UCLA Media Tech Class Winter Quarter 09 Class #3

Diaries
Thanks to Stephen, Annie, and Gary for breaking the ice on discussing diaries. Stephen discussed his rather conventional scheduled TV viewing habits while in stark contrast, Annie watches no scheduled TV at all and relies on her DVR. Gary uses On-Demand services from his DirecTV however he goes live for sports. Others in class mentioned they are two or three screeners; keeping their PCs, Laptops and / or Mobile going in the background as they watch TV.

The point of this exercise is to understand how media consumption behaviors are changing and fragmenting and thus, changing nearly all aspects of media and entertainment businesses.

Please continue discussing you diaries over the next several classes.

News

• Down the thread of Tracy’s story last week of how Google wants to help newspapers, several of noticed that Google announced that it’s shuttering its print advertising division because the revenues were too low!

• Sony opened a BD factory in China, in spite of rampant piracy. Could it be that consumers WILL pay more for better quality? I mentioned that I thought that BD was more difficult to pirate than DVD and I was promptly contravened. Sure enough the AACS DRM has been cracked ( http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080325-blu-ray-drm-definitively-cracked-update.html ).
• Clearchannel was discussed via a vis its layoffs and its constant push to economize, standardize and centralize “local” terrestrial radio.
• Virgin Records gave up its Times Square location to Forever 21. Another music industry landmark bites the dust.
• The 3D TV superbowl presentation carried lots of interest. It is jointly sponsored by Pepsi, Intel and Dreamworks for a commercial, a trailer and cartoon episode.
  
  

Although I risk pre-empting some discovery on Wednesday, I can’t help but notice that today’s NYT is almost a reader for the class:

• $200 Laptops Break A Business Model http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/26/technology/26spend.html?_r=1&ref=business
  The price performance ratio keep improving for IT and the trend is to cheaper, open source and cloud computing contributing to the woes of the giants.
• http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/26/technology/26techjobs.html?ref=business
  President Obama’s $825 billion stimulus plan presented this month by House Democrats called for $37 billion in spending in three high-tech areas: $20 billion to computerize medical records, $11 billion to create smarter electrical grids and $6 billion to expand high-speed Internet access in rural and underserved communities.
• Paying for Digital Music
  I believe this will be the way it will work in the future. You will simply pay a flat rate for all-you-can-eat at the ISP or mobile carrier level as proposed by the Isle of Man…
  http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/26/business/worldbusiness/26music.html?ref=business
• Another article was all about repurposing TV content for Youtube and the Internet:
  http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/26/technology/internet/26vault.html?ref=technology

Lecture
Social Networks, Social Media and Internet Video
We introduced the rise of social networks and the most recent ascent of Facebook. We began the comparison between Facebook and MySpace to find the reasons for its success. I introduced the Social Media trend exemplified by Imeem, Ilike and Playlist.com with latters spectacular hockey stick ascent to the 20 plus million user level over a year. People like sharing their tastes, collections, and playlists as a form of self-expression and communication. Embedding into social networks or using open standards such as Open Social and Facebook Markup Language and Facebooks API enable “plug-in” Apps like Imeem to succeed. Imeem succeeded in making the uber deal with the majors so that users have access to the full pop song library.

Ben Mendelson
Our guest speaker Ben Mendelson, CEO of the Ineractive Television Alliance (http://www.itvalliance.org/ ) presented a succinct history of the Interactive TV including some of the seminal companies like Open TV, Microsoft TV, TiVo, NDS and many others. Ben talked about the sea change in TV advertising including the changes in the “Upfonts” and how targeted advertising is on the rise while advertisers feel a decreasing need to commit to expensive network spots (The increase in informercials on prime time TV is evidence of the increase in avails). Ben described the ITA’s activities and 4 annual events: Queen Mary Conference, Tech Walk, Ad Lab, Content Lab/Incubator at NAB. To Ben and the ITA we extend out thanks!




Commentary
Co-Opetition? Search for SNL on Youtube and watch a Saturday Night Live video clip. First see the HULU front billboard, then as the video plays, in the lower third appears the copy: “Hulu offers full episodes of current hit shows … 30 Rock, House, Family Guy, The Office, ….to classic shows like Buffy the Vampire and hundreds more TV episodes, movies and clips.” The end HULU billboard boasts: “Watch your favorites. Anytime. For Free. This is weird for several reasons. First Hulu was put into business to compete with Youtube. NBC and Newscorp wanted their vids off Youtube and on to their own Internet Real Estate. Why should Google benefit from NBC Uni/Fox content? Second, is Google/YouTube sowing the seeds of its own downfall by directing traffic to Hulu, which is a much better viewing experience? Third, Hulu is not using the Google/Youtube pop-up / overlay ad methods. Rather, the ad is embeded into the video. Maybe Hulu and Youtube need each other? Maybe they will each find long term niche. As mentioned in todays NYT Article, $200 Laptops Break a Business Model,
“Mr. Title, a 35-year-old new-media manager at a film production company in New York, has dropped his cable subscription and moved to watching most of his television online — free.” Indeed, so have I.
Form more reading on Internet TV/Video, read my article: YouTube and The Revolution in Internet Video Sphere: Related Content