Ariel Silverstone recently introduced me to the concept of the singularity. The law of accelerating returns, on which the singularity is based, is easily observed in the world of technology. The singularity itself is a much more abstract Matrix like construct. This video makes some of it easy to understand and is quite entertaining.
Thanks to Tony A for sending this my way. I would point to him if I could.
Interesting article in the WSJ about the Online Storage Wars (subscription required).
I was working on such a service this time last year. Decided to exit the effort when AOL started offering 5 gigs for free and I had come to the same conclusion as AOL.
“Storage is really boring for the consumer — like going to the dentist or buying life insurance,” says Gio Hunt, senior vice president of Strategic Development for AOL. “Our focus is on a whole new category of offerings” beyond basic storage.
Dick and Sally Internet are just not going to store their stuff remotely online until they are given a compelling reason to do so. The core apps still need to get a step function better. I do remain convinced that as consumers embrace a digital lifestyle a strong need to remotely store, access, and share financially and emotionally valuable files will emerge to the point where such service becomes as common place as anti-virus and firewall software today. I also believe that consumers are going to want all there their stuff in one place as opposed to the point solutions that they use today. Figuring out the proper application overlay will be the key to market success.
I had an interesting meeting last week about such an application. One that solves an obvious clear pain in the market with no known solution. That is all I can say for now, but if the technology is there to support the app that was described to me, it could be pretty hot.
That’s what the scalpers say when they are selling. I am no scalper but I do have an extra ticket to the Daytona 500 this weekend. A pretty good one at that. Before I stick it on eBay thought I would see if anyone that knows me has a need for speed this weekend.
Marc Fluery has quit Red Hat.
Surprise, surprise.
Not many NYSE company 16B types would have a blog called “Thank God for Internet Porn” regardless of now office safe it might be. You gotta go read his Apple rant. If you have ever been in an Apple store it is ROTF funny.
Embrace, extend and extinguish is the term introduced during the Microsoft anti-trust case to describe Microsoft’s generic strategy.
Must be a pretty good strategy. Seems to me that Google is at least implementing the embrace and extend part.
For those that did not hear, last week Vincent Dureau, the person in charge of television technology for Google, came out in a speech and proclaimed that the Internet won’t scale for television.
Oh Really?
Bob Cringely has a insightful series of posts on Google’s television strategy (here is the first). And I think he is at least close to right. Here’s what he has to say about Dureau’s statement.
As the cable companies breathed a sigh of relief, Dureau went on to offer Google’s search, ad, and video services to cable operators, helping them provide a more personalized experience for viewers and a more profitable service for broadcasters. Imagine the usual cable shows with personalized ads from Google’s huge inventory from those 100,000 servers shortly to be installed in Google’s new data center in the Netherlands.
It’s a grand vision for broadcasters, but it is also a lie.
The future isn’t as dire as Dureau predicted. You have to parse his words and listen to them through a Google filter to understand the reality here.
There is clearly a crisis approaching as Internet video grows, but what Dureau said was that viewers can’t expect the Internet to provide them with the experience they have come to expect. That experience would be shifting back and forth in real time among dozens to hundreds of channels requiring huge amounts of either processing power or bandwidth. The current cable model is biased toward excess bandwidth carrying all those channels in parallel. An Internet system would be constrained by the limited bandwidth of the last mile, so it would require upstream video switching and a resulting high server load. So yes, the current cable viewing experience is clearly beyond the capability of the Internet infrastructure, but that’s just stating the obvious. What’s ignored here are the effects of time and of changing viewer needs. If the Internet today can’t give viewers what they can currently get from their cable systems, will it at some point in the future be able to give viewers a better (if different) experience? Yes.
The future lies in watching precisely the video you want to watch precisely when YOU (rather than some programming executive) want to watch it. This requires a client-server distribution system for more than just ads and it will come as bandwidth and server capacity increase. I’ve spent the last three weeks explaining exactly how that will happen. But first Google has to make itself indispensable to European cable companies, to get a toehold in their market. Only when they are totally dependent on Google ad services will the search giant reveal its true video ambitions in Europe…. and the world.
Embrace and extend. Rinse and repeat.
I only got to attend the first few hours of SoCon. I had to run off and coach a third grade girl’s basketball game; the most exciting 6 – 6 game ever played I might add. But the time I was there was pretty interesting.
