I've been doing Netflix for a few months and I love it. I love the website because I can search for an actor or director or a title or anything and gain access to pro reviews, customer ratings, etc. And it has actually started to make decent recommendations based on my rental history and ratings. And I love queueing up the movies and knowing that I have several months worth of viewing pleasure awaiting me.
The only possible better scenario that I can see would be if amazon, via imdb.com, got into the rental business. Then they have *the* definitive online movie information source, complete with customer reviews, and the ultimate opportunity to cross-market tons of merchandise via their other online departments.
This is exactly what the internet is good for, and I am really jazzed to see what happens when the competition heats up.
For some reason all of this discussion reminds me of my first boss. I was the young computer-saavy guy that annoyed everyone around me because I was always saying things like "Why the heck are we using Ami-Pro when MS Word is the business-world standard" and stuff like that.
So my boss, an older lady who looked like a turtle, invited me to her house to install this software she bought for her computer. The way she explained it before I went over there, she just didn't understand how to install it or was too scared or something....
So I went over there and she hands me the CD. And I'm standing there staring at her tower, thinking "Please God, this can't be happening," as I immediately saw the problem.
"Oh," I finally say after going over several different approaches of how I was going to say what I was going to say. "Looks like you don't have a CD drive."
I'm self-taught, blah blah blah. I have direct experience with why self-taught people get a bad rap. My boss is a non-techie in charge of a humongous web site. She believes that because she has cut and pasted some JavaScript, and knows the XML schema that our site runs on, she is technical.
I hear her on the phone all day extracting the information that she needs to do her job from anyone she can find, mostly unlucky programs from one of our main vendors. How does this work, how does that work, etc.
She somehow or another got in way over her head, and it is clear that she does not have the *aptitude* to learn what she needs to, nor the inclination. And she'll actually say mockingly to me "This seems like something you'd care about, you're one of those computer guys." My first day on the job she told me "Don't think." Then all kinds of crap started going wrong and I started asking questions like "Why does this happen? Why do we do things this way?" And she couldn't answer them. Ironically enough, the intern at the time *could.*
Ugh, anyway the bottom line is that some people have the aptitude and some don't, plain and simple, degree or no degree.
You've clearly never worked on a large website. The issue is that content is often relevant not only in a consumer context (internet), but also a vendor/partner context (extranet) and an employee context (intranet). Major communication problems arise when there are several different sources for the same piece of information. Inaccuracy creeps in and inevitably leads to wasted time or, even worse, loss of customers because the company cannot provide the info that is being sought.
Gaining business is only one aspect of a good web presence. You also have retaining business, maintaining good vendor relations, and fostering communication among all of the areas of the company.
So, content management means getting a grasp on all of the information that a company needs, then deciding who needs to see it, and who is ultimately responsible for it. In the end, this accuracy and accountability really speed things along; and, time is money--you'll have x more free time to get new customers.
Hey, I'm currently doing contracting work which has turned out to be hellish for completely different reasons. BUT, during my unemployment I learned of a company and job that was exactly what I wanted to do. I applied for it and never heard anything.
Then I got a call from some contracting company for that very position, so i sent along my stuff. Never heard back.
Then I got a call from a *different* contracting company. They not only got more info from me but gave me a screening interview. While there, it was obvious that the job was as good as I'd hoped. We were shaking hands and I was ready to make the date to inteview with the company when, somehow or another through a line of questioning I mentioned the other contracting company (who didn't do squat for me as far as getting the position).
They immediately became annoyed with me, saying "Why didn't you tell us" etc. etc. The whole thing ended then and there on the spot, and I drove home in a daze wondering what the hell I did wrong. I hadn't signed a contract or anything with either company, but I somehow breeched some kind of untold agreement. Now my chances for employment with said company are gone, and I'm sitting in a dead-end contracting position, bitter and annoyed.
Anyone familiar with this concept, whatever it may be, that I committed some kind of breech?? Seems a little sleezy to me.
With all of the chatter about DRM and file swapping, it's easy to miss the actual point of the article: Intuit actually *listened* to customers, quickly elminating the copy-protection that customers hated so much.
The insinuation about RIAA, MPAA, and Microsoft is that they take their customers for granted. But because they are monopolies, their anti-consumer behavior drives consumers underground because there is no substantial legitimate competition to turn to.
The Apple online store is a shiny happy example of a legitimate alternative; and the biggest point about it is that artists get paid, and customers have relatively good control over how they use the product that they pay for. They don't have to put up with heavy-handed DRM. The consumer wins.
As a GenXer with a degree in communications, I have paid pretty close attention to the evolution of the mainstream Internet. What I take away from this article is not that Lessig feels that "the Internet is dying," but rather that the unfettered, non-commercial, self-publishing spirit of the Internet is dying as media giants buy up all of the communications resources.
This can be directly tied to the political agendas of any large, powerful entity (government, big business) who wish to "manage" their reputations so that the masses only see "post-spin" facts. The great savior that is the self-publishing Internet (which Lessig predicts the death of), in its current state, is pregnant with possibilities. It is simultaneously commanding a lot of attention and beginning to bear the fruit of true, global free speech.
This is more dangerous than ever to big business and government alike (are the two seperable?). In its infancy, the user population of the mainstream Internet was small and, for the most part, early-adopting, geeky, libertarian-types. Now, the masses are beginning to flood in. Soooo, mixed in with "legitimate" news sources are individual points of view from "common" people; that is, people who *work for* people in power. This is true, uncensored speech with the potential for making another version of the "truth" more pervasive than the "politically correct truth."
