Category Archives: entertainment

Technology failing? Hey, it’s time to SUE!

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I simply don’t know if this lawsuit against Google, SONY, and other big players suggesting a previous right to digital distrubition has merit or not because I don’t understand the legal issues well.

However it’s another good example of a tactic increasingly used by tech firms that are not doing very well with their technologies – work the legal angles hoping to hit a big payday via settlement with a deep pocket like Google or even hit a home run with a court decision in their favor.

I’m not objecting to these lawsuits though – I think the big players have tended to give great liberties with content distribution and have taken great liberties as well. Youtube’s empire was built largely via illegal content distribution. These complex deals with gigantic stakes probably should be settled by objective legal means.

When you are raking in billions it’s easy to be generous and I predict that the real “tipping point” for Google’s fall from grace will be the shift from them getting sued to them suing other firms, especially small ones. Maybe they won’t have to sue which would bode very well for Google’s long term prospects and claim to the high ground.

HBO Comedy Festival and Comic Relief in Las Vegas

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In Las Vegas you always have to re-orient yourself to being in a major center of the entertainment world. This week Caesar’s Palace is hosting the HBO Comedy Festival with a lot of household name comics, though major headliner Dave Chappelle has dropped out. After the HBO Comedy Festival event is “Comic Relief”, with proceeds going to Katrina victims.   That’s at Caesar’s Palace on Saturday with Robin Williams, Whoopi Goldberg, and Billy Crystal.

I wandered into the promotional tent/event tonight where they are in the process of giving away cash, cars, T-shirts and cigars. AOL had a bunch of PCs with *superbly* fast internet and an espresso cart serving up whatever you liked. There were a couple of venues with “open mikes” for anybody who wanted to be a comic, but that was not going over very well.   In fact I was really struck (as usual) by how events here tend to be so awash with cash that does not create a direct return on the investment.     The sponsors would say these “branding” events have large indirect value but I think when we can better measure such things we’ll see how much is wasted by these approaches, especially when compared to online advertising methods.

One thing that really strikes me about Las Vegas, especially at the fanciest places, is the very high quality of customer service. Even if you are underdressed and obviously just looking around, the shopkeepers, security guards, and staff of places like Caesar’s Palace or the Bellagio are attentive and polite and even appear to be sincere. This is obviously the right way to turn a profit but ironically you’ll find inferior customer service at many mom and pop tourism joints around the USA even though they’d likely reap rewards for this as well.

Let Freedom, and our precious Advertocracy, Ring! Cha-CHING!

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As a general rule I’m optimistic about the intentions of those who govern because I think in general good people go into politics with the sincere intention of making things better. That said, I favor the type of small government intended by the founders, who roll over in their graves which each election, staggered by the scale and sweep of modern governments here and in other “democracies” around the world.

Power was supposed to rest in the hearts and minds of an informed populace, yet we the people have chosen to distance ourselves from government to the degree it’s become an abstraction for most of us at the local, state, and national levels.

The outcome of this election clearly “proves” our system really does allow for significant and peaceful change. Yet it also suggests that our choices are confined to only two — and to my mind somewhat equally inadequate — visions of how we should step into our uncertain American future. Why can’t the pendulum swing sideways for a change rather than back and forth between these two inadequate visions of the right path for America?

Is “democracy” the best word to describe the American political experience? I thought I’d coined the term “Advertocracy” but found a nice Canadian article here about the concept back in 2004.

Clearly our elections, the outcomes of which seem increasingly to depend on razor thin margins, are best described as marketing productions rather than the product of a well-informed citizenry acting on democratic principles.  I’m not as alarmed by this as many “anti-advertising” people who fail to see that we all practice forms of advertising in one way or another whether we are telling a fish story about a life experience, beefing up a resume, talking up our favorite movie, or buying time on TV to say “Vote for Me!”. If you blog for your favorite candidate is that advertising? Of course it is.

Communication categories are breaking down quickly, I hope in favor of transparency. Transparent, full disclosure is a better way to measure integrity than “commercialization”, which we all practice to varying degrees of success.

