Media 3.0 with Shelly Palmer

Manufacturer-to-dealer sales of digital television (DTV) products continued to soar during the first half of 2004, reaching 2.8 million units and dollar revenues of more than $2.7 billion, according to the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA).

Sean Wargo, senior industry analyst for CEA, said one out of four televisions purchased this year will be an HDTV. DTV sales have now reached a total of 11.7 million units since the technology was introduced in 1998, with most sales occurring during the past two years.

The CEA also reported that DTV sales during the first half of 2004 are up 80 percent compared to 1.5 million units sold in the same time period last year. The CEA defines DTV products as integrated sets and monitors displaying active vertical scanning lines of at least 480p and, in the case of integrated sets, receiving and decoding ATSC terrestrial digital broadcasts.

Is HD capability going to be the most important thing about DTV sets? It may help the consumer value proposition, but I think the DTV part of this report is far more interesting. Remember, all HDTV sets are digital, but now all digital sets are HD. Let's keep an eye out, this holiday season, for additional built-in DTV features like, Ethernet ports, WiFi, internal storage, POD cards, etc. Carefully watching the sales trends of these features will tell us alot about the future of our biz.

LONDON (Reuters) - A record-breaking 6.1 million UK television watchers have used an interactive service that enables them to see a different Olympic event than the one being broadcast over the air by the BBC. The interactive usage by half the viewers who have the service since the opening ceremonies in Athens a week ago tops by 50 percent the previous BBC record of 4.1 million people set by this year's Wimbledon (news - web sites) tennis tournament, the UK's public broadcaster said on Friday. Click here to read the whole article.

There is nobody this side of the pond that is more in love with BBC Interactive and its "red button" than I am. But, this is not iTV as we define it here - it is a very interesting way of doing multi-channel broadcasting with a user-friendly video program guide over cable and satellite. You know, the Brits call the hoods of their cars "bonnets," their friends, "mates" and a beer a "pint." They call this particular flavor of virtual channel switching, "iTV." Don't be confused.

That being said, the stats say something much more important. People want to watch, what they want to watch, when they want to watch it. We talk about viewer command and control all of the time and there are research firms practically dedicated to quantifying the behavior. Stats like this speak volumes about what will happen here the moment we get a uniform way for consumers to access special features. In the UK, the "red button" it is the nationwide "advanced television" button - you press it, and something cool happens to the show you are watching. People in the UK know this. As soon as we train our viewers to "press here" (wherever here is) - we are going to see the true power of advanced TV. BTW, this may never happen in the USA, but that's another story.

 
Hey everyone!

It was great to see all of you at our Summer Beer Bash last week.  What a great party!!! Many thanks to Colleen Shanahan and Pietro Rontundo for setting it up.

August 31, 2004 is the deadline for submitting your entry for the Advanced Media Technology Emmy Awards.  Even if you submitted your work for the ATAS iTV Emmys on the West Coast, you are eligible to submit your work for a NATAS Advanced Media Technology Emmy Award.  You can download the call for entries at http://www.emmyonline.com - see full details below.

If you are going to LA for Digital Hollywood (Sep. 27 – 29), the ITV Alliance is hosting a special “Re-inventing Television Summit” on the Queen Mary in Long Beach (Sep. 29, 30). They are offering a special “NATAS Pass” to independent producers and consultants that are not affiliated with a larger company. It costs $1,000 and includes all workshops, meals, overnight stay on the ship, and an annual membership to the ITA and NATPE. For more information, go to http://www.itvalliance.org/natas.htm.

I'm out of town this week, but we'll still be drinking and schmoozing on Tuesday evening, August 31, 2004 - 6:30-8:30p at Shelly's New York (104 West 57th Street, just of 6th).

