Howard Owens

The newspaper industry is struggling to survive, according to the this WaPo piece.

"Print is dead," Sports Illustrated President John Squires told a room full of newspaper and magazine circulation executives at a conference in Toronto in November. His advice? "Get over it," meaning publishers should stop trying to save their ink-on-paper product and focus on electronic delivery of their journalism.

We are in transition. Society is changing quickly. The challenge -- not the struggle -- is to make the right guesses about where the audience is going to be and how you're going to make money serving that audience. I'm rather bullish on most formerly print-centric news organizations making a successful transition. (link via Jim Bonfield)

The LAT delivers a good overview of TiVo -- how's survived and the challenges it faces now.

"TiVo is a little guy. We're loved, but we have no power," said board member Komisar. "We try to deliver the control of entertainment back to the consumer. But to do that, we have to cut across the domains of very powerful, very complex businesses — all of whom have really sharp elbows and the ability to say no to us."

The article makes the point that owners of other DVR devices are very happy with the units, but not as happy as TiVo customers.

In a recent Forrester survey, 588 DVR users were asked to rate how much effect their devices had on their TV-watching experience, on a scale of 1 to 5, with 5 being the biggest effect. TiVo owners registered 4.6.

"There are not that many products that make users that happy," Bernoff said. But users of cable DVRs scored 4.4 — not far behind.

"It's the difference between deliriously happy and really, really, really happy," he said. "The difference between a DVR supplied by a cable company and TiVo is not that great."

What is missing from this analysis is the fact that users of other DVRs have probably never experienced TiVo, so they have no basis for comparison. I've seen the other competitors and the difference is much bigger than a .2 percent margin. It's a gulf as big as Mac and a DOS-based PC. Any consumer who were to come to a DVR choice without prior exposure, and given an equal chance to test drive each, would choose TiVo every time. It's UI is better designed, easier to use and offers more features. Of course, the mitigating factor favoring competitors is price. We've already seen how Mac was undone on that front.

I think I've found irrefutable evidence that blogging is now mainstream. Totally and completely mainstream. Here's the photo to prove it.

Good article, except for the mistake of calling Matt Druge a blogger and the DrudgeReport a blog.

The headline is "Paris Hilton's Sidekicked Hacked." The story has popped up on several blogs. But the real news is how could it happen? Incidents like this cause many people to distrust or lose confidence in technology and service providers. Companies need to pay better attention to security and respond better when there is a problem.

Doc Searls uncovers another sign that podcasting is advancing rapidly toward the mainstream. I refer you to my post yesterday.

American Idol is down to the final 24 contestants. This is where the show gets really interesting. All 24 are good, and possibly better than the final 24 in previous seasons. But there are a few that are real standouts. Below are, in my estimation, the top 10. I've put them in order, not with a bet that they will finish in this order, but, I'm pretty sure the winner will be one of the following singers.

1. Constantine Maroulis
2. Anwar Robinson
3. Mikalah Gordon
4. Scott Savol
5. Carrie Underwood
6. Nadia Turner
7. Mario Vazquez
8. Anthony Fedorov
9. Sarah Mather
10. David Brown

I've put Constantine first because he's an outstanding singer and performer, but I believe he will also appeal to the largest voting block -- the 15-year-old girls. Unlike John Stevens last year, whom the girls kept in the competition far past what he deserved, Constantine has real talent, so even if he rides his teen idol cuteness deep into the competition, I don't think I'll object. But, then, it's a long competition, and some people who look strong early wind up falling apart.

So, I'm working on a post about television news ... coming shortly ... and I found this story.

Internet, meet Gary Balsma. Well, you've already met him. He's the teen from New Jersy who likes to lipsync and dance. If you clicked on this link on either my site or Matt Welch's, then you've seen the video. And you laughed. Now we know who he is.

BTW: I used the video in a presentation to communications students at Pepperdine two days ago. It was a big hit, and more than half of the students had already seen it.

I'm not a big fan of television news.

