It would really be an inexpensive business to get into, and would only require a great deal of time and editorial restraint.
Here is an example.
You find 100 websites, each with high quality content that would be of interest to the group of people you're targeting.
You build a subscription base. Look for a target audience that would really be interested in the sites you're contracted with.
You charge $3.50 a month (something that's not too unreasonable). You take $.50 a month from that for your self. Your subscription base is 10,000 people, giving you $5,000 monthly operating revenue. Allot yourself $2,000 for bandwidth/financial services, and you have a nice bit of income.
You employ some sort of counter system on each of your member sites that reports in real time to your server. The remaining $30,000 in fees are divided on a percentage bases among those websites. Granted, the smaller (less visited sites) would receive a small revenue, it's still more then they likely get now.
There are a few issues with this that would have to be worked out, including marketing, preventing cheating with member sites.. but it's something that could work (and be profitable) even on a small scale.
The advantage of this model is that it allows smaller websites to make a profit, it encourages and keeps alive independent content of value, it helps filter out a lot of the noise (and there is a lot of it on the Internet), and most importantly allows editorial decisions to be made with an emphasis on pleasing the end user, instead of advertisers.
If there is anyone out there with a bit of startup capital that would actually be interested in hearing the details, I wouldn't mind chatting via e-mail. pathighgate@hotmail.com
I suspect we'll eventually see editorial services that combine a large group of websites under one payment plan. For example, slashdot would have a hard time going pay, but, say if all andover's websites went to a subscrption, costing $2/month for unlimited access for everhting, they would probably fill a few pockets.
Also, I'll bet money that after people begin feeling comfortable with paying for content, the ads will come back. It's just the nature of the beast.
Pirates have been using this media to transmit copywrited materials for some time. Using the compression and decompression of air, protected material can travel up to 100 feet.
The most common devices used for this are something called 'vocal cords' (transmission), and 'ear drums' (receiving). After copywrited material is received, it is processed and stored in memory in something called a 'brain', and can be retransmited with little or no controls.
These brain units are very common and have been used for storage of illegal material transmited through 'air' for at least the last 100 years. It is unclear weather DMCA supporters are in possessions of such a device.
Point taken. But it really does beg the question, who are all these people out there watching shows like Temptation Island or The Chamber? I'm going to generalize again, but I have this picture in my mind of dad sitting in the easy chair in his undershirt sipping Coors light while mom is in sweat pants finishing off a bag of potato chips.
Nobody I know likes this stuff, so there must be a huge number of faceless Americans out there who exist on a completely different cultural level then myself. I want to know who they are, and how did we as a society failed them by making sub-par low brow entertainment their most attractive choice?
I'm just afraid the majority of 'teaching computers' in the younger grades is just an updated version of the 'educating for the sweatshop' mentality schools had during the Industrial revolution.
Most of the computer curriculum I've seen seems to focus on how to use computers. How to use a mouse or how to save a file, and less on how to create, or how to research.
We are reaching a point where even the lowest jobs will require computer skills. If we focus too much on these skills at younger ages, we end up producing skilled workers for menial jobs at the expense of a broader range of learning experiences.
Sure, we'll be preparing students for the workforce, but at the expense of the intellectual capital of society's future.
I am a young, educated professional with pretty hefty chunk of disposable income. Most of my friends are young, educated professionals with a hefty chunks of disposable income. Most of my friends enjoy the same shows I do (things like futurama, family guy, adult swim, and others). Now, as far as I know, young professionals with disposable income is a pretty choice demographic.
So why is it good shows that people like me watch always seem to be going off the air just when I start to enjoy them, while shows that seem to appeal to a, er, less desirable demographic seem to succeed? Something like 'Temptation Island' may get a large viewer base, but from what I've experienced (and I don't claim to be an expert), those types of people would be of little interest to advertisers, save places like Wal-mart or used car dealerships with a large inventory of pickup trucks.
I'm not trying to be elitist, I'm sure at one point I'll get married and the drudgery of work and family will stretch my mind so much I'll take solace in the soothing simplicity of bad TV, while stretching my wallet to the point where sales at Wal-Mart will become interesting. But for the time being, well, I'm not.
So I've been trying to figure out why Fox has handled Futurama the way they have, and this is what I've come up with.
