Slashdot Mirror

Most of the things on your end list were dismissed by plenty of people, but they tended to be the minority who didn't foresee various advances rather than even mainstream folks. I remember trying to use early VOIP programs on 14.4 and 28.8 dialup connections and they were largely useless. But while some people dismissed it as a "never work", others kept working on it and it became usable. Likewise there were plenty of people saying Youtube could never make it. This and this talk a bit about what some people thought about Youtube a year or so after it launched. It'll be interesting to see where things getting hyped now end up in a decade or two.

I found this gem from Mark's original post:

The math starts to get interesting. At $1,000 per site average times 100k sites, thats only $ 1 Billion Dollars.

Lovely multiplication work there Mark... He goes on to say,

The distribution would obviously favor the larger sites, so of that billion dollars, would the top 1k sites take 500k each and the remaining 99k split the rest ?

First of all, why is this a question? It's your dumb plan, I don't have the answer. It would be like asking "How much manure would you have to fling in people's faces to earn back the cost of buying the manure?" Second of all, everyone's already discussing how idiotic it would be to leave the google index for even $1 million; $500 thousand would even worse. And third,

the remaining 99k split the rest

("the rest" being $500 tousand), so you're saying that you'll get 99,000 sites to leave Google all for just over $5.05 a piece? Let's say I'm the #2 result for the word "shoes" on Google; the #1 result just took their $500 thousand bribe and ran. You really think I'll give up my newly found #1 spot on the most popular search engine for a one time payment of $5.05?

He then goes on to write,

Given the stakes, why stop at $ 1 Billion Dollars ? Would the top 1k most visited sites take a cool $1mm each.

So his actual plan to give the top thousand sites $1 million, actually involves more than just $1 billion, because he still plans on paying the next 99,000 sites something to leave as well. If I owned any stock in any company that Mark Cuban is currently working for or on the board of, I would sell it this second.

Looking at Mark Cuban's robots.txt file ( http://blogmaverick.com/robots.txt ), I see that he's not blocking Googlebot. Therefore, he is listed in Google's index. So why should someone take $1 million from him to leave the Google index when he clearly does not want to leave Google's index himself?

Sigh. I know it's waaay too much to ask, but if you actually read his blog post it's not a plan at all - just some ideas that he's throwing around. The headline in TFA (and thence TFS) is misleading.

If you read Cuban's original blog post he suggests giving money to the top 100,000 sites ($1m each to the top 1000, and a further billion or so split between the next 99,000 sites), and that Microsoft or Yahoo promise to drive as much traffic their way as they'd lose by pulling out of Google. His idea is that if you can persuade the top 100,000 sites on the net to leave then Google is screwed. It wasn't a serious suggestion, just a sort of whimsical "Google could be killed you know" musing.

http://blogmaverick.com/2009/11/13/google-murdoch-madoff/

The real Cuban article is in his blog. Is not like he did a legal proposal, listed the top 1k sites and offered them that money. Was doing a bit of math, and the rtfa took it out of context or proportion.

Why in the world does the summary list to some stupid guys take on Mark Cubans blog post instead of the actual post?

http://blogmaverick.com/2009/11/13/google-murdoch-madoff/

Not that it answers any of your questions, other than maybe he is a publicity hound.

TV over the Internet might be coming for some few, but not for the masses. Why? Because the capacity doesn't exist and likely as not, will never exist.

My house is served by cable. It is probably one of the most modern systems around with fiber optic runs to the network nodes. The problem is that my node has 494 homes on it. I suspect this is somewhere around average. So let us assome a fully IPTV environment where everyone is consuming at least one video stream over the Internet. What do you think the minimum bandwidth might be? 1Mbit/sec isn't anything great - ordinary DVD is 6Mbit/sec. With high-definition and somewhat better compression you might be able to deliver good service at 5Mbit/sec - but that is per house.

So now the network node has to have incoming capacity of 6Mbit/sec times 500 homes. 3Tb/sec. Ouch. I suppose you could do this with 100 DC3 fiber connections or something like that. Sounds cost prohibitive.