Yet the fact remains that our election results are largely the product of last minute activity by those least concerned about the outcome based on their perceptions of last minute “sound bites” and largely negative ads. There has GOT to be a better way but in the meantime …

God Bless America, and God Bless Advertising.

Election Math 101

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CNN’s election coverage was, in my opinion, a technological masterpiece combining superb graphics and charts with excellent TV journalism. As I flipped channels last night it was clear that those in charge of the CNN information environment had done an exceptional job of providing lots of information in a good format. Nonetheless it was the quick insights of Democratic strategist Carville who alerted us to importance of the six close senate races and certain congressional districts as key metrics.

One disappointing aspect of CNN TV coverage was the CNN “blog party”. To me it seemed like a good idea gone stupid. The blogger comments were, for the most part, uninspired. TV and blogging don’t really mix which is one reason why blogs are taking over the news space. An active reader can scan many opinions very quickly rather than “waiting” for the TV camera or venue to switch to their items of interest.

I’m not much of a partisan, believing that those in high office are generally sincere and hard working people who differ in ideology rather than virtue. One can only hope that the new composition of American government will bring more innovation to the table while seeking solutions to the pressing problems in Iraq, Sudan, and the world at large.

Picasso’s “La Reve” $139,000,000. Hole in Picasso’s La Reve: Priceless.

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OK, so I’m not a fan of Picaso and really should not think it’s kind of funny that Las Vegas Mogul Steve Wynn wound up elbowing his own masterpiece, planting a large hole in the middle of one of the world’s most valuable paintings.

In fact one of the most enjoyable things I did in Las Vegas last year was tour Wynn’s Bellagio Museum of Art, at that time showing a fantastic impressionist collection with a nice audio tour covering the history of impressionist paintings.

Phew, lucky I kept my Elbows to myself.

Blogs are killing journalism? So what’s the bad news?

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Wow, talk about missing the point and the future.

Kent has a post about the running “blogs vs mainstream journalism” debates which seem to be heating up again lately, but he suggests that bloggers have their place and it isn’t an honored place as citizen journalists.
>>> It will be the same journalists who get paid for doing it now <<<

I think he’s really missing the key blogging advantages. Most importantly, this is not about ONE journalist vs ONE blogger, it’s about ONE journalist vs TEN THOUSAND bloggers.

Even the most virtuous journalist:

1) Needs to sleep. Expert bloggers are collectively around 24/7/365

2) Makes far more than is needed to get quality informed commentary from bloggers, who work for … hmmm, let me go check … oh, that would be ZERO dollars per hour.

3) Does not live in the affected areas and can’t get there the instant news happens. . This personalization and localization is a key reason blogs are already replacing mainstream, and rapidly.

4) Is not even remotely as good as people like Kent suggest. My god, try spending 15 minutes watching the jingoist FOX babes or even the very competent CNN world reporters. They cannot possibly match thousands of citizens who speak the language and are smack in the middle of the line of news fire (and gunfire).

Sure, I’d take an Ed Murrow in New York City over Joe Sixpack in New York City, but not when reporting on Hawaii earthquakes, or Peoria, or Berlin, or Kabul, or Tashkent, or Baghdad, or …

Time Warner to Google: We spell your merger “SueTube”. Battelle to TW: Lookout!

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John Battelle thinks Time Warner is mistaken to attack Google on copyright, writing over at Searchblog:

a shot across the bow may bring a broadside from the other side

I usually agree with John Battelle but I don’t really follow his logic here. I agree with him and Bob Dylan that “The Times They are a Changin”“, and that we need a new song to show how the old media empires don’t get the internet. I’d call that song “The Time Warner’s .. They Aren’t a Changin’ “.

