The Mercury Space Program taught me to count backwards.
The solemn countdown from T Minus 10 to Liftoff taught me that subtraction would launch us toward the future.
This week the future announced its arrival in the headlines I read in the Los Angeles Times and all over the web.
TV Networks in trouble. A cable company announcing a drop in basic subscribers, content being produced exclusively for on-line viewing, Hollywood Studios scrambling for traction, a music survey announcing that Bruce Springsteen had scored a number one release on the charts - by selling just 77,000 copies of his new album - a position that used to command numbers in the millions. And finally, most remarkably, there was NBC Universal and News Corp (FOX) announcing that they were pulling all of their online content from other channels on the web and forming their own video channel called "Hulu". The new channel (when it's available) will offer free video content.
It's the future. The one we were promised back when we were introduced to computers. The one I wrote about last week.
And once again, we will reach the future through subtraction.
No more magnetic tape. No more digital tape, no more Floppies or Zip drives or CD's and no more need for a hundred thousand dollars of outboard recording and transmission gear. Just a bit of software and a laptop. In the larger world, subtraction is a huge problem for TV, Cable, Print News and entertainment companies. But just for a while. Living in the future takes time.
We sent men out of Earth's orbit into deep space with less memory and processing power than I carry with me wherever I go on earth. If they could do it, so can I. The Production Room has been hired by Red Rocket Productions in Santa Barbara to work on a bold new venture. We'll be producing webmedia full time and I'll be one of the chief writers and creative talents for the launch. I'll be subtracting my office space and will be referring audio post production work to my friend and associate, Steve Gordon.
I hope you'll wish us well.
When I learned my arithmetic I always felt more comfortable with addition. NASA taught me that a launch into the unknown requires subtraction.
PS - The global companies are now "Fututre Proofing" (Thanks Robert Tucker) their businesses. It's writing on the wall for main street business to read.
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
Wednesday, October 24, 2007
California Fire Map
Here's a link I picked up from a post on Doc Searls Blog.
This fire map will give you a scale visual of the fires
This fire map will give you a scale visual of the fires
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
California Fire - IncieWeb.org
Everbody Say AMEN!
California has IncieWeb working tonight in real time with current fire data and summary info online.
This is as close to real time live data as you can get tonight with a wild fire moving out of control.
Check it out!
California Fire Info
10.22.07 8:47 PM
This is for my fellow Golden Staters who are all over the world tonight and wondering what's going on in this fire emergency. If you've found my blog page I want to help.
Here is a link to the California State Home Page.
TONIGHT: The site server is not working in real time but it contains regional fire info., and will eventually have links to emergency and disaster relief info.
This is for my fellow Golden Staters who are all over the world tonight and wondering what's going on in this fire emergency. If you've found my blog page I want to help.
Here is a link to the California State Home Page.
TONIGHT: The site server is not working in real time but it contains regional fire info., and will eventually have links to emergency and disaster relief info.
Tune to KNX Radio
For live fire info. from Southern California -
link to KNX RADIO LIVE NOW
It would be nice if they pulled off the ad they have linked to this feed about now, but wait for it and you'll get a good feed on regional info.
Best wishes to all at this time
link to KNX RADIO LIVE NOW
It would be nice if they pulled off the ad they have linked to this feed about now, but wait for it and you'll get a good feed on regional info.
Best wishes to all at this time
California Is On Fire
We're pretty cool about a lot of things in California.
Ordinary Celebs don't impress us. If you're loaded with Money, Fame and Power, we're all like, "whatever dude". One reason we're so cool about that stuff is that all of us who've lived here a while can say, "Remember the Coyote Fire?" or "Remember the Northridge Quake?" It's the stuff we all live through together - no matter where in the world we live - which can literally level the society we share. Trust me, mountains of fire moving at the speed of the wind and the earth trembling underfoot makes mere mortals of us all.
I was thinking about a couple of things I wanted to blog about today. But I had to answer an email from concerned neighbors in Canada. Then as I was getting started to write, the phone rang and a dear friend in New Hampshire needed to know that we were OK. So it finally got through to me what my blog is about today.
California is on fire.
I'm fortunate to be sitting in a place tonight that isn't currently under threat. I can take the time to write to you. Tonight, to the South and East of here there are people watching helplessly as the fire consumes the ridges above them with towers of flame 100 feet high. Fire crews are scrambling to establish defensive perimeters and police units are cruising nice suburban neighborhoods ordering 1 million people to get out - NOW! People watch, wondering when they should leave. Children are in their PJ's, sitting next to boxes of family photos and treasures, wondering when they'll be bundled in to cars to flee - where?. And always, we watch the wind. A shift in the wind means salvation, or total destruction.
