Tertiary Tech : Web/Tech

I am a minimalist by nurture with regards to my physical space-(I like my art cluttered, my space sparse), as my family moved eight times before I was fifteen and each new place was totally rebuilt as we lived in it. I shared a room with my sister more than I did not as walls were stripped down and rebuilt around us. I remember the spackle dust most, not quite unlike animal hair; it tends to get onto and in everything no matter the preventative measures taken. Not having a lot of room for things you learned to keep tidy or lose all hope of finding something which would wind up buried in growing piles of clutter. When my then girlfriend had first spent a few nights at my Spartan apartment and viewed my tightly folded and distinctly organized clothes she was convinced for months that I had either spent time in the military -(no, I did not) or might be a bit psychotic-(jury is still out) . My Wife met me at a time during which I only wore black, every item of my wardrobe was black leave for one dark red 50’s shark skin sport jacket. Wearing black had several advantages. It was hipster de rigueur for lower Manhattan, anything I wore would be back stage appropriate and everything could go in the same load of wash. When my then girlfriend –soon to be wife-and I decided to move in and ‘take the next step’ she needed a moving truck while I moved all I possessed in the back of a small van in one trip. Now I live with two kids under 5, my wife, 2 cats and a thousand toys – (I am convinced that the latter multiply overnight in some sick toy mating ritual\orgy) – and a secret part of me yearn’d for minimalist order of prior.

As I have been thinking about this I came across an article on Gizmodo about a set of ‘one line’ furniture by Aykut Erol. Perhaps as I have been tinkering with concepts of space and environmental influence (see ‘My God it’s full of Stars’ and ‘I Sing the Building Electric’) and my growing comfort with overstuffed plush-ness of Victorian drawing rooms, I had an immediate, and unexpected, repulsion to the images. The first two images suit me just fine and echo the Pompideu or the Blue Man Group Tubulum. The third picture just does me in as I instantly associate it with Edward Kienholz’s ‘ The State Hospital’ and get a real uneasy feeling at how similar the color and lighting are. Both are most certainly places I’d rather not be.

I also like my Radio (Terrestrial, Satellite or Streaming) to be bare bones and simple. Gob it up with excess chatter, nonsense bumpers or too many ads and I will not listen – or at least I will find ways to note the non music cycles and avoid the station at those times. I have no issue with stations generating revenue but make it something I have the option of pulling up. Make it flashy, intriguing, and compelling but do not interrupt my access to content. Now the RIAA is equating General radio broadcasts as “a form of piracy”. Essentially the RIAA is attempting to push legislation to enforce radio stations to pay royalties on every song played. The RIAA already wants streaming stations to pay fees based on a per song \ per user structure. In the end this just means stations will pay for the added fees by playing less music and inserting more ads. Will any of these collected fees ever go to any of the artists RIAA claims to be ‘protecting?’

To be clear here I have never been a supporter of the Napsters of the Inter-tubes. My strong opinion is that if the artist wants to sell the music based on per item fee structure, then obtaining it any other way is stealing, period. You can disagree with the concept but it is how this artist has decided to do business. If you have strong feelings about this do not buy their ‘product’ and do not go to their shows, the market will dictate. If you like the music enough then you must respect the wishes of the artist, otherwise have nothing to do with them. More artists are breaking –(or attempting to ) from their labels, how can major labels survive when mainstream artists like Josh Stone proclaim piracy to be ‘great'.

NPR has been running a great series on the arts and Internet in China. The second article in the series of three is a real eye opener for me. The article entitled ‘Internet helps liberate, Create Music in China’ discusses the duality of the internet’s ability to expose millions –(or be exposed yourself) to music in a society where piracy is rampant to the point of cultural. China may be the test model for where the west will be in 5 years. Chinese artists are struggling to make a living from their music where selling content is already considered worthless. An early answer is to provide file sharing as a collective by offering the tools and content, pooling resources and drawing users to each artist’s live events. The article also has a link to the independent collective site and tools mentioned in the article. The Site is in Chinese but is fairly intuitive to negotiate – (although many of the links pop up new browser session which can be a bit of a clutter).