Contrary to what many of my liberal friends believe, I don't watch Fox. Fox, like every other major news network, is shallow and inept.

Local TV news is worse. It's the same in every city, but Los Angeles teevee news casts seem to be particularly sensationalistic with an emphasis on titillation rather than information. Teevee news is especially rife with "scare" stories (I couldn't resist using "scare" quotes there). You know the stories, "Monsters under your bed and they're out to get you," or "The next glass of water you drink could be your last. See our exclusive team coverage at 11."

I've been trying my best to avoid local television news for decades.

That's changing.

Within the past few days I've had one of those V-8 moments: Streaming video on teevee news station Web sites! What a concept. They've had them for years, but I never really thought about the convenience factor. Hey, not all stories teevee news is bad. Some of stories are useful if not informative, especially when it relates directly to my life or my community..

Every teevee news site worth its bytes breaks it's 30- or 60-minute broadcast into segments that can be viewed separately. I can skip over the stories about the pros and cons of breast enlargement and get right to the meat of the news.

Here's another thought I had -- Adam Currie and his cohorts need to do for video what they've done for audio. Podcasting is great and iPodder is a great tool -- but what about an RSS reader to organize and track video content? It would have to work a little differently because not all video can be downloaded. Much of it must be streamed. But it would still be nice to scroll through an RSS feed looking for new uploads of interest. Much easier than visiting a bunch of different Web sites. And it would help democratize video expression the way podcasting has opened up audio.

Of course, any RSS reader could track any RSS feed. There's nothing stopping any local news station from creating RSS feeds now. I wonder if any are doing it? I haven't been able to find anything about RSS on the local teevee station sites. Too bad. It would make a lot of sense. Local broadcasters already sell in-stream commercials on their video, so anything that would increase viewership should be a good move for them. And anything that helps online video fans keep track of areas of interest would be a benefit.

Om Malik on how to save TiVo:

I think TiVo can be saved - actually with very little work. Here is how - TiVo should basically give away two million of these devices in next one month - hit the 5 million subscriber mark. That’s $65 million in monthly revenues (assuming everyone pays $13 subscription fees.) At those numbers the company can do $750 million in annual sales. Now since DirecTV customers are a big chunk of these customers, lets assume the revenue/annum is $600 million a year. Next cut back on marketing completely, ala Apple in lean years. Stop pushing the service - and turn TiVo into an exclusive club, a BMW among PVRs.

It worked for Mac, and could work for TiVo, but TiVo will need to find other revenue streams to make it work the way it did for Apple.

Here's a prediction: Podcasting is going to grow faster than blogs.

I would estimate that podcasting is at about the same level as blogging prior to 9/11, maybe even smaller. By the end of 2005, podcasting will have nearly caught up with blogs in popularity and influence.

I don't the New York Times did a story on blogs when there were only 3,000 of them. My observation is that podcasting is moving into the mainstream faster and any previous citizen journalism initiative. Part of the reason, I think, is that once you've learned to recognize the value and power of blogs (which many people and most of the media have done) it's an easy jump to recognize podcasting as the next big thing.  (Times link via J.D Lasica).

Short video clip (Flash 7) from Dan Gillmor speaking at Emerging Technology seminar from the Media Center.

Ten years after his death, Charles Bukowski has a new book of poems hitting the market. And according to this review, it's better than some of the work released while he was alive. Unlike the reviewer, however, I prefer his prose to his poetry.

How much bigger will Ebay get when you can buy and bid through our DVR?

Interesting to read what a cross section of news business leaders say about blogs and citizen journalism. A few of the print people have a fuzzy understanding of what it all means, but what's most interesting is how all the broadcast people seem to have no clue about blog culture and activities.

For example:

Clearly though, weblogs are not grassroots journalism. Journalism has highly regarded ethical standards. It's the only profession protected by the Constitution. The people who participate in Web discussions have no such responsibility to insure their information is accurate. How do we insure the bloggers are not causing harm? What if the information is libelous? Is it the News Manager's job to censor the weblogs?