(Later)I'm currently listening to KNX in Los Angeles. Damage is extensive - 1800 houses destroyed as of 8:10 PM (Pacific Time) Tues. Hundreds of thousands of acres have burned. Weather calls for lows tonight in the 50's - 60's high tomorrow in the 90's. 68,000 homes threatened. 45 injuries - mostly firefighters.
These fires are being fought, but they are in fact largely out of control. It is hot today. Temperatures are ridiculous on the fire lines, and fires generate their own blazing winds.
If you haven't lived it, you just can't know it. I'm sure people who lived through Katrina know what I mean. I was shocked by the pictures - but I didn't live in them.
I've got fire stories to tell. But this fire story doesn't belong to me.
Pray for mercy on the fire crews tonight from all over the west who are putting their lives into a desperate struggle to save the homes of people they don't even know.
Pray that everyone has a chance to get out alive.
It might be hard for you to understand what's happening. Imagine an area larger than some eastern states burning down to dirt. Then imagine how you could help.
We might be hard to impress. But Californians aren't too proud to be grateful when neighbors pitch in to help.
Ordinary Celebs don't impress us. If you're loaded with Money, Fame and Power, we're all like, "whatever dude". One reason we're so cool about that stuff is that all of us who've lived here a while can say, "Remember the Coyote Fire?" or "Remember the Northridge Quake?" It's the stuff we all live through together - no matter where in the world we live - which can literally level the society we share. Trust me, mountains of fire moving at the speed of the wind and the earth trembling underfoot makes mere mortals of us all.
I was thinking about a couple of things I wanted to blog about today. But I had to answer an email from concerned neighbors in Canada. Then as I was getting started to write, the phone rang and a dear friend in New Hampshire needed to know that we were OK. So it finally got through to me what my blog is about today.
California is on fire.
I'm fortunate to be sitting in a place tonight that isn't currently under threat. I can take the time to write to you. Tonight, to the South and East of here there are people watching helplessly as the fire consumes the ridges above them with towers of flame 100 feet high. Fire crews are scrambling to establish defensive perimeters and police units are cruising nice suburban neighborhoods ordering 1 million people to get out - NOW! People watch, wondering when they should leave. Children are in their PJ's, sitting next to boxes of family photos and treasures, wondering when they'll be bundled in to cars to flee - where?. And always, we watch the wind. A shift in the wind means salvation, or total destruction.
(Later)I'm currently listening to KNX in Los Angeles. Damage is extensive - 1800 houses destroyed as of 8:10 PM (Pacific Time) Tues. Hundreds of thousands of acres have burned. Weather calls for lows tonight in the 50's - 60's high tomorrow in the 90's. 68,000 homes threatened. 45 injuries - mostly firefighters.
These fires are being fought, but they are in fact largely out of control. It is hot today. Temperatures are ridiculous on the fire lines, and fires generate their own blazing winds.
If you haven't lived it, you just can't know it. I'm sure people who lived through Katrina know what I mean. I was shocked by the pictures - but I didn't live in them.
I've got fire stories to tell. But this fire story doesn't belong to me.
Pray for mercy on the fire crews tonight from all over the west who are putting their lives into a desperate struggle to save the homes of people they don't even know.
Pray that everyone has a chance to get out alive.
It might be hard for you to understand what's happening. Imagine an area larger than some eastern states burning down to dirt. Then imagine how you could help.
We might be hard to impress. But Californians aren't too proud to be grateful when neighbors pitch in to help.
Friday, October 19, 2007
Bundle This!
My good friend Dave called me a couple of days ago. After a moment of small talk he told me why he called.
Dave is an announcer at a local NPR affiliate. As you can imagine it's almost genetically against his nature to raise his voice above beautiful, precise and carefully modulated tones.
Dave was mad as hell (in an NPR kind of way) and wanted to know if he had to take it anymore.
The problem Dave outlined was with with our local cable provider.
Seems our local provider had decided to move a few of his favorite channels from basic cable to more expensive service packages. Bundling is a common term for these packages.