Readership of my Advanced Media Blog has topped 2,500 people per day - please visit (and bookmark) http://www.ShellyPalmerBlog.com

Advanced Media Committee members, Martin Waxman and Steve Wishnoff tied with the correct attribution of the quote: "Art is moral passion married to entertainment. Moral passion without entertainment is propaganda, and entertainment without moral passion is television." to Rita Mae Brown.  This week's quote contest is submitted by J.R. McKechnie of Brightline Partners.  J.R. asks, who said to his well-known aide: "You know, I've always wondered about the taping equipment. But I'm damn glad we have it." For some bonus points, who was the aide?  My weekly quotes are too easy, as evidenced by the over 400 of you who got this week's quote right, perhaps you will submit some tougher quotes, just email them to me - shelly@palmer.net

Make your reservations today for "Rick and Shelly's Excellent Adventure!"  I am chairing the 6th Annual Interactive TV Show Europe (Barcelona, Spain) 10/14-15/2004 - Rick Mandler is one of the key panelists.  For more info www.itv.access-events.com  Advanced Media Committee members will receive a 10% discount by using code SN04 on the registration page.

For more information, please visit http://www.AdvancedMediaCommittee.com  I'm looking forward to seeing you soon.  :) Shelly Palmer, President/CEO, Palmer Advanced Media

To unsubscribe from this email list please click here or visit http://www.nyemmys.org/newmedia/unsubscribe.asp

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The Week In Review

Video Gamers Watch Less TV

The NY Post says that a new Ziff Davis study says that Video Gamers watch less television! The story quotes the report and give some stats about how respondents answered some questions about their habits ... ugh!

I'm glad that someone had the temerity to actually ask the gamers if they watched less TV, this very fact speaks volumes about a subject that every parent knows, "if you've got something else to do, you watch less TV." This includes: IM, Video Games, Sports, Wireless Text Messaging, speaking on the phone, doing homework, listening to music and sleeping!

The simple fact is that many of the best video games have compelling user experiences, compelling stories and interesting characters. They inform, enlighten and entertain (which used to be the job of Television). As TV continues it's one-to-many quest using least common denominator - "biggest possible audience mentality," it will continue to loose viewers. And while it may take decades for current TV models to become an totally inefficient for advertising purposes, the trend will not reverse until TV takes a small technological leap and embraces the world of mass personalization. When TV becomes more relevant and controllable, it will regain viewership in large numbers.

This technological leap will include dynamic, addressable programming as well as advertising, total advertising control over the DVR and a fairly strong approach to DRM. It's all technologically possible right now - today - this minute. Perhaps this report will serve as an executive “wake up call.” The industry is experiencing a tectonic shift – the technology is easy … the business rules are another story altogether!

RIAA Polices the Speed Limit 

The New York Post reports that the "RIAA Sues 744 Music Pirates." As usual, this red hot topic has three sides: People who think the copyright laws don't apply to them, people who think the copyright laws apply to everyone and people who don't think.

The vast majority of people fall into the last group. They are the most dangerous to rights holders of all media because, as I like to say, the toothpaste is out of the tube! It is with that in mind, that the RIAA is suing "it's customers."

To truly understand the issue we have to think about the difference between a criminal offense and a white lie. Pirates steal stuff, they are thieves! There is no difference between someone shoplifting a CD or illegally downloading the same intellectual property. If you accept this as a fact - and legally it is, then you must also consider the following: downloading is really easy and mostly free.

As a practical matter, downloading is very similar to speeding. And, although I think we need new laws and new enforcement techniques, right now - the RIAA is simply setting speed traps along the highway. How many of us do 63 mph in a 55 mph zone? It's not strictly legal, but it really doesn't hurt anyone. Law enforcement people know this, so you usually don't ticketed for it - even in a radar trap. But people breaking the speed limit by more than 25 mph (you know who you are) usually get big tickets and big fines to go along with them.

The deterrent effect of the highway patrolmen on would-be speeders is well understood. Most people, don't want a ticket, the fine or the points associated with them, so they don't speed too much. They'll press the limit, they'll go over a little, they may even speed sometimes, but not all the time!