However, I don’t see how bringing out the big legal beasts will hurt Time Warner. Frankly, I think they just want Google to throw money at them. As the Napster buyout proved all this has little to do with “rights”, it’s a money grab, sung as usual to the tune of that great O’Jay’s tune of years and years ago “The Love of Money” :
Money money money money ….. money!
The HUGE winners in this are the clever YouTube founders who really just created a very clever distribution system at an opportune time. The user community, and then the GoogleBucks, followed. One thing that irks me about all these mega deals – including Google itself – is that they are built on the backs of the swelling supply of (mostly) user generated content and in the case of YouTube a lot of illegally obtained copyrighted stuff. There will be little or no compensation to the *key components* of the YouTube environment other than a distribution vehicle. Now, one might argue that that exposure is enough compensation for an average YouTube uploader but it still seems…”wrong” to me.

I’d agree that those who create and then monetize these efforts should make a lot, but it’s unfortunate that people, like sheep, choose not to aggressively explore all our online alternatives. I think if we did do more exploring and innovative thinking we’d have a stronger ecosystem of companies rather than a few big players and a plethora of “also rans” standing around drooling at the prospect of a Google or Yahoo buyout.

$1,600,000,000 + 100,000,000 videos = lawsuit!

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Mark Cuban must be snickering “I told you” even though he’s already posted a note suggesting the initial lawsuits will be against small video players to set precedent for an attack on Google.

However Time Warner  is already threatening to sue over videos at YouTube. Presumably Google knew all this was coming and I’m guessing they think they can sweeten the advertising revenue pot enough to keep all the copyright hounds at bay. As the best monetizer of online content I think Google will be able to buy their way out of almost all the lawsuits simply by offering to either 1) remove the offending videos, which are currently making nothing or 2) monetize the content and give the copyright holder 70% of the revenues. In most cases Google’s 70% is going to be more than 100% of what the producer could get with their own efforts.

That said, many producers are going to see this as a great legal way to shoot for Google’s deep, deep pockets. They’ll have no interest in small payouts per download or ads or anything related to their own content, though they’ll disguise that in the complaints.

I’d be very interested to know how the Google team factored this cost into the YouTube equation.

Prediction: Google will buy Facebook for about 1.1 billion

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Irrational exuberance in the dot com shopping aisles?

No, it’s a chess game and Google’s winning….again.

I’m really starting to understand what seems like irrational exuberance on the part of Google and the major players. A Google aquisition of Facebook would be consistent with what Robert Scoble suggested is happening: Google is building a moat around it’s advertising business.

Steve Ballmer also suggested this notion in his recent BusinessWeek interview, ironically fretting that Google could monopolize the media business. Yikes, Steve would really run out of chairs then?

I can almost hear Ballmer to Schmidt:
“Hey Cowboy, there’s only enough room in this here internet for ONE monopoly you, you, you dirty monopolistic sonofabitch BASTARDS!”

Schmidt to Ballmer:
“HEY! DROP that chair and step AWAY from the Vista Browser!”

Google, with tons of cash to burn and a staggering market cap, has far less to lose in the high stakes internet poker game than Yahoo, Ebay, or even Microsoft. Microsoft is bigger than Google and theoretically richer, but unlike Google Microsoft has yet to figure out good ways to monetize their (improving) search services and (not improving) content services.

Ballmer’s juggling how to preserve his big ticket MS Office and Vista projects. Yahoo’s worried about plunging valuations and people leaving and the fact that a billion represents a lot more to them than it does to Google.   This is almost certainly complicating the Yahoo Facebook negotiations right now.  Ebay’s pretty fat and happy where they are. Meanwhile, Google can focus in laser-like fashion on keeping Google in the driver’s seat with it’s superb contextual advertising monetization.

The best defense is a good offense, so they are buying up properties to increase their control over the advertising space and keep those hundreds of millions of eyeballs out of the hands of MS and Yahoo.

Will this work? I say probably not for similar reasons it was stupid for Yahoo to buy Broadcast.com years ago. Video is junky and won’t monetize well. It’ll be more of an encumbrance to Google’s core competencies than an asset. But … things change, and in the meantime it’s fun to watch this high stakes game of chess unfold.

It’s a show you won’t see on YouTube.