1. The ratings system is really, really off base. Somehow, the companies who track ratings are giving incorrect numbers back to the networks, or the advertisers are reading them wrong. In college I was an account executive for a radio station (meaning I sold advertising). I found extensive frustration in the fact that our numbers were always very low while our ads always had such good direct feedback. I remember once a failed pitch I had with the owner of a bicycle shop, who would buy ads from a competitor (a country and western station) that cost 10 times as much as ours. Why? Because their ratings were higher. While I'm sure people who like country buy bicycles, after years of advertising the stores prime clientele appeared to remain the sort of people who preferred rock.
2. The networks are full of idiots. I don't mean their stupid because the shows are so bad; It's been decades since quality was a priority, only money matters now. (Rupert Murdoch even admitted years ago in an interview that the only show he really enjoys watching on his network was the 'Simpsons'). But even with money a priority, they still manage to muck it up. If you have a show with promise that's starting to catch on, you don't run it in a timeslot opposite a highly popular show on another network, then shrug your shoulders thinking 'oh I wonder why the ratings went down'. They make programming changes that succeed more in alienating viewers then to expose new shows. They seem to over promote the sort of stuff that just won't catch on, and ignore shows that might attract viewers.
3. The advertisers are idiots. Television is a for-profit business, and in all fairness, they will do whatever it takes to accommodate their revenue stream. On the other hand, it's the job of the people in marketing to get their message out to the largest number of potential customers for the least amount of money. So why then do I see ads for tampons during reruns of 'The A-Team'? Sure, woman watch 'The A-Team', but it seems to me they could have spent the cash for the A-team spot on another show that would reach a larger number of potential customers for the same amount of money. So many times I see an ad on TV and think 'I can't of anyone who would watch this show that would buy this product'.
For all the money advertisers spend on research and production, they so often forget about actually reaching their target demographic when it's time to buy ad space. A show like Futurama may only get 150,000 viewers (I'm making these numbers up for the sake of example), but if 75% of those viewers are likely to spend more then $1,000 a year on electronic equipment, you have a pretty solid demographic for the electronics based industry. ..at least enough to keep the show running. But instead of looking at those demographics, a company will spend more money to buy a spot on a show that has a viewer base of 1 million (say, a temptation island), despite the fact that only 5% of those viewers are in their demographic. Do a little math, and you realize there are some misplaced resources.
4. People are idiots. We put up with poor programming. We pay extra for cable so we can receive more channels with more advertising. We holler and scream when our favorite shows are canceled and beg networks to let us make money for them. It could be that all my armchair analysis above is wrong. There is some deep logical reasoning for the seemingly asinine behavior of the networks and advertisers that maximizes profits. It could be this model will continue to be used so as long as we put up with it despite the fact that no viewer is ever really satisfied.
I'd like to think it's some sort of combination of the first three, but there is this sad, nagging voice that tells me it's all 4.
My old roomates used to subscribe to netflix. It was great. Several freinds use them and recomend them.
I was all ready to subscribe to them myself, but then I started getting their annoying pop-up ads.
I really want to use them, but pop-ups are unforgivable. Stop the pop-ups, and I'll sign up. They were getting dang good word of mouth before that, why they had to spend money to annoy me and make sure I don't use them is beyond me.
Good points. What's interesting is, more and more we are working to find feasable ways around that trust in the way we design things.
Schools are designed with less windows, even at the expense of student evnerionment, because it's assumed vandalism will take place.
Traffic lights and mass transit systems are being designed because it's assumed people will try to destroy them.
Computer networks are designed with security in mind now because it's assumed people will try to hack into them.
It's almost as if with every new endevour we take on, we enter into them with a little less trust.
On the other end of the spectrum, laws are being created because of an assumption that people are not to be trusted.
So the mantra seems to be 'design everything with the assumption people will try to destroy it, while at the same time limit the chance anyone has to destroy it in the first place'.
A new cassete digital format designed to compete with the digital disc, which impliments such restrictive copy protection any fan of the media will avoid it like the plague.
Did'nt they already try this with DAT? Did'nt it fail?
Last I checked, most of these folks were 15 years old. Chances are the only time they will be in an aiport is when they fly back to New Jersey to visit grandma. Mom and Dad won't let them take there expensive laptops with them because they know it will break.