I left a comment on that one to the effect: The Constitution guarantees freedom of the press, not "freedom of professional journalism." There's a big difference there, I think. A lot of gatekeepers still don't get it.

Looking for a glimpse of the future? SBC posted a Flash movie about IPTV. The presentation makes the point that you'll be able to connect your TV to your computer and view images stored on your computer on your TV, but it doesn't say anything about home movies or other downloaded content. I'm just a bit curious about how open the SBC system will be.

Also, here's a Wired article about IPTV that I missed previously.

Bob Benz is an RSS convert.

In reading this fascinating Morph post, I had a couple of thoughts ...

First and foremost -- if RSS will disintermediate news publishers and/or threaten their revenue streams, and presumably to the point of making publishing no longer profitable, or at margins that make publishing worthwhile -- who will supply the content that feeds RSS? I mean, blogs are great, but is it enough? While there are bloggers that do original content/original reporting, and worthwhile microcommunity news efforts, the bulk of blogging feeds off MSM. If most MSM outlets are put out of business by RSS and other disintermediating technology, what will feed RSS and blogs?

I'm just asking, you know, cause I think that while there might be some growing pains, the demand for quality original content will correct the market away from total disintermediation. I hope. For all our sakes.

All the fans of RSS and blogs should really try to think of ways that publishers will remain profitable and contribute to the dialog, cause we all need each other. There seems to be a lot of eagerness to see MSM fail, and an implication that MSM failure is inevitable, but not a lot of thought about what's going to replace it, beyond some amorphous "citizens' media." That may be, but I've got to ask, is citizens' media sustainable as the sole representative of the fourth estate?

As for "what's left of any classifieds businesses formerly controlled and dominated by local publishers," I wonder every time I see this meme -- based on what? Is there empirical evidence that local publishers have lost all that much? I mean, I would like to know if there is a way to project what could have been for local publishers without the Net, and if it's been done, how much classified business has actually been lost? And once you figure out how much has been lost, how much has been back filled by the Internet? I mean, for all the threats the Internet has raised for local publishers, it has also created opportunities and new revenue streams. Good local publishers are exploiting the opportunities. I want to know if the sand is being put back in the bucket as fast as it's funneling out of the holes. Also, I'm not convinced local publishers are doomed to lose the classified battle. There remains, I believe, an advantage to being the biggest media player in the local game. Google, Yahoo!, Ebay and even craigslist may not be the Death Star many think they are. And remember, even the Death Star was destroyed.

Right now, I would rather be a local publisher than one of the big-name national brands like CNN or the Los Angeles Times. I think that's where the real danger of disintermediate lies, because there are multiple outlets for national and international news and in the era of RSS, they probably can't all survive. But in local markets, there is, in most cases, only one quality provider of news, and that is the local newspaper -- even in markets where there are three or four TV stations and radio stations. And, in the long run, TV and radio is more threatened by disintermediation, the death of the channel, than content-rich publishers like newspapers. I think it will be easier for newspaper publishers to switch to multimedia (adding audio and video) than it will be for radio and TV to add in-depth text-centered publishing.

But these are just random thoughts and open to capricious changes at any time.

I have a subscription to DirecTV. The same guy that owns DTV owns Sky. Sky is planning to launch a poker channel. Could it possibly bode a poker channel for me to watch? Hope is eternal.

While watching Carnivale tonight, my wife was sitting there thinking, "that lady looks like she got some bad plastic surgery." And I'm thinking, "she looks vaguely familiar, but not as an actress I know." Then she stuck out her hands and we saw the fused fingers. "That's Bree Walker," Billie exclaimed.

Walker was a TV anchorwoman in San Diego, which is how we recognized her. She's also worked in L.A. and New York.

Diane Bell reports:

Long an advocate for people with disabilities, it was Walker herself who came up with the idea for the role. After seeing the early episodes of "Carnivale," she called a friend, Tracy Torme, who is a consulting producer, to protest that the sideshow didn't have anyone with ectrodactyly.

