked their TiVo to do, or setup other systems which allowed it, but now that TiVo wants to let users transfer what they record to other devices, the content industry is freaking out. Among those complaining is the NFL, who is worried that someone will use this system to send a copy of a game to an area where TV coverage is "blacked out." As TiVo points out, it would take 144 hours to transfer a game at this point. That's a bit misleading, of course, as bandwidth is getting faster, but the system TiVo is designing seems clearly set up to limit unauthorized copying. If someone actually goes through the trouble of getting a football game in a "blacked out" zone, does it really matter that much? For the most part, what TiVo is doing would allow more people to view the commercials that help the TV industry make money. Of course, the end result, like everything the entertainment industry tries to block, is that people will continue to hack their way to do this anyway, and the entertainment industry will have even less control. Once again, with their short-term thinking they're shooting their own businesses in the foot.

Some Important Trends The Wireless
Content Industry Is Missing

Some Important Trends The Wireless
Content Industry Is Missing 09/23/2004 03:21 AM
VC Martin Tobias has been thinking about mobile content a lot lately and has written up some short, but worth reading, items that show why many companies in the mobile content business are heading down the wrong path. First, the realization that the purpose of a mobile phone is to interact with others. Everyone who is viewing the mobile phone as another device to receive broadcast style content pushed from content providers isn't going to get very far. People buy mobile phones to connect with each other -- by voice or by text (and, in a few cases, by photo or video). Thus, any content solution needs to be about helping people better communicate, not blasting them with broadcast content. That is, the successful solutions are about helping people create their own content and sharing it with others. Second, for those who believe mobile content is going to make money because the carriers are keeping the garden walls closed, those garden walls are crumbling. People don't want to pay for the same information they already get (for free, no less) on their home computer. How many times do we hear that people will pay again for news, sports, stocks and weather? They won't, because they won't have to. While full internet access is coming to mobile phones, the same info you access online will be available on phones. However, even more to the point, he's pointing out the problem with copy protection. If I buy a song, I should have bought that song to play on any device, whether it's a CD player, my computer, my portable music player, my watch, my phone or who knows where else. The way the carriers (and the recording industry) view things right now, they expect people to buy multiple times -- and that's not going to happen, and that means a lot of companies who think they're going to make money delivering content to mobile phones won't be so lucky.

Press Release - NewsGator Technologies
is Chosen for EContent 100 – One of
the Top 100 Companies that Matter Most
in the Digital Content Industry

Press Release - NewsGator Technologies
is Chosen for EContent 100 – One of
the Top 100 Companies that Matter Most
in the Digital Content Industry 12/23/2003 05:45 PM

As RSS & Syndication Trend Continues as Useful Way to Find & Organize Online News & Content, NewsGator Raises the Bar for Customers & the Industry

Denver, CO -- December 23, 2003 -- NewsGator Technologies has been chosen for the third annual EContent 100 List, EContent Magazine’s list of companies that matter most in the digital content industry. The EContent 100 selection process combines editorial talent from EContent and Information Today, Inc., and relies on their collective experience in various corners of the digital content landscape along with their exposure to the visible activities of digital content companies.

Flagship product NewsGator 1.3 is a news aggregator which runs inside Microsoft Outlook and retrieves news from news sites, weblogs, NNTP (Usenet) newsgroups, and other information sources that support the RSS or Atom syndication formats. NewsGator was selected for the content delivery category, which includes tools and solutions for delivering digital content – from aggregation software tools to content delivery networks – as well as for the secure digital payment strategies.

Other categories for this year’s EContent 100 include Classification and Taxonomy, Collaboration & Knowledge Management, Consulting Services, Content Creation, Production & Digital Publishing, Content Management, Digital Rights Management, Fee-Based Info Services, Intranets & Portals, Mobile Content and Search Engines & Technologies. "We are pleased to recognize NewsGator Technologies in our 2003 EContent 100,” said Michelle Manafy, Editor of EContent Magazine.  “We believe that it is tools like NewsGator that can bring syndicated content directly to a very wide audience, and open the door to new and exciting digital content distribution solutions.”