Chances are the'll be too busy looking at the assult rifles the national guard is carrying and wondering what a death match in the airport would be like.
PCs/Windows are succesful because they are easy to run by the non techno literate, but Macs fail because they are designed for geeks?
Did I just enter bizzaro world?
Funny, and I always thought it was because of heavy marketing to the business community to use products with a MS core, and by extension to the consumer market for interoperability.
Oh well. So all those mac people who kept telling me there macs were easier to use and more reliable were wrong. Thanks Mr. Katz for clearing that up.
Shows will be continued or canceled not just based on how many people watch, but what types of people watch. Millions could enjoy a show, but unless those millions sit in a specific target demographic, it could still fail.
This is all well and good right now while if you sit in the 18-35 year old high disposable income, but watch what happens to your favorite shows when you're older and your money goes to the mortgage or into bank.
In these satellite radios, put in a 802.11b wireless network card and a decent sized hard drive.
Allow me to download mp3s from my computer directly into the car. (This is what I'd like to see even if I didn't have the sat radio).
Allow me to stream the service into my house via the network from my car outside. Now I don't have to buy a second receiver/subscription.
Allow the receiver to constantly record the music ala Tivo, so if I'm driving down the road I just push 'save' on the deck and when I get home, the song instantly uploads to my computer in mp3 format.
The technology is there; it really wouldn't be that hard to do, though it might end up draining your car battery depending on how much power it uses. Of course, the powers that be would never allow this (or would they, considering it's a subscription?)
Microsoft does it's best (or worst) to provide something. But, heck, it's FREE. IE costs us nothing.
What I DO pay for is my virus scan. I'd like to know that if something gets through and hurts my security, the virus scanning software would catch it.
I wish people would stop getting mad at people for providing otherwise OK software with bugs in it, when those programs are FREE, and wish people would start getting mad at the virus scan companies (who my company pays lots of money to) for not catching threats.
I don't think anyone could argue that the technology itself isn't cool. It's amazing, and hopefully with time it will be applied somewhere else.
The problem is, we were lead to believe that this would change things. But, really, technology aside, what is new about this in terms of function? At its core, it's simply a device that allows us to move around faster then walking with very little effort. We have those already; from motorized scooters to bicycles, which can be had for quite a bit cheaper. What makes this better? It's easier to use? Most people can handle a bicycle, or at the very least, one of those 'Lark' type electric transports they advertise on TV.
There's no doubt the intentions here are good; lets stop relying on giant polluting cars. The device should be applauded for it's breakthroughs in technology, but unless that technology ends up being translated into some other application, there's really nothing here that will change the world.
If you're looking for good science fiction reading, check out the product literature that accompanied the launch of Microsoft's Windows 95. In it, there were descriptions of a MS computer operating system that was reliable, fast, and easy.
These bold and exotic claims were so influential, consumers actually started to want a reliable and fast OS from the company, and today, 5 years later, they are starting to produce such an operating system. It still amazes me how fiction can someday turn into fact.
I read that the terrorsts sometime use cars to drive to their meetings. We should stop all oil shipments to the country.
One could presume that terrorists get sick. Stop any medical shipments, less we want to allow those terrorists to remain healthy.
And, when you think about it, those terrorists are crafty devils. They breathe oxygen, a gas created often by plants, just like us. Plants can't grow without sunlight, so lets block all the sunshine allowed into the country.
These may seem harsh to you, but think for a moment, who's side are you on?
Remember, this is a war. Your peacetime rules don't apply, so don't pretend to think that they do.
That's fine. What scares us is that when the war is over, the peacetime rules won't come back. Either that, or the war will continue to be defined so ambigiously that it will continue indefinitly until we've forgotten what freedom tastes like.
Slashdot Mirror
I like monkeys. I like to see them fly.
I like monkeys. I'll kick you in the eye.
Boy this guy is goina be pissed that I'm using his slashdot account
A simple business model for this:
Or, why this doesn't have to be like cable.
It would really be an inexpensive business to get into, and would only require a great deal of time and editorial restraint.
Here is an example.
You find 100 websites, each with high quality content that would be of interest to the group of people you're targeting.
You build a subscription base. Look for a target audience that would really be interested in the sites you're contracted with.
