Media
Media
Random Updates, #DPAC4, Balloon Boy, Swine Flu, the Coast Guard, Google Wave
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Wed, 10/28/2009 - 08:38In case anyone didn’t notice, yesterday, I attended DPAC 4. I sent out about 140 tweets from the conference. I received around 30 replies, many of them retweets of what I had sent out. A lot of the people were old friends from other conferences, but I ended up following about a dozen new people. I had a net growth of five new followers, but that is a little misleading since there is always churn as old fake followers get deleted and new fake followers crop up. I reality I picked up at least a dozen new real followers. More importantly, I had a lot of great discussions and gathered a bunch of interesting new ideas to write about over the coming month. These days, I’m interested in the number of tweets and the changes to followers and those I’m following as a metric on how good a conference is. It actually can be used to analyze how interesting each panel is, as well.
During my train ride into New York, I mostly slept. I’m hoping to build up my defenses and avoid what is going around. My daughter Fiona stayed home sick yesterday and is sick again today. She does not have a fever and I do not believe it is swine flu, or if it is, it is very mild. About 10% of the students at her school are out. The local middle school has about 29% absent, and at least three school districts in Connecticut, in Guilford, Middletown and Burlington have closed because of the swine flu. Meanwhile, I continue read more blogs about how this is just another fake media frenzy driven by evil operatives in the Obama White House. I just want to let people know that tin foil hats has not been proven effective in preventing the spread of swine flu.
As I headed from the conference to the train station in the evening, I saw a heading proclaiming that the Coast Guard exercise on 9/11 this year was ill-advised but did not violate agency policies. I would suggest it was ill advised because, my friends wearing the tin hats to protect themselves against swine flu have a good reason to suspect that the media is driving frenzies and not providing news. The same media that brought you Balloon Boy is bound to bring sensationalized fictitious information about Coast Guard exercises. My tweet, “[Steven] Brill [of Journalism Online, LLC asks,] will you pay for someone to make sense out of all the raw content? Brill thinks so. I don't.” was frequently retweeted. The only surprise is that in this day of Balloon Boy, Mr. Brill thinks there are people that would actually pay for that sort of editorial efforts to make sense out of raw content.
On the way home, I spent more time getting to know the characters that I hope to appear in my National Novel Writing Month novel.
Today, Fiona is still at home, still sick. It will cut into my productivity at a time that I really can’t afford it. I have over 4000 unread emails in my inbox, and a couple computer consulting projects to make headway on, including some work in Joomla. No, I’m not abandoning Drupal, but there are times that I work with clients that use other content management systems.
I also finally received an invite to Google Wave. What looks most promising to me about it is the integration with Google Gadgets. I’ve looked at Google Gadgets before as part of my explorations into Shindig, so when I get some free time, I want to look at Drupal to Shindig to Google Gadgets to Google Wave connectivity. Then, when I finally get around to getting an Android, I can have some real fun. But now, time to start plowing through some of the tasks at hand.
#dpac4 - Cover It Live Stream
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Tue, 10/27/2009 - 08:28Today is DPAC 4. I am liveblogging using the hash tag #dpac4.
I've set up CoverItLive to pick up any tweets with that hashtag.
Note: My horoscope for today reads Today, while working in a team environment, you'll need to work a little bit harder to come up with new ideas. It seems that groupthink has taken over, and no one is able to think innovatively
I'll try to be extra snarky today.
The Battle for Digital Cable
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Mon, 10/26/2009 - 20:29Back in September, Cablevision petitioned the FCC to be able to encrypt basic cable in New York City. I submitted my comment to the FCC and have been reading other comments ever since.
A wide collection of views have been submitted and some common themes seem to appear. One of the biggest seems to be confusing related issues. One is confusing the move of the cable signal to digital, and with whether or not the digital signal should also be encrypted or scrambled. Another is confusing the number of households with set top boxes with the number of television receivers that are getting their signal from a set top box. While many subscribers may have a set top box for one or more of their televisions, they may not have it for all of their televisions. Understanding these and other issues will be important in how cable systems move to digital signals.
A comment submitted by Public Knowledge and the Media Access Project places the request in the proper framework.
While Cablevision is the first major cable system to apply for such a waiver, it certainly won’t be the last. To the contrary this petition marks only the beginning of a “cable digital conversion” that will reshape the industry.