No, I don't think you are going to get over 100Mbit/sec to the network nodes without a lot of changes. Nor do I really think the cable company head end can deliver enough bits to keep hundreds of these nodes supplied with bits. I don't think a regionalized system like cable TV is today is going to work at all - you are going to need to have dedicated fiber from the backbone to the house, all the way. That is pretty much a complete physical plant rework for any system that is going to work in the future. We're a long, long way from that.

Also, there is the supply problem. Check out http://blogmaverick.com/2009/01/27/the-great-internet-video-lie/. Where is all this going to come from? I don't think any of the media companies today that provide the bulk of Internet service are capable of delivering this sort of system. Nor am I convinced that it is needed. Broadcast, rather than individual streaming, uses the same bandwidth for one as it does for a million. Once you lose that multiplier then you have something that is practical and implementable with current technology and current infrastructure. What you have now is something for the leet few and it doesn't scale.

Something tells me that the billionaire blogger won't be talking about this one publicly any time soon.

He blogged about it in 2005, three years before this filing and this post http://blogmaverick.com/2005/03/02/naked-shorts-what-i-have-learned/:

"I had purchased stock in Mamma.com in hope that it could be an up and coming search engine. I thought I had done some level of due diligence. Talked to the company management. Talked to some employees who worked in sales. Read the SEC Filings.

I knew that they had a checkered past and had been linked to stock promoter Irving Kott, and that their law firm still handled some of Kotts business, but the CEO, Chairman, lawyers all said that things were reformed and the company was focused on its business.

Then the company did a PIPE financing. Im not going to discuss the good or bad of PIPE financing other than to say that to me its a huge red flag and I dont want to own stock in companies that use this method of financing. Why?

Because I don't like the idea of selling in a private placement stock for less than the market price, and then to make matters worse, pushing the price lower with the issuance of warrants. So I sold the stock. "

Something tells me that the billionaire blogger won't be talking about this one publicly any time soon.

Are you crazy? Do you know how many page hits that would generate?! You don't know Mark Cuban. Of course, from his blog a few hours ago:

"I am disappointed that the Commission chose to bring this case based upon its Enforcement staff's win-at-any-cost ambitions. The staff's process was result-oriented, facts be damned. The government's claims are false and they will be proven to be so."

I'm not a lawyer. As for the case, I think this crap happens more often than you would like to think--the rich get richer, the poor get poorer. The fact that this occurred in June of '04 and he's being charged for it now implies that either it takes that long to build up evidence for a case or you don't hear about this until someone slips up. Also, I don't recall hearing the SEC drop charges or lose these cases very often so I'm pretty sure this guy is boned.

I've been happily short Overstock in the past, and apparently Mr Cuban has been too. CEOs who are whining about the evil shorts rather than minding the business of their company should be fired.

From http://blogmaverick.com/2005/04/16/the-naked-shorts-get-some-clothes/2/:

And remember, rule of thumb #1 If the CEO of a company that you own [OSTK] about short sellers hurting the price of the stock. Sell the stock. Fast.

And give serious consideration to shorting the stock.

Mark cuban recently wrote a post about the correlation between shares Buyback and Collapse of Financial powerhouse like AIG-Lehman and ML . I hope MSFT can avoid that fate. http://blogmaverick.com/2008/09/16/the-aig-lehman-merrill-lynch-link/

Linkbait. You just copied http://www.blogmaverick.com/2006/10/07/some-though ts-on-youtube-and-google/

Bloggers are so disgusting.

Wow you're the guru of predictions. You were only 2 weeks behind the often linked rant.

Actually, did anyone not predict this?

1. Website blatantly infringes copyright of big media companies, but company has no capital or profits
2. Said company is bought by huge internet company.
3. Website blatantly infringes copyright of big media companies, owner has huge amounts of capital stuffed under the couch
4. ??? No one could predict what goes here ???

It's like software patents, it's so patently (haha) obvious that most other people don't think it's worth mentioning.

