Monthly Archives: July 2008

NBC, NFL Deal Puts Adobe One More Step Back

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Quietly, a sleeping giant has been evolving. That sleeping giant is Silverlight, a Microsoft rich media technology to rival Adobe’s Flash/Flex platform.

On this date, July 28, there is a dearth of Silverlight content on the web. Almost all the major video sites use Flash players, with Hulu, an NBC property, being a probable exception. However, that is about to change.

NBC Universal is a partner with Microsoft, and the two have collaborated to produce properties such as MSNBC among other joint ventures. In just a short week from now, the next generation of the Microsoft-NBC Universal partnership will unfold before an international audience. NBC’s coverage of the Olympics will be live streamed over the internet using Microsoft Silverlight technology.

I’ve talked to people recently who have discussed the Silverlight platform in the context of competition with Adobe and the ubiquity of Flash. The consensus is that Flash will be here for awhile yet, but as more and more adoption of Silverlight occurs, the Flash footprint could wane significantly. Developers need reason to use a new technology and with the absence of such reason, the status quo will remain.

That reason could very well be the widespread success, if it is a success, of the Olympic coverage on Olympics.com.

But wait, there’s more.

Silicon Alley Insider reported yesterday that an announcement would be made announcing NBC live coverage of Sunday Night Football during the 2008 season over the web. That’s right. Streaming games, multiple camera angles, instant in-home replay, statistics and more.

Which platform is poised to leverage this astonishing about-turn from NFL press mongers? You got it… Silverlight.

Why would NBC invoke any other technology than Silverlight to render rich media content over the web when the technology is quite possibly powering Hulu-powered television and quite possibly about to be a rousing success at the Olympics.

As a side note, the NFL about face on the use of the internet is interesting. Those who have read this site for a long time recall the video podcast that I did from Ravens training camp that was shut down. The video is in my archives if you want to go looking. It’s quite funny, actually.

The NFL is calling this a one year experiment to determine the interest in viewers engaging and consuming their content in non-traditional ways. I look forward to the report that rubber stamps what we’ve known for quite some time: online video consumption, live and otherwise, is replacing televisions in homes across America.

Update: as noted frequently in comments, Hulu is not powered by Silverlight but Flash.

Update 2: So Silverlight was seen as a huge fail and NBC has gone with Flash for their SNF coverage.

Inside the Beltway, Inside the SuitCase

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The “inside the beltway” world is often deemed to be a crazy echo-chamber of pundits and talking heads who just want attention or to be re-elected or to get more power, because of all the perks and luxuries and what-not. Oh, and the decisions are all made by lobbyists in back rooms and it’s all scotch and cigars and back-slapping. News flash: it’s not.

I’m lucky enough to get paid to report news on technology and public policy. It’s pretty complex stuff. Making the decisions on what to support or oppose isn’t easy for the people I cover, either.

The name of this section/column/blog space is SuitCase. It’s supposed to be a play on the word BasketCase. You know, people in DC wear suits…basket cases are crazy…basket case, suit case? ha. Ok, well you try and do better.

Let me be the first to admit it: I’m a geek on many different levels. Start with technology, move on down to the laws that regulate technology, then the laws that aren’t meant to regulate the technology but end up regulating technology anyway. I watch C-SPAN and I read tech blogs. Sometimes at the same time.

Next admission: I’m a bit of an insomniac. The two kind of go together. I can spend all night geeking out with a new VoIP system, then go into the work the next morning and pitch it, and I’m not even an IT guy. I just love this stuff. Do I need to do that interview with Qik? Nah. I could just bring out the voice recorder and have the quotes to verify before printing anyway. But I do, because I can, because I enjoy playing with new things that make my job easier.

That’s what Rep. John Culberson, R-Texas., has been doing, at least by his own admission. His job is a bit harder than mine, though. I have to write news articles that meet my editors’standards and satisfy the subscribers, who pay the publisher, who pays my salary. On the other hand, he has to cast votes to make laws that represent the interests of a big swath of Texas. So, you’d be pretty sure he’d want to know before he does something they don’t like, right? Or, at least show those people that it’s not easy. Right?

