Google is the hottest company to hit the Internet or the media or Wall Street in years, combining tremendous skill, ultimate versatility and unlimited money into one sprawling, sizzling enterprise with unending potential. (I know I’m repeating myself. I’ve said something similar here and here). But with Google’s unbounded success, some critics fear the market power Google holds in its hands, with journalists, in particular, scornful of Google’s ability to pick and choose what’s news.
A spooky, perhaps overwrought, but nonetheless fascinating and professionally produced video of a Google-controlled future can be found here. This Orwellian vision of the future is based on the rapid personalization of the media brought on by blogging, Amazon.com and, of course, Google.
The video tells the history of the media from the vantage point of 2014, when a company called “Googlezon” (resulting from the merger of Google and Amazon.com) rules the information world. Googlezon has a program called The Evolving Personalized Information Construct, or Epic, which is a functionally unlimited grid of information and entertainment supplied by freelance editors who use Googlezon to cut, paste, clip and rework content to supply the world’s information needs. (This follows the news “wars” of 2010 when Googlezon essentially shuts down The New York Times.)
The video is fascinating and certainly a warning of what might be, but like all dark visions, too pessimistic to ever come true. It’s hard to say something this creepy is enjoyable, but it certainly is entertaining. (Thanks Gary!)
Posted by Cynthia Brumfield at 4:07 PM | Print | Comments (0) | TrackBack
According to USA Today, FCC Chairman Kevin Martin is considering using a provision in the 1992 Cable Act to expedite the granting of RBOC video franchises by local governments. Section 621(a)(1) of the Act states that local franchising authorities “may not unreasonably refuse to award an additional competitive franchise” for video.
USA Today cites a written statement from Martin:
“Several weeks ago I asked the staff to explore what the commission can do to ensure that local authorities are not unreasonably refusing to award additional competitive licenses” for video, he said…Granting additional franchises, he added, “would promote competition and stimulate broadband deployment…I intend to do whatever I can to help meet the president’s goal of ‘universal and affordable access for broadband technology’ by 2007.”
Martin’s statement notwithstanding, its not at all clear that the typical franchising delays the RBOCs face in thousands of communities across the country will amount to “unreasonable” refusal to grant a franchise.
“It’s smart for the chairman to use the FCC’s bully pulpit to warn the cities against log rolling the Bells” on broadband, says [Blair] Levin, an analyst at Legg Mason Wood Walker in Washington [and an assistant to former FCC chairman Reed Hundt]. “The only question is at what point does he think he should intervene.”Posted by Mitch Shapiro at 3:51 PM | Print | Comments (0) | TrackBack
In itvt.com’s interview with Akimbo Systems’ CEO Josh Goldman, a few things stood out to me.
One was the fact that Rocketboom, a popular videoblog that Robin Good describes as “a daily 3-minute show that is both informative, ironic, innovative and irreverent,” is Akimbo’s “second or third most popular content provider out of 140 or so channels.” (Here’s a link to a video interview with Rocketboom’s founders).
Another thing that struck me was the apparent significance of foreign language programming in Akimbo’s early market growth. According to Goldman:
I think in many cases, people are acquiring Akimbo devices and subscriptions to get the niche content—to get the stuff they can’t get anywhere else. We’ve had great success with Chinese language television shows and movies, and we’re now launching Indian movies and TV shows as well. This is because there’s great, pent-up demand for that kind of content, and it’s important enough to some groups of people to have it that they will go out and acquire a special device to get it.
Perhaps most important for Akimbo’s future is the question of whether its apparent goal of becoming a web-content aggregator can succeed in a world where everyone—from cable operators and telcos, to studios, to Google, Yahoo and a slew of startup web-video platform providers—is aiming to expand their slice of future video audiences and revenue streams. This is especially important in light of the fact that Akimbo does not have exclusive distribution rights to most of the programming it offers.
Goldman says Akimbo is “focused on protecting [its] lead in this space” and that we should expect announcements from the company in the coming months in three key areas: new content deals, new distribution deals, and innovations in content discovery and navigation technologies.
Akimbo’s first distribution deal is with Microsoft. In October the Akimbo service will become available to owners of Microsoft’s Windows Media Center computers. The company’s tougher and more important sell in terms of distribution will be the owners of the dominant broadband pipes to the home. Cable operators already directly manage a wide range of content-distribution deals and have historically demanded control and high margins when dealing with new ventures and small players. And the two largest RBOCs, SBC and Verizon, are looking increasingly to Yahoo as their source of broadband content. While this suggests Akimbo’s prospects for securing a win-win deal with these players are not great, if Goldman’s team can secure such deals, they will have gone a long way toward proving that their pioneering strategy reflects not only courage and vision, but also an ability to swim with the sharks without getting eaten.
Posted by Mitch Shapiro at 12:29 PM | Print | Comments (0) | TrackBackCourtesy of PVR Blog, an intriguing concept for Tivo users: download MPEG2 videos stored on the Internet Archive for viewing on the TV. Internet Archive has hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of hours of MPEG2 video programming, from movies (Night of the Living Dead) to old cartoons (Betty Boop). A web site called Worship the Glitch has set up a daily “TV station” for Tivo users called GlitchTV that scans the archives and makes video available for Tivo users to download onto their PCs and then transfer to their TVs.
Andrew Rasiej, who is running for NYC public advocate on basically one platform — making Wi-Fi free and available throughout the city — was part of a debate hosted by New York TV channel NY1 held on August 23. (Video coverage of the event is here). Rasiej got an earful from some of the other debaters, who challenged his seemingly sole focus on Wi-Fi. Public advocate Betsy Gotbaum took Rasiej to task, saying something to the effect that a woman waiting for public housing really doesn’t care about high-speed Internet access.
U.S. Senator and would-be presidential candidate Hillary Clinton has a blog on cancer as part of the American Cancer Society’s Blog for Hope campaign. She’s got some interesting company. Joining her in the campaign are Tom Green, Fran Drescher and Deepak Chopra. (Tip of the hat to Steve Rubel.)
Posted by Cynthia Brumfield at 9:24 AM | Print | Comments (0) | TrackBackWired magazine’s Josh McHugh has an in-depth piece on the growing reach of Yahoo. Yahoo’s forays into the video business are expanding rapidly, transforming the dot-com era company into a full-fledged entertainment company, with Hollywood recognizing the company as one of its own. According to McHugh, an internal memo from COO Dan Rosensweig says, “The growing consumer demand for compelling content on the Internet and the proliferation of broadband is an exciting opportunity. We need to enhance our presence in the entertainment capital of the world.”
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