They go on to say that “It is critical that the Commission move expeditiously to a general rulemaking”. Sure enough, RCN Telecom Services supports Cablevision’s request and “requests the Commission to extend such waiver to other cable and open video system operators”. Bend Cable Communications (“BendBroadband”) , a small family owned cable operator in Oregon also commented in support of the waiver.
BendBroadband comes the closest to presenting a viable argument for why cable operators should be allowed to encrypt digital basic cable signals. They talk about the need to install traps to protect against signal theft and the need for cable operators to be able to make service changes without a truck roll if they are going to be able to compete with satellite services. Yet under current rules, to request a waiver, a cable company must show that there is significant cable theft that cannot be thwarted other ways.
Arguing on the other side is Elgato, a leading vendor of products for watching of television on Macintosh Computers. Such a waiver would have a significant negative impact on customers that have bought their products in the past, as well as making their product less valuable for future potential customers. Broadening this argument is the Consumer Electronics Industry.
They present, in a particularly clear manner, that Cablevision has not met the requirements necessary for a waiver; showing neither a substantial problem of theft of basic tier services or some other “strong need”. They also illustrate the vast number of devices currently on the market that would be negatively affected by such a waiver. These arguments are also particularly well presented by the Association for Maximum Service Television (MSTV).
MSTV describes itself as “the leader in fostering over-the-air digital broadcast television” and “represents the television broadcast industry on technical issues before the Federal Communications Commission”.
So, we see a battle brewing between the cable companies, the consumer electronics manufacturers and the broadcast companies. It is also interesting to see ordinary citizens, and people involved in public, educational and government television channels weighing in on the issue.
Public Knowledge and the Media Access Project are right. This does only mark the beginning. They are right, the FCC should address the issue of the transition to digital cable. However, there has not been a compelling reason presented that the transition to digital cable should include allowing the encrypting or scrambling of basic tier cable channels. Indeed, the arguments by broadcasters and television manufacturers present a much more compelling reason why digital basic tier cable should not be encrypted or scrambled.
Cablevision’s comment reply date is November 6th. It will be interesting to see what they have to say, as well as what the FCC ends up doing. What is exciting to me is that as the large industry groups battle it out, more and more individuals are getting involved and that, I believe, is good for our country.
What are your thoughts on the requested waiver? Are there other rules being made or re-evaluated that you believe we should be paying attention to?
Being a Blogger in 2009
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Fri, 10/23/2009 - 09:38When I first set up Orient Lodge back in 2004, I wanted a central place where I could gather material I was writing for a couple years on various blogs and in other online discussions. I didn’t really think about what things would be like in five years and I am disinclined to make guesses about 2014. Yet things have changed a lot since those early days, and I received two messages that have caused me to stop and look a little more closely at the state of blogging in 2009.
These days, it is hard for me to keep up with all the email I get. A fair amount of it is from public relations firms hoping that I will write about the latest product they are pitching. Some requests are really good, some barely deserve the quick glance I give them before I delete them or file them away. Often, I reply, but do not receive a follow-up from the PR firm. Other times, I get fascinating replies that cause me to go to the library to do extensive research. I hope to have a few good blog posts up about some of these topics soon.
Getting press credentials back in 2004 to cover the U.S. Democratic Party National Convention in Boston gave me another insight into blogging. There are many events and conferences that seek good writers to attend and provide coverage, even if they are covering it in blogs. Since then, I’ve covered many political, technological, media, marketing, and even psychological events. I always go with trepidation. I am spending my own time and money to get to the events. While I have various ads on my blog, I do not work hard to monetize my site, and I certainly don’t get enough to cover the expenses of going to various conferences. Will going to a conference be worth the effort? When there are two concurrent conferences, which one will be the most interesting and which one will I be able to provide the most insights on?
Yesterday, I received an email from one conference organizer asking me to send her two or three writing samples related to the conference materials. I had several such articles available, which I quickly sent off, but it made me stop and think. Two years ago, I was invited to cover the same conference with no questions asked. Another conference that I covered in 2008 sent me a note that they no longer accepted bloggers or freelance journalists in 2009. This struck me as odd given that the number of full-time journalists covering their area of interest has decreased considerably during the same period. However, I subsequently found out that the attendance of that conference had declined precipitously since last year. Is the increased difficulty in getting press credentials as a blogger because there are more bloggers out there, or is it because the recession has very seriously hit the conference industry?