Is anyone hearing me? These guys schedules are micro-managed, they spend 4 days a week in D.C. and go back to their districts for a few days, then get on a plane and return to DC. I guess the frequent flier miles are O.K. Oh, and exercise? They could be in a meeting or a hearing or reading a newspaper, and when a bell goes off, have 15 minutes to get to another building and push a button to vote. They might not know what they’re voting on, so they have to listen to someone else explain what’s going on and they’d better get it right, because the election is in a few months and they don’t want to dip below a 10% lead. Oh, yeah. Elections. They have to manage a campaign organization, too. Separate from their job. Two phones, two BlackBerries, two lives. Their second job is to keep their first job.

So along come some new tools, Twitter and Qik. Suddenly, talking to those thousands of people got a bit easier, and they can talk back to you, too. Because that’s a problem. See, since 2001, when some jerk sent some Anthrax to a Senator in the mail, security procedures got put in place, so it takes a month for someone’s letter to reach them.

Everyone wants their job to be easier, right?

Now what if your company had its’employee manual written in the 1800′s, with a revision every 30 years or so. You might have a problem with some of those tools, right? Would that make you a bit sore?

I’m not going to rehash the details about the controversy surrounding Congress and social media. I’m also not going to tell you anything new, because that’s not what this is about.

If I can keep up, I’ll try and look at the news I reported and the people I reported on, and maybe with a fact or two, give you a window into why it’s not so simple, why left and right and right and wrong aren’t very obvious all the time. If I can do a really good job, maybe it will help you understand why technology policy is so hard to formulate, or why it’s so hard to get anything done in today’s environment.

You won’t see many opinions, because by trade I’m a journalist. I’m objective, or at least I try as hard as I can. What I can do for you though, is give you the “history” and maybe show why the stuff that looks a little bit crazy out there, makes perfect sense here. Think of me as your translator.

Welcome to Washington.

Five Thoughts for New (and old) Bloggers

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I’ve spent a good portion of the weekend restructuring things around here at Technosailor. You can see that the site is much more organized around topics, as you can see from the new Masthead. Each of the verticals have been segregated into five separate blog-like entities.

Desk of the Editor is all of my content. Entrepreneurship, branded Venture Files, will continue to contain Steve Fisher’s content, but will also have contributions from others as appropriate to the topic. Web Marketing is branded Wicked Marketing and is a vertical dedicated to usability and interface design as it pertains to corporate marketing. Tech Policy, a.k.a. SuitCase will officially launch tomorrow with Andrew Feinberg. Finally, Contenido Español is our long time Spanish only content stream edited by Carlos Granier-Phelps. It is being branded Sincronizar, or Synchronize in Spanish.

The front page of the site will undergo some further enhancements that, hopefully, pulls together this content in a snapshot that works well for most readers. Honestly, the current layout which is only a few months old, is not working the way I had hoped. So you’ll continue to see changes over the next weeks.

During the process of reorganizing things, I had to go back through all four years of my archives, a step that kicked me into a significant introspective mode. Where have I come from? Where am I going?

Honestly, much of my content from early years is downright embarrassing. And really, it goes beyond the content. I’ve spent the weekend thinking about the mistakes I’ve made as a blogger and wondering what I would do differently if I could. Keep in mind that my goals for this site were always professional and that I foresaw a day when it would be my only job (I hope that day comes, still!).

Here is my advice for bloggers who wish to do the same thing.

Make Every Word Count

It’s so easy to get into the mindset that no one is reading a blog and this is “my” space and “I’m gonna write what I want to write”. While there is truth in that, content is evergreen. By evergreen, I mean that it will be there for years to come unless you take the wrong, in my opinion, approach and delete archives that you don’t want anymore.

Understand that people always grow and become more mature. You are no different as I am no different. In four years, if you go through the exercise I’ve gone through this weekend, you will look through different eyes than you did when you first wrote.

On the other hand, people who really only want to blog for themselves can use these opportunities for their benefit. It really is interesting to see progression in your own development and feel good about it.

My advice, though, is to make every word count. Even though you have unlimited space and there’s no such thing, to many people, as too many posts, I’d recommend the economy of words.

This takes practice and discipline. Knowing what you want to say and saying it with just enough words to make your point without being so verbose that you might as well divide a post into multiple posts.

Mark Evans used to tell me that if you can say it in 1000 words, you can say it in 500. If you can say it in 500 words, you can say it in 250.

Your blog is valuable space. Make every word count for something.

