Sunday, November 12, 2006

Have you noticed that there's a formula out there, for Flickr-like sites, that, instead of providing social networking around pictures, try to do it for podcasts or videos. Examples include Odeo, Podshow, Dabble. However, none of them are gaining traction like Flickr did, and I think I now understand why. A picture is something you can appreciate at web speed. Go to a page with a photo on it, and it loads slightly slower than a page without a picture. Hit the Back button, leave a comment, link to it, whatever you want to do, it's all over quickly and that fits the pace of the web. However, podcasts and videos don't work like that. It takes a long time to "consume" one of those media objects. So why did YouTube catch on? Simple -- free storage. 

Carl Weisbrod: "I'm an old Goldwater/Eisenhower conservative." 

Andrew Baron of Rocketboom turns down what could be big flow, for a principle. I asked for clarification if the logo agreement really meant that they couldn't criticize Microsoft. If this is true, that logo is going to be poison for any blog or pub that displays it. (Postscript: Got the confirmation.) 

Speaking of Microsoft, apparently you can buy a Zune already at BestBuy. I'd buy one myself, just to know what it is, but only if it works with a Mac. I don't want to use their store, I've got my own software for managing podcasts, which is largely what I'd use it for. 

On the Sunday morning news shows, massive change in attitude from the Dems. But they say they won't touch money for the war. The superficial reason for this is they don't want to give fuel to future opponents saying they didn't support the troops. However, we know that most of the money goes to the defense industry, not troops; and both parties are funded by the industry. So, is this as far as change goes? 

Examine the examiners 

If a reporter wants to plant a foot in the future and burn some bridges with the past, a simple project would be to build a network model for who gets quoted by which reporters at which publications.

This is fairly conspicuous in Markoff's reporting in the Times. Does he ever write an article, on any subject, that doesn't quote Danny Hillis? Maybe there was some justification for allocating him so much ink when he was a tech exec at Disney, but what has he done recently to give authority to his opinion? (And what was the value of the technology he left behind, didn't Disney buy Pixar because their technology was so far behind?)

Incestuousness is a big part of the way BigPubs do business, it leads to ridiculous pieces like today's Web 3.0 piece. How did that pass through the editorial process at the Times? Seems like blatant manipulation, and the industry is so tired of this hype, it has zero chance of success (we hope). It's as obvious that Markoff considers himself a player and not a mere reporter as Judith Miller did (on admittedly a much larger scale) as we were getting ready to invade Iraq.

This is the kind of reporting we won't miss, and the sooner it's documented the sooner we can move on.

Postscript: The "Web 3.0" article is on the front page of today's Times.

Scoble: "I've done more than 50 interviews in the past three months and collected hundreds of business cards and I've never heard anyone talking about Web 3.0."