You charge $3.50 a month (something that's not too unreasonable). You take $.50 a month from that for your self. Your subscription base is 10,000 people, giving you $5,000 monthly operating revenue. Allot yourself $2,000 for bandwidth/financial services, and you have a nice bit of income.
You employ some sort of counter system on each of your member sites that reports in real time to your server. The remaining $30,000 in fees are divided on a percentage bases among those websites. Granted, the smaller (less visited sites) would receive a small revenue, it's still more then they likely get now.
There are a few issues with this that would have to be worked out, including marketing, preventing cheating with member sites.. but it's something that could work (and be profitable) even on a small scale.
The advantage of this model is that it allows smaller websites to make a profit, it encourages and keeps alive independent content of value, it helps filter out a lot of the noise (and there is a lot of it on the Internet), and most importantly allows editorial decisions to be made with an emphasis on pleasing the end user, instead of advertisers.
If there is anyone out there with a bit of startup capital that would actually be interested in hearing the details, I wouldn't mind chatting via e-mail. pathighgate@hotmail.com
I suspect we'll eventually see editorial services that combine a large group of websites under one payment plan. For example, slashdot would have a hard time going pay, but, say if all andover's websites went to a subscrption, costing $2/month for unlimited access for everhting, they would probably fill a few pockets.
Also, I'll bet money that after people begin feeling comfortable with paying for content, the ads will come back. It's just the nature of the beast.
You forgot air.
Pirates have been using this media to transmit copywrited materials for some time. Using the compression and decompression of air, protected material can travel up to 100 feet.
The most common devices used for this are something called 'vocal cords' (transmission), and 'ear drums' (receiving). After copywrited material is received, it is processed and stored in memory in something called a 'brain', and can be retransmited with little or no controls.
These brain units are very common and have been used for storage of illegal material transmited through 'air' for at least the last 100 years. It is unclear weather DMCA supporters are in possessions of such a device.
Point taken. But it really does beg the question, who are all these people out there watching shows like Temptation Island or The Chamber? I'm going to generalize again, but I have this picture in my mind of dad sitting in the easy chair in his undershirt sipping Coors light while mom is in sweat pants finishing off a bag of potato chips.
Nobody I know likes this stuff, so there must be a huge number of faceless Americans out there who exist on a completely different cultural level then myself. I want to know who they are, and how did we as a society failed them by making sub-par low brow entertainment their most attractive choice?
I'm just afraid the majority of 'teaching computers' in the younger grades is just an updated version of the 'educating for the sweatshop' mentality schools had during the Industrial revolution.
Most of the computer curriculum I've seen seems to focus on how to use computers. How to use a mouse or how to save a file, and less on how to create, or how to research.
We are reaching a point where even the lowest jobs will require computer skills. If we focus too much on these skills at younger ages, we end up producing skilled workers for menial jobs at the expense of a broader range of learning experiences.
Sure, we'll be preparing students for the workforce, but at the expense of the intellectual capital of society's future.
I am a young, educated professional with pretty hefty chunk of disposable income. Most of my friends are young, educated professionals with a hefty chunks of disposable income. Most of my friends enjoy the same shows I do (things like futurama, family guy, adult swim, and others). Now, as far as I know, young professionals with disposable income is a pretty choice demographic.
So why is it good shows that people like me watch always seem to be going off the air just when I start to enjoy them, while shows that seem to appeal to a, er, less desirable demographic seem to succeed? Something like 'Temptation Island' may get a large viewer base, but from what I've experienced (and I don't claim to be an expert), those types of people would be of little interest to advertisers, save places like Wal-mart or used car dealerships with a large inventory of pickup trucks.
I'm not trying to be elitist, I'm sure at one point I'll get married and the drudgery of work and family will stretch my mind so much I'll take solace in the soothing simplicity of bad TV, while stretching my wallet to the point where sales at Wal-Mart will become interesting. But for the time being, well, I'm not.
So I've been trying to figure out why Fox has handled Futurama the way they have, and this is what I've come up with.
1. The ratings system is really, really off base. Somehow, the companies who track ratings are giving incorrect numbers back to the networks, or the advertisers are reading them wrong. In college I was an account executive for a radio station (meaning I sold advertising). I found extensive frustration in the fact that our numbers were always very low while our ads always had such good direct feedback. I remember once a failed pitch I had with the owner of a bicycle shop, who would buy ads from a competitor (a country and western station) that cost 10 times as much as ours. Why? Because their ratings were higher. While I'm sure people who like country buy bicycles, after years of advertising the stores prime clientele appeared to remain the sort of people who preferred rock.