NewsGator 1.3 automatically integrates syndicated news items into Microsoft Outlook folders for users to access immediately or at a later time. New feeds are being published regularly, allowing NewsGator users to easily and seamlessly find and subscribe to new valuable content.   In two weeks at CES, NewsGator Technologies will be demonstrating the next generation of its products, which will dramatically extend its capabilities in the digital content marketplace.

Senior Publishing Executive Joins
World's Largest Online Library - Hiring
of Publishing Industry Veteran, Richard
Koffler, Signals Strong Growth Plans for
Questia�s Content Acquisition

Senior Publishing Executive Joins
World's Largest Online Library - Hiring
of Publishing Industry Veteran, Richard
Koffler, Signals Strong Growth Plans for
Questia�s Content Acquisition 06/03/2004 02:08 AM
Publishing industry insider, Richard Koffler, joins Questia, the world's largest online library, to aggressively grow the Questia collection of 49,000 books and 390,000 articles. [PRWEB Jun 3, 2004]

Hot Banana Wins 2005 e-Content Award -
Best Content Management System - CMS

Hot Banana Wins 2005 e-Content Award -
Best Content Management System - CMS 04/08/2005 04:55 AM
Hot Banana Software Inc., a leading North American Web Content Management Suite (CMS) company, announced today that it has won the 2005 e-Content award for the best Content Management System. The Canadian e-Content Awards are sponsored by the e-Content Institute and were created to recognize and honor e-content products and services used by Canadian organizations and individuals. [PRWEB Apr 8, 2005]

The Difference Between Online Content
And Broadcast Content

The Difference Between Online Content
And Broadcast Content 02/10/2004 02:46 PM
Major League Baseball made news last year for claim ing to own all in-progress game data - saying they were going to go after websites that reported what was happening at a game in real-time. It didn't matter that the law is pretty clear that you can't copyright facts - MLB believes that just presenting the data is a "rebroadcast" of the game. That said, I guess it's no surprise to hear that they now believe that web audio and video broadcasts of games should work the same way as television broadcasts with a content provider paying a huge upfront fee for the rights to the games, and then telling them they can make it back in ad revenue and subscription fees. Of course, the various internet sites they've approached with this plan have been laughing them out the door, and pointing out that they're not television stations, and they just want to provide something useful to their users - but aren't going to lose money to do so. While MLB has been at the forefront of offering streaming video and audio, it appears they still look on this as a broadcast medium, and not the interactive medium it actually is. They're doing their best to squeeze more money out of existing fans, rather than attract new fans, which is dangerous for the future of the sport. Not only do you anger your biggest fans, you also make it less likely that you're going to pick up new fans.

Usenet Content Up For Grabs On Content
Hungry Web

Usenet Content Up For Grabs On Content
Hungry Web 12/19/2004 03:08 PM
The age old question of copyright and Usenet comes up again.

Recent HomelandDefenseStocks.com Online
Investor and Industry Conference
Provides Investors and Industry With

Recent HomelandDefenseStocks.com Online
Investor and Industry Conference
Provides Investors and Industry With 04/14/2005 04:02 PM
Market Wire Apr 14 2005 7:58PM GMT

Hollywood and the music industry face
off against the heavy hitters of the
high-tech industry in a Supreme Cou

Hollywood and the music industry face
off against the heavy hitters of the
high-tech industry in a Supreme Cou 03/27/2005 03:49 PM
Baku Today Mar 27 2005 5:57PM GMT

Dr. Joe Webb to Conduct Printing
Industry Economic Outlook Webinar for
WhatTheyThink.com Subscribers and the
Industry, Sponsored by EFI

Dr. Joe Webb to Conduct Printing
Industry Economic Outlook Webinar for
WhatTheyThink.com Subscribers and the
Industry, Sponsored by EFI 06/08/2004 02:59 AM
Printing industry forecaster and commentator Dr. Joe Webb will speak at a printing industry economic webinar sponsored by EFI (NASDAQ: EFII) on June 23rd from 2:00 to 3:00 pm EDT; it is free to the industry. Signup form is at http://members.whattheythink.com/home/webinar.cfm [PRWEB Jun 8, 2004]

MWH Soft Ships Third Generation of
Industry-Preferred InfoWater Suite for
Power ArcGIS Users in the Global
Waterworks Industry

MWH Soft Ships Third Generation of
Industry-Preferred InfoWater Suite for
Power ArcGIS Users in the Global
Waterworks Industry 09/26/2004 03:49 AM
Reinforcing its vanguard position in water resources applications software, MWH Soft, Inc., today announced the worldwide availability of InfoWater� Generation V3 for ArcGIS� (ESRI, Redlands, CA). [PRWEB Sep 26, 2004]

Computer industry to entertainment
industry: we lied (right on!)

