A New Way to Watch

April 13, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Today our startup launched a new app for the iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch — Showyou. I’ve worked in digital media for almost 20 years now — shocking, that — and of the many products I’ve worked on, I can say without hesitation this is the one I’m the most excited to have helped create.

I love our new Showyou app most of all because it’s a joy to use. But I’m also excited about Showyou because it and other similar apps that are sure to follow have the potential to change how we watch TV — and what we watch.

We spend more time watching television than consuming any other form of media. Kids 8-18 years old watch television nearly 4 and a half hours a day — far more than they spend with any other kind of media.

And yet television has remained the most shackled platform, with the least range of choice.  With books, music, magazines and more recently the internet we’ve become accustomed to an abundance of choice. The television, on the other hand, has been locked down for most of the last 50 years, limited (for most people) to a set of channels chosen and delivered by their cable companies, and with programming on those channels determined by a small, select group. Maybe 1000 people, total, determine what most of us watch — or can watch. They’ve offered up some great stuff, to be sure — The Wire, Mad Men, The Daily Show and Colbert Report. But we’ve also gotten a lot of this.  And this. And this.

Despite the growing power of the Internet and social media, television has continued to reign supreme from 8-11PM in most homes. But cracks are starting to show. Data just released this week from the makers of the ReadItLater app shows that the heaviest usage of the iPad during the prime time hours. And we know that streaming from Netflix now accounts for a huge percentage of bandwidth consumed in the evenings.

And now, with Apple TV and  Airplay, your iPad or iPhone or iPod Touch just turned into a new remote control for your TV. New apps like Showyou have the potential to change where we get programming for our televisions, and indeed what we watch.  Now available: tens of millions of hours of programming from the internet, chosen by our friends, or people we follow on social networks like Twitter or Vodpod who have tastes or interests similar to ours. Other platforms from other companies  — Android, Windows, and more — will surely give us more options and more choice still over time.

History shows us what happens when these kinds of disruptions occur. In 1985, when cable TV was still in its infancy, the viewers watched broadcast networks 45% of the time. By 2009, that had dropped to 25%, and basic cable has risen 10-fold, from  a 3.5% share to a 36% share.

Even though online video has had explosive growth the past five years, it accounts for just a small fraction of the time we spending watching television or video. Just like cable in 1984. There is a now an opportunity for entrepreneurs to change all that.

And so a pitched battle is going to be waged for how we get programming for our televisions — and that will be a good thing for consumers.

Filed Under: Apple, Digital Media, Internet, Television, Video

The Lost Magnificent Ambersons Footage: An Allegory

April 13, 2011 By Leave a Comment

“It isn’t the consumers’ job to know what they want.”    – Steve Jobs, when asked if consumer research was done for the iPad (NYTimes)

The tale of The Magnificent Ambersons is well known among hard core movie fans. It was the first movie directed by Orson Welles after his ground-breaking Citizen Kane, and Welles and others thought it was an even better picture than Kane. But Welles went off to Brazil to make another movie just as Magnificent Ambersons was going into final edits, and left the film in the hands of the studio (RKO) and his associates. Who proceeded to test a version of the film in front of a group of teenagers in Pomona, California who had come to see a wartime musical, The Fleet’s In.

Predictably, the kids savaged the film, and in Welles’ absence RKO and some of Welles’ colleagues proceeded to butcher the picture, cutting it down from a run time of 132 minutes to 88 minutes.  No copies of the original version of The Magnificent Ambersons are known to have survived. (Imagine for a second 44 minutes being hacked from Citizen Kane, Casablanca, Lawrence of Arabia, or Schindler’s List). This whole saga is recounted in more depth, and wonderfully, here.

The tragedy of the Magnificent Ambersons illustrates perfectly what happens when you’re making something that is designed to engage one’s emotions and you leave the really important decisions to a focus group, or A/B testing, or some similar data-driven process.  For when you’re trying to make something that produces joy, or that is “fun,” or that is playful, some art and some craft and a point a view is required. Things that are built to engage one’s emotions — movies, music, art, even devices like the iPad — can’t be systematically produced, or manufactured, or tested.