Attack Ideas, not People

Another bit of low hanging fruit, when it comes to traffic, is attacking people. Everyone likes a good controversy. I’ve done the “Mike Arrington said…” or “Jason Calacanis said…” thing more times than I care. For awhile, I was highly ranked (#3) in Google for the search phrase, “How to be a whore” because I wrote this article about my friend Duncan Riley. Duncan and I have mended the bridge and are friends today, but that is not always the case.

I’d recommend avoiding the attack paradigm altogether. It’s much more efficient, when building of a brand or property, to offer ideas. Offer solutions, offer ideas, innovate. Be a thinker and a leader. By attacking people, not only do you hurt the chances of working with them, but you garner a recommendation that will follow you for a long time.

Plus, you end up singing from their songbook and not your own. Not beneficial if you desire thought leadership or to be considered a subject matter expert.

Take Time Every Day to Soak In the News

Ever had a day when you just react to something that is going on? I have. Too many times. I’ve discovered, however, that a 1am reading of Google Reader, while I’m relaxed (and because I’m an insomniac), is much more conducive to “catching up” than doing a break-neck scan at 9am before the day begins. Why? Because you’re relaxed and much less likely to act irrationally or reactionary. You’re not misreading content because you have work to get started on. You’re soaking in every word that another blogger is writing.

Are you going to get breaking news that way? Probably not. But you have the benefit of multiple opinions from multiple sources during the course of the news day. On this site, we don’t break news anyway so I’m not looking for the benefit of breaking news. We do analysis and in the presence of the multiplicity of opinions, a story is vetted.

Never Hide Your Archives

As I went through my content this weekend, I came across a post where I was announcing my intention to do paid review posts. This idea smacks of PayPerPost and today I do not want to be affiliated with PPP.

In a moment, I almost sent that post back to draft status and unpublished it but I didn’t. The reason I didn’t is because the entire nature of an archive, as embarassing as it is, is a story of your blogging life. Sure, I wish it wasn’t there but it is and there it will stay.

Maybe one day I’ll go through some kind of exit where my content here is analyzed very closely. I fully anticipate posts like that and others like it will hurt me. Yet, I cannot hide my archives.

Never Think More Highly of Yourself Than You Ought

Today I can brag. Three years ago, not so much. :) I say that cautiously and some will think I’m contradicting myself. Today, I can brag but I have to do it in the humility of knowing that I have a very long way to go. This site is not the mega property I’d like it to be, but it is getting there. It does not have the highest subscription numbers, though all feeds combined are in the neighborhood of 2000 subscribers. It does not have the traffic I want, but it does have significant traffic.

It’s okay to brag if you have something tangible to brag about. Three years ago, I bragged and had no substance to back my bragging up.

Let me tell you a quick stoy about my friend Marshall Kirkpatrick who writes over at Read Write Web. Last November, while in Vegas at Blog World Expo, Marshall and I were at a party at the Wynn thrown by the fabulous Steph Agresta.

As the guests cycled out, Marshall and I were talking outside and he, in his very laid back Oregonian way said, “From one asshole trying to figure things out to another, take this however you want. Maybe you should just not be so aggressively ‘out there’”.

Initially, I was stunned but his comment has stuck with me to this day. Marshall and I were even laughing about it the other week.

See, none of us have really figured this stuff out yet. Some of us brag more than we ought. Maybe I do. However, if you’ve got nothing to brag about then don’t. Plain and simple. No one will think any less of you for not bragging, and if you genuinely have something to brag about then you won’t need to because people will take notice.

Five ideas I’ve picked up in my weekend of introspection. Feel free to add your own lessons in comments.

Andrew Feinberg to Join Technosailor.com

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Many of you know of, or have met, Andrew Feinberg. Andrew is a journalist working on Capitol Hill. He was instrumental in coordinating visits to Washington, D.C. by Robert Scoble and provided a great deal of information to me on the story I covered surrounding Congressional use of social media.

Andrew has proven himself a tremendous asset in bringing to light some of the issues facing the technology community from the government. He has a brilliant legal mind (though he is not yet a lawyer, but is in process) and access to many people in and around Congress.

I asked Andrew to join the staff here at Technosailor.com to help provide some relevance around tech policy issues. Too often, things happen in Washington that directly affect us, and most of the time no one knows about it.

