Category Archives: Internet

Learfield Interactive

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I have three “pet projects” (for lack of a better description) at work. They make a little money but not much. One could make a good argument that these are things we shouldn’t be messing with. But I am quite proud of them and today seems like a good time to bench-mark them.

Legislature.com (how lucky were we to get that domain?) has to be one of the more expensive subscription services on the net. We charge $750 a year for a live stream of debate audio from the Missouri House and Senate. All the more amazing since those two bodies offer a live stream for free. In addition to the live stream, we archive each day’s debate. We’ve got it all going back to 2002. Don’t ask me “who cares?” because I don’t know. It’s a little bit of history and it seemed dumb to discard it.

UPDATE: We registered Legislature.com on September 16, 1999. Roger Gardner called me the day before and asked if the domain was available. I assured him someone had snapped it up but had our IT guy (Phil Atkinson) check. Lo and behold, it was available. Not many one-word domains still up for grabs in 1999.  Post-Dispatch story on Legislature.com 5/14/00 (PDF)

Supreme Court of Missouri Oral Arguments. Very dry stuff. We stream audio of the oral arguments before the court, and then we archive it. 637 cases, dating back to December 14, 1999. The service has been free until just recently, when we started charging an annual subscription of $99. [We started doing this in January of 2000.

So we have the audio of the state legislature making the laws…and the audio of the state supreme court interpreting many of those laws. While I don’t care that much about the process, saving this audio record just seem very cool to me.

Last, but not least… Missouri State Highway Patrol Crash Reports. These are the initial reports filled out by the state troopers and radioed back to the dispatcher. He or she then enters the information into a computer and it gets distributed to various points around the state. Several years ago, Phil did a little hack that put the reports on a website which, today, easily generates 800,000 Page Views a month. There’s a free, “public” version of the site…and a “premium” subscription service which includes a searchable database of reports going back to the beginning of 2004. Two years of crash reports. God (and maybe Andy and Phil) know how many files that might be. Thousands. Hundreds of thousands? A shit load.

A good businessman would tell you these projects are “distractions” that “dilute” our efforts from our “core businesses.” Which, for the most part, is selling 30 and 60 second commercials on radio networks. I think it’s a credit to our company that they let me (and others) explore these murky, digital waters. But I wonder… if I went to that Big Blogging Convention in the sky tomorrow, would anyone keep these projects going?

High speed Internet access

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A co-worker recently announced that he could finally get high-speed Internet access (Sprint ADSL) at his appartment. The speed/price package was much better than mine, so I called the Sprint folks. Now, I’m probably jinxing myself with this post but I can’t resist.

I’m currently paying $60 per month for 1.5M download/256k upload. Beginning tomorrow, that goes up to 3M down/??? upload, for the same price (thanks to some kind of rebate). Still not up there with cable speeds but a long way from the 2400 baud dial-ups of yesteryear. I’ll let you know if access seems twice as fast.

Unbundled Media

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“The natural ability of the Internet to distribute unbundled media is disrupting broadcasting’s basic business, and that will accelerate in 2006.” (The Unbundled Awakening by Terry Heaton)

BundleAfter reading this excellent piece, I can’t get the idea of “unbundled media” out of my head. Like all broadcast media, radio stations offer a bundle of content/programming. Music, weather, sports, news, etc. We bundle it all together in something we call a format and deliver it to the audience (in a very linear manner).

I remember getting calls from frustrated listeners demanding to know when I was going to give the school closing report (I had just given it 2 minutes earlier but they had missed it.) They couldn’t get it when they wanted it because it had to be bundled up with other content/programming.

For the past 20+ years I have worked for a company that supplies content/programming to radio stations and for most of that time, a big part of my job was to insure that our “stuff” made it into the bundle.

And now the unbundling has begun. iTunes has just about any song I might want to hear. Weather.com has my forecast. Cancellations.com (or my school’s website) has the cancellations. Same for school lunch menus.

