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March, 2007
Posted by: Seth Shapiro
The suit that stalked Sequoia’s $1.65B deal has been filed in SDNY. Thrust of the case is the intuitively compelling point that if a site can screen effectively for porn (which YouTube does), it should be able to apply the same methodology to screening for copyrighted material (YouTube does not).
The doc is plain-spoken. Excerpts:
enable massive infringement by its users. It is YouTube that knowingly reproduces and
publicly performs the copyrighted works uploaded to its site.
Posted: March 13th, 2007 under » Finance, » Media.
Comments: 1
Posted by: Seth Shapiro
In San Francisco, highight of the conference so far has been an intriguing series of UI/UX paradigms by designers including Schematic, Method, Spin the Bottle, Eat.TV, Voom and OpenTV. Appropriately, the designs grappled with the pressing need to move from searching a linear guide to presenting a visual search methodology which keys from one visual selection to another visual selection. Dale also described his concept of the “New Primetime”: those pieces of content which are recent (including recently grabbed via DVR, from VOD, etc.) rather than the old school notion of Primetime as “airing on a network this minute”. Good discussion.
Posted: March 13th, 2007 under » Events.
Comments: none
Posted by: Seth Shapiro
As mentioned here, I dumped my Treo and got a Blackjack a while ago ? and hated it. Well, the new BBerry came this week and I’m happy to say that it’s superb – does everything a phone/email/PIM/SMS device should do, and all beautifully. The BBerry UI still destroys Windows Mobile, and the new model is QWERTY to boot ? a return to full keyboard after the Pearl, but much slimmer than the 8700 and 8703. They can be had from Amazon for $125 ? you have to deal with Wirefly, whose customer service is terrible… but it’s a great device at any price.
Posted: March 11th, 2007 under » Editorial, » Media.
Comments: none
Posted by: Seth Shapiro
The auteur of CD 101 and Songs of Praise moves on, his vision a reality… DIRECTV Entertainment president and FOX Sports CEO David Hill has returned to FOX after two years of triumph in original entertainment from the DBS broadcaster and creative powerhouse. Well not really.
Those of us who worked there, or have ever worked at an MSO, were confused by New Corp’s decision to devote major resources to creating DIRECTV Original Programming in the first place ? resources that normally would have gone towards developing better set-top boxes, and esoteric projects like an HD DVR that worked. Oh well, priorities differ. What never made sense was how the same brilliant corporation that created Sky could have bungled so badly at DIRECTV, throwing away vital years on broadband development while Comcast made brilliant strat acquisitions and Time Warner Cable prepped its IPO.
I miss the DIRECTV that existed before the News acquisition. It may have been a 1957 aerospace geekfest but it was real about what it was, and did what it did extremely well. Now it’s an arrogant frat boy that may buy off the Street for a while, but is not fooling its customers, at all.
I’m Andy Rooney.
Posted: March 11th, 2007 under » Editorial, » Media.
Comments: none
Posted by: Seth Shapiro
TED will apparently offer events from this year’s show (today through Saturday in Monterey) on the web for the first time. As of now there is nothing from today, but several TED speeches from other venues (rather than from the annual conference) are available here. Another group of clips is available from Google video here. Bet most of the scientific presentations benefit significantly from the energy of the room ? as a YouTube clips they’re not as powerful. I experienced the same thing at the Milken Conference last year. My fave of the current clips is the more plebian Tony Robbins presentation, with cameo/punchline by Al Gore.
Posted: March 8th, 2007 under » Events.
Comments: none
Posted by: Seth Shapiro
A Governor of the Motion Picture Academy crams for the Oscars
I love this one. Om Malik of Business 2.0 lambastes the Academy Awards with a completely incorrect (but pretty accurate) admonition : Oscar Academy: Go Back to School. Post is here.
Yes, he means the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. And no, it’s not a school, it’s a professsional academy, as in ?an institution for the advancement of art or science or literature. But his thrust is to highlight to the foolishness of the Academy’s demanding that YouTube remove clips of the broadcast from the site.
Right on Om.
I’m off to TV school now – my Spelling prof’s a ballbuster.
Posted: March 5th, 2007 under » Editorial.
Comments: 1
Posted by: Seth Shapiro
Paul Miller has an interesting take here on Apple’s original talks with Verizon… to our point on January 14 that “Apple gets a business model with all of the upside of an MVNO and none of the down.”
“While Cingular… couldn’t seem prouder of its iPhone exclusivity, apparently Apple’s first choice was Verizon, but the two companies couldn’t agree on a deal… “We said no.” Said Jim Gerace, a VZW VP. “We have nothing bad to say about the Apple iPhone. We just couldn’t reach a deal that was mutually beneficial.” Talks began as far back as two years ago, but … Apple wanted a percentage of monthly service fees, control over distribution that would limit iPhone sales to Apple and Verizon stores… “They would have been stepping in between us and our customers to the point where we would have almost had to take a back seat … on hardware and service support,” say Gerace. Cingular doesn’t quite see it that way… Says … a Cingular spokesman, “I don’t want to leave the impression that these (iPhone) customers are not ours. They are.”
Um, OK. See you in June (or thereabouts). And send my 8800 already.
Posted: March 4th, 2007 under » Media.
Comments: 1
Posted by: Seth Shapiro
Verizon today launched, V Cast, its Qualcomm Media FLO-powered Mobile TV service in several markets. The service runs 24/7, with content from eight networks. Details here. We’ve all seen the ads; no one seems particularly passionate about it, but Staci of Paid Content is fairly positive here. There was some positive news from MobiTV this week. Coincidence or not, I know not.
Posted: March 1st, 2007 under » Media.
Comments: none