Beginning Monday, we are launching SuitCase, a column where you can expect to see several weekly posts covering this very relevant topic. At Technosailor.com, we try to distill all the information surrounding technology and the internet and boil it down to daily application for our audience. You can access SuitCase column via the Tech Policy link in the masthead of the site.

I hope you enjoy Andrew’s work. Andrew is an Assistant Editor at Warren Communications News, publishers of Communications Daily and Washington Internet Daily.

I’m excited about this addition that strengthens the property. If you are interested in writing at Technosailor.com, please shoot me an email at aaron@technosailor.com describing your niche. Though we are probably done expanding our verticals, we might have opportunities to supplement this or other verticals within the site.

Loren Feldman Demonstrates Artistic Handiwork But is Not Racist

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Alot has been said recently of the cyclone that has begun to swirl around Loren Feldman. Loren is, and continues to be, my friend first and foremost. Though I know this will be completely offensive to some in the blogosphere, many of whom I respect and see as colleagues, it has to be said.

madame_x.jpgArtwork is artwork and Loren is an artist. The best art is offensive to somebody. That’s the truth. Take this painting known as Madame X.

According to the story, this piece caused such a stir in 19th century France due to the sexual posturing of the Madame in the photo. The sexuality conveyed with the skin and pink ears was absolutely obscene in French society of 1884. (Source) Today, we would think nothing of this piece of art but in that day, there was a clear message sent about the nature of the society at the time and the truth was offensive.

In the late 80s, the National Endowment for the Arts funded the exhibition of a photograph called Piss Christ which set evangelical Christians on edge. The photograph portrays a crucifix set in a jar of the author’s urine. Some saw the piece as blasphemy while others saw it as an observation of what society has done to Jesus.

The point being that artwork can sometimes be damning. Art, like music, is one of those rare things that provides such an avenue into a person’s soul that sometimes what is seen within is frightening and, like the French of 1884, they don’t confront the issue but shove it back into a dark corner.

Do I believe racism still exists in America? Absolutely. It is one of the worst calamities ever wrought on this nation, and many others. Do I believe Loren Feldman, in his weeklong parody/social experiment, toed the line? Yeah, I do. Did he cross it? Eh… who am I to judge? Is he racist? Heck no.

Many of the people who have defended Loren have done so from the position of first hand experience. I, like many of them, know Loren personally. I’ve spent days with the guy. I’ve slept on his sofa when I was stranded in New York. I laughed with him in San Francisco and Toronto at two different events.

Is he controversial? You betcha. Is he racist? Not a chance.

Loren Feldman Debacle Demonstrates Ignorance Lives

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By now, many of you have heard about the failed attempt at humor by video blogger Loren Feldman. In the past, I’ve been pleased to call Loren my friend. He is funny, and very New York – two combos that I like. People like Loren often make me miss NYC, where people are real.

However, Loren took things a bit too far with his videos from a year ago. He stepped over serious racial lines, offending many people. It started with a video where he asks, “Where are all the black tech bloggers?” It ends with a series of other racist videos that resulted in the termination of his contract with PodTech.

Now, I believe that everyone makes mistakes and that mistakes are forgiveable. Hell, I’ve made mistakes – some of the racial type – that have been forgiven.

But Loren has intentionally gone too far and shows no signs of coming back. Last month, Loren had two deals secured to create and distribute video content. One was with CNet (owned by CBS) and the other with Verizon Wireless who planned to syndicated his content to their V-Cast service.

Both companies canned him after recognizing that this was not the kind of image they wanted their brands to convey.

Corvida, over at SheGeeks, was instrumental in having the Verizon Wireless deal deep-sixed. She states in her post:

The video was degrading. He was degrading an entire community and it should not be supported by Verizon nor its customers. It hit close to home and not necessarily because it was true on some levels, but because it was negative on every level. It was an ignorant video and one that mocked a small percentage of the African-American community. Yet, that particular part of the community is the most profile and we can all guess why. Everyone loves drama.

Corvida is dead right. Apparently, many other people agree with her.

Loren stepped over a serious line. I’ve attempted, thus far, to stay out of this. Race is a serious issue in this country and though some would like to believe it is a thing of the past, it is not. Anyone who bandys around racial slurs so recklessly deserves never to have business again.