And RSS means I won’t even have to go searching for all this. It will come to me. Wherever I am.

It seems pretty clear that most people don’t want their media bundled. They like to choose. A bit of a sticky wicket for businesses dependent on being part of the bundle. Is the value shifting from being able to bundle (TV and radio stations, newspapers, magazines, etc)… to creating the content that was once part of that bundle?

S&P: Bumpy road for media companies

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According to this Business Week story, Standard & Poor’s sees a bumpy road ahead for media companies:

S&P expects radio advertising to grow only in the low-single-digit percentages in 2006. Radio ad demand is under pressure from competing media such as the iPod and satellite radio, as well as from excess commercial loads. … Even with lethargic revenue growth, radio broadcasters generate significant free cash flow.

S&P expects that online ad growth in 2006 will exceed 20%, reflecting the continued strength of both search and brand advertising. Marketers appear to be gaining confidence in the Internet’s ability to reach consumers. For example, Yahoo! indicated that its brand-marketing revenue from the top 200 U.S. brand advertisers grew more than 45% in second-quarter 2005, and Ford Motor has allocated about 15% of its marketing budget to online initiatives. Furthermore, some marketers have begun to incorporate search advertising as part of their overall branding campaigns, which could spur more online-ad spending.

 

Even assuming that growth decelerates somewhat, Internet advertising is likely to exceed magazine advertising in 2006. Spending on Internet ads could potentially surpass spending on radio in 2008, assuming 1% to 2% growth in radio ad spending and a minimal contribution from satellite radio.

Hmmm.

Nursing home bloggers

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A couple of years ago I wondered if they have Internet access in nursing homes. I thought it made sense back then but now it seems…inevitable. I’m sure there must be nursing homes with net access for residents. But are there people living in nursing homes who are blogging? If so, (and there must be) it would seem to raise some interesting issues.

Most of Barb’s clients are individuals or corporations in the area of “long term care.” And she’s something of an expert in this area, but she really didn’t have ready answers to my questions. Good lawyers seldom do.

Here’s a scenerio: I’m 75 years old and still have most of my marbles but my kids don’t think I should be living alone so we all agree I should move into Sunnyvale Estates where I can get the day-to-day care I need. I have my own room and my one phone-line. Every day I flip open my Thinkpad, log in to my Typepad account, and blog away.

Let’s say I notice a little whiff scotch on the breath of the aide that brings me my lunch (luke-warm hotdog cut into tiny, no-choke bites…and apple sauce). I report it to the administration but they don’t do anything, so I blog it. A reporter for the New York Times happens to be researching a story on nursing homes and finds my blog. (Sound of shit hitting the adult diaper).

Or maybe I’m bed-fast for a while and I start getting a bed sore. So I take a photo with my little digital camera and post it to my blog. Hello!

My question to Barb was: Could the nursing home administration keep me from blogging. Did I give up my first-amendment rights when I moved in? Certainly the other residents have a right to privacy and I couldn’t/shouldn’t violate that with my blogging. But let’s say I stuck pretty much with my life and care in the facility. Can the nursing home stop me? And on what grounds?

I can’t believe this hasn’t come up yet. A Technorati search on “nursing home” lists 53,000+ posts. Looks like there are lots of posts about family members who are in nursing homes but (the few I scanned) didn’t appear to be written by a resident.

One might argue that by the time someone has to move to a nursing home, they are no longer capable of maintaining a blog. I spent a good deal of time in an excellent facility where my father spent the last few years of his life. And many of the residents probably could not have handled the logistics of blogging, even if they knew what it was.

But that was then and this is now. When we boomers move to Sunnyvale, we’re damn sure gonna want net access and we’ll have it with high-speed, state-of-the-art mobile phones. And a few million of us will be bloggers. An enlightened administrator would get out in front of this. Hell, blogging might be better for the residents than bingo. And it might offer other benefits. Why not encourage it. Might even be a good idea to have the Sunnyvale Estates Blog so you can engage in the conversation swirling around you.

