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Competing (Commercial) Visions For The Internet Future
Stirland writes: "This
article in today's NYTimes says that AOL's new
plan focussed on creating content for broadband could
have cable companies over a barrel.
It tries to compare programming on cable to 'programming' on the Internet.
It's an important article to read because it gives us an idea of what cable companies' potential plans are for the broadband Internet. Given that they're not regulated like DSL, and they're the fastest growing providers of broadband Internet access, this has profound implications for the next generation of the Internet.
This article omits the fact that Excite@Home tried this 'programming' approach on broadband. It failed.
Another reason this article is important: Contrast AOL's approach described here with Amazon.com and Microsoft's .Net strategy. These are two polar opposite visions of the way the Internet will develop. The media vision vs. computing vision. The interesting story here is that it isn't that one is 'open' and the other 'closed.' They're just open and closed in different places -- places, obviously, that suit the companies' strategies. Why should you care, and what's in it for you? These competing visions are currently duking it out at the FCC under open-access proceedings. So the future of the Internet is hanging in the balance."
For those of us not under the control of the FCC, we may beg to differ that this will decide the whole internet - there may be something that can be added to the internet by the rest of the world, perhaps ?
Surely the internet can develop in all directions. If one company wants to make it commercial, and another doesn't, so be it. /., with completely different content, which run parallel, and have no need to (and so don't) interact.
For example, there are AOL groups like
Just because the internet is literally linked, doesn't mean it is in practice. It's the people who make it what it is, not just the technology.
"You were dead, you were sleeping the big sleep, you were not bothered by things like that."
I'll sign up for the programming if it interests me. To translate for marketing executives: I want to see anything by JMS, specifically, I want to see "Crusade" finished. I want to see Star Trek Voyager, no, not the one that already exists --- I mean a GOOD version of Voyager. I want to see more episodes of Burke's "Connections". CAN YOU HEAR ME NOW?
If these companies can't give me what I want, then they won't get my money. Lately, I've been bitten by a camera collecting bug. I want to get information on really cool old cameras that cost less than 20 bucks. Can they "program" for that? I doubt it.
If tits were wings it'd be flying around.
The internet is not meant to be a broadcast medium, nor is it very good as one. Ask online radio stations that not only must now pay high license fees, but also must buy lost of servers and bandwidth to stream audio to a few listeners, nothing like traditional broacast mediums (radio, tv, even broadcast cable and satelite) which scale much better.
Truely the internet is meant for and best at 2-way, end-to-end communications. These schemes to make the internet a playground for a few big content providers can cause nothing but trouble.
I dislike companies that try blur the line between Internet access providers and Internet Content providers. All I want from ATT or Verizon is fast internet access. They and AOL can take their content and shove it. If they can't make enough money providing me with basic internet access, without charging extra for what I click on, then I'm sure some other company will be content to take my money providing me with just the service that I want.
Are they thinking that somehow they will be able to "port" over the popular "must have" shows?.....I don't even watch HBO on television, still nothing for me...
The only way I could see this as positive is if somehow AOL and Comcast block Microsoft's attempt to own the content delivery. If AOL were to switch to some form of Linux too, that would keep delivery platform neutral....that's about the only good I could see from this.
"For a long time, we kept asking cable operators to let us import our traditional business model into the broadband arena," said Lisa Hook, who oversees America Online's high-speed, or broadband, business for AOL Time Warner. "We kept saying, `Sell us wholesale access to your network and we will have the direct relationship with the customer,' " Ms. Hook recalled in an interview last week. "It became clear that that was really unknown in the cable industry, and we've realized that moving more toward an HBO model for carriage makes a lot of sense."
I currently use a Comcast cable modem connection, and used to have a lot of problems with it (though lately it's been fine). I didn't enjoy calling tech support, because the level 1 guys are flunkies reading off a clipboard, but once you get to level 2 you can get some actual help. And when you have a serious problem that it takes a computer geek just like yourself to understand, Comcast actually has one somewhere up the line.
That's because they kind of care. While AT&T, Comcast, and others like them are large corporations, they still manage to deal with their users reasonably well. I'm sure more localized providers like Cox and Optimum Online do a great job with customer relations.
That said, I'm much happier that America Online has chosen this route. I'd have to have AOL, the most faceless company on the face of the Earth, be helping me with my tech support questions and installations. When I have a question that it needs an expert to answer, I don't want to speak to one of a hundred thousand AOL flunkies.