Computer industry to entertainment
industry: we lied (right on!) 09/22/2004 02:18 AM
Cory Doctorow: This amazing open letter to the entertainment industry, signed by the computer industry, is a nigh-perfect expression of what constitutes a successful approach to Internet technology. And it made me laugh my ass off.

We lied to you. In the golden 80s and 90s we told you micropayments and content protection would work; that you would be able to charge minuscule amounts of money whenever someone listened to your music or watched your movie. We told you untruths which we well knew would never work - after all, we would've never used them ourselves. Instead, we wrote things like Kazaa and Gnutella, and all other evil P2P applications to get the stuff free.

We told you these things so that you would finance the things we really wanted to build, not the things that you wanted to be built. We knew all along that DRM schemes do not work, and we knew that whatever we create can be broken by us. We don't care anymore, because your money made us bigger than you.

Look at us: every year, we churn out more computer games than your entire industry is worth. You know how we do it? We like our customers. We don't treat them like potential criminals, and try to make our products do less. We invent new things like online role-playing -games, where the money does not come from duplication of bits (which cannot be stopped, regardless of your DRM scheme) but from providing experiences that the people want.

We saw that you were old and weak. So we took advantage of it: told you things that you wanted to hear so we could kick you in the head in twenty years. Some of us told you that the future is going to be interactive - what did you do? You started to think how to make interactive movies (CD-I, anyone?), which is not what it really means, while we wrote games and tried to understand the new mediums, not how to bolt it on onto old things.

We lied to you. And we apologize for that, but it was for the greater good. So we're not the least bit sorry.

Signed: The Computer Industry

Link (via Blackbeltjones)

The C# Programming Techniques Content
Area of Premium Content Aggregator
Braintique.com, www.braintique.com, is
Now Open

The C# Programming Techniques Content
Area of Premium Content Aggregator
Braintique.com, www.braintique.com, is
Now Open 02/01/2005 09:17 PM
C# Programming Techniques features articles, tips, techniques, and source code created by well-known author and programmer Harold Davis. Davis is the author of more than twenty books about programming and technology, including most recently Building Research Tools with Google For Dummies published by John Wiley. [PRWEB Jan 30, 2005]

Internet and Changes in Media and
Promotion Mix Drive Printing Industry
Shipments Down -$929 million Since
January; Dr. Joe Webb Discusses Need for
Printing Industry Change and Renewal

Internet and Changes in Media and
Promotion Mix Drive Printing Industry
Shipments Down -$929 million Since
January; Dr. Joe Webb Discusses Need for
Printing Industry Change and Renewal 06/07/2004 02:37 AM
Printing industry shipments declined by -$342 million in April, when compared to April 2003. Shipments are down -2.9% for the first four months of the year. Alternatives such as new media, the Internet, event marketing and promotions have negatively affected industry volume. A free PDF copy of the table of contents and first chapter of Dr. Webb�s �Renewing the Print Industry� report is available. [PRWEB Jun 7, 2004]

Longmont Area Economic Council Releases
Annual Industry Survey Results; Annual
report surveys industry in Boulder and
Weld Counties

Longmont Area Economic Council Releases
Annual Industry Survey Results; Annual
report surveys industry in Boulder and
Weld Counties 07/13/2004 03:18 AM
The Longmont Area Economic Council has released its 2004 Existing Industry Report, a survey of Longmont's industrial base of 235 primary employers that provide more than 13,000 jobs, with 169 (72 percent) of the companies located in Boulder County, and 68 (28 percent) located in Weld County. [PRWEB Jul 13, 2004]

A little sense of things

A little sense of things 04/29/2004 10:32 AM

I talked with Dan Kreiss the other day. He's working on a Master's at Stanford and is writing his thesis on blogging. He's posted notes from our discussion on his blog. It was a lively conversation, and gives you a bit of an idea where my thinking is these days. The best part of talking with him was discussing what I'm interested in doing next. The answer of course is lots of things! But in particular I got all jazzed up again about some ideas I've been thinking about for a while. When you've just finished a job, and you're spending you days alone at home, getting jazzed up about ideas is a really great thing.

