links for 2007-03-17
Saturday, March 17, 2007
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“The most underrated benefit of the face-to-face effect of conferences is INSPIRATION.”
links for 2007-03-16
Friday, March 16, 2007
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“Once conferences were safe excuses to get away from spouses and commune with co-workers. Now they’re powerpoint infested face2face fests, where people stare at their computer screens.”
links for 2007-03-15
Thursday, March 15, 2007
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From their Silicon Valley cubicles, Apple staffers have become music’s unlikely power brokers. Our reporters on the horse-trading that can turn unknowns into stars.
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“Nonprofits have tremendous stories to tell. More and more, nonprofits recognize that they have compelling content to share with the world – their clients, their constituencies, policymakers and the general public. Increasingly, new technology tools and
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For 26 years, a tiny Ohio radio station called WOXY dodged regulatory roadblocks by morphing from an old-school broadcaster into a Web-only radio station and then into an arm of an online CD store.
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Noank Media Inc., a Harvard University spin-off, has signed agreements in the China region that will generate significant new income for content owners, while helping to solve online piracy. The company recently completed its first financing and will laun
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In 2006 the transformation of radio into something broader — audio — accelerated.
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Mark Cuban says ‘I told you so”
links for 2007-03-14
Wednesday, March 14, 2007
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If you don’t find those new sounds, he says, you start to die. “It’s a very slow death, and it isn’t very dramatic, not like in opera. But you wane instead of wax. And that’s the real question for NPR: Is it going to wane, or is it going to wax?
links for 2007-03-10
Saturday, March 10, 2007
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This is grim grim stuff, and bad for absolutely everybody. It’s also a reminder that the things we love about the Internet are actually quite fragile and under constant attack, and could well go away if we don’t defend, extend, and keep building….
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WHO, EXACTLY, IS GOING TO RUN THIS REVOLUTION??
Current Interview re Digital Distribution
Friday, March 9, 2007
From: jake
Subject: re: interview
Date: March 8, 2007 6:31:40 PM EST
To: mike
CURRENT: What is the status of efforts to create an digital distribution infrastructure along the lines of the DDC working group’s recommendations?
JAKE: The Station Resource Group convened a meeting in Chicago in mid February, getting the decision-makers from the three networks and key stations in a room to talk about next steps in creating shared digital distribution services. After a bit of a limbo last fall there is some new momentum to these conversations and I’m hopeful we’ll see some action soon instead of another season of deliberation.
CURRENT:How are you personally involved at this point?
JAKE: Along with the other members of the DDC working group I’m helping spread the word about our efforts, explain the ideas and concepts and be a resource to the folks who are in a position to make something happen.
I’ve started advocating for PRX to play a central role in any new entity or activity that emerges, because so much of what we have built, learned, and are now developing applies on a larger scale.
From the PRX perspective the efforts towards collaborative digital distribution represents a natural extension of what we’ve been building over the last 4 years. We aggregate content from stations, producers, networks and new voices, and then license and syndicate that content to stations for broadcast and increasingly for digital distribution via podcasting, Audible/iTunes and other pay-based online stores. We’ve also begun attracting sponsorship revenue, such as the Nature Conservancy podcast we distribute through the NPR podcasting project.
In many ways PRX to date is a scale model of what a larger distribution service could be, and certainly I brought a lot of our thinking to the NPR-sponsored DDC planning process as a result.
But I think that more than our technology and track record, the significant assets that PRX brings to the table in this discussion have to do with the neutral positioning, high level of trust with key constituencies across and beyond the system, a culture of collaboration and innovation, and a compelling story about system investment in future-focused infrastructure.
CURRENT: In your view, how likely is it that the DDC will come to fruition?
JAKE: I think some version of it will happen, and soon. The question is whether it will be a truly collaborative venture or something just one or two players begin together.
CURRENT: What does that depend on?
JAKE: Ultimately it depends on leadership, a shared vision, and a willingness to let go of some control. The Internet presents an “innovator’s dilemma” for public broadcasting, and one of the solutions is to establish a separate entity that focuses on the disruptive opportunity, unencumbered by the core current business.
CURRENT: What are the biggest issues that need to be worked out?
JAKE: There is a need to continue articulating and explaining the basic value proposition of these services - “what is it and why are we doing it?”. These ideas need constant conversation and illustration to take root. On top of that there are issues of trust, governance, control, sales agency, and branding to work out.
CURRENT: Do you think that stations see value in something like this happening?
JAKE: Major content-producing stations can see value in having more and better digital distribution opportunities with reach and revenue potential. For stations as “presenters” there is a lot of value in being able to offer on-demand access not only to the popular programs on their air but also an expanding library of public media content, including video. There are ways to locally brand these offerings, take advantage of local underwriting relationships that will increasingly recognize the value in digital content, and ways to reach new audiences not currently part of the core listening to the station. But so far few stations have oriented their sites and service around that kind of content distribution, which is partly a chicken and egg problem. But beyond that there will be a need not just for easy tools but continuously making a compelling case for what impact these services will have.
CURRENT: What do you think of the possibility of the DDC building on the Open Media Network?
JAKE: It makes sense to consider existing infrastructure and assets such as OMN, PRX, PI, NPR podcasting before building or buying something from scratch. That said, there is rapid innovation happening in this area and some serious options to ponder from outside of the field.
CURRENT: Should public TV be brought into these discussions? Is that going to happen?
JAKE: The short answer is yes of course. The DDC Working Group made it a point to build video into our planning and business modeling, and Tim Olson in particular has been a key bridge between discussions on the radio and TV sides of the aisle. There are a number of reasons that a radio consortium is coalescing first, including the existence and growth of the podcasting project and PRX, a less complex rights and ownership situation in radio content, a certain amount of trust between key players, and a new willingness to experiment and innovate. But I believe most people paying attention to this area recognize that video has a vital role to play and will inevitably be part of the mix, so public television will plug in at the earliest possible moment.
CURRENT: The DDC overview does not dictate any “front ends” or end-user interfaces that should be fused to the back end of a digital distribution infrastructure. And I’ve gotten the impression from my talks with you and your working group colleagues that the working group is not looking to address front-end questions. But are you finding that concerns about front ends are complicating the effort to agree on a shared back end? If so, how are those concerns surfacing and being discussed?
JAKE: We adopted the Internet metaphor “enabling innovation at the edges”. The edges in this case are station websites, national sites like NPR.org, and third-party sites and services that could begin to incorporate on-demand digital content. So there’s no intention to launch a grand uber “portal” under a new brand. Some of this emerging architecture of the web can be hard to capture - it’s a world of widgets and Google-map mashups and RSS - some of which can’t be simply defined as front-end or back-end.
It’s also clear that it would be pointless to create a shared back-end system that no one uses. If there aren’t easy tools and models for front-end applications then stations in particular might not have a good way to take advantage of the services. That’s where Public Interactive and other “presentation layer” providers will have a key role to play.
PRTQ unveiled
Thursday, March 1, 2007
We’ve launched the Public Radio Talent Quest site and will start making waves about this colossal project soon. For now, here’s a trial post that includes an affiliate banner.
