The Doc Searls Weblog : Friday, January 6, 2006

Friday, January 6, 2006

Previous topic

Next topic

Friday, January 6, 2006
started 1/6/2006; 2:08:41 PM - last post 1/7/2006; 10:53:00 PM

Doc Searls - Friday, January 6, 2006

1/6/2006; 6:08:41 PM (reads: 5896, responses: 2)

Consume THIS, bottom-tier-feeder

A story in the Wall Street Journal today (sub req'd) begins,

Large phone companies, setting the stage for a big battle ahead, hope to start charging Google Inc., Vonage Holdings Corp. and other Internet content providers for high-quality delivery of music, movies and the like over their telecommunications networks....

The phone companies envision a system whereby Internet companies would agree to pay a fee for their content to receive priority treatment as it moves across increasingly crowded networks. Those that don't pay the fee would find their transactions with Internet users -- for games, movies and software downloads, for example -- moving across networks at the normal but comparatively slower pace.

Last paragraph:

Critics of these ideas say that smaller Internet companies will be squeezed out of being able to offer their products at all. "They want to radically change the way they sell telecommunications service," said Mark Cooper, research director of the Washington-based Consumer Federation of America. "We're afraid that they're simply going to pick and choose who's going to win and lose."

Like I said.

Sniff.

Kevin Marks: Live TV is dead, and we're noticing the smell. A sample:

the 1940s hack of synchronising everyone's TV set to the same signal was a workaround for having video storage measured in milliseconds.

Lots of good nuggets in that post. I only have one quibble with something he says in here:

Downloading is always better than streaming, and Edited better than Live, except in one instance.

That difference is when you have 2-way interaction. When you can speak back to the person at the other end, either via iChat AV or Skype, or just by having a textual back channel to a conference.

That's where Live is needed.

At home we listen to live radio on the Net, from all over the place, mostly on our Sonos system. Yesterday at the Sonos booth they told me Rhapsody's streaming is a popular service with their customers. So, while I agree with Kevin on the principles here, "always" is a bit too strong a statement for me.

Instant radio station

We created Pandora so that we can have that same kind of conversation with you.

But what's in that box?

On the continuing end of politics as usual

Illionois House Republican leader Tom Cross has a campaign blog.

Nice to see that blogging is becoming a pro forma campaign tool.

Thought: Tip O'Neill said "All politics is local." An modern corollary to that would be "All politics is personal."

Sad

to learn Lou Rawls has died. His voice was amazing.

Welcome

Congrats to Nick Petreley for being named the new Editor-in-Chief of Linux Journal.

I've admired Nick both as an editor and as an expert, for many years. Lots of editors have come and gone in the trade magazine business (sadly the ratio of the latter to the former keeps getting higher), but Nick has held in there. It's great finally to have him on our team at Linux Journal.

The short list

Maryam Scoble: Ten Reasons Why You Should Date a Geek.

Life in the vast lane

David Berlind runs down the new DRM situation.

The meta-story behind Intel's Viiv and Clickstream announcments yesterday is not just the death of TV as we know it, but the gang-stabbing of it by Intel, Apple and their new partners in the broadcasting and entertainment industries. Or, if you prefer, by the reconstituted entertainment industry, which will still be about production and distribution, but without the current channel-based TV system (which will come to an FCC-mandated end in 2009 — it was originally scheduled for 2006 — when every TV station will be required to move off its branded VHF channel and up to some unbranded UHF digital channel, by which time nearly everybody will stop watching over-the-air TV anyway, getting everything we used to call TV over cable, satellite or Internet).

I've almost given up anyway. The other night in the hotel we watched Anderson Cooper, CNN's version of Geraldo Rivera (always On the Scene, always Concerned, always Talking With The People Involved), report for 45 minutes on word that nearly all the trapped miners in West Virginia were saved. In the morning we found out that the report was false. Not from the TV, but from a phone call and from bloggers deconstructing the whole mess.

Then I read stuff like this (thanks to Sheila Lennon for the link), and I have even less reason to watch.

Though I think having Jon Stewart host the Oscars is way cool. I'll be sure to tivo that one.

Gang up

Identity Gang II is the latest Gillmor Gang podcast. It's the second annual one like this, and there was much discussion of progress made in the meantime. Fun show. Get the .mp3 here.

discuss

Wes Felter - Streaming vs. downloading, VIIV, HD content

1/7/2006; 4:15:54 AM (reads: 743, responses: 0)

I agree that downloading is better, but I can maybe understand why people would stream from Rhapsody if it's cheap and Rhapsody doesn't offer downloading. These days techical considerations have been eclipsed by political/business (DRM) considerations.

BTW, I think VIIV is a no-op. Everything you can do on a VIIV PC you can do on a regular Windows PC. VIIV does not provide any particular DRM features, but VIIV includes Windows which has DRM. But all Windows users will be subjected to that DRM, not just VIIV users. I predict that Apple will not touch VIIV. Apple already has a cool brand: the Apple logo.

I also disagree about camcorders, which produce 1440x1080i (at best), compared to 1920x1080i from cable.

discuss

ski - Re: Pandora

1/8/2006; 2:53:00 AM (reads: 714, responses: 0)

doc

what do you mean that "we" created Pandora?

and for what conversation?

sorry for being dense... just one of those days. and i even had a (power) nap!

-ski

discuss

Membership : Join Now : Login