2. The networks are full of idiots. I don't mean their stupid because the shows are so bad; It's been decades since quality was a priority, only money matters now. (Rupert Murdoch even admitted years ago in an interview that the only show he really enjoys watching on his network was the 'Simpsons'). But even with money a priority, they still manage to muck it up. If you have a show with promise that's starting to catch on, you don't run it in a timeslot opposite a highly popular show on another network, then shrug your shoulders thinking 'oh I wonder why the ratings went down'. They make programming changes that succeed more in alienating viewers then to expose new shows. They seem to over promote the sort of stuff that just won't catch on, and ignore shows that might attract viewers.
3. The advertisers are idiots. Television is a for-profit business, and in all fairness, they will do whatever it takes to accommodate their revenue stream. On the other hand, it's the job of the people in marketing to get their message out to the largest number of potential customers for the least amount of money. So why then do I see ads for tampons during reruns of 'The A-Team'? Sure, woman watch 'The A-Team', but it seems to me they could have spent the cash for the A-team spot on another show that would reach a larger number of potential customers for the same amount of money. So many times I see an ad on TV and think 'I can't of anyone who would watch this show that would buy this product'.
For all the money advertisers spend on research and production, they so often forget about actually reaching their target demographic when it's time to buy ad space. A show like Futurama may only get 150,000 viewers (I'm making these numbers up for the sake of example), but if 75% of those viewers are likely to spend more then $1,000 a year on electronic equipment, you have a pretty solid demographic for the electronics based industry. .
4. People are idiots. We put up with poor programming. We pay extra for cable so we can receive more channels with more advertising. We holler and scream when our favorite shows are canceled and beg networks to let us make money for them. It could be that all my armchair analysis above is wrong. There is some deep logical reasoning for the seemingly asinine behavior of the networks and advertisers that maximizes profits. It could be this model will continue to be used so as long as we put up with it despite the fact that no viewer is ever really satisfied.
I'd like to think it's some sort of combination of the first three, but there is this sad, nagging voice that tells me it's all 4.
My old roomates used to subscribe to netflix. It was great. Several freinds use them and recomend them.
I was all ready to subscribe to them myself, but then I started getting their annoying pop-up ads.
I really want to use them, but pop-ups are unforgivable. Stop the pop-ups, and I'll sign up. They were getting dang good word of mouth before that, why they had to spend money to annoy me and make sure I don't use them is beyond me.
Good points. What's interesting is, more and more we are working to find feasable ways around that trust in the way we design things.
Schools are designed with less windows, even at the expense of student evnerionment, because it's assumed vandalism will take place.
Traffic lights and mass transit systems are being designed because it's assumed people will try to destroy them.
Computer networks are designed with security in mind now because it's assumed people will try to hack into them.
It's almost as if with every new endevour we take on, we enter into them with a little less trust.
On the other end of the spectrum, laws are being created because of an assumption that people are not to be trusted.
So the mantra seems to be 'design everything with the assumption people will try to destroy it, while at the same time limit the chance anyone has to destroy it in the first place'.
A new cassete digital format designed to compete with the digital disc, which impliments such restrictive copy protection any fan of the media will avoid it like the plague.
Did'nt they already try this with DAT? Did'nt it fail?
then I thought...It also seems to change. Thanks Ping.
22 5:02pm ~ >ping localhost
PING localhost (127.0.0.1): 56 data bytes
--- localhost ping statistics ---
5 packets transmitted, 5 packets received, 0% packet loss
round-trip min/avg/max/stddev = 0.033/0.046/0.054/0.008 ms
--
A lot of people are worried about script kiddies.
Last I checked, most of these folks were 15 years old. Chances are the only time they will be in an aiport is when they fly back to New Jersey to visit grandma. Mom and Dad won't let them take there expensive laptops with them because they know it will break.
Chances are the'll be too busy looking at the assult rifles the national guard is carrying and wondering what a death match in the airport would be like.
--
Intel already thought of this a few years back. Just put a unique ID in every processor and mandate it reports itself to every device on the system.
Back then, people were up in arms about it. Wanna take a guess how easy it would be to do now?