So, while I don't applaud the RIAA or their tactics, I understand them. Under the current copyright laws and pressure from current technology, this is their only choice.

MMS Experimental or just Mental?

The NY Times featured an article "Taking Pictures of Magazine Ads" - The September issue of Jane magazine includes advertising spreads for Guess, Gap and 10 other marketers before the table of contents. Even if readers peruse every ad in the whole magazine, though, Jane does not want their experience to end there. Instead, Jane urges, "Grab your camera phone and take a picture of any and all ads in this magazine." It promises readers who send the photos to Jane "a ton of freebies, sweepstakes, MP3's and interesting info."

And so it begins ... the quest for the right business model for MMS. Can print media enter the new media world via MMS? Is this the wave of the future? Is the model sustainable? Can you just see teen girls spending 25 cents a pix to get freebees and swag every month 4ever! The truth is no one really knows how this kind of test will turn out. But, what we do know is that the learning will be invaluable! Let's watch this experiment with extra interest - cell phones are the computer in everyone's hand.

Who made the Olympics unwatchable?

Marc Berman of Mediaweek.com says, "As week two of The Summer Olympics continue, NBC averaged a 20.0/29 in the overnights, with 25.49 million viewers and a 9.1/24 among adults 18-49 according to the fast nationals yesterday." Another way to look at it is that most Americans are not watching the Olympics.

Many people are positing all kinds of ideas about why: Time zone delay, America-centric coverage, terrible pacing of the primetime show, etc. The news is full of pundits and their reasons why the games of the 28th Olympiad are terrible - and I'm sure that many of them are bringing up points that contribute to the generally unwatchable drivel that the "games" have become. What I haven't seen is anyone talking about the actual reason that the coverage is what it is ...

The simple fact is that 233% more people are watching the Olympics than anything else on TV these two weeks and the reason is clear - NBC is giving the largest number of people what they want, the way they want to see it.

It may be true that there are too many commercial breaks, too many puff pieces, terrible editorial and pace decisions, disjointed storylines, etc. But, NBC is not paying the price, in fact, they're doing just fine. (Personally, I think that they would do better if they were maing reasonable television, but I digress)

Popularity has never been a measure of quality and quality has certainly never been a measure of popularity.

Let's remember, TV, in its current iteration, is a one-to-many medium with severe limitations. It seeks the lowest common denominator ... always. TV programming is almost always as bad as it can be. As a practical reality, cheap, bad programming that is just barely watchable is our industry's equivalent of "just in time" inventory management. TV is not efficiently doing its job if you deliver a small audience that likes a quality product. That's the job of advanced television - at the next Olympics and certainly by the games of 2012, we will see niche programming, relevant advertising, addressable dynamic programming and full-screen broadband delivering coverage that is customizable and watchable for a mass personalized audience.

Wondering how? Join the Advanced Media Committee and help us architect the future of Television. 

'Millionaire' Interacts with AOL Buddies

As you may or may not know, I am the patented inventor of a couple of types of interactive television. Studying the way that people interact (or don't interact) with their media choices has been both a profession and a passion of mine for years. After all, music was the first truly interactive medium!

"Who Wants to Be a Millionaire" will soon be the only syndicated TV series to add a real-time interactive element during production tapings. Anyone who adds the screen name "MillionaireIM" to their AOL Instant Messenger Buddy List feature can receive actual game questions via instant message (or mobile instant message, for those appropriately equipped). Fans who aren't America Online members or AIM users can visit http://www.millionairetv.com to learn more and to download AIM for free.

Then when contestants opt to "Ask the Audience" for assistance, the studio audience's answers will be added in with those sent by text-ers. More than 36 million people are active users of the AOL Instant Messenger service.

You can read the complete article by Chris Marlowe by clicking here.