After some brief introductory remarks by Leonard Witt (I loved this copyleft comment) and Sherry Heyl it turned into a raise your hand and pass the mic session. If you can picture the audience participation portion of Oprah or Jerry Springer with geeks, you are pretty close.
As has been chronicled before, I tend to sit back and observe a lot before talking. Well I waited a little too long yesterday and had the mic in my hand when they cut off the discussion for Chris Klaus‘ presentation.
First of all, a little war broke out between some old media folks and new media folks. This war actually took the form of an IE vs. Firefox browser debate. At one point some dude from Creative Loafing literally called the entire gathering elitist because the vast majority of normal people still use IE and some other guy ranting about the Wicked Witch of the West. They were, of course, both right.
Then somehow the discussion turned to money. Of how we were all in the room due to money. Which is, of course, wrong.
Finally the subject of word of mouth marketing came up. Some guy with some app was trying to figure out how to make that happen.
These three different topics all coming together was what prompted me to ask for the mic. And here what I was going to say.
The vast, vast majority of the people in the room are not necessarily elitists. They are one per centers. 99% of the people in the room were the 1% that contribute to social media. For example, my bet is anyone reading has visited Wikipedia or Youtube and viewed the content on these sites. I contribute to Wikipedia and YouTube. Its not being deal. It is not elite. It just is, and folks that do have a certain lens that others do not.
People don’t contribute for money. In a study done by Pew last year only 85% said that money was not a factor in their decision to blog. I postulate this is true for other forms of user generated content as well. It’s not about the money; it’s about self-expression and being heard.
And while some people have suggested that in the current environment viral marketing will just not get you above the noise level that exists, the way that you do it is to ferret out the one per centers for your product concept, work with them to create a killer product that appeals to their reasons for having a Web life, and make it so easy that their not so geeky friends can use it when they tell them about it. The key is coming up with a concept that appeals to people in such a way that they want to help you to make it a success.
The devil, of course, is in the details, and I was a little bummed that I missed out on the session where it was going to be discussed in detail in the afternoon.
Haynie is talking about doing an unconference on entreprenership in the not too distant future. I have already told him that this comes to pass I want to play a bigger role.
Tonight and tomorrow I will be participating in SoCon.
It is my first unconference, please be gentle. I am excited with anticipation of what I might unlearn.
Sherry has done a bang up job in unorganizing. It freed out in no time and registration was closed weeks ago. Over 250 people registered for the event and 125 have poined up for a networking dinner tonight.
Big event by ATL geek standards.
The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) fired back at Apple suggesting the company open up its anti-piracy technology to its rivals instead of urging major record labels to strip copying restrictions from music sold online.
From the AP:
Mitch Bainwol, chairman and chief executive of the Recording Industry Association of America, said the move would eliminate technology hurdles that now prevent fans from playing songs bought at Apple’s iTunes Music Store on devices other than the company’s iPod.
They are really missing the point that consumers do not want to buy DRM protected music. And like Steve said, 90% of the music that is sold is DRM free, so what is the RIAA so nervous about?
With earnings season upon us I have been paying a little attention to some of the stocks that I own. To be more specific, I have been paying attention to the stocks that I own that I control. For the most part I leave the handling of my stock portfolio to professionals. But I like to keep a little chunk in play money so that I can invest as I see fit. Currently there are four stocks in the mix.
ELNK. I still own EarthLink stock that I acquired pre-MindSpring IPO. Since I left the company I have mostly unwound my position, but still have a little. They reported a loss of $.20 while analysts were expecting a loss of $.16. With the bets they have placed on muni and Helio there are many unknowns. Call me loyal, I continue to hold.
JOE. After flipping a property in the panhandle in 2005, making an investment in Joe seemed a little less risky then making another go at that. Joe is one Florida’s largest real estate development companies. They “make places“. Purchased the stock at $60 that October. Things were looking ugly for a while but it worked it way back to the $59 range recently. They announced, beat expectations and the stock is in the $62 range. Holding.
KNOL. Knology is an ITC company. They are a cable overbuilder offering triple play services. I bought the stock after meeting Rodger Johnson in 2004. He had a plan. He has executed on it and the stock has gone from $3 to over $13. Earnings are a few weeks out. When I like the price on Whole Foods, I may sell a portion of Knology to lock in the gain.
SCUR. Came into this via my time at CipherTrust. They knocked it out of the park last quarter and the stock shot up 25% on Monday. My shares are restricted so I hold. I can see the stock making its way to $15. The Motley Fool likes SCUR a lot and has them in the running for best tech stock of 2007.