With Macworld and CES going on this week, I’ve been looking forward to this year’s SXSW. This will be my first SXSW and I’m really looking forward to getting to see some of the panels and all the going ons at SXSW. Last year a lot of new media and social networking start-ups have been hit hard and even the big technology blue chips like Microsoft have had to announce layoffs. This brings me to my point. In these troubled times (take a drink) companies that normally throw huge parties during south by southwest are expected to drastically cut their budgets or not throw parties at all. This, I find to be very sad. At a time when people throughout the tech sector face layoffs, we need free beer. It will be a true travesty of epic proportions that any nerd find themselves walking down sixth street sober. Without the social lubricating elixir of free beer and an open bar, the code monkeys of the world will curl up in their shells like a armadillo along side a dusty country road. I urge tech compaines to keep the beer flowing, if not for us but for the future of the web.
Thoughts on the Revision 3 programming changes
It’s been two weeks since Revision 3 announces changes to its programming lineup. I personally have been missing Internet Superstar and Pop Siren. Sarah Lane, Martin Sergent, and Jay Speiden were among some of the first people hired by Revision 3 and helps formed the company in its beginning days. Rev 3 CEO Jim Louderbeck cited a weak economy and problems finding an audience with the shows Rev 3 canceled and ended distribution deals with on October 27th.
In the days following the announcement they was a strong out lash by loyal viewers angered over the death of their favorite shows on the Rev 3 network. There have been rumors about a “consulting” deal with Martin Seargent in efforts to silence some of the firestorm waged by the angered viewers but nothing has been officially announced by Rev 3.
This brings up an interesting thought about the difference between new media networks like Revision 3 and the big TV networks. In the Revision 3 network all the shows work together and there is cross promotion across the network within the shows themselves. In the old media ways, the cast of Heroes and Chuck don’t share office space like they do at Revision 3. There is a stronger family feel at Rev 3, many of the shows share the same staff and there is an all for one vibe. This makes it harder when the company feels that cuts have to be made as it did when it took this defensive action to cut shows and staff in order to better help the company weather the rough seas of the weak economy and looming recession.
Martin and Sarah are scheduled to appear on tomorrow’s TWIT. Leo has mentioned several times that he would like to hire Sarah and maybe something will be officially announced on the show.
Web video advertising in the down market
In this down market and the outlook that it will stay like this and probably get worse better it gets better advertisers are looking to the web for innovative ways to reach consumers. It is harder and harder for advertisers to justify the large costs of network television ad campaigns and are turning to the web to reach their consumers.
In the so called “long tale” smaller online media producers are able to provide ad opportunities to very niche markets that advertisers spend huge amounts of ad dollars in attempts to reach. Its the alpha consumers that are the first ones in lines to buy the iPhone and it is those same consumers that are plugged into web video and new media. These consumers react to large corporations like comcast attempts to use social networking to improve customer service. Web video advertising comes in different forms and most likely in the pre or post roll ad where a normal TV ad is just inserted into a completed video and then distributed. More and more advertisers are dipping their toes into new media and are finding success with new and innovative ad campaigns targeted to niche markets.
Blogging is Hard
Is it just me or is blogging hard. I mean in the sense of keeping up and actually writing interesting content on a regular basis. I find myself having a lot of good ideas that I want to write about but then when I am in front of the keyboard with some spare time not one single descent idea comes to mind. Some would say that writing is like a muscle and you have to constantly use it to keep it in shape. Here’s to trying to blog more often.
Twitter Withdrawl
I have been going through some twitter withdrawl lately with the downtime and loss of IM intergration as Twitter goes through some scalability issues as the micro blogging service becomes more and more popular with people. I like to use Twitter through GTalk on my blackberry because I don’t have the cost of using SMS on the phone. But with the rapid growth this feature has been turned off leaving me to only use Twitter through the web interface or twitterrific on my MacBook. One of two things will happen: 1. Twitter comes back to full service 2. I buy iPhone 3G (just another reason why)
Also, tommorrow is the release of Firefox 3 and their attempt to break the record for the most downloaded program in one day. I have been using RC 2 and 3 and have really like the improvements in speed and I haven’t noticed the memory leak problems that I have had in the past with Firefox 2. Go to http://spreadfirefox.com to join in the fun.
Travel Woes
So this weekend we were going to fly to Ohio to see family and leave my Dad so he could spend some time with his mom. Needless to say, we never got there. The snow that we had here thursday went there friday and caused alot of problems. We left and made it to columbus but never landed, just circled around until almost running out of fuel and having to divert to Detroit. American airlines then took all the luggage off the plane and quickly lost it. I had to scramble to reschedule everything and return to Dallas to try Saturday to get to Columbus on the dreaded flight 460. Saturday we get to the airport and 10 minutes after we check-in they cancel the flight. After one hour and three minutes on the phone with AA customer support I was able to get a refund for our tickets since they weren’t willing to reschedule the tickets for a time that works for us only the next day. I understand that it isn’t AA fault that the weather interfered with our flight but I shouldn’t be forced to take a flight days later when I can’t get off work or pay hundreds of dollars in fees to reschedule the tickets. AA is in the service industry and needs to remember what good customer service is about.
Lessons I learned from Guitar Hero and Rockband
So following CES and the whole downfall of HD DVD with the announcement of Warner choice of Blu-ray in the high def disc battle I had to buy a PS3 and jump on the blu-ray bandwagon. I like my HD DVD player but there have been some deal breaking titles like the Simpson’s movie and “live free or die hard” that have been only on blu-ray. The PS3 is great and when I’m not watching movies or playing games I have the Folding at home program running which is blazingly fast on the cell processor in the PS3, it way out paces my duo core dell server.
So being the proud owner of a PS3 and an Amazon Prime customer I had to purchase Guitar Hero 3. It took me a couple hours to get down how to play and get past my cramping left hand. I finished the game on easy after three days leaving the huger of guitar stardom that could only be satisfied with Rockband. My sick guitar skills are humbled by my constant sucking playing drums on rockband. For a white guy I have some rhythm but I lack the very basic skills to finish even the easiest song on rockband. Perhaps my rock skills will increase if I get some gloves with the fingers cut off and a mullet wig.