Better to have those with "the direct relationship with the customer" be those who actually know what state the customer lives in.
- Jeff
The future is going to have aspects of both strategies. The problem that AOL is going to face is that being a provider of broadband content isn't going to be that valuable. On the otherhand, being an distributor and moderator (for lack of a better word) of broadband content is the place to be.
Think about it, already we see on television that there is no shortage of crap to watch. The problem is figuring out what crap is worth watching, and when it is on. The solution, of course, is Tivo and ReplayTV. This solution has the side effect of choking off money (through ad revenue) to the providers of content. This does, however, illustrate the struggle that content providing services are already getting burned by.
Basically if you want to be a content provider, plan to provide a service that people will be willing to pay for. Be like HBO or any number of pr0n sites. Otherwise you will get drowned in the sea of noise that is thousands of small-time producers who are willing to do their work for free because they enjoy it or to gain noteriety enough to go work for HBO or any number of pr0n sites.
Smart money is on the people who can filter through the noise and consolidate the content in a useful way for various audiences.
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
AOL retains it's customer base by convincing the customer that it IS the internet. The average AOL user hears internet and thinks AOL. They are a content provider and in order to keep their customers they need to keep convincing those customers that they need AOL for a reason. I see lots of people who are completly shocked that they can get the same content via any other internet service without AOL. I think they have a hard battle ahead of themselves. MSN Explorer is really cutting into AOL hard by offering a easy to use interface while not requiring the fees involved.
" What's in it for you? If you agree, and you put your money where your mouth is by selling AOL stock short, you make good money riding it down to zero"
If only we had such sane markets. It matters not if AOL is a junk company or not, only if joe stockbuyer thinks it is. AOL has looked like a bad investment for years and years. You look at their various moronic business plans that they never really deliver on, etc. But as long as old Jod keeps buying it, it goes up - not down. Knowing they are wrong is easy, predicting the moment the bubble will burst in another thing entirely.
-- your Web browser is Ronald Reagan
Quoth the poster:
.NET, I don't know. And Palladium. Ergh.
So the future of the Internet is hanging in the balance.
It seems a little hysterical to me to say such a thing. While we should be concerned and involved in the process, companies like AOL/MS/etc.. have to bring products to market that poeple will buy. They are not the best products, but they are saleable. Products with extreme DRM or forced commercials won't sell, I don't think. There will always be a gray market for non-DRM content, commercial-stripped content etc.. Until they make it easy and cheap to pay for the content, people will continue to "steal" it.
As for
Yes, it's a blog. Sorry if that offends you.
Boy, adapting your business model to the likings of the cable companies really sounds like a recapie for disaster! The only reason cable companies are successful is because they can extort their clients; competition for the last mile really destroys this advantage.
...but if it works for the US, then chances are it's bound to spring up in Europe, Australia, and in some other form probably in China and India, at the very least. Not much left after that.
What really matters as these large companies battle over who "owns" the Internet is not the content and programming provided, nor the method of how this content is provided to customers. What really matters is what restrictions are placed on customers (our) ability to be our own content provider and publish information back to other users. Most of the cable providers place restrictions (either technically or by policy) on hosting any services. By doing this, the providers are trying to change the Internet from being a network (two way) into being a content delivery system (one way.) This is the real danger.
> I personally would rather give my money to a
> reliable hige company than one that could fold
> any minute.
A big reliable company that couldn't fold any minute? Such as Enron or Worldcom, perhaps?
When you rely on a small company and it folds you can find another just like it down the street. When you rely on a big company and it folds...
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
And how difficult will it be for an american who is fed up with the tyranny building up, to emigrate there?
PLEASE emigrate somewhere. The more of you idiots who experience what real repression in other countries is like, the better. Americans are the most spoiled rotten people on earth. Yeah, Mr. Teenager, you're oppressed. Oh NO! The feds are cracking down on your ability to steal music. OH MY GOD! When will the oppression end???
Meanwhile, did you know it's illegal in Germany to believe that the holocaust never happened? That's right. You can be put in JAIL for having the wrong opinion.
Or how about France, where it's ILLEGAL to mix English words in French broadcasts. And let's not even get into the fact that it's illegal to own Nazi artifacts.
Please, do us all a favor and just stop leave. The less whining from idiots like you the better. Go live in one of the socialist "paradises".