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| Thursday, March 7, 2002 |
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Ready to march? 
| | So just when you thought you had an alternative place to hear what you wanted in internet radio-- vs. the over-consulted, homogenized crap on the AM and FM airwaves, the damn LIBRARY OF CONGRESS is trying to put a fork into internet radio before it could even get off the ground and become profitable! |
| | Me thinks I smell a rat--and it smells like RIAA! Hmmm... where have we seen that before? (May e I should order one of THESE to put a picture of Hilary Rosen in on my desk. Nah, might scare the dog.) |
| | In a nutshell: Internet Radio is in the perfect position to be the alternative choice to traditional radio. This is especially true when the concept of local radio has gone out the window with recent FCC rulings where major corporations like Clear Channel<, Belos, Disney, AOL/TW and others can and do own a large number of stations across the country. In the great hunt for the bottom line (profits,) stations are no longer is a station obligated by the FCC to local programming that reflects the tastes and needs of the local community inwhich the radio/television stations broadcasts. Hell, even the announcer on your local station may not be local or live! |
| | There's a lot more. Dig it. |
| | Hmm... Makes me think we could get a huge group of folks together just by recruiting from the ranks of broadcast professionals laid off by Clear Channel alone. |
Let's test it out with RageBoy
| | I'm seeing Moodstats as a pointless but interesting value-add for every blog. |
Then how come nobody does what I tell them?
| | Griff says "Doc is head of several reciprocally streamlined media partnerships, though he may not acknowledge it." |
Shaving NPR
| | Something looks fishy to me about it. Maybe it's ljust the crybaby tactics that public stations have been using in their fund drives since forever. |
| | Last I heard, the percentage of federal NPR and PBS funding was down in to single digits anyway. Public broadcasting is mostly funded by listeners and viewers. This is a very powerful strength and a largely undelivered message. I am not just a "supporter" of KCLU (my local public station). I'm a customer. I buy programs from them that they in turn buy from other sources — notably NPR. |
| | In fact, public broadcasting is a perfect demonstration of The Market at work. Much better than commercial broadcasting, where listeners and viewers pay nothing and get torrents of worthless crap in exchange for it. The real business of commercial broadcasting is selling advertising, while the real business (albeit a nonprofit one) of public broadcasting is selling programming. |
| | Which is why I think getting the Feds out of public broadcast funding might not be a Bad Thing. |
| | And let's face it: guys like Bill Gates could pick up the slack for pocket change. And don't bet they wouldn't. |
| | [Later...] An alert reader points out that this petition is an urban legend. More here too. |
Blavery
| | Of course I have thoughts about it, but not the time. Later, maybe. Menwhile, check out "Marlets are Miracles" here (scroll down). |
Why not call it "Captain's Blog" and add "Stardate..."?
| | I had gone to the undertaker¹s to choose a coffin for his body; while I was looking all of them over, I could distinctly hear my very frugal father¹s voice telling me he didn¹t need a fancy coffin since he was already dead. Following this train of thought, I chose a very plain, simple wooden coffin I knew he would approve of as an extremely practical choice. |
| | I returned to my parents¹ house where I met up with my sister, Joy. I told her I had chosen the cheapest coffin. She turned to me and asked, ³Why? Is it used?² |
What am I doing right?
Where's Randy Newman when we need him?
| | I swore I'd foreswear talking about The War, but this is worse than insane. Its uncivilized. Hey, it worked for the Roman Empire, why not for ours? And what happened to Rome, Sargeant? |
Follow the mouse droppings
| | When does Eldred v. Ashcroft come up on the Supreme Court's docket? |
| | [Later...] Nice response to this post here. |
But you knew that
| | A federal court has ruled that amateur journalists have the same rights as professional ones. |
Speaking of The Commons
OS X question
| | Is it possible to selectively delete the files that appear in the Recent Items and varioius Open... dialogs? |
Bollocks at work
| | Just heard from Michael O'Connor Clarke, who agres about the pointlessness of secrecy. Disclaiming any fandom of Ayn Rand, he offers this perfect Rand quote: |
| | "Competition is a by-product of productive work, not its goal. A creative man is motivated by the desire to achieve, not by the desire to beat others." |
| | Last year a keynote following one of mine was Guy Kawasaki's. Among his pieces of advice for fellow VC's : Run your business plan past a woman. The reason: Too many men don't go into business to do business. They go into business to kill other companies. This may be simplistic and wrong on various grounds, but there is some truth to it. In Defending the Caveman, Rob Becker says men sublimate their need to carry spears by caryhing remote controls, which they use for killing off channels. Get that shit off my TV... Get that shit off my TV... |
But it'll be gone tomorow
It's so good I just can't tell you
| | Want proof that markets are conversations? Look at any company that's born in extreme secrecy. I've written about Be. Now it's time for Moxi. |
| | I believe the situation would be a lot less ugly if Moxi hadn't been so secretive about what it was up to, thrrough all those months of self-involved quietude, smoking only its own exhaust. |
| | One secret to success is not to keep secrets. Yes, there are times it makes sense. Hardware companies especially need to be careful about not "Osborne-ing" their old products with promises of new ones. But in most cases secrecy is based on the almost military notion that Enemies of the Company are going to steal our good ideas. |
| | Here's the problem: all qualified enemies are busy. They're doing their own thing. No matter how cool your new idea is, they don't care. They're overcommited to their own problems |
| | Another dumb reason for secrecy is to have a big event. An "announcement." A "rollout." Take some advice from an old marketing guy: fuck that shit. |
| | Talk about what you're doing. Let other people see it. Give the market something to talk about. Want help? Read Gonzo Marketing. |
Branding, cont'd
| | I just realized that, to help brand my friends on Google, the courteous thing would be to use their full names here in the blog. If that's the agenda I should say "David Weinberger" instead of "Doctor Weinberger." (Even though I notice he's tops at both.) |
| | Anyway, this came to me after I mentioned Kevin's name (he of no less than two blogs) in the last post. |
| | Hmm.. after looking up my real name, I'd hate to subordinate the worthies who seem to be doing much classier things with that brand than I ever world. Although I notice that the quote on this post card is from something I said (wrote? I don't even remmember) about a thousand years ago. |
Edioddities
| | I get reminded repeatedly that I tend to have bad links at least once per day, and at least as many misspellings. Quite true. |
| | Mostly it's because I'm a fast but very error-prone typist, and I'm hurrying back to work. Makes me think of how many mistakes we make when we talk. The difference is, there's nobody there to edit our conversation. |
| | Which brings me to my point: we copy-edit each other here. Very different from the copy editing that happens in the publishing world, like what Jennifer Balderama writes about here. |
No way
| | Fiorina has been very vocal about what the HP Way is not, but she has been relatively quiet about what the HP Way is. Let me share the best definition I have heard. The HP Way is based on an assumption: "I assume that you want to do a good job and will do so given the right tools and environment." CEOs make this assumption about staff. Staff makes this assumption about management. |
| | Unreasonable? Hardly. Silicon Valley culture is based on this assumption. Outdated? Never. |
discuss
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