This could cause breakdown in the current power structure. Let's face it: You're right, GenXers and GenYers love the internet for social interaction, etc. But we are still stagnant and ineffectual in the political process. But the prospect of our being able to put together free speech with a mechanism for taking action-- online voting, online petitions, online donations to political organizations-- is a powder keg that could turn the current system over on its ear if we discover that we actually have a voice and can make a difference.
So, the point is that this consolidation of mass media ownership will inevitably lead to their control of the proliferation of broadband, which is the big Next Step for the Internet. Once they make all of their content deals, they can essentially make this web-page-based, self-publishing model of the Internet all but disappear, taking most of our generation's eyeballs with it. And making it all the easier for them to perpetuate our stereotypical "why bother" attitude about politics, silencing our voices as they gain total control over us.
On another note, and one seldomly discussed... it's obvious that there is a problem here. We want more content, but when we steal it, the companies we love and hate so much won't be as willing to give it...
I don't think that's the heart of the problem: Thievery is thievery, blah blah blah. BUT: The very definition of human relationships has shifted radically. Way back when you had things called "parties" where people congregated in physical places and listened to music and drank beer; this was the backbone of friendships, social interaction. Clearly sharing music in this way is acceptable.
Nowadays there is no dependence whatsoever on meatspace; you can have friendships with people who exist merely as screen names and their ideas represented in text, possibly from all over the world. So the idea of being able to share music with these people with whom you have forged a relationship, IMHO, is the same thing.
Gluttonously logging onto Kazaa and blindly hunting down as many songs and movies as you can without thinking twice is stealing, plain and simple. Sharing music with friends creates a gray area, and I can imagine that it will eventually come down to agreeing upon a definition of a human relationship. Or maybe I'm crazy because I certainly haven't heard anybody else framing the issue this way??!!
Ha, I'm a web guy who came to it from a communications perspective, seeing the Internet as a medium of communication. As such, I have delved much more deeply into programming and technology than I would have ever imagined. But I have always maintained that my "content" saavy will eventually be able to merge with my technical know-how. That is the core of my fascination with the Web.
Imagine my horror at having to work with the worst of the worst; the weenies who took an html class, and who are high enough in the organization that they can run things. So there now exists a whole class of higher-up people who moved into Web to make the big bucks and are at best mediocre creatives with little to no knowledge of technology making poor decision after poor decision when it comes to companies' web usage.
Here I sit with this foresight of content and technology in this horrible job market, knowing that none of these weenies want someone like me because I will be able to call them out on how they know nothing and are wasting everyone's time. At the same time, I'm not a tech guru, so I don't kid myself about taking a hard-core tech job. I do know enough to be technically functional but, more importantly, I can communicate with both technical people and creative people.
For people like me, there may or may not always be jobs, because a company has to be smart enough to see the value of someone like me. Maybe the "maturity" of the industry will create a niche for me?? Ugh.
I don't know about all this businessy stuff, but I'm gonna have nightmares for weeks about that disturbing graphic with the floating heads and devil baby.
As a musician who's seen a lot of local bands, I can tell you that the "suits" are doing the majority of people a favor by filtering out people who are kidding themselves about how good they are. "Majority" meaning "popular" or "mass" culture. The problem with the suits is that they've made the supposed artistic venture of music into 100% business. There is money to be made. Because that is their sole objective, they take the corporate tact of conservativism, seeking trends and not necessarily relishing the idea of originality or breaking new ground.
As a musician, I am completely sympathetic to the plight of trying to get my stuff heard, and someone like you is the exception rather than the norm; someone who understands that the best place to find music is probably not going to be your Top 40 radio station. But, what REALLY needs to happen is that indies need to unite to *compete* with the RIAA and use whatever criteria *they* see fit to define "good" music and boost their roster of excellent musicians.
In this way, they too are filtering through the zillions of crappy or mediocre musicians doing ad hoc recording and showcasing the "good" ones. When banded together, these indies can equal the might of the larger corporate labels in a marketing sense but who bring to the table more discerning taste in music. That will help "press the flesh" for musicians with fewer resources, and still help to filter out the inevitable crap that exists everywhere you look.
Slashdot Mirror
I've been doing Netflix for a few months and I love it. I love the website because I can search for an actor or director or a title or anything and gain access to pro reviews, customer ratings, etc. And it has actually started to make decent recommendations based on my rental history and ratings. And I love queueing up the movies and knowing that I have several months worth of viewing pleasure awaiting me.
The only possible better scenario that I can see would be if amazon, via imdb.com, got into the rental business. Then they have *the* definitive online movie information source, complete with customer reviews, and the ultimate opportunity to cross-market tons of merchandise via their other online departments.
This is exactly what the internet is good for, and I am really jazzed to see what happens when the competition heats up.
Clear Channel now owns Britney Spears.
For some reason all of this discussion reminds me of my first boss. I was the young computer-saavy guy that annoyed everyone around me because I was always saying things like "Why the heck are we using Ami-Pro when MS Word is the business-world standard" and stuff like that.
So my boss, an older lady who looked like a turtle, invited me to her house to install this software she bought for her computer. The way she explained it before I went over there, she just didn't understand how to install it or was too scared or something....
So I went over there and she hands me the CD. And I'm standing there staring at her tower, thinking "Please God, this can't be happening," as I immediately saw the problem.
"Oh," I finally say after going over several different approaches of how I was going to say what I was going to say. "