After assuring Dave that the best thing to do was cancel his monthly service agreement, I tried to soothe his savage (yet mellow) attitude with the idea that such pricing schemes were doomed in the face of broadband service and selectable on-line content. Happy was I to have such an excellent answer and poor Dave was resigned to pay more or lose his cable.
Did I give him the best answer?
While bundling free online content (like this blog) through free utilities is an easy way to aggregate your own "do it yourself" media menu, pay for play content is a stickier problem. The FCC did a consumer study a few years ago on this very issue. The conclusion? That un-bundling cable service and allowing customers to choose channels would actually add costs and raise the monthly rate to consumers. The report was supported by the cable industry and opposed by Consumers Union.
I'd be happy to dismiss the cable industry from the table and support the Consumers Union but for one fact: itunes.
For just .99 cents you get a song you want from itunes (with use restrictions). The problem? I don't know anybody who likes just one song. If you like hundreds of songs, that's hundreds of dollars in music that you pay for, but don't actually own.
If you have to pay a dollar each for three TV shows you like each day, that's about 90 dollars a month, plus the cost of your broadband service. And who wants to pay hundreds or even thousands of dollars a month for content, just to avoid paying for cable TV?
Especially when there is a better way.
In 1925, BBDO advertising aired it's first hour long radio program sponsored by Atwater Kent radios. This was possible because BBDO had obtained exclusive rights to broadcast Metropolitan Opera stars. A couple of years later and BBDO is the first advertising agency to have it's own radio department.
You know how the rest works. You tune in for free content, in exchange for allowing the sponsor to include their commercial message in the content.
It's simple, it's free, it makes content creation possible because the medium itself has value to sponsors who want to reach the mass market. And it makes the sponsor lots of money.
The cable industry and pay for play is based on an obsolete model. Cable was built because people wanted access to broadcasts they couldn't get over the air. The internet has solved that problem permanently by giving everyone who can connect to it access to selectable, unbundled content from millions of channels all of the time for a single low price.
And as far as monetizing content goes, well, look for the return of the Texaco Star Theater.
Dave is an announcer at a local NPR affiliate. As you can imagine it's almost genetically against his nature to raise his voice above beautiful, precise and carefully modulated tones.
Dave was mad as hell (in an NPR kind of way) and wanted to know if he had to take it anymore.
The problem Dave outlined was with with our local cable provider.
Seems our local provider had decided to move a few of his favorite channels from basic cable to more expensive service packages. Bundling is a common term for these packages.
After assuring Dave that the best thing to do was cancel his monthly service agreement, I tried to soothe his savage (yet mellow) attitude with the idea that such pricing schemes were doomed in the face of broadband service and selectable on-line content. Happy was I to have such an excellent answer and poor Dave was resigned to pay more or lose his cable.
Did I give him the best answer?
While bundling free online content (like this blog) through free utilities is an easy way to aggregate your own "do it yourself" media menu, pay for play content is a stickier problem. The FCC did a consumer study a few years ago on this very issue. The conclusion? That un-bundling cable service and allowing customers to choose channels would actually add costs and raise the monthly rate to consumers. The report was supported by the cable industry and opposed by Consumers Union.
I'd be happy to dismiss the cable industry from the table and support the Consumers Union but for one fact: itunes.
For just .99 cents you get a song you want from itunes (with use restrictions). The problem? I don't know anybody who likes just one song. If you like hundreds of songs, that's hundreds of dollars in music that you pay for, but don't actually own.
If you have to pay a dollar each for three TV shows you like each day, that's about 90 dollars a month, plus the cost of your broadband service. And who wants to pay hundreds or even thousands of dollars a month for content, just to avoid paying for cable TV?
Especially when there is a better way.
In 1925, BBDO advertising aired it's first hour long radio program sponsored by Atwater Kent radios. This was possible because BBDO had obtained exclusive rights to broadcast Metropolitan Opera stars. A couple of years later and BBDO is the first advertising agency to have it's own radio department.
You know how the rest works. You tune in for free content, in exchange for allowing the sponsor to include their commercial message in the content.
It's simple, it's free, it makes content creation possible because the medium itself has value to sponsors who want to reach the mass market. And it makes the sponsor lots of money.
The cable industry and pay for play is based on an obsolete model. Cable was built because people wanted access to broadcasts they couldn't get over the air. The internet has solved that problem permanently by giving everyone who can connect to it access to selectable, unbundled content from millions of channels all of the time for a single low price.
And as far as monetizing content goes, well, look for the return of the Texaco Star Theater.
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