Mark Cuban started things off and Bram Cohen responded. Bram's problem is that he mischaracterizes Cuban's argument when he makes his case. For example, right in the title of his blog entry, Bram claims Mark predicts the downfall of Bittorrent. Mark never said anything like that! And in fact Mark responds to Bram's false accusations in his own blog . How many billionaire CEOs would you see doing this? Of course people will keep accusing Mark of being a self-centered, power hungry megolomaniac. That may or may not be true. However, we can provably show what someone did or did not say in a blog and in this instance, Bram is way off.

I love Bram to death for what he's given to us for free and I don't know if he's deliberately mischaracterizing this criticism or perhaps temporarily misunderstood what Mark was getting at, but this constant spinning of his is kind of lame.

This is probably the first step to what Mark Cuban Predicted a year ago. It is just a matter of time for demand to make the price of these drives go down enough to replace "Prehistoric" media formats such as CD, DVD, BlueRay, etc.

Maybe we should go to the source... http://www.blogmaverick.com/2006/11/16/is-this-bus inessweek-or-the-enquirer/

The Mavs choked. Not arguing that. It pissed me and everyone in Dallas off. Doesn't make the refs' calls acceptable. Cuban has been fined for arguing with the refs and calling them idiots, which they frequently are, but he's never claimed that the NBA is trying to cheat him, just that refs frequently make bad calls. Cuban's own words on why there's no conspiracy: http://www.blogmaverick.com/2006/06/20/the-nba-is- rigged-please/ And let me reiterate my earlier point: you're an idiot.

I remember liking him quite a bit on the Grokster case, e.g.

"When content went digital, the floodgates opened. Content could be delivered digitally in thousands of different ways, and the number of methods for distribution would only expand over time. To me this meant the power of the gatekeepers would diminish and the power of independent content creators and owners would increase"

http://www.blogmaverick.com/2005/03/26/let-the-tru th-be-told-mgm-vs-grokster/

but your narrative here really strikes me as the only explanation why he's gone over to the dark side... grokster lost so he figured he'd like to be a gatekeeper?

Just read an interesting take on the google - youtube deal. http://www.blogmaverick.com/2006/10/30/some-intima te-details-on-the-google-youtube-deal/

If Mark Cuban's suggestion gets implemented, then Google will be paying for everyone's music on Zune. "The number one application MicroSoft should ship with Zune or make sure is available from a 3rd party for free ? A Youtube downloader. Just read the quicklist on Youtube, and download to your Zune. Fast, friendly, free music just for your Zune. Why spend 99c or 1.99 per song on ITunes when its free for your Zune! All the music you can eat, Google pays. How great is that ! Not so great for Apple."

http://muniwireless.com/community/1023
http://saveaccess.org/node/288
http://www.newnetworks.com/scandalquotes.htm
http://www.blogmaverick.com/entry/1234000267073488 /
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20060131/2021240_ F.shtml

Mark Cuban has written an interesting article on his blog on who ClickFraud effects and how. http://www.blogmaverick.com/

(me) Production companies aren't in the business to lose money, they wouldn't keep making movies if they didn't make money on them.

(you) Which explains why there have been a number of spectacular implosions due to very expensive productions bombing out. For example - Heaven's Gate took out UA, Cutthroat Island took out Carolco and Raise the Titanic took out ITC. On the other hand, there have been plenty of underestimations - UA and Universal both took a pass on Star Wars, even Spielberg expected Jaws to be a career-ending bomb after he had finished shooting, and of course the titanic of underestimations - Titanic, expected to bomb so badly that Cameron had to forfeit his enitre salary of $8M plus his share of the gross just to keep the production afloat.

I am aware of companies going under. I think Cutthroat Island is a little less direct than those others, but either way, Carolco did go the way of the dodo. Well, sort of. I mean, Cinergi is here, right? If movies lose money, why did Vajna start a new company doing the same thing? As Einstein said, foolishness is doing the same thing and expecting different results.

Cameron giving up his money was because of the total cost of the production compared to even an average or above average take, not becuase it was expected to bomb. It cost so much it would take a super-huge blockbuster take to cover costs. And it did that (and more) in the end.

