Richard Siklos has a puff-piece of sorts in Sunday’s New York Times about Yahoo!’s CEO Terry Semel — I say “of sorts” because while the piece is a glowing recap of how Semel has turned around Yahoo!, it’s also quite accurate.
The article touches on the skepticism, almost derision, that the traditional media world evinced when Semel, the former chief of Warner Brothers studio, took over the top slot at a tumbling Yahoo in 2001. But under Semel’s disarming but shrewd management, the company’s revenues have increased more than five-fold and Yahoo! now has a market cap worth over $50 billion, putting it on par with Disney…after Disney closes its Pixar deal.
Anybody who has seen Semel speak at conferences or heard his talks during earnings and investor calls already knows that he’s a mighty capable media captain who is a seriously quick study and smart decision-maker. Not much new in this article, but it’s nice that Semel gets this valentine.
Posted by Cynthia Brumfield at 11:22 PM | Print | Comments (0)Writer Verlyn Klikenborg has (what to me is) a very amusing op-ed in Sunday’s New York Times about how the Internet has fostered connections that make him twitch.
Like me, Klikenborg doesn’t own a blackberry (I refuse. I simply refuse) but also like me, he has three daily phone numbers, two fax numbers and six working email addresses (if you count Yahoo, Hotmail and Gmail, I have him beat by at least two email addresses.)
But what resonated with me is Klikenborg’s confession about his email addiction, which mirrors my problem exactly. I had no idea that my strange relationship with email could be experienced in exactly the same manner by somebody else. Here are the signs of email addiction, and I must admit I’m familiar with every one of them:
Do you tell your e-mail program to check for messages automatically every two minutes — and then disbelieve it when it comes up empty? Have you learned to hesitate before answering a new message so it doesn’t look as though you were hunched over the keyboard, waiting? Do you secretly think of lunch as a time for your inbox to fill up? But the clearest sign of e-mail addiction is simply to ask yourself, what is the longest you’ve gone without checking your e-mail in the past two months? Anything longer than a broken night’s sleep is good.Posted by Cynthia Brumfield at 11:00 PM | Print | Comments (0)
As Mitch pointed out, a new effort is underway to bring Wi-Fi to the 1,500 square-mile Silicon Valley region. While the effort sounds promising, and ideal for the nation’s cradle of information technology innovation, questions are already being raised about the feasibility of Wi-Fi over such a large area. The Mercury News has this article today that covers the almost-immediate skepticism regarding this project.
Yet huge questions remain about how much such a network would cost and who would pay for it, what agency would maintain it and what kind of security would shield users from the prying eyes of hackers. It is also unclear whether such a network would keep running during a major catastrophe.
While muni-broadband advocates have embraced Wi-Fi has a preferred technology for ensuring citizen access to broadband, real questions have been raised about whether Wi-Fi, an inherently limited technology, can be used over wide areas such as cities or counties. As the Mercury article points out
Many other metropolitan areas in the United States have launched wireless Internet initiatives over the past year, including Philadelphia and San Francisco. Yet few municipal networks in major cities are actually up and running. Experts say no U.S. region has ever tried to build a network that would cover a region as large and populous as Silicon Valley.Posted by Cynthia Brumfield at 10:53 AM | Print | Comments (0)
In the first decision of its kind in the UK, British High Court judges last week ordered two men to pay penalties for illegally distributing music via file-sharing. The British Phonographic Industry, akin to the RIAA in the U.S., has brought 139 suits against music file-sharers and this case was the first of its kind to be heard in British courts.
A new sense of excitement is flowing through the program production community as a result of emerging mobile and web-based video outlets such as iTunes and Starz’s Vongo. Reuters has this piece on how independent film makers hope that the rise of these alternative video outlets will give their works greater reach.
Some film makers are actually mapping out their plans based on these new alternatives, with the piece citing two directors who created their works with mobile phone viewing in mind.
“The fact is, this is more of a democratic technology, and that’s great,” said “Fast Future Generation” director Marvin Jarrett. “But I don’t want to watch ‘King Kong’ on it, yet.” “Fast Future,” is Jarrett’s documentary of the rock group Good Charlotte while they were on tour in Japan. He is among several filmmakers, including Nick Cassavetes, at Sundance this week, who were showing a movie that could be downloaded on a T-mobile cell phone with a screen about 1.7 inches x 2.2 inches.
While Sundance was underway in Utah, NATPE was in full swing in Las Vegas. Paige Albiniak will recap a similar dynamic coursing through the NATPE sessions in Monday’s IP Media Monitor.
Posted by Cynthia Brumfield at 10:37 AM | Print | Comments (0)
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