--
Perhaps they will handle it like they handle smoking.
Want to get access? It's free. Just go to the bar. Of course, you'll have to buy an $8 drink.
When I take my laptop down the bar, girls might find me attractive. They might confuse me with a writer or something.
That'll never happen with one of these.
PCs/Windows are succesful because they are easy to run by the non techno literate, but Macs fail because they are designed for geeks?
Did I just enter bizzaro world?
Funny, and I always thought it was because of heavy marketing to the business community to use products with a MS core, and by extension to the consumer market for interoperability.
Oh well. So all those mac people who kept telling me there macs were easier to use and more reliable were wrong. Thanks Mr. Katz for clearing that up.
Shows will be continued or canceled not just based on how many people watch, but what types of people watch. Millions could enjoy a show, but unless those millions sit in a specific target demographic, it could still fail.
This is all well and good right now while if you sit in the 18-35 year old high disposable income, but watch what happens to your favorite shows when you're older and your money goes to the mortgage or into bank.
Here's what I'd like to see:
In these satellite radios, put in a 802.11b wireless network card and a decent sized hard drive.
Allow me to download mp3s from my computer directly into the car. (This is what I'd like to see even if I didn't have the sat radio).
Allow me to stream the service into my house via the network from my car outside. Now I don't have to buy a second receiver/subscription.
Allow the receiver to constantly record the music ala Tivo, so if I'm driving down the road I just push 'save' on the deck and when I get home, the song instantly uploads to my computer in mp3 format.
The technology is there; it really wouldn't be that hard to do, though it might end up draining your car battery depending on how much power it uses. Of course, the powers that be would never allow this (or would they, considering it's a subscription?)
Microsoft does it's best (or worst) to provide something. But, heck, it's FREE. IE costs us nothing.
What I DO pay for is my virus scan. I'd like to know that if something gets through and hurts my security, the virus scanning software would catch it.
I wish people would stop getting mad at people for providing otherwise OK software with bugs in it, when those programs are FREE, and wish people would start getting mad at the virus scan companies (who my company pays lots of money to) for not catching threats.
I don't think anyone could argue that the technology itself isn't cool. It's amazing, and hopefully with time it will be applied somewhere else.
The problem is, we were lead to believe that this would change things. But, really, technology aside, what is new about this in terms of function? At its core, it's simply a device that allows us to move around faster then walking with very little effort. We have those already; from motorized scooters to bicycles, which can be had for quite a bit cheaper. What makes this better? It's easier to use? Most people can handle a bicycle, or at the very least, one of those 'Lark' type electric transports they advertise on TV.
There's no doubt the intentions here are good; lets stop relying on giant polluting cars. The device should be applauded for it's breakthroughs in technology, but unless that technology ends up being translated into some other application, there's really nothing here that will change the world.
If you're looking for good science fiction reading, check out the product literature that accompanied the launch of Microsoft's Windows 95. In it, there were descriptions of a MS computer operating system that was reliable, fast, and easy.
These bold and exotic claims were so influential, consumers actually started to want a reliable and fast OS from the company, and today, 5 years later, they are starting to produce such an operating system. It still amazes me how fiction can someday turn into fact.
I read that the terrorsts sometime use cars to drive to their meetings. We should stop all oil shipments to the country.
One could presume that terrorists get sick. Stop any medical shipments, less we want to allow those terrorists to remain healthy.
And, when you think about it, those terrorists are crafty devils. They breathe oxygen, a gas created often by plants, just like us. Plants can't grow without sunlight, so lets block all the sunshine allowed into the country.
These may seem harsh to you, but think for a moment, who's side are you on?
That's fine. What scares us is that when the war is over, the peacetime rules won't come back. Either that, or the war will continue to be defined so ambigiously that it will continue indefinitly until we've forgotten what freedom tastes like.
99.8% accurate.
Which means it'll make 2 million mistakes every second.
I think my bank and government use these.
Now another reason for them not to support.
Had a blast with Qwest recently. They seemed to have problems with their local mail server (pop.phnx.qwest.net). Got on the phone with tech support.
"I'm getting funny messages from your mail server"
Oh, do you have another mail program you can try without funny messages.
"Sure. I have Eudora. And I'm still getting funny messages"
We don't support Eudora. Goodbye.
Stupid Internet.