[When I moved from Blogger to Typepad, I lost the link to the excellent cartoon site from which image above was linked. If anyone can provide the url, I’d like to add it here.]

Update: Found this AP story over at MSNBC: “Web savvy seniors embrace blogs”

Who will own the podcasting rights?

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From an article by Dan Migala in the Sports Business Journal (subscription required):

“The NHL’s Blackhawks have launched Hawk-Cast, which is the first podcast created by an NHL team. A new edition of Hawk- Cast, which is a 10- or 15-minute show, is available two to three times a week. The show is hosted and produced by Blackhawks Web producer Adam Kempenaar using only a computer with audio recording capability and Internet access. The HawkCast features updates from practices and interviews with players, coaches and team management. Postgame news conferences and player interviews are also available as podcasts at www.chicagoblackhawks.com.”

As an employee of a company that pays millions of dollars every year for the media rights to some of the top college teams in the country, this next little item caught my attention:

“Another plus for the Blackhawks is that, because the content is original and produced in-house, there are no conflicts with radio rights holders. The team is free to sell advertising and sponsorships for each podcast or program segment. Kempenaar said the club has not sold advertising yet, but plans to do so.”

I remember the first time we saw a reference to streaming rights in a college bid spec. You can bet we’ll be seeing references to podcasting rights in future rights deals.

Ford squeezes office into truck

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Ford Motor unveiled a mobile office designed for the new F-Series truck that includes a touch-screen computer, printer, wireless broadband access and Global Positioning System. Ford, which introduced its mobile office at last week’s Specialty Equipment Market Association show in Las Vegas, is targeting general contractors but the first thing I thought of was farmers and ranchers. [C|net]

When we first started repurposing content from our farm network for the web, everyone said, “Farmers don’t have access to the Internet.” When we started streaming our audio reports, they pointed out, “Farmers are on very slow dial-ups and can’t access rich media.”

I’m no visionary. I just pull my head out of my ass a couple of times a day and take a look around. If your pick-up is your office, this is gonna make sense to a lot of farmers.

Quoted by Jeff Jarvis

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Back in March I posted –somewhat giddily– about being added to Halley Suitt’s blog roll (I’m still there). Ms. Suitt was kind enough to say she stopped by smays.com from time to time. I suspect she was being kind, but still a thrill.

While he’s far less sexy than Ms. Suitt, Jeff Jarvis orbits in that same blogosphere firmament. His BuzzMachine is #49 on Technorati’s Top 100 Blogs (if you go in for such rankings, and Mr. Jarvis is not the sort to do so).

Today, while reading his latest post, I came across a quote that sounded strangely familiar. Mr. Jarvis attributed the quote to “A media exec even older than I…”

Good news: Jeff Jarvis read something I wrote and thought it worth pointing to (or someone sent him a link). Bad news: I’m older than Jeff Jarvis.

As I emailed Jeff (He’s just a kid, I can call him Jeff), this is like being in the audience at a Bruce Springsteen concert and hearing the Boss shout out, “Steve Mays is somewhere in the house tonight!”

Steve Rubel on corporate blogging

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“In an ideal situation –weekly or even daily– someone is pumping the weblog with fresh compelling content. But any old content won’t do. Corporations interested in blogging need to add value to people’s lives. That’s the biggest key to a successful corporate blog that keeps people coming back. So what do I mean by add value? I mean give us a reason to read your blog. Give us something we can’t find anywhere else. Provide information that your customers, partners and prospects care about, not necessarily what you care about. Be a resource and a connector.”

5,655,320 pieces of digital crap

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Phil posted our spam/virus stats for September. 95% of our inbound email is spam. And I’d say that percentage holds true for the crap that hits my USPS mail box. A bunch of shit I didn’t ask for and don’t want. As we used to sing back in the 60’s… deep in my heart, I do believe… there will be a day when we only see/hear messages that we want to hear. It’s closer all the time. So spam on you annoying turds. Make it while you can.