January 06, 2005
800-pound gorilla
Cable TV is the 800-pound gorilla in the living room that nobody at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas is ignoring.
That's the thrust of an informative article by Seth Hansell in today's New York Times, "Breaking Free of Cable's Stranglehold." Hansell writes:
Cable television companies are not among the exhibitors here at the Consumer Electronics Show. But their influence is everywhere, as equipment makers seek to work with - or bypass - the cable industry's bottleneck control over the way most Americans watch TV.
Things will only get worse for Silicon Valley companies that want to maintain or gain market share with devices to compete with set-top cable boxes that add functionality - TiVo-like DVR capabilities, for example - or who seek to make an end run around the cable companies altogether with alternative delivery channels for information, entertainment, and other services.
My investment banker buddy on in New York takes cable TV dominance as a given and continues to invest - and recommends that others do so - in the companies that dominate the cable TV market. He manages a multi-billion dollar portfolio of investment funds which regularly earn a handsome profit, with a specialty in telecommunications and broadcast, so I tend to listen carefully to what he says.
Cable TV companies had 74 million subscribers last fall when he was studying some particular investment opportunities. Some 22 million subscribers pay for direct satellite TV. That's nearly 100 million Americans who have learned to look to their television screens for programming.
These companies are aggressively signing up subscribers for high-speed Internet service.
That's a huge lead over the telephone companies which are playing catch-up on the high-speed Internet front, and looking forward to the next generation of wireless networks that will, eventually, offer mobile telephone and PDA users programming that can compete with today's digital cable TV.
Better make friends with that gorilla, fast.
Meanwhile, the company that comes up with a cheap satellite uplink that will let satellite TV (and radio) companies offer reliable high-speed two-way Internet service could make a killing. Something tells me that this prospect has not gone unnoticed in Silicon Valley.
Links:
Breaking Free of Cable's Stranglehold by Seth Hansell, New York Times, 6 January 2005
What's the story? Doug Millison also edits OnlineJournalist.org, "on a need-to-know basis"
09:33 AM | Comments (0) | Posted to move
November 23, 2004
Real Journalist or Blogger? You be the judge
I know it's a thin news week, with the Thanksgiving holiday and all, but David Pogue should know better.
In his New York Times Technology section blog today, he answers an Enquiring Mind:
"Seeing that you have now launched a DAILY blog on NYTimes.com, I have to wonder: how do you manage writing a weekly column supplemented by hilarious videos and a separate e-mail column for the Times, plus writing and editing books in the Missing Manual series, plus doing television commentaries, plus being a speaker at tech conferences, plus being a dad, husband, homeowner, and all those other normal things, plus now writing a daily blog as well? I'm not trying to be obsequeous, I'm just flabbergasted. Do you work 18 hours a day or are you just exceptionally well-organized?""
Read on to see Superman in action.
This is precisely the kind of navel-gazing that leads Real Journalists to castigate self-indulgent Bloggers - a pitfall even David Pogue, whose work I generally admire, apparently couldn't avoid.
Links:
Pogue's Posts, 23 November 2004
For some real blogger navel-gazing, plus links to some great online journalism, check out OnlineJournalist.org, edited by yours truly, Doug Millison, "on a need-to-know basis."
11:17 AM | Comments (0) | Posted to move
November 22, 2004
Headline of the Day
Stunned Pundit Agrees with Gates over Passwords
The story's worth reading, too.
I tip my hat to any tech biz journo who can work "Hartmann Schedel, a physician and cartographer who lived in Nuremberg (in what is now Germany) in the late 15th century" into a story about Microsoft.
And admit that Bill Gates is right.
Without gagging.
Scott Granneman, you are The Man!
Links:
Stunned pundit agrees with Gates over passwords by Scott Granneman The Register, 22 November 2004
Doug Millison also edits OnlineJournalist.org, "on a need-to-know basis"
01:48 PM | Comments (0) | Posted to move
Where are we all going?
The Web, Amazon.com, Google, blogs, RSS…where is it all taking us?
Watch this video from the future (2014, to be precise) for one plausible-sounding prediction, and a warning that cuts deep:
Gotta admit, I like the part where Microsoft fades from view and a new generation of freelance editors takes its place.
Links:
OnlineJournalist.org, edited by Doug Millison, "on a need-to-know basis"
11:55 AM | Comments (0) | Posted to move
Silicon Valley Media Watch launching this week…we know how the sausage is made
We will be launching Silicon Valley Media Watch (www.SiliconValleyMediaWatch.com) on Tuesday. Don't think of it as a separate web site, think of it as a section of the umbrella brand Silicon Valley Watcher website. All the stories will still be fed through Silicon Valley Watcher. You can get to the Media Watch section directly by typing in the name, too.
Silicon Valley Media Watch will be where we report on the media landscape that surrounds Silicon Valley. We will show how the world looks at Silicon Valley and how Silicon Valley looks at itself. All very narcissistic, but also very compelling, we hope.
This is where we will feature original content, such as interviews with top media industry leaders and thinkers. The first interview will be my recent meeting with the BBC’s Chief Technology Officer and his views on the coming wave of media technology outsourcing.
We plan introduce some interesting editorial features such as watching the Silicon Valley Hack Pack—the top tier journalists covering Silicon Valley and the US technology business. You’ll be able to see at a glance what is being covered by the top business and newspaper publications. And you will see how the international press community covers Silicon Valley, how their coverage differs from that in the US, etc.
One slogan I really wanted to use was: “Silicon Valley Media Watch: We know how the sausage is made.” It doesn’t quite work. But, I think it does convey the value that we provide, we know how the media and PR worlds interact. We want to highlight great reporting, praise great journalism. And at the same time, educate our communities on how things are done, how stories become news stories, and how media and PR work together behind the scenes.
We will sometimes deconstruct a news story or a feature. Color code the various sections of a story to indicate what came from the press release, what part of the story is original content, what is background material, analysis, relationships between people quoted, etc.
We will also chronicle the impact that Silicon Valley technologies and companies are having on the global media sector.
Silicon Valley Media Watch will be edited by Doug Millison, who will be “chief watcher.” Doug is my former business partner. We used to run a high tech news agency called West Coast News, where we supplied leading newspapers and magazine publications around the world with editorial packages consisting of news, columns and features.
Doug has been involved in many media projects and has decades of experience in the media industry. He is also one of the best editors I have ever worked with.
dm0701
07:30 AM | Comments (0) | Posted to move
Om and his broadband blogging buddies to launch group blog
My goody buddy Om Malik, star reporter at Business 2.0, is pulling together a group blog on broadband. He has about a dozen experts on broadband and broadband related areas and they will all be contributing to the group Broadband Daily weblog.
Om’s GigaOm site is already the top news site on all things broadband and now with his blogging broadband buddies, Om will command a growing share of the broadband sector information flow. Interestingly, the group blog will not feature any advertising, sponsorship or anything else that might taint the purity of its words.
The group blog should be launching within the next few days…more details promised.
06:00 AM | Comments (0) | Posted to move
