Category Archives: Media & Culture

Keeping customer data secure

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Some dumb-ass working for the government takes a laptop full of veterans’ records home and it gets stolen. Naw, that doesn’t surprise me. Big accounting firm like Ernst & Young pulls a similar stunt and loses 230,000 records belonging to one of their big clients. Okay, that’s a little hard to imagine… but it happened. Could it happen at a company like Amazon? Not if we can belive Werner Vogels, the company’s chief technology officer:

“…to get to Amazon customer credit cards you will need a small army of Marines. Although recently we have been discussing (how) to place physical and electronic booby-traps such that the servers will self-destruct when compromised, to deal with such full physically attack …”

Now that’s what I call contingency planning. I always to try buy from/through Amazon. Mr. Vogels is one of the discussion leaders at Gnomedex.

TiVo Guru Guide

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The guys at TiVo have rounded up a bunch of critics, editors and experts to pick as many as 10 of the best programs in their interest areas for each week and update their lists at least once a month. They’re calling it the TiVo Guru Guide. TiVo users who share their interests can elect to have the shows recorded and have a selection ready whenever they sit down. Program pickers will come from Vanity Fair, Sports Illustrated, Entertainment Weekly, Billboard, H2O (Hip-Hop on Demand),CNet.com and Automobile Magazine. The Guru Guide will be available on the roughly 1.5 million TiVo units owned by direct subscribers to TiVo service. It won’t be available to the 2.9 million who get TiVo via DirecTV. So it’s a cool idea I can’t take advantage of.

I might actually use this (if I could) because I like/trust TiVo. I’d like it even more if I could rate the pickers. For example, they could offer movie picks from 5 different “experts.” Over time, based on their picks, I might narrow that down to just one or two whose opinions most closely match my own. [via Buzz Machine]

“Everybody is a network”

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“Networks are about sharing now; they used to be about control. Networks are two-way; they used to be one-way. Networks are about aggregation more than distribution; they are about finding and being found. Networks are now open while, by their very definition, they used to be closed. You join networks and leave them them at will; you can join any number of networks at once and content can be found via any number of networks, there is no practical limit. Networks used to be static. Now networks are fluid.” — Jeff Jarvis

You need to read the full post to appreciate the point Jarvis is making. I’ve been thinking about how it applies to the various networks our company owns. And what does it mean to “own” a network? We have contracts with the radio stations that make up our networks. We own the satellite uplink and the downlink receivers that distribute our programming to those radio stations.

Our company has purchased other, smaller networks. And it was the affiliation contracts and the contracts with advertisers that we perceived to have the greatest value. Has that changed? Is it changing? Stay tuned.

Tattoo: “Do Not Resuscitate”

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A great grandmother wants to make it absolutely clear where she stands should she ever become incapacitated. So, at age 80, Mary Wohlford of Decorah, Iowa, has had the phrase “DO NOT RESUSCITATE” tattooed on her chest. In addition to the tattoo on her chest, Wohlford has a more binding document in a prominent place. She has signed a living will and has hung it on the side of her refrigerator.

Sorry, Mary, but it doesn’t matter what you want. The Pope and Jerry Falwell and some dicks in Washington will decide this matter for you.

CBC special on the future of media

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The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s Newsworld has produced a series call The End, in which they explore the forecasted looming death of television, print, and radio. I think a more apt title might have been “The End of Radio As We Know It.” I don’t think anyone thinks radio or TV or newspapers (well, maybe newspapers) are really going away. They’re just undergoing big changes. You can watch the special on the CBC website (about 25 min). Look for the little video icon on the right side of the page. [I Love Radio]

I am not a team player

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I think I cooperate and collaborate well, but I’m not good at being on The Team. Coaches and Team Leaders tell us, “Come on! We can accomplish so much more if we work together as a Team. We gotta pull together!” Once a Team is formed, one of the first orders of business is to choose a “team captain” who tells the rest of the Team what to do. They tend to have the greatest appreciation for the need for “teamwork.” This is exactly the kind of thinking that makes me a poor team player.

Team JacketBut I love to play the game. Hated Little League…loved playing Indian Ball in the field in front of our house. Hated varsity basketball…loved pick-up games at the park. We had teams but they were temporary. We’d play a couple of games and then switch up sides. If the game was too one-sided, we’d adjust the teams to get a closer game. It was about having a good game, see? Not which team won.