Is this important? I’m not sure. But, it is wonderful! Sadly, this is a non-synchronous application, so I can’t predict how people will use it. If this were a sync application on the primetime show, the results would be far more informative and the learning would be much more important! I hope this is a big success – does someone out there know how to measure it?

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Site of the Week

http://www.emmyonline.com - this is where you download your call for entries (which close on 8/31/04) for the Advanced Media Technology Emmy Awards - do it now!!!!

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Lexicon of Technobable

"Every profession is a conspiracy against the laity" - Oscar Wilde

EDO DRAM or EDO RAM A type of DRAM designed to access nearby memory locations faster than FPM DRAM.

Extended Data Out Dynamic Random Access Memory (EDO-DRAM) allows the data outputs to be kept active after the CAS\ signal goes inactive, using an additional signal OE\ to control the data outputs. This can be used in pipelined systems for overlapping accesses where the next cycle is started before the data from the last cycle is removed from the bus.

EDO DRAM is primarily used with Intel's Pentium processors since with slower processors there is no significant performance gain. To make use of the advanced features of EDO an appropriate chipset, such as Triton, must be used. In early 1995, EDO DRAM was available for computers from Micron, Gateway 2000, and Intel Corporation; since then other manufactures followed suit.

Note that in comparison to Burst EDO EDO is sometimes referred to as "Standard EDO".

Have some technobable to add to our collection, email shelly@palmer.net I'll put it in next week's newsletter.

The NY Post says that a new Ziff Davis study says that Video Gamers watch less television! The story quotes the report and give some stats about how respondents answered some questions about their habits ... ugh!

I'm glad that someone had the temerity to actually ask the gamers if they watched less TV, this very fact speaks volumes about a subject that every parent knows, "if you've got something else to do, you watch less TV." This includes: IM, Video Games, Sports, Wireless Text Messaging, speaking on the phone, doing homework, listening to music and sleeping!

The simple fact is that many of the best video games have compelling user experiences, compelling stories and interesting characters. They inform, enlighten and entertain (which used to be the job of Television). As TV continues it's one-to-many quest using least common denominator - biggest possible audience mentality, it will continue to loose viewers. And while it may take decades for current TV models to become an totally inefficient for advertising purposes, the trend will not reverse until TV takes a small technological leap and embraces the world of mass personalization. When TV becomes more relevant and controllable, it will regain viewership in large numbers.

This will include dynamic, addressable programming as well as advertising, total advertising control over the DVR and a fairly strong approach to DRM. It's all technologically possible right now - today - this minute. Perhaps this report will serve as an executive “wake up call.” The industry is experiencing a tectonic shift – the technology is easy … the business rules are another story altogether!

The New York Post reports that the "RIAA Sues 744 Music Pirates." As usual, this red hot topic has three sides: People who think the copyright laws don't apply to them, people who think the copyright laws apply to everyone and people who don't think.

The vast majority of people fall into the last group. They are the most dangerous to rights holders of all media because, as I like to say, the toothpaste is out of the tube! It is with that in mind, that the RIAA is suing "it's customers."

To truly understand the issue we have to think about the difference between a criminal offense and a white lie. Pirates steal stuff, they are thieves! There is no difference between someone shoplifting a CD or illegally downloading the same intellectual property. If you accept this as a fact - and legally it is, then you must also consider the following: downloading is really easy and mostly free.

As a practical matter, downloading is very similar to speeding. And, although I think we need new laws and new enforcement techniques, right now - the RIAA is simply setting speed traps along the highway. How many of us do 63 mph in a 55 mph zone? It's not strictly legal, but it really doesn't hurt anyone. Law enforcement people know this, so you usually don't ticketed for it - even in a radar trap. But people breaking the speed limit by more than 25 mph (you know who you are) usually get big tickets and big fines to go along with them.