I’ve felt this strongly as we’ve made Showyou (a new app we launch in about 12 hours) the past few months. We wanted to make something that was, first and foremost, fun to use. That made you smile with delight. That was beautiful to look at.  We had (and continue to have) a point of view about how we ought to do that. We tested it with about 50 people over the past month, got wonderful feedback from them, and iterated intensively to make the app more usable as a result.

But some feedback — while rational, defensible, perfectly justifiable — we ignored. Intentionally. Because acting on it would have involved taking out or substantially altering the very elements that, in our view, make Showyou fun to use.

It may be that tomorrow we’ll be proven wrong. And indeed, there’s definitely the risk of leaving too much in — or failing to recognize when you’ve just got a bad idea to start with (Ishtar?!).

But as I’ve gotten older, and worked on more products, I’ve come very much to the view that you have to have a point of view. And be willing to stick to it. You might be wrong. Or you might make something great. With Showyou, we are excited about what we’ve built, and eager to make it better still.

For in our world, unlike the movies, you’re never done and you always keep working towards perfection.

Filed Under: Apple, Digital Media, Startups

Shameful

February 11, 2011 By Leave a Comment

The Republican voters in this Frank Luntz focus group are shameful, and a stain on the country.

To paraphrase Dan Quayle’s idiot son Ben, I’d like to head out the Des Moines and knock some sense into them.

Filed Under: Politics, Religion

Jason Kilar’s Terrific Post about Video Economics

February 3, 2011 By 1 Comment

Anyone interested in the economics of television and online video, and the future thereof, should go read Jason Kilar’s excellent post up on the Hulu blog right now.

There is a lot of speculation about what Kilar is really saying, but this part of the post leapt out at me:

The opportunity for content owners.

We believe content owners are in a strong position to make higher returns from TV content distribution in the future than they have historically. If studios and networks license their content to distributors with per-user per-month economics as the model (as opposed to a fixed fee model), then they will be able to extract a higher portion of the total economics their content will generate. We state this given our belief that the majority of the US population (and a material percent of the globe) will be subscribers to some flavor of digital premium content service going forward. We also believe that any number of digital distribution companies have the ability to quickly get to scale; getting to scale is not the hard part about this business. Over the past 4 years, studios and networks have not always insisted on per-user per-month economics in their digital licensing agreements, which has resulted in a regretted under-pricing of their content to digital distributors. That said, we believe that all studios and networks will recognize that it is in their economic interest to insist on per-user per-month pricing in all their distribution relationships (library content and current content).

The added emphasis at the end is mine. In case you missed it, pretty clear that that’s a plea for his partners not to do deals with Netflix… Of the articles I’ve seen, only Ryan Lawler @gigaom seemed to pick up on this. Ryan read it as cheapness — a desire by Hulu not to pay up front fees.

I read it as fear.

 

 

Filed Under: Television, Video

On Obama

November 16, 2010 By 1 Comment

Now is the time when people like me are supposed to turn on Barack Obama.

Read the NY Times liberal columnists — Paul Krugman, Frank Rich, Maureen Dowd and Bob Herbert —  and you’ll come away with the impression we have the most toothless, ineffective, spineless leader ever in the White House (Krugman, of course, has been loudly hating on Obama longer and louder than FoxNews, and never really forgave Obama for beating Hilary Clinton).

The torrent of legislation passed the last two years — health care reform, financial reform, education reform, deep investments in clean energy and transportation funding, not to mention efforts to keep the economy from falling into the abyss? None of that really matters. That Obama has gotten more progressive policies put in place than any Democrat since LBJ, or FDR, to help the poor and the middle class? Doesn’t matter. These folks don’t really care about achievements (or, they’ll be glad to nitpick and tell you why a particular reform or bill wasn’t quite perfect).

What appears to matter to the liberal pundit class is theatrics. Fiery, “principled” rhetoric. We’re having a love affair with Bill Clinton again — “he had the balls to stand up to the Republicans!” But riddle me this: what was the signature, progressive achievement of his presidency? I’ll be waiting with baited breath for your answer, Mr. Krugman (or from your acolytes).

I actively, proudly supported Obama — and still do — because I wanted an adult in the White House after eight years of being governed by a miscreant. And that’s pretty much what we’ve gotten — an intelligent, cool, and collected man who has dealt with a greater array of crises than any president in decades and done his best to fashion coherent and sensible policy responses.