Religion has teams (Baptists, Methodists, Catholics, Episcopalians, Lutherans, etc.) and leagues (Christians; Jews; Muslims; etc.). If you are “on” a team, it’s okay to hate –and sometimes kill– members of the other team. Usually God (yours, not theirs) says it’s okay to do this. Sometimes you even have to die for your team.

There are only two teams in the game of politics: Republicans and Democrats. If you want to play, you have to be on one of those teams. Recently, politics has gotten all mixed up with religion. The star player for the Republican team is a dim-witted good old boy with a rich daddy, but very religious. If you believe the polls, almost nobody –including the folks on his own team– thinks this guy is doing a good job. If the other team (in this case, the Democrats) wasn’t waiting in the dugout to say “we told you so,” most people on the Republican team would send W and his pals back to Texas where he couldn’t do much harm.

The United States Congress is hopelessly fucked up and it’s all because of the teams. Is there even anything in our constitution about Republicans and Democrats? I don’t think so. So here’s what I’d do. At the beginning of every session of congress, we divide up into two groups, by random drawing. Instead of parties or teams, we’ll call one group the Chipmunks and the other the Ground Squirrels (so they won’t take themselves so seriously). If you get reelected and come back next year, you might be in the other group so there’s no point in fucking them over this year. Since we’re reshuffling the deck every year and you don’t have any permanent “team members,” it becomes more about the game than the teams.

All of which explains why I was always chosen last.

73% of U. S. now online

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Latest Pew Internet Survey (PDF): 73% of respondents (about 147 million adults) are internet users, up from 66% (about 133 million adults) in January 2005 survey. And the share of Americans who have broadband connections at home has now reached 42% (about 84 million), up from 29% (about 59 million) in January 2005.

Percentages vary by education and income, but no more than you might expect. No idea how accurate the survey results but I continue to be amazed at how many people refuse to believe this is happening. Or, perhaps, don’t want it to be happening. No idea why.
 

WSJ’s Walt Mossberg on Internet and Radio

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One of the highlights of this week’s NAB 2006 Las Vegas convention was the keynote speaker at Tuesday’s Radio Luncheon, the Wall Street Journal’s technology columnist, Walt Mossberg. Some of his comments, as reported by Kurt Hanson:

“Internet” won’t be an “activity” in a few years. Currently, we talk about ‘surfing the Web’ or ‘being on the Internet’ or ‘I’m going online tonight’ as a discreet activity we perform on a PC, but in ten years, those phrases will sound absurd. When you watch TV, you may be on the Internet; when you listen to radio, you may be on the Internet. The Internet will not be an activity you do on a PC – it will be like the electrical grid. It will be all around you! I predict that talking about the Internet will fade, as we talk instead about devices, about software, and about services and content.

On the effect of iPods on radio:

“We passed a milestone: There are now 50 million iPods out there. My music tastes don’t fit into the little boxes that Clear Channel in my market has decided I need to fit into. Your job is not just to string together a bunch of songs in a row, but to put on exciting new programming to attract new listeners and beat the iPod.”

I wonder what Walt would say to the upcoming meeting of StateNets, the trade group that represents state networks (like the ones Learfield owns). A co-worker in the office next to mine helps organize the event. I’ll ask if they have a keynote speaker. Props to the NAB guys for inviting Mossberg.

Podcasting a viable medium?

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There’s been considerable debate about how iPod/MP3 ownership impacts radio listening. According to Jacobs Media’s Technology Web Poll II (conducted in late February, 2006, among more than 25,000 respondents), iPods are cutting into time spent listening to radio. About one-fifth of iPod/MP3 player owners say they listen mostly or exclusively to these devices. Four in ten now split their listening between iPods and radio, while over one-third primarily listen to the radio. The survey suggests that podcasting is also having an impact. One-fifth (22%) of those who own an iPod or portable MP3 player say they’ve downloaded/listened to a podcast: Of this group, nearly two-thirds (64%) subscribe to at least one podcast, and a majority listens to most or all podcasts that come their way. [via RAIN]

Seems like there’s another report every week and the findings are all over the place. So pick the one you like.

Mark Cuban getting show on Sirius

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Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban is getting his own two-hour weekly show on Sirius Satellite Radio. Cuban says he’s “going to cover everything and anything, from sprots to business to technology, movies and entertainment.” This just seems so much more interesting than David Lee Roth or Bob Dylan, for that matter. But not enough to make me switch. One of your Sirius subscribers could aircheck and send me an MP3 file. If you loved me. Wonder what sort of format they’ll use? [Ft. Worth Star-Telegram via RAIN]