[snip]

"Sabina is based on a character I knew existed in the '20s and '30s carnival sideshows," says Walker. "There was always someone with ectrodactyly. Generally they were called the 'lobster girl' or the 'lobster boy. '

"If I had lived during that era, that would have been the best job I could have ever landed," says Walker. "Most people (with ectrodactyly) were hidden away."

And we learn from Bell that Walker is planning a blog, but I haven't found it.

As for Walker's acting ... it's one thing to make fun of her big lips, but you've got to give it to her: The lady can act. She does a hell of the job in her first episode and her character will be a fine addition to the series. (More on Bree and ectrodactyly.)

Music acquired over the last two months or so in no particular order:

U2/How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb. Of course it's good. It's just not stunning. It's too much like went before, which is something we're not used to from U2.

Todd Snider/Songs from the Daily Planet. Bought this on the strength of one song I heard on XM, "Trouble." Turns out, that's the one truly great song on the CD, though "My Generation (Part 2), "Easy Money" and "Alright Guy" are good. After that, it's pretty slim, and Snider just isn't a good enough singer to make mediocre material tolerable.

Waylon Jennings/Honkey Tonk Heroes. Bought this after stumbling across a CMT show about the Outlaw Movement. Until then, hadn't realized Jennings had an album out of all Billy Joe Shaver songs. Great CD. Great songs all the way through. My favorite track is probably "Black Rose," which features the chorus line "The devil made me do it the first time/The second time I done it on my own" and the verse of "When the devil made that woman/Lord she threw the pattern away/She was built for speed with the tools you need/to make a new fool every day."

Wanted/The Outlaws. Bought at the same time and for the same reason as the CD above. Just one of the classic country CDs I had to own. A fine compilation of Waylon, Willie and Jessie that changed the history of country music.

Dwight Yoakam/Dwight's Used Records. When I first ordered this, I thought it was just another collection of Dwight doing other people's songs, like the outstanding Under the Covers, but what it is is mostly a compilation of songs Dwight recorded with other people or for other people. There's stuff from tribute albums he's done, a couple of first-time released tracks. The stand out here is Dwight's version of "Loco Motion." Imagine Elvis at one of his Nashville sessions cutting an old rock and roll song, but with a little more twang. That's "Loco Motion."

Johnny A./Get Inside. Long-time readers know what a fan I am of Johnny A. His latest CD does not disappoint me. I'm not sure I would recommend it as an introduction to JA, but for a fan like me it fully confirms my contention that he is the greatest guitar player on the planet right now. He combines speed, dexterity, subtle nuance and a clear understanding of melody like no guitarist I've heard since Les Paul. Sometime Tuesday Morning is still the CD to start with if you want to discover the greatest of JA, but if you love great guitar playing, you shouldn't be without either of these CDs.

Lyle Lovett/My Baby Don't Tolerate. It's Lyle Lovett. A reviewer need not say much more. It's got the gospel and the jazz and the country all mixed together as Lyle does so well. The CD breaks no new ground, but Lovett has always resided on such a higher plain, that something new isn't really necessary.

The Skeletons/Nothing to Lose. I added this CD to my Amazon Wish List a year ago or even further back. I'm now baffled what inspired me to add it, but having got it, I can only say, thank God I only pay $3 for it (bought it the day I did cause I could get it so cheaply used over the Net). The Skeletons had nothing to lose. And they got nothing in return. Boring.

Hell Bent & Country Bound. I remember as a kid whenver the local AM radio station would have an LP giveaway, I'd get on the phone and dial over and over, usually getting busy signals. If I was lucky enough to get through, I was never lucky enough to be the 9th caller. A few weeks back, XM's X-Country station said, "e-mail us for a chance to win a CD." So I did. And I won. Cool, uh? Good CD, too. It's that Americana/Alt-Country stuff X-Country plays. I haven't fallen in love with it yet, but I'm enjoying it.