The deterrent effect of the highway patrolmen on would-be speeders is well understood. Most people, don't want a ticket, the fine or the points associated with them, so they don't speed too much. They'll press the limit, they'll go over a little, they may even speed sometimes, but not all the time!

So, while I don't applaud the RIAA or their tactics, I understand them. Under the current copyright laws and pressure from current technology, this is their only choice.

Today's NY Times features an article "Taking Pictures of Magazine Ads" - The September issue of Jane magazine includes advertising spreads for Guess, Gap and 10 other marketers before the table of contents. Even if readers peruse every ad in the whole magazine, though, Jane does not want their experience to end there. Instead, Jane urges, "Grab your camera phone and take a picture of any and all ads in this magazine." It promises readers who send the photos to Jane "a ton of freebies, sweepstakes, MP3's and interesting info."

And so it begins ... the quest for the right business model for MMS. Can print media enter the new media world via MMS? Is this the wave of the future? Is the model sustainable? Can you just see teen girls spending 25 cents a pix to get freebees and swag every month 4ever! The truth is no one really knows how this kind of test will turn out. But, what we do know is that the learning will be invaluable! Let's watch this experiment with extra interest - cell phones are the computer in everyone's hand.

Marc Berman of Mediaweek.com says, "As week two of The Summer Olympics continue, NBC averaged a 20.0/29 in the overnights, with 25.49 million viewers and a 9.1/24 among adults 18-49 according to the fast nationals yesterday." Another way to look at it is that most Americans are not watching the Olympics.

Many people are positing all kinds of ideas about why: Time zone delay, America-centric coverage, terrible pacing of the primetime show, etc. The news is full of pundits and their reasons why the games of the 28th Olympiad are terrible - and I'm sure that many of them are bringing up points that contribute to the generally unwatchable drivel that the "games" have become. What I haven't seen is anyone talking about the actual reason that the coverage is what it is ...

The simple fact is that 233% more people are watching the Olympics than anything else on TV these two weeks and the reason is clear - NBC is giving the largest number of people what they want, the way they want to see it.

It may be true that there are too many commercial breaks, too many puff pieces, terrible editorial and pace decisions, disjointed storylines, etc. But, NBC is not paying the price, in fact, they're doing just fine. (Personally, I think that they would do better if they were maing reasonable television, but I digress)

Popularity has never been a measure of quality and quality has certainly never been a measure of popularity.

Let's remember, TV, in its current iteration, is a one-to-many medium with severe limitations. It seeks the lowest common denominator ... always. TV programming is almost always as bad as it can be. As a practical reality, cheap, bad programming that is just barely watchable is our industry's equivalent of "just in time" inventory management. TV is not efficiently doing its job if you deliver a small audience that likes a quality product. That's the job of advanced television - at the next Olympics and certainly by the games of 2012, we will see niche programming, relevant advertising, addressable dynamic programming and full-screen broadband delivering coverage that is customizable and watchable for a mass personalized audience.

Wondering how? Join the Advanced Media Committee and help us architect the future of Television.

As you may or may not know, I am the patented inventor of a couple of types of interactive television. Studying the way that people interact (or don't interact) with their media choices has been both a profession and a passion of mine for years. After all, music was the first truly interactive medium!

"Who Wants to Be a Millionaire" will soon be the only syndicated TV series to add a real-time interactive element during production tapings. Anyone who adds the screen name "MillionaireIM" to their AOL Instant Messenger Buddy List feature can receive actual game questions via instant message (or mobile instant message, for those appropriately equipped). Fans who aren't America Online members or AIM users can visit http://www.millionairetv.com to learn more and to download AIM for free.

Then when contestants opt to "Ask the Audience" for assistance, the studio audience's answers will be added in with those sent by text-ers. More than 36 million people are active users of the AOL Instant Messenger service.

You can read the complete article by Chris Marlowe by clicking here.