Seven Inches Of Sense

Seven Inches Of Sense 07/20/2004 08:05 AM
blogger Mark O'Brien's .. mark

brandotalk.blogspot.com
track this site | 4 links

A sense of humor?

A sense of humor? 04/25/2004 09:39 AM

The NY Times reviews Eats, Shoots & Leaves, a book about punctuation that's recently come across the Atlantic after receiving rave reviews in the UK. In what's surely a sly joke to the Sunday Book Review reader, the Times entitled the article, ' Eats, Shoots & Leaves': Punctuation and It's Discontents. At least I hope it's a joke.

Now it all makes sense.....

Now it all makes sense..... 02/01/2005 08:42 PM

Greed and digital convergence often go hand in hand.

Many a deal has been f*cked up by some greedy (usually white male) as**hole who thinks he can't just stick to his business model and evolve into digital convergence - organically (read: later.)

No this guy - needs to try and take it all - NOW. He's gonna make his play, and dam the logic of the alliances, the virtue of doing it right and smart - we want IT ALL - NOW.

That seems to be what Mike Ramsey at TiVO did.

Instead of going into a deal with COMCAST, which was critical - given the fact that PVRs are becoming a commodity and Microsoft and Digeo are on their asses. TiVO turned down a deal with COMCAST supposedly in favor of their "digital convergence/Home LAN" play. This is why they bought Strangeberry.

But what seems strange to me is why couldn't TiVO have lciensed it software to COMCAST and STILL do their Home LAN play?

Why can't they organically grow into a Home LAN play, evolving their brand into something that means - cool, compelling experience that works?

By turning down the COMCAST deal, Mike Ramsey got kicked out and now they'll probably never ship the Strangeberry V3 - and they'll just tube - as COMCAST will hook up with MS and squash them.

Oh well.

Here's Peter Rojas' engadget report....

Ok, now we understand why TiVo CEO Michael Ramsay was “promoted” out of his job last week. You know how people have been telling TiVo how the only way they’re going to survive would be to convince some a cable company to license their digital video recorder software for use on set-top boxes?

Yeah, well according to the New York Times last summer they were about to score a big deal with Comcast to do precisely this, that is until Ramsay pulled the plug at the last moment because he was convinced TiVo wasn’t getting paid enough money or given enough control over the service.

We won’t second guess his decision, since we don’t know the exact terms of the deal (though apparently they were pretty bad), but you know what, TiVo is sort of in a life-or-death situation right now and might have to take what it can get if it wants to stick around. The company is still not turning a profit, they’re facing increased competition from all sides (from cable companies with their generic DVR-capable set top boxes, Digeo’s Moxi, and Microsoft’s Media Center OS, not to mention stuff like MythTV and Beyond TV), and having deal like this in place would have been especially valuable in the wake of their recent break up with DirecTV. Now it’s Microsoft and Digeo who are testing their software with Comcast and TiVo that’s being left out in the cold. Ramsay says his strategy was to make an end-run around the cable companies and focus on turning the TiVo into a digital entertainment hub (i.e. “convergence”, i.e. the same thing everyone else claims to be working on), but now he’s out (at least as CEO, he’s staying on as chairman) and it’s unlikely that whoever succeeds him will have the luxury of grand visions: right now they’re going to have to focus on ensuring that TiVo is still in business a year from now.

[engadget]

This is important stuff. TiVO defined PVRs and now they're about to lose the market. Same thing is happening to NetFlix as we speak.

Is it lack of patents and bank account that causes this to happen or it something more about execution and staying smart. It's not good enough to be first and be really smart about your product offering or compelling experience.

It's about staying smart and working with others. Not being too greedy and keeping your eye on the end-user's experience - not your bank account. Or shall I say your future bank account.

