Just as I was about to work myself into a pique over the too-soon loss of my "this is going to be a great year" glow (backed-up sink, kid with the flu and a glitchy migration to a dedicated server all conspired against my happiness), I found out that dear Om Malik has been hospitalized with a heart attack at age 41.
For those of you who don't know him, Om is a great guy and a friend to all. I've know him since he worked at Forbes Digital Tool (remember that?) back in the late-1990s. He linked to this blog in 2005 and that was all it took for me to find a following. People follow Om's links like nothing else I've seen.
He was a journalist for a long time but most people know him as the blogging trailblazer who showed the world that blogs could become money-making enterprises. He built a publishing business with his stable of top-notch blogs...but obviously at a price. I know he worked almost 24x7 for at least a year (and then 18x7 for maybe another year) getting GigaOmniMedia up and running and in the process earned my lifelong respect. I gravitate toward entrepreneurs in general but particularly guys like Om who give it their all.
That's what it takes to get things done in this world and I'm always slightly disappointed in myself for not working hard enough to make my visions reality. Not today, though. It's hard to say what caused Om's heart attack -- the stogies, ciggies and love of food, although great fun, didn't help.
But I would bet all that hard work -- and lack of sleep -- played a bigger role in his health crisis. Om, as always, is offering up useful information. He's telling all of us to slow down a little. I know it's hard to do, particularly for the hyper-caffeinated blogosphere, but for all you entrepreneurs out there, building a business is hard on the heart. Ask Om.
Posted by Cynthia Brumfield at 8:01 PM | Print | Comments (0)It's already starting...the annual frenzy of CES announcements is starting, with a few newsworthy items trickling in ahead of the flood. Hoping to beat the crowd, movie rental company Netflix has revealed a deal with consumer electronics giant LG Electronics to ship its rental movies directly to LG's HD sets.
The deal gives the snail mail-based Netflix a further toehold in the emerging online movie business. Netflix currently offers customers the ability to watch selected movies and TV shows on their PCs, a bid to keep customers who might be migrating to online film sites such as Apple's iTunes or Amazon's Unbox (but not Walmart's online film business, which generated the sound of crickets for the retail giant and has been discontinued.)
Although not seemingly part of this latest deal, Netflix could also extend its movie rental business to LG's HD DVD/Blu-ray DVD player, which would give the still-hot movie company yet another pathway to the living room. Netflix is also angling to cut deals with other consumer electronics manufacturers.
Films would route from the PC to TV or DVD player via wireless connections, a still-iffy proposition because most of these devices don't yet feature Wi-Fi connectivity...and it's not clear if Wi-Fi is the ideal medium for transmitting bulky movies. But, Netflix doesn't have much of a choice.
The expensive and cumbersome delivery of films by email and the user-unfriendly viewing of movies on PCs are inefficient and interim steps in the in-home movie delivery business. Plus, Netflix had been planning to manufacture its own set-top box, an idea that has mercifully died.
Posted by Cynthia Brumfield at 10:42 AM | Print | Comments (0)
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