The only disappointment I have is with the ideologues of both the left and the right; my liberal friends who assume every compromise is just a sell-out move or the result of some nefarious conspiracy (“Geithner is a Goldman Sachs pawn!”) and conservative Republicans who can’t seem to take any ownership for any of their disastrous policies over the past 30 years and have never encountered a problem that couldn’t be solved with a tax cut.

Where did the adults go?

Filed Under: Politics

Bicyclists and car drivers often shout p…

November 11, 2010 By 3 Comments

Bicyclists and car drivers often shout past each other, but here’s the key fact: every day, about two bicyclists are killed every day by people driving cars.

Cars, buses, taxis and trucks are all lethal threats to riders of bikes. Bicycles (and cyclists) might annoy or slow down people in cars. But I’ve never heard of a cyclist killing someone in a car.

So I’ve never quite understood the anger expressed from drivers towards bicyclists given this startling and bleak asymmetry.

Today, while riding down Market Street, I saw a silver Mercedes sedan sharply accelerate from the middle lane on Market and cut across the bike lane at high speed to make a right on to 10th before the light turned. He nearly took out the cyclist riding in front of me on the bike lane.

The driver was a middle aged man, Blackberry open. The rider in front of of me went up and tapped on the driver’s window. Even though I ride market every day, and see near collisions every day (mostly the fault of speeding, reckless drivers, not cyclists) this particular incident unnerved me. So I followed closely behind, and as the guy rolled down the window I said “Hey buddy, you nearly took out this guy.” Admittedly, I said this in a not-so-friendly tone.

The driver’s response was stunning. Instead of a sheepish “I’m sorry, really apologize” his response was a sarcastic: “Yeah, right.”

I couldn’t help but unload the F-Bomb at that point (the cyclist who was almost hit was much more polite, and he certainly would have handled it more diplomatically). The driver went into a state of rage — so interesting, again, given the asymmetry noted above — and said “You fucker, I’m going to get out of the car and punch you.” And then he hit the gas and made his right turn on to 10th.

He could have killed and injured — indeed, he almost did — that cyclist in front of me this morning. So why he got to angry as to threaten to punch someone in the face, that I just don’t get. After all, it wasn’t his life that was in jeopardy.

 

Filed Under: bikes

When I first moved to San Francisco in 2…

October 24, 2010 By 1 Comment

When I first moved to San Francisco in 2005, I pretty much instantly became an Oakland A’s fan.

So many things about the A’s reminded me of the baseball team I grew up with — the 1970s and early 1980s era Baltimore Orioles. The terrible 1960s era multi-purpose concrete monstrosity, Memorial Stadium, an offense to the George Will purists but a delight to the rest of us. The team full of superstars and cast-off renegades; Jim Palmer and Cal Ripken and Eddie Murray, but also characters like Rick Dempsey, John Lowenstein, Tippy Martinez and the incredible and irascible manager Earl Weaver. The mostly blue collar fans, from a decaying industrial port, seeking hope and meaning missing from their daily lives by pulling for their team and reveling in wins by their underdog, small market team. With the A’s, I saw a link to all that.

I’m still an A’s fan and will be an A’s fan — American League, baby! —  but I’ll confess to really, really enjoying these 2010 Giants. Brian Wilson in particular is a blast to watch, and reminds so much of my Orioles heros — John Lowenstein (the platoon outfielder with the gift of gab) and Rick Dempsey.  They’re the team the A’s ought to have, and all credit to Brian Sabean who has done a better job of being Billy Beane than Billy Beane. At least this year.

Filed Under: Uncategorized

Ron Johnson, A Radical Just Like Vin Weber

October 13, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Jim Vandehei is a serious reporter, but this story of his today in Politico was downright ludicrous.

He breathlessly describes Ron Johnson, the Republican candidate for Senate in Wisconsin running against incumbent Russ Feingold, as one of a bold new breed:

Johnson talks the talk of the tea party and also talks of going to Washington as less a lawmaker, more a messenger. He argues with conviction that Obama represents nothing less than a threat to turn America into a “socialist, European-style” state, and audiences nod along, the judgment sounding neither rabid nor harsh — even in Wisconsin, a state that fell hard for Obama.
…
His message and circumstance are almost identical to the other tea party candidates: All believe powerfully that government has grown too large, too fast and, unless changed, America may be on verge of losing its greatness.