Is this important? I’m not sure. But, it is wonderful! Sadly, this is a non-synchronous application, so I can’t predict how people will use it. If this were a sync application on the primetime show, the results would be far more informative and the learning would be much more important! I hope this is a big success – does someone out there know how to measure it?

Our Summer Networking Party is this Wednesday,  August 25, 2004, 6:30p - O'Flaherty's Ale House 334 West 46th Street, NYC - RSVP here - more details below.  Please, please, please download the call for entries for the Advanced Media Technology Emmy Awards at http://www.advancedmediacommittee.com the deadline is August 31, 2004.  Even if you submitted your work for the ATAS iTV Emmys on the West Coast, you are eligible to submit your work for a NATAS Advanced Media Technology Emmy Award.

Just for fun, please join the more than 2,000 people each day who read my Advanced Media Blog at http://www.ShellyPalmerBlog.com.

Don't miss Tuesday evening's drink and schmooze on August 24, 2004 - 6:30-8:30p at Shelly's New York (104 West 57th Street, just of 6th) - We've been hitting the burger place in the Parker Meridian afterwards, come on down - it's fun!

Advanced Media Committee members, Richard Reisman, Arthur Greenwald, Eric Feinstein, Joel Spector and Jonathan Palmer all tied with the correct answer to Lydia Loizides' concept quote: Shakespeare said, "Hey...life is pretty stupid; with lots of hubbub to keep you busy, but really not amounting to much. Of course, I'm paraphrasing ..." Questions: Who uttered these words of wisdom? What Shakespearean line is being paraphrased? What from which work?  The answer: Who uttered these words of wisdom? What Shakespearean line is being paraphrased? What from which work? BTW, this week 421 of you got the right answer!  Lydia told me she was looking for Steve Martin as the correct answer. Can anyone name the movie?

Macbeth | Act 5, Scene 5

MACBETH
She should have died hereafter;
There would have been a time for such a word.
To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded time,
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.

For a free tutorial in broadband overbuilding, who said: "Art is moral passion married to entertainment. Moral passion without entertainment is propaganda, and entertainment without moral passion is television."

Make your reservations today for "Rick and Shelly's Excellent Adventure!"  I am chairing the 6th Annual Interactive TV Show Europe (Barcelona, Spain) 10/14-15/2004 - Rick Mandler is one of the key panelists.  For more info www.itv.access-events.com  Advanced Media Committee members will receive a 10% discount by using code SN04 on the registration page.

For more information, please visit http://www.AdvancedMediaCommittee.com  I'm looking forward to seeing you soon.  :) Shelly Palmer, President/CEO, Palmer Advanced Media

To unsubscribe from this email list please click here or visit http://www.nyemmys.org/newmedia/unsubscribe.asp

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The Week In Review

Olympic AT&T Text Survey

They say the ratings are up. It looks like attendance is up. Are you participating in the AT&T Olympic moments SMS poles? Our friend, and AMC member, Tim Shey and his group at Proteus are the technology behind the scenes. The big questions include: "Are people doing it?" and "Who is making money?" A little birdie told me that people are doing it - lots of it. And, AT&T is one of the carriers that charges 10 cents in both directions, so they are making money. But, with the price of Olympic sponsorship, the spots are far from breakeven. The strategy must be about sampling: Once you start using SMS, you're likely to continue to use it. There's nothing like having people pay you while they are learning to use your products. It’s a different type of success metric, but the ROI is easy to calculate.

There are some important elements of this campaign: excellent artwork, great clips and prominent positioning of the spots. If it is successful, we will have learned the obvious ... TV drives usage of almost everything is touches.

P2P Networks, Guns & Cigarettes are Legal

The law says: "Guns don't kill people - people kill people!" The law says: "Cigarettes cause cancer, but smoke 'em if you got 'em." And, as of Thursday, the law says: "P2P Networks are not liable for the piracy they enable!"