Yah gotta follow DROC (do not run-out-of cash.) But you also can't be too greedy. TiVO knew that COMCAST knew that DirecTV was blowing off TiVO. TiVo should have known that MS was sucking up to COMCAST - HARD.

Why was COMCAST trying to do a deal with TiVO? Cause TiVO has the best product and experience. But they weren't able to come to a deal. Hmmmmmm.

Sounds like Apple to me.

Doesn't make sense...

Doesn't make sense... 02/10/2004 02:56 AM
I haven't posted a lot because I've got too much stuff to post about! OK, I know it doesn't quite...

Making sense of AON

Making sense of AON 06/24/2005 05:11 PM
What does Cisco's AON announcement really mean for your SOA roadmap? A lot of enterprise architects must be scratching ...

A Sense of Scale

A Sense of Scale 01/16/2004 01:04 PM
A visual comparison of various distances. From the height of the Shuttle's typical orbit to the distance Earth travels in one second .. website showing reletive scales

falstad.com/scale
track this site | 8 links

"his sense of humor"

"his sense of humor" 12/15/2003 10:29 PM

PayPal's sense of decency

PayPal's sense of decency 07/03/2004 11:43 AM
RageBoy is getting messages from PayPal saying that what he's sellling violates their standards of decency. If PayPal doesn't want to be used for the sale of pornographic items, I guess that's their choice, but in this case, RB isn't trying to sell a thing. He has a "donate" button on his site. Apparently that requires him to clean up the content of his site to meet PayPal's sense of decency. Feels a tad intrusive, doesn't it? BTW, if you've got some spare cash, you might want to consider pressing that big ol' donate button while it still works....

It is recognized that you have a funny
sense of fun.

It is recognized that you have a funny
sense of fun. 04/29/2004 04:50 AM
The first draft, sans pictures or video, of my account of the Marathon des Sables is up. The great mystery of this Metafilter thread on why I dropped so many places on Day Four is finally answered. Lawrence: Oh thanks,...

Making Sense Of Search

Making Sense Of Search 07/15/2004 03:18 AM
Linguistics Based Search Engine Delivers Sense To Internet Searches [PRWEB Jul 15, 2004]

A new PC makes no sense--but who cares?

A new PC makes no sense--but who cares? 07/11/2004 08:40 PM
ZDNet Jul 12 2004 0:32AM GMT

Antisense Making Sense?

Antisense Making Sense? 02/17/2004 04:58 PM
With new antisense drugs in critical trials, David Nierengarten makes the case for companies that stand to benefit.

When AdSense Doesn't Make Sense

When AdSense Doesn't Make Sense 07/14/2004 01:13 PM
Source: Search Engine Guide - Christopher Knight over at EmailUniverse.com has a useful article this week that outlines some of the reasons why running AdSense may not make the most sense for your Web site....

Common sense security

Common sense security 02/10/2004 03:01 AM

If Ahnuld has a sense of humor...

If Ahnuld has a sense of humor... 10/29/2003 12:12 AM
...as one of his first acts as governor he'll create a state telecommunications agency called "SkyNet."...

When Secrets Make Sense

When Secrets Make Sense 12/17/2004 06:37 PM
Recently I wrote a short piece making a strong and general claim that the same forces that are pushing data towards XML are pushing software towards Open Source. There was an interesting and well-written pushback from Microsoft’s Joe Marini. I think that, as Joe says, there are places in software where secrets make business sense; but we disagree as to where they are...

PC that can sense a user's mood

PC that can sense a user's mood 02/10/2004 09:02 AM
Instrumentation Systems and Automation Society Feb 10 2004 1:16PM GMT

Making Sense of Specs

Making Sense of Specs 12/24/2004 12:15 PM
In many cases, product specifications may mean something different from what they appear to, or mean nothing at all.

Wep gives 'false sense of security'

Wep gives 'false sense of security' 11/11/2003 05:40 PM
Personal Computer World Nov 11 2003 4:09PM ET
Grok Description matches for Talking Sense to the "Content" Industry
GrokA matches for Talking Sense to the "Content" Industry

Talking Sense to the "Content" Industry