The thing is, that’s the very message conservative Republicans have been urging on us since 1980. And for much of the past three decades, they’ve controlled most of government. Republican presidents from 1981-1993, and 2001-2009. Republican control of the Senate from 1981 to 1987, and both houses of Congress from 1995-2007.

And government — and in particular Washington D.C. — has prospered under their care. The Beltway and the Dulles Access Road and Interstate 395 are festooned with office parks that house the “Government Relations” offices, and even corporate headquarters feasting on the largesse of the Defense Department of the Department of Homeland Security. New gleaming office buildings now line Massachusetts Avenue  – once a dead zone — between 14th Street and the Capitol. Buildings full of lobbyists for oil and gas companies, insurance companies, banks and others dedicated to weakening or removing laws that help the people but stand in the way of their profits.

For three decades, wave after wave of conservative Republicans like Ron Johnson have come to Washington vowing to change it. People like Vin Weber, who built their political careers railing against Washington but then found it could be quite a charming town and a very nice place to make a living indeed.

So, next time someone like Vandehei decides to write a piece about the Tea Party or Ron Johnson, I wish he’d remember earlier partisans like Weber. And perhaps, in light of that history, and the three decades of empirical evidence we now have about the gap between what conservative Republicans say and what they do, ask some tougher questions.

What programs — specifically — do they propose to cut?  Which of their constituents will need to make due with reduced Social Security or Medicare? How much spending in the Defense Department will they cut, and where? What agricultural and mining subsidies will they remove? What explicit steps will they take to  rid the Capital of lobbyists? Which of the nearly 1 million people working as contractors — many with duplicative roles, and lavish private-sector salaries — in our sprawling “Homeland Security” and intelligence bureaucracy will they fire?

The vision of people like Vin Weber has largely become national policy the last thirty years. Taxes are at historical lows. Markets have been de-regulated and set free. We’ve returned to an unfettered free market system that folks like Ayn Rand could only dream of. And we’ve gotten this.

The truth is, Weber and Reagan and Gingrich did change Washington. And rich people, corporations Washingtonians have done very well by their rule.

But history be damned, I’m sure this new breed of Tea Party activists will change all that forever, and put government back on the side of the people.

Filed Under: Politics

Warren Buffet on taxes

October 6, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Thank god Warren Buffett at least has the intelligence to talk sense about our tax rates. There really is nothing more depressing than rich people complaining about their taxes.

The usual argument you hear is “higher taxes will stifle growth.” For those of you who make the argument but consider yourselves “empirically minded” and “driven by data” read this.

Rich people, when they start complaining about their taxes, will tell you taxes are becoming “confiscatory.” Here’s the chart — from the right-wing Heritage Foundation, no less! — that shows what a load of nonsense that is.

Filed Under: Politics

Money Quote from the President

September 28, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Can’t be repeated enough, this:

One closing remark that I want to make: It is inexcusable for any Democrat or progressive right now to stand on the sidelines in this midterm election. There may be complaints about us not having gotten certain things done, not fast enough, making certain legislative compromises. But right now, we’ve got a choice between a Republican Party that has moved to the right of George Bush and is looking to lock in the same policies that got us into these disasters in the first place, versus an administration that, with some admitted warts, has been the most successful administration in a generation in moving progressive agendas forward.

The idea that we’ve got a lack of enthusiasm in the Democratic base, that people are sitting on their hands complaining, is just irresponsible.

Everybody out there has to be thinking about what’s at stake in this election and if they want to move forward over the next two years or six years or 10 years on key issues like climate change, key issues like how we restore a sense of equity and optimism to middle-class families who have seen their incomes decline by five percent over the last decade. If we want the kind of country that respects civil rights and civil liberties, we’d better fight in this election. And right now, we are getting outspent eight to one by these 527s that the Roberts court says can spend with impunity without disclosing where their money’s coming from. In every single one of these congressional districts, you are seeing these independent organizations outspend political parties and the candidates by, as I said, factors of four to one, five to one, eight to one, 10 to one.

From President Obama’s interview with Jann Wenner in Rolling Stone.

Filed Under: Current Affairs, Politics
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