But either way, a few cases don't prove the rule. You said 90% of movies lose money. Then you list a couple that did. Your two statements don't agree. And you completely disregard the current business climate when attempting to refute my statements that indicate the impact the current DVD sales market have on balance sheets. It's very possible these bombs actually made money given the current DVD market. It's just it came too late for these production companies.

Anyway, often the problems that cause these production companies to go away are structural or legal technicalities (like wanting to escape liabilities). SKG made plenty of money in their time to stick around, it seems they just spent too much doing it.

(me) I don't believe TV productions in general work on this "90% lose money" principle either. (You deleted my comment about most productions being done to a cost with an idea of the revenues ahead of time.)

(you) Got any hard numbers to support your beliefs? If it weren't 6am in the morning I'd dig up a ton of links to support mine, for now you will just have to be satisifed with Mark Cuban's statement that "more often than not ... license fees are less than what it costs to produce the show" and that it is based on the hope that if the show does well that they can earn more on future deals, including syndication and dvd. http://www.blogmaverick.com/entry/1234000617063228 /

I think you are forgetting the largest part of the market. Again, TV is mostly cable now. Cable is mostly crap. These small productions ("World's biggest ships!" and other cheap content) are what I was referring to them. You seem to overlook them, instead looking at other end of the market, the wildly speculative productions done by Mark Cuban. You can't use a person who took the biggest chance in movies (releasing simultaneously on DVD, cable and in theaters) as an example of the entire market situation.

Anyway, I know these productions are crap, but they do account for the majority of the productions. They're the least interesting ones, but the largest part of the market, at least by volume.

Yes, I do agree the high-line (network, etc.) market is more speculative. Much of this is done by the networks themselves now (NBC, HBO), but there are still things like "Book of Daniel" out there that underscore your read of this market very well.

Again, on the DVD front, note that even cancelled TV shows hit DVD now. I have the "Keen Eddie" DVDs for example. Plenty of peopl

You are working from a cost model.

Nope. I am working from a what the customer knows model. The customers know that it costs nothing to download a movie or song over the internet because they can do it themselves, they can send them to their friends via email, etc - it happens millions of times every day. Consquently, they don't assign much value to distribution and aren't willing to pay much for it. So charging for distribution as a means to recoup costs beyond just the distribution costs doesn't work out so well - they'll just go download it for free instead.

But what they can't do for free, or anywhere near it, is make a movie or a tv show or even just a song.

That's where you work from the idea of fairness. This market isn't working that way, it is working from a "whatever the market will bear" model. They'll cut prices when they think they'll make more by charging lower prices, not when their production costs drop.

Again, you thoroughly misunderstand the business model. It is all about charging what the market will bear - charge as much as you can convince the audience to pay. The two main differences are that the current model has to estimate what the market will bear, and consequently will only find out the real numbers after the investment of production costs is already spent -- a big risk, and that the resulting product has to compete with free downloads of the same work - and as Jack Valenti said, you can't compete with free.

Production companies aren't in the business to lose money, they wouldn't keep making movies if they didn't make money on them.

Which explains why there have been a number of spectacular implosions due to very expensive productions bombing out. For example - Heaven's Gate took out UA, Cutthroat Island took out Carolco and Raise the Titanic took out ITC. On the other hand, there have been plenty of underestimations - UA and Universal both took a pass on Star Wars, even Spielberg expected Jaws to be a career-ending bomb after he had finished shooting, and of course the titanic of underestimations - Titanic, expected to bomb so badly that Cameron had to forfeit his enitre salary of $8M plus his share of the gross just to keep the production afloat.

There are thousands more stories like those from the epic all the way down the line to the personal in hollywood business. Sure they are in business to make money, but it is more about luck than acumen and the constant rise and fall of fortunes is proof of that.