I just have to ask, who says pirates are a bad thing? Think of the environment people!

Friday, May 30, 2008

I mean, we'd be as rich as the Stones if only we'd sold as many records as them.

Does digital media need a centralized distribution model?

For generations the large record companies not only offered access to the means of recording but more importantly to the vast distribution chain that put records into stores and on the radio. Napster added gasoline to an already smoldering fire. Just like the time your uncle Ron poured half a can of lighter fluid onto the charcoal grill, the resulting flare up took off more than a few eyebrows but should not have surprised anyone watching.

I recall seeing the circa 1999 and 2000 interviews with Chuck D of Public Enemy declaring the age of the major labels to be nigh. The promise, according to CD was of a limitless variety of music all directly from the artist at half the cost – if not free. He got it right, the revolution is being downloaded. But just where do I find all these artists? How do I find what I want and get involved with other artists who may share similar genre? In many ways it has been a piecemeal process to find new music outside the standard web portal stores. (It is interesting to note the number of artists who recanted support once it was their music being ‘shared’ for free).

Sure, there is\was MySpace which started out a place for musicians to stake out a place on the web to directly connect with fans and build followings out of local shows. This network of fans could connect in this early version of a social network site to share their thoughts on the newest songs, the show last night and find others going to a local show. Prior to this fans of marginal or indie bands often communicated and ‘gathered’ via pen pal groups or through the pages of fanzines like Maximum Rock n’ Roll. MySapce provides some means of selling hard copies or downloads but unless the band page linked to other bands your ability to find new music was limited to what the labels put out or fans called out in the chat boards. In essence you had know where to go, to go.

Today we have ‘intelligent’ streaming players who learn what your likes are and can build playlist(s) of ‘related bands’ based on your input – Pandora has the Genome, Last.fm has Audioscrobbler-(all provide links to purchase single MP3s or albums).. Facebook provides the ability to give visitor’s music links and streaming video of the bands you like-(and purchase links). Bloggers can embed tools like StreamPad to share your favorite music. While the number of collective sites is growing, all are still struggling to stand out amongst the haze of information. Each has its set of fans who evangelize promises of providing the most comprehensive access through links and social networking. Even Amazon has long attempted provide outreach based on the ‘others who purchased ‘x’ also purchased….(Y & Z). In Truth none of these stand out clearly above all others.

iTunes has similar micro models like this but it is just a distribution point and not a label or content producer… yet. The record companies have only begrudgingly joined forces with Apple because it was the first model to provide some legal and protected means of establishing a foothold where the pirates reigned. And for the most part it is still a lonely outpost of mainstream music sales. The labels have long bemoaned the margins provided by Apple and have fought – unsuccessfully – to pry more out of iTunes and to get a rise in prices.

Ian Rogers at FISTFULAYEN has proposed an interesting restructuring which he hinges nothing less than the survival of labels. IR’s proposal in a nut shell is to utilize the mature power tools of record companies, mainly –distribution, marketing as well as A&R. One large label would be broken down in to smaller outfits that focus on specific markets \ genres. The micro labels could develop larger market bands on which dozens or hundreds of like genre – (or cross gene)- bands could be hung or cross referenced upon. Add in a centralized payment utility and any label could begin to compete with the market share iTunes has.

It could also shift a measure of control back to the suits. When we finally enter into a post net neutrality world, this power shift could mean influence on traffic and bandwidth toward their favor.

But is it really necessary? Can the decentralized direct artist to fan model provide an adequate income to survive if not flourish. In other words, is there a way provide income where a day job is not necessary?