The appeals court writes: "This appeal presents the question of whether distributors of peer-to-peer file-sharing computer networking software may be held contributorily or vicariously liable for copyright infringements by users. Under the circumstances presented by this case, we conclude that the defendants are not liable for contributory and vicarious copyright infringement and affirm the district court’s partial grant of summary judgment." writes Judge Thomas. Click here to read the entire opinion. The ruling did not say that file-sharing itself is legal. Other courts in the US have ruled in the past that sharing of copyrighted files by people breaks the law.

The AMC membership includes many recovering lawyers and a quick, informal pole finds all of them siding with the Judge. Legally, the opinion is sound. This will come as little solace to the rights holders whose IP is being stolen by the "legal" process of P2P networking. I am on the record for over a decade saying "you can't put the toothpaste back in the tube." Or, my more smug response to P2P discussions - "a file is a file is a file."

As a practical matter, this is a fantastic decision by the court. It will force our industry to wake up and spend some money doing some very constructive stuff: 1) Better encryption. 2) Better copyright laws. 3) Better technological awareness for its executives. 4) Better consumer research ... all of which are sorely needed by the entertainment industry.

There's nothing like adversity to bring out the best in you, right? This is a challenge for the Advanced Media Committee to take a leadership position and help architect the future.

BPL & WiFi May Solve The Problem

We've been spending a good deal of time thinking and speaking about BPL (Broadband over Power Lines) these past few months. AMC member Guy Albanese sent in this article from USAToday.com The author, Andrew Kantor, makes some valid points about the technology and it's interesting reading.

The big idea is to use BPL for the backbone and then, because the big technological BPL hump is post step-down transformer where the signal is hard to control, use a WiFi or WiMax hub/repeater on the pole. This is truly the best of both worlds. Lots of electrons available for the backbone and plenty of coverage for the last half mile that has heretofore been a phone and cable company dominion.

So, how important is a valid BPL/WiFi combo plan to us domestically? Let's see, DSL is only a valid broadband solution if you are less than 18,000 from a switch. Let's just say that there are a bunch of phone customers that are more than three miles from a phone company switch. Cable modems don't have the same kinds of distance limitations, but you do need a cable. However, basically everyone in America has AC power and almost every household is within WiFi or WiMax range of a step-down transformer.

Can our public utility executives get this to happen? As far as I can tell, just a year ago the power grid was hanging by a thread. One year after the biggest power outage in US history, not much has changed. But, I have hope. BPL/WiFi will be a new profit center for public utilities, and new money is historically quite motivational!

Portent of iTV Search Engines

Every once in a while you see something that makes you think that something else is going to happen. AMC member and open source guru, Tim Halle sent in this link to a posting on Jesse Ruderman's blog with a simple question. "How hard would it be to hack this for iTV?"

In case you are not technical or don't know what the link is referring to, Firefox is a next generation web browser from the nice people at Mozilla. It has many excellent features and if you are not a fan of Microsoft's Internet Explorer, Firefox is an excellent alternative.

The feature that Tim noticed is the ad bar, but more importantly, the fact that it displays Google ads that are relevant to the search or content that you are browsing. Now, key word searching is not new and neither are "relevant to the content you are browsing ads" - the interesting thing here is the disintermediation of the referring partners financial participation.

Is there a set-top middleware solution here - obviously! It would be smart for cable operators to offer this kind of adlink to their customers. Is this kind of technology a portent to the future of EPG (electronic program guides) and a possible future way you will decide what media to display on your television monitor? No doubt!