As to what to cover, yesterday was an interesting day. Kim asked me to attend the Informal Hearing on the Citizens’ Election Program. I was sure that not only would the traditional media be there, but some good representatives of the online media would be there. Sure enough, Christine from CTNewsJunkie was there. Christine is a great journalist who has covered the Capitol for a long time. Her writing is a good example of covering an event, and adding important background information to create a compelling narrative that helps readers understand the full context.
I had live tweeted the whole event, and aggregated those tweets into a CoverItLive stream. It was raw, blow-by-blow coverage, closer to stenography than reporting, but I was pleased to find that Christine linked to my coverage. Afterwards, we talked about how President Obama’s visit to Connecticut today was going to be covered by a pool reporter instead of allowing reporters from all the Connecticut news outlets in. I believe that this was a bad idea, and I subsequently found out that this has been reversed. I suspect that Christine will be covering the event, and as such, I don’t feel any particular need to go down and cover the event myself. Christine will provide the insights I am hoping to find, and I would probably not add a lot to the discussion.
I think this is an important thing for bloggers in 2009 to think about. These days it seems like everyone can blog. Are you, as a blogger, providing insights that people wouldn’t find elsewhere? If not, you might want to think about what you are writing and see if there are things that you care about, where insights like your own are not already being shared.
The other message that I received today was that someone has high jacked my advertisement. I use a 125x125 image of myself, flanked by red stripes and the words Orient Lodge across the top. I was told that someone was using this image to advertise their site on EntreCard, a site that has nothing to do with my blogging. As a general rule, I’m pretty laid back about allowing people to use my material. Typically, I invoke a Creative Commons license which allows people to copy my work if they provide proper attribution. Sometimes, I might also ask that the work be non-commercial or non-derivative, but I’m generally pretty willing to allow others fairly free use of my material.
However, the using of my 125x125 ad image to advertise an unrelated site is unacceptable. I did a whois lookup and found the owner of the domain that was using my advertisement. I sent a cease and desist email to this person and copied it to support at EntreCard. I encourage bloggers to be as flexible with licensing their material as possible. I want people to pick up my RSS feeds, my articles and to link back to my site. It is part of how I’ve grown my site to be as successful as it is. On the other hand, when someone does something that can cause confusion about my site and potentially decrease my traffic, I will, and how have, spoken up and defended my material. I encourage other bloggers to not only be flexible with the licensing of their material but also vigilant about material used inappropriately. This is another thing I just didn’t have to deal with five years ago.
Where will all of this lead in another five years? More and more, people are using audio, still pictures and video. I enjoy playing with this, but I really like the written word best. I hope my writing will continue to improve over the next five years, and that something unexpected, yet good will come of all of this. What do you think?
Submitting a Comment to the FCC
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Wed, 10/21/2009 - 11:10Today, I filed my first comment on a petition before the FCC. For years, I’ve been blogging, working on campaigns, and speaking with legislators about proposed laws but this is the first time that I’ve really ventured into the rules making side of governance.
A couple weeks ago, I wrote about how Cablevision seeks to encrypt basic cable in New York City. I’ve sent various emails back and forth about this and finally got around to submitting my comment.
I used the FCC’s Electronic Comment Filing System. First, I spent a bit of time exploring the site. I went back and forth about whether I should send my comment as an email or submit it via the web. I spent time looking for other comments. Using the Search for Filed Comments form, I found Cablevision’s initial request and fourteen comments about the request.
It was mostly individuals writing in opposition to Cablevision’s request and included letters that had been mailed, as well as plenty of quick comments that appear to have been submitted online. I was particularly impressed by a comment from Adam Steinberg, Director, Product Line Management for Elgato. He started off by noting that Elgato “is the leading vendor of products that permit watching of televison [sic] on Macintosh Computers” and went on to say, “All of our TV tuner products support watching unencrypted digital cable.”
I’m a PC guy so I haven’t encountered Elgato before, but I use a product that sounds like it is similar to Elgato and I thought Mr. Steinberg argued very well one of my concerns about why the Cablevision request should be denied.
I looked at other comments, and tried to mimic, as much as possible, the formatting and style of the ones that seemed most effective. Hopefully, this will add credibility to my comment. In the end, I wrote it and formatted it in Microsoft Word, so I used the online form to submit the comment.
Submitting the comment was very easy and soon, I found the comment online.
I was pleasantly surprised at how easy it was to create and submit a comment on an issue before the FCC and I would encourage others to do so.
In case people have problems accessing the comment on the FCC website, I am including it here, below the fold.