Kevin Kelly seems to think so. Mr. Kelly discusses the concept of ‘1000 True Fans’ on, one of his several blogs, the Technium http://www.kk.org/thetechnium/archives/2008/03/1000_true_fans.php. The basic concept is one where an artist can make a comfortable living by tending to a 1000 fans who are dedicated to buying the music, subscribing to the blogs \fan club, buying the T-shirts and going to the shows. To earn a base income of $100,000 it would only take each True Fan spending $100 a year, which is a very manageable number. The gross number does not take into account overhead of servers, ISP and equipment but it is still a workable model. Mr. Kelly also addresses this in his entry ‘The Case against 1000 True Fans’. The main argument being that many are not looking to just survive but to sell platinum numbers of units. I have begun to believe that such aspirations immense rock n’ roll wealth are to be relegated to the stories of yore. As Gene Simmons so emphatically stated during his conversation on the Henry Rollins Show (IFC) ‘…its over, the industry has been killed by you (points at screen) downloading illegal copies of music… There are no more rock stars…”.

Having subscribed to Indie fanzines such as The Big TakeOver for years I tend to concur with the tongue, It is the niche market indie bands who will find solid ground of continued production and income, just not millions of dollars a year. Regardless it is now possible for artist to ‘live off the grid’ of major labels –or any label at all.

Wednesday, May 28, 2008

When the bomb goes off there'll be a thousand mutations! Andromeda will spread everywhere! They'll never be rid of it!

Jesse James -( the custom motorcycle maker, not the 1800's outlaw)- has a tattoo on the palm of his hand which reads 'Pay up Sucker' around a $100 bill. Why? because even in his small specialized client base there are people who want his services for free. When viewed from the perspective of individual businesses against an industry the effect appears insignificant, take a macro view and free can be a killer. Philippe Bradley (who writes in sheer genius form) made me aware of the 'freevirus' concept in a post on Fred Wilsons blog in a post entitled "Triangulating For Insight"

Using Darwinian evolution as a metaphor for Venture Capitalists’ role in developing startup companies, Mr Bradley introduces the concept Freevirus coming about when startups who have a building subscriber base get attacked and usually destroyed by 'competing' services who offer free what the startup charged for. Once the virus is let loose it usually takes down all around it and in fairly short order begins to run out of hosts. If a freevirus upstart manages to destroy or weaken the original hosts it must find something to sustain it - usually ads. The end result is less choice as the startups who had financial backing and an economic model for sustainability and innovation are killed off and the FV upstarts are thinned due to lack of sustainability. (I cannot do the original post justice you must go read it).

And yet, it is the freevirus's action which brings in the mass market acceptance, draws in those beyond first adapters. As a service transitions from niche tool of the uber chic to general ubiquity the freevirus version suffers through the invigoration and stresses of meeting the demands and criticisms of users. New tools are developed and added as suggestions and demands are stated. So, freevirus can often act in a symbiotic manner - for a short time. As my wife is fond of stating, "Oh Honey, nothing really comes for free...".

Can freevirus be harnessed into a benign catalyst? Prior and current examples are inconclusive,

Microsoft floated the idea for a way to prop up the struggling Zune platform, with the expected backlash.

No Ads on my Zune please:

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13526_3-9948849-27.html

.
One model is to provide services or content which the freevirus cannot match or have available.

Frustrating the Pirates:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/17/technology/17online.html?partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

What does it mean when even the uber techies -(many of them VC's who struggle with this question)- balk at paying for the much heralded Twitter?

Will the Tweets pay for their Tweets? Nope.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13505_3-9950085-16.html

Even large infrastructures cannot find the funding to keep subsidized toplogies up and running.

Say goodbye to Muni-Fi

http://www.infoworld.com/news/feeds/08/05/16/Say-goodbye-to-Muni-Fi.html

Why are we so averse to advertising which can subsidize content, keeping the cost low or free? The legitimate Question of whether advertisers could have any direct control of content is a serious one. (No more clear channels please!).

Why do so many insist that all content should be their right not a privilege to obtain?