Calexico/Feast of Wire. This was loaned to me the way friends loan digital music these days. It's now on my Amazon Wish List with intent to purchase. First time I heard it, it reminded me a little bit of the Moody Blues. Another person who heard it heard U2, which I hadn't heard. What it is is Americana that's a bit more sophisticated than your average honky tonk wannabe might produce. Slick without being dry. Lush without being obnoxious. Solid musicianship and dexterous songwriting. A good discovery.

It's no longer TVIP. It's IPTV. And it may be coming to a town near you soon. SBC and other telecos are apparently poised to start testing. So reports AP.

Bob Benz returned from the Media Center's Technology, Business and Policy for Senior Executives conference and has posted a few thoughts, with the most interesting being his reactions to Dan Gillmor (skeptical, but appreciative) and Chris Anderson (intrigued).

I take note of Bob's comment that blogs and citizen journalism are not necessarily as disruptive of big media as Gillmor may think. For Gillmor's meme of "journalism as a conversation" to take place, MSM must survive. You just are not going to get a enough citizen journalists willing to do the hard work of sitting through boring city council meetings and pouring of land use records and building permit applications to replace what MSM does every day.

I related our experiences trying to get football coaches and other community group leaders to update sites with information. Some do it with a religious fervor. Others (most?) get abandoned quickly and turn into cyber ghost towns rather than online communities.

The only way citizen journalism works for the betterment of society is if its a partnership with professional journalism. It supplements, expands and even competes, but it doesn't replace. That would be impossible, but damaging if it happened.

On the long tail, as I've said before, I'm fascinated by this theory and what it means for journalism. I think Chris Anderson has absolutely nailed an observable fact. In fact, instead of the "the theory of the long tail," I'm ready to start calling it the "The Law of the Long Tail."

Benz:

The corporate media have a long way to go to leverage the power of the tail and the blogosphere. Our very survival might be at stake. But I think we also need to make sure we don't lose sight of our role as filter and information provider. No one wants to drink from a firehose. Newspapers can and should be doing what they've always done best -- help people get at what they really need/want in this flow of grassroots information that's surging across the Internet. We just need to make sure we're not looking solely to traditional sources of news and information while we're applying the filters and generating our content. In fact, Anderson says a critical component of the long tail is and will be recommendations. People will act on recommendations from blogs, their friends and peers and, if we do our jobs, the media.

Billie and I were on this subject today. It's the first time I told her about the long tail. We've both always been the sort of people who spend more time in the thin part of the tail than fat of the beast itself, so she immediately got it, but with some regret. She's worried about the fragmenting of society. We have been losing common touch stones of experience for decades, and that process is accelerating now. My response is that in our new society, we all belong to multiple tribes, and we'll rely on those tribes for a sense of belonging, for community, for knowledge and recommendations and confirmations. I don't think that's all bad. So long as the unifying themes or respect and tolerance prevail, we should be able to survive as a civil society just fine.

Lots of blogspheric coverage of Eason Jordan this morning. And the mainstream media is hitting the story pretty hard, too.

There are a few comments out there, like this one from Tim Blair, about the position organizations like the New York Times find themselves in -- reporting a story that has blown up after it was previously ignored.

This brings all kinds of crazy questions into my head: When is a story a story? Because bloggers say it is? Can't a big media organization have legitimate reasons for delaying publication of a story that have nothing to do with any reason a blogger might invent? Should the MSM cover a story just because it's big news in the blogosphere? Do citizen journalists play a different role than professional journalist, and should they?

If you buy the notion of open source journalism, then the Eason Jordan story is a perfect example of how it works (timeline here). As a fan of open source journalism, I have to ask: Does it really matter who reports on the story, so long as it's reported?

There is just a little tickle in my brain that suggests maybe bloggers are worrying a bit too much about what the MSM reports and what it doesn't. I suspect some bloggers worry that a story isn't a story until MSM reports it. I'm not sure the blogosphere needs MSM to validate a story.

Big media has its role and citizen journalists need to do their own thing. The roles are more symbiotic than competitive, but they can also be quite exclusive of each other.