When Piracy is done by Pirates

 In an article entitled, CONTAINING FAKE 'SHREK,' Vareity reports that "Almost three months before "Shrek 2" officially hits videostore shelves, DreamWorks Home Entertainment is scrambling to prevent illegal copies from swamping the market. Bootlegs apparently replicated from pristine studio copy." Welcome to the difference between semi-harmless consumer downloading and piracy. Downloaders who fit the contemporary profile are young, have fairly sophisticated equipment, have a basically free, big pipe (like a college dorm or office) and live in a world where their time is less valuable than their money. Pirates, on the other hand, pillage, plunder and steal. A pirate will physically steal a master from its owner. A consumer downloader will follow a path of least resistance (also stealing from the rights holder, but not going out of their way to do so). A pirate will profit from their crime and provide unsuspecting clients or complicit clients with an emotionally satisfying experience. A downloader will spend more time than the end product would have cost for a sub-optimal user experience. Pirates truly hurt sales. Downloaders increase buzz and probably help overall sales since anything worth having is worth having a good copy of - a sub-optimal download is really a long format promo. Piracy is a crime - downloading is a harmless vice like driving 10 mph over the speed limit. Sadly, for all involved, the distinction between a video downloader and a video pirate will disappear within 36 months as the technology and bandwidth improve. As the practical difference between these two groups vanishes, the industry is going to feel a measurable impact on its bottom line. As difficult as it will be to solve this problem domestically, the reality of solving it internationally is exponentially more daunting. This issue will be "the" problem for our industry in the last half of this decade. A file is a file is a file and, as I've oft said, "you can't put the toothpaste back in the tube."

Olympic Burnout

"What does $1 Billion worth of commercials look like? As the networks owned by NBC Universal begin coverage of the Summer Olympics in Athens, American viewers will find out." writes NYT ad editor, Stuart Elliott. The article is interesting, but the reality is horrifying! Is it possible to hate Leonard Bernstein's "Somewhere" from West Side Story? It is, if you hear it as the soundtrack of an overly stylized financial services commercial ten times a night! All but the very biggest sponsors (and many of them) are using one or two spots in heavy rotation on the "Networks of NBC" and the burnout factor is intense.

It's true that you now need about 120 primetime spots to reach 80% of the viewers, but do they have to be the same creative over and over? Of course not! I now know that TIAA CREF is for the greater good, although I don't know what they do. I know that Home Depot employees more Olympic and Para Olympic athletes than any other company and I know that Trojan horses speak like surfer dudes (how many people will make the connection between the Trojan horse and the computer virus of the same name? The spot never mentions it.) All of these spots were good for one viewing, even two, but a zillion? Come on guys, if you're going to spend $1 Billion on media, how about a few million on some additional creative so your audience doesn't tune out. The disconnect between the media buyers, the brand managers and the creative agencies has never been more apparent.

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Site of the Week

http://www.typepad.com - You can start your own blog.  AMC member, Lydia Loizides suggested this software to me when I wanted to start blogging - it is pretty good.

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Lexicon of Technobable

"Every profession is a conspiracy against the laity" - Oscar Wilde

CDMA - Short for Code-Division Multiple Access, a digital cellular technology that uses spread-spectrum techniques. Unlike competing systems, such as GSM, that use TDMA, CDMA does not assign a specific frequency to each user. Instead, every channel uses the full available spectrum. Individual conversations are encoded with a pseudo-random digital sequence.

Have some technobable to add to our collection, email shelly@palmer.net I'll put it in next week's newsletter.

They say the ratings are up. It looks like attendance is up. Are you participating in the AT&T Olympic moments SMS poles? Our friend, and AMC member, Tim Shey and his group at Proteus are the technology behind the scenes. The big questions include: "Are people doing it?" and "Who is making money?" A little birdie told me that people are doing it - lots of it. And, AT&T is one of the carriers that charges 10 cents in both directions, so they are making money. But, with the price of Olympic sponsorship, the spots are far from breakeven. The strategy must be about sampling: Once you start using SMS, you're likely to continue to use it. There's nothing like having people pay you while they are learning to use your products. It’s a different type of success metric, but the ROI is easy to calculate.

There are some important elements of this campaign: excellent artwork, great clips and prominent positioning of the spots. If it is successful, we will have learned the obvious ... TV drives usage of almost everything is touches.