Why are you a freevirus carrier ?

Saturday, May 17, 2008

"When properly lit and shot on film, this makes for the best test of flesh tones one can find." -TW

It is indeed interesting what one finds whilst trolling manufactures websites – Yeah, I know I need to get out more.

3M has announced a functioning video projector designed to fit into a mobile device (Cell Phone, Blackberry, and Digital Camera). The 3M site http://www.3m.com/mpro/index.html states the unit is

"Roughly the size of a wireless earpiece, and a half inch thick..."

can project an image of

"VGA 640x480 Resolution"

And - most interestingly or curiously

"Projects sizes 5' to 50' or more"

The 3M description markets this as a social tool for sharing photos and videos; I see the break mobile content providers have been looking for in particular the WiMax folks. All those arguments against people watching content on their phones because the screen is too small just may have gone away.

Taking a futurist POV, imagine a time when there are no 103" plasmas just your mobile content device which projects an HD image of up to 60" or 70". Aside from a central sever for storing your terabytes of content you take it all with you. (that which you could not store on the mobile device could be accessed via a slingbox like connection) oh, and it can make phone calls as well.

While the techie in me gets all worked up about the above being possible and I am intent on finding system diagrams to figure out how this works, the luddite in me bemoans the loss of regionalization. With the advent of cable, Satellite TV and the Slingbox type devices we no longer allow ourselves a chance to see local programming. Often locals do not see local programming - aside from the 6:00 news. Accents are becoming homogenized, Story lines all the same. Instead we arrive at the hotel, set up our PC to connect to the Slingbox and watch all our shows including our local news-(not the local news of the place we are staying). I do have hope that IPTV and sites like YouTube will always provide an outlet for truly regional culture; does anyone know exactly what happened to the Manhattan accent you last saw in 40's movies?

There are a number of troublesome possibilities as well:

· Those lovely folks who seem to think the rest of us are utterly fascinated with their lives and use their Nextel or speaker phone on trains have a new way to invade personal space.

· The potential for showing images you would really not rather- or I'd rather not see.

The lure of showing something elicits in a public manner -even if just as a laugh- can be quite strong.

In the days of the first single gun LCD projectors a number of techs-(including me) and a projectionist stayed late putting a new unit through its paces. The company I worked for rented several floors which had windows on two side streets and the main ave. Initially we pointed the projector out one of the open windows facing a block long side street wall to see just how big an image the projector could actually produce. The image was big and damn bright! As it grew later on an early summers day we became even more impressed as the video engineer tweaked a few things and was able to produce a super bright image of about 20' (remember the throw was just a Manhattan side street width). The projectionist wondered aloud if this 'data' projector could moonlight as IMAG support - (IMAG commonly is the projected talking head of the on stage speaker). Someone mentioned that it must be fairly inefficient in handling flesh tones.

Here is where the title of this entry comes from. Our ever resourceful projectionist placed a tape in the SVO deck and hit play. Up before us leaped to life a 20' super bright image of a couple in flagrante delicto. Yeah, you read that right. There in full color was a 20' porn playing. We laughed, snickered, and thanked our stars that this was an industrial area after 8 pm on a Tuesday night. Then we heard a Yelp, expletives and our desk phones started to ring. It appears two senior management types had stayed late as well and were just at that moment crossing the side street when our impromptu show had started. Suffice it to say, the next few days were a bit tense in the office. Those who know the story, who’s initial are credited to the quote and just why we had ready access to the content will completely understand why I still find it hilarious.

We were some high tech geeks with access to very pricey toys and took a moment to misuse it. It was a one off event unlikely to happen again for some time. Now anyone with a penchant to cause a ruckus could do nearly the same but all from his \ her mobile device.

Considering the two leading specs quoted above from the 3M site.

640x480 is just tolerable looking at a 5' image, any bigger and you lose all definition. I see no way the "..up to and above 50' image" is plausible.