If you really believe citizen journalism breaks down the barriers between information and public exposure, then it really doesn't matter where the story comes from. What matters most is the open source vetting process -- where facts are checked, context supplied and spin exposed.

We need the aggregate to uncover the truth, not validation from the New York Times or Washington Post.

As the Eason Jordan denouement proves, the MSM is not always relevant to how the story is told. Jordan resigned with scant notice of the scandal from big media outlets. I don't think that is necessarily a bad thing.

The Online Publishers Association released a report this week that among other things indicates that there is more demand for Web video than is currently being met. Ironically, it came out the same day Matt Welch linked to this video.

Yes, people are desperate to find good video to download.

Chris Anderson makes the case against the iPod Shuffle:

So that, in a nutshell, is the case against the Shuffle. For anyone with a big music collection (thousands of tracks) a random walk through their entire library is statistically likely to be an unwelcome reacquaintance with mistaken purchases, whim rips, filler album tracks and embarrassing ghosts of music taste past. And if you're anything like me, that gets annoying real fast.

The only way the Shuffle would make sense to me is if it were scaping songs from a collection that I kept well vetted.

Chris Anderson has a post that combines two of my favorite topics: The business strategy of Google and his theory of the long tail.

What Google has done is to find and monetize the Long Tails of both advertisers and publishers. These include millions of small companies and individuals who may never have advertised before, at least not nationally. They were considered sub-scale--too small to be worth a call or visit from an ad salesperson, possible too small to even think of themselves as an advertiser at all. But Google ads are self-service, cheap, and performance based (pay-per-click), which all combine to dramatically lower the barrier to entry.

And here's the challenge and opportunity for local-focused media companies. Google will drain local advertising revenue, but it will also help educate many small businesses to the value of Internet advertising. Local Web sites should be able to develop strategies that compete favorably with Google, since they, too, are part of the long tail.

I've always thought of myself as the early adopter type. Often, the only thing that keeps me from adopting something new and cool is lack of funds -- hence, for example, the lack of iPod today.

That said, I feel really late to the RSS party.

Intuitively, I understood the attraction of RSS for some people, but it wasn't for me. Strapping on a Luddite cloak, I said to myself, "surfing the Web is just a fine way to consume information."

So I bounced around from blog to blog and site to site and developed methods to improve my efficiency, but now all those little tricks seem like a wooden wagon wheel compared to rocket-fueled RSS.

Last week, I installed FeedDemon.

The Web will never be the same for me again.

Keeping up with my favorite blogs is so easy now, I keep abreast of more of them. And I don't feel the need to devote large chunks of time to blog reading. Got five minutes? Read a couple of blog entries. FeedDemon helps me keep track of what I've read and what I've haven't -- like a virtual bookmark.

And here's my first RSS-related complaint -- publishers/bloggers who only provide a the first few hundred words of an article, forcing me to leave FeedDemon to read the entire article -- something I find myself doing hardly at all. In fact, in most cases I've deleted such publishers' channels. I would be interested in hearing what others who use an RSS reader think of getting only teasers?

BTW: For those who missed the previous announcement, here's the new howardowens.com RSS feed.

Making Money Out of Mobile is the name of a new blog about ... well, making money from mobile communications devices.

If he were a alive today, Alan Lomax would probably be a blogger. Here's a bit of evidence: "Day of Infamy" recordings he collected, with the help of citizen journalists, of peoples' reactions to Pearl Harbor (via MetaFilter).

The recordings, or I should say, the opinions of these "man on the street" responses are fascinating. It's a pretty wide range of opinions, with a strong sense of isolationism and wish that leaders had worked out a peaceful resolution, and a few gung ho types ready to serve.

At long last, an RSS feed.

What's interesting to me is that before my hiatus from blogging, I rarely received requests for RSS. Since I came back, I get a request nearly weekly. That might be remarkable in of of itself, but consider: Before the hiatus my traffic was about 8 or 9 times what it is now.

Hope this works for those of you who have requested such a thing.