I think it was around 1996 that I declared that Advertising was the Killer App. of the Internet at presentation I made at the National Association of Broadcasters. I still believe that although, in reality people to people communication is the killer application and advertising is just the way must companies try to monetize that (I emphases “try”). But because you have an audience, it does not mean you can effectively advertise. Just stand on the ledge of a building and threaten to jump. You will soon have a large audience but even if you were a logo’ed shirt, you will have a hard time turning this into an opportunity to make money. And such is the problem of MySpace (which I don’t really care for) and Facebook (which I really like). Effective advertising on the internet is a challenge for most. It works well for search as has been demonstrated by Google but that is direct response advertising. Brand advertising is even a greater challenge to this new medium. Heavy does a great job (I am on the board and this post is not really about plugging heavy) but that is helped because the company is provides short form entertainment content. I believe that social networks can make money of course with advertising, just not the kind of money that would justify the prices that have and will probably be paid for their stock. But then again I said that about Google.
Archive for October, 2007
If you want an audience jump out of a building.
October 29, 2007Is the phone the new typewriter?
October 28, 2007
Yesterday, my wife and I were talking from Sonoma to friends of ours, a couple in NYC. We were using ichat on my wife’s Mac. Their kids, four and two came in and started talking with us. Of course we could also all see each other via the cameras on each computer. The kids were clearly use to this. I realized when they grow up they will think of today’s phone (especially the ones connected with wire) like most of us think of typewriters. Communications with others that are not in the same physical space will be just a capability of whatever it is that they use to connect to the net. It made me think of what will come after this. 
I have always been speculating on the future of technology as you can see by this photo of my first mobile phone. As a young child, my heroes were Albert Einstein and Flash Gordon. Einstein still is my hero and as I get older, I get to look more like him. I never really looked like Flash Gordon but when I was young, I would have preferred to be him than Albert (Flash got the girls). My nick name was Flash when I was in my early teens but I think that came about because I moved so quickly and also because I was so thin that if I turned sides ways I would disappear.
So here is a prediction for 2050. People will be able to communicate with other people in a way that will come close to the experience of being actually with them, in other words, it will be immersive. This will include touch and yes, you can have sex this way but incidentally, some people do this via the phone. I probably will not be around at the time although it is possible I guess and I am not predicting communications with the dead by 2050 (and we will not go into the sex thing which is really icky).
You know you are old when you are older than your parents
October 11, 2007A few days ago, I installed the latest version of Family Tree Maker. Those of you that visit my blog frequently (are there any of you?), know that I have been working on my family history for the last few years. Well the new software has a new interface which I was exploring. It showed a family tree and when you clicked on an individual you would see some details like the current age. I clicked on myself (what a surprise) and saw that I was 62 years old. Then I clicked on my mother and saw that she was 66 years old. Yes, that was her age when she died sadly. Well I realized there was only four years difference between us. My mom had me (in case the math is difficult for you) when she had just turned 18 (that is how they did it back then). So in just four years, I will be the same age and from that time on, I will always be older than my mother ever was. It really made me think. How does one think of their mother if she died when she was let’s say 30 and you were ten. And now you are 60. How do you think of your mother when she is half your age and never a day older than that. My father is 84. I think he has at least ten years in him so by the time I will be older than my dad (if that even happens), I will probably not be that interested in this discussion.
One computer down, seven more to go
October 4, 2007When I was a young teen (in reality because I am still a young teen in my mind), the number of keys you had said something about your status. Because of that, we kids wore big key chains with all kinds of keys. I think for many of us and certainly for me, the keys turned into computers. For me that meant, seven computers (or eight if you count my wife’s iMac Pro). Why would I need seven computers you ask? One for each home office in my two homes, one my music set up in each home (that two more), one for the media room in my home in Sonoma, one to run the AV and lighting system in the same house and a ultra light notebook. In addition I have four broadband networks, two local area networks with homeplug and wireless capabilities that have to communicate with each other. Then there are the backup disks that have to be synchronized across the networks. In addition to this, I have two home theater set ups, Sonos, sling boxes (yes more than one). And guess who is the IT and AV tech? You got it. It is me! I have had to reduce my working hours (should I say hour) so that I dedicate myself to supporting all this. But I have been working my way down in the computer industry for a while and probably have more marketable skills as an IT tech than as a computer industry executive.
Every once in a while, Microsoft (yes I am on both Windows XP and now Vista) updates my computers which often creates major problems which I have to debug. So I am now on a complain to reduce the technical complexity. Of course most of my friends say get a MAC (as if Mac’s do not have problems…which is a great fantasy although they are better than Window machines) but I use a lot of software that does not run on the MAC and it would be hard to make this transition (not only that but I am still pissed off at Steve Jobs but if going to a MAC would make my life better, I could find forgiveness in my heart). I did not want to run software that would make it possible to run the MAC OS and Windows since all the complexity is in the software and running two operating systems on one computer is like having two computers. My long term plan is to move everything to be net centric and have no applications or data running on my desk top. While I am making progress on that, I think it is a few years away. So today is a big day. I bought a new notebook and a docking station. The notebook will now also function as my desktop at my place in San Francisco. If that works, I will see if I am happy using it as my music computer for my two homes.
You know you are old when your greatest contribution to the future is documenting the past
October 2, 2007While I am still very much interested in the future, I have come to realize that I know a lot more about the past particularly with respect to technology. After all I was working with computer before most of the people that use them were born. For the last few years I have been working on a project to document the early history of broadband where I was fortunate to play a key role (while I may not be the father of broadband although some say I am, I am surly its god father). It has been a two year project and I hope to realize a web site dedicated to this topic at the end of the year. It is only 15 years ago when Matt Miller, then CTO of General Instruments (reporting can you believe, Don Rumsfeld) and decided to abandon our activities with Microsoft to develop an interactive TV and instead developed a bi direction cable modem and head end equipment and then proceed to conscience the cable industry that they could over computer communications. It is not my intention to preview this project but just to illustrate the point. There are a lot of people that know how broadband works now and probably a large group working on its future including a continuation of my efforts at Intel (which ended in 1999) with the development of WiMax. But there are only a handful of people who could explain how residential broadband got created.
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