As for "hollywood accounting" and "a percentage of the net is a percentage of nothing" - moving money off the books and such ultimately doesn't make a difference to the bottom-line of the studios, and if you go long enough without a big hit, you go under -- and again I refer you to the constant churn in the business. A good recent example was SKG - they didn't have enough hit releases and consquently they burnt up a substantial portion of their cash on hand, it was only a matter of time until they were underwater, which is why they sold out to Paramount.

I don't believe TV productions in general work on this "90% lose money" principle either.

Got any hard numbers to support your beliefs? If it weren't 6am in the morning I'd dig up a ton of links to support mine, for now you will just have to be satisifed with Mark Cuban's statement that "more often than not ... license fees are less than what it costs to produce the show" and that it is based on the hope that if the show does well that they can earn more on future deals, including syndication and dvd. http://www.blogmaverick.com/entry/1234000617063228 /

The way the business is run now, its all a big gamble, which is why hollywood is so conservative when it comes to the content of productions - if they think they've got a profitable formula, they ride into the ground and if they get a hint of failure, the production is cancelled lickity-split.

VOIP + WiMax (or some such) will up end destroying core Cel and Hardline businesses, unless they are successful in tiering Internet access (i.e. charging or prioritzing certain content-providers/websites) - which would be a BAD thing.

Barring that, it'll become about triple or quadruple pay (voice, IP, cable, etc.) bundles of access, as it has in Europe.

I think the latter scenario is good for consumers, the former, well not so much.

What's not clear to me is how, even with open web services (ala Web 2.0 hype) how any company but the big players profit. Unless, I guess, "getting bought" maybe counts?
--
graphicallyspeaking

Stock analysts do not work for stock holders. They work for stock speculators. Mark cuban has an intereisting article about speculating in the current market - like many here, he does not believe that there are many investors anymore. http://blogmaverick.com/entry/1234000173073470/

FRom Mark Cuban ( Owner HDNet ) blog:

"Over the past 5 years, bandwidth to the home has grown from 300k for broadband to 5mbs, and in some cases even 10mbs. But that bandwidth is not dedicated per user. That bandwidth is shared. The number of users sharing that bandwidth has increased even faster than the size of the pipe. Thats not going to change...the amount of bandwidth required to transmit an HDTV show vs the amount of bandwidth required to transmit a DVD quality show is about 8mbs to 1mbs...For broadcast it takes 2 to 3mbs to transmit a standard definition show, and 10mbs to transmit an HDTV, non sports program at quality that is equal to what is available from over the air HDTV broadcasters like CBS and NBC.

Which leads to point. Bandwidth to the home is not expanding as fast as the bandwidth required to transmit content.

What makes a program worthless in High Definition ? If it was shot or mastered on tape. Shows from the 1980s, 1990s, and even some shows today, are shot using standard definition tape. Why is it worthless ? Because standard definition video doesnt have enough resolution to look good in high definition. To up convert it to HD would be like upconverting music from mono to 5.1 Surround Sound. You can fake it and improve it a little, but when compared to music captured in Surround Sound or even stereo, its obviously inferior.

If you go through the schedules of many cable networks, some are made up completely or substantially of shows shot or mastered on tape. The networks that are full of music videos from the past 20 years. Networks with comedies from the 1980s and 90s. Science Fiction created for syndicated TV (Most primetime scifi was shot on Film and then HD). THere is nothing their owners or licensors can do to make them look good in HD. I dont think they will even try. "

Rest here

Mark Cuban seems to think that's the important part of the video iPod. As do others.

I was going to make a wisecrack about the letting Steve Nash go.

A little late, but I just noticed some good commments from Mark Cuban about multicast and how it doesn't exist for users today.

Mark Cuban recently asked questions about Macrovision, wanting to know why such DRM exists if it doesn't work, and why do the content companies use it, knowing that it doesn't work. Ernest Miller provides some very cogent answers here.

Mark Cuban just commented on Macrovision, and wondered what its purpose was. Obviously the answer is: copy protection, however bad, exists so you can sue people who make things that allow consumers to circumvent it and exercise their fair use rights.

You know, I really can't come up with any more insightful reply to that than "No shit." But I will ramble on nonetheless...

You are correct, Cuban is *not* stupid (even if he did decide to buy a basketball team). This is why I read his blog, even when he talks about said basketball team.

And Cuban knows how to play the public perception game with the best of them. The real issue is that technology has shifted the entire economic landscape of the media industry and no-one has managed to find a new footing. Yet. Cuban is one of those who decided to embrace the change with a new media distribution company, and if he can get the majority of people to see things from this particular viewpoint he wins.

Mark Cuban just mentioned this a few days ago on his blog. Some good points, especially the fact that America NEEDS to go digital so it can privatise analog and sell it off to raise money!

I am still waiting for a subnotebook from Apple. My 12in Powerbook is nice, but what I would really like is a subnotebook, perhaps even an Newton replacement. I've made an argument for Apple's reentry into the "PDA" market here. If such a device could be made, I am sure it would have huge sales. The market is moving towards smaller devices that are even more portable and there are folks that are clamoring for it. Mark Cuban also makes a compelling argument for smaller portable devices here.

Don't get me wrong....Apple needs to keep its Pro level line on top of things. In fact, I will likely be ordering a new G5 to replace my dual 2.0 G5 if they are in fact announced, but as the numbers are showing after Apple's financial conference yesterday, portables are where the market is at.

Mr. Cuban explains his perspective on Nash here: http://www.blogmaverick.com/entry/6721616637326928 /

it was a business decision, and many people would say the right one (he may be a great player, but Cuban's math said he wasn't worth the price)

Cubes has plenty of opinions on everything at his blog, but here's some more MGM v Grokster for you all... http://www.blogmaverick.com/entry/1234000237029704 / http://www.blogmaverick.com/entry/1234000890030093 / http://www.blogmaverick.com/entry/1234000523038163 /

Cubes has plenty of opinions on everything at his blog, but here's some more MGM v Grokster for you all... http://www.blogmaverick.com/entry/1234000237029704 / http://www.blogmaverick.com/entry/1234000890030093 / http://www.blogmaverick.com/entry/1234000523038163 /

Cubes has plenty of opinions on everything at his blog, but here's some more MGM v Grokster for you all... http://www.blogmaverick.com/entry/1234000237029704 / http://www.blogmaverick.com/entry/1234000890030093 / http://www.blogmaverick.com/entry/1234000523038163 /

Read Mark Cuban's Blog where he talks more about this.

Mark Cuban recently blogged about buying movies as prints. Sure, they're 700 bucks a pop but the concept is interesting. http://www.blogmaverick.com/entry/1234000710024187 / Quoting from his post: "Picking on Hollywood some more... There is always a reason why their transition to new technologies has been slow. One of the repetitive themes is that there is a big risk in having a digital copy of a program or movie available because the quality is nearly as good as the original. That fear brought us the stupidity of the Broadcast Flag. It brought threats not to offer programming in High Def. Not that long ago, it was a threat not to offer programming and movies on DVD! All for fear of near original quality hitting the masses. So imagine my suprise when I go to the newstand and pick up a magazine that I won't name, and I see ads for pristine 35mm prints of newer movies that have yet to be released on DVD. I have been buying this same publication for the past 6 years. I started buying it not because I'm a movie collector, but because during the broadcast.com days, it was a great source of public domain movies and programs that we would host for streaming."

Mark Cuban had an interesting blog entry about the bloggers.

I especially like this entry.

Mark Cuban's Blog - owner of the Dallas Mavericks ...

Yep you are right about that. I remembered seeing it too and looked it up. It was idea #1. Crazy!

Mark's blog entry

-Chris

If you clicked on the link to the article, or even looked at the status bar, you would realize that this post was talking about a PC World interview, while the previous post was about one of Cuban's blog posts. While the interview is dated September 2, the blog post is dated August 21. Yes, he talks about DVDs and hard drives in both, but it is not a dupe.

Cuban has a very interesting blog, even more so for NBA fans. (For those who don't know, he's the owner of the Dallas Mavericks, an NBA team. He made his billions selling Broadcast.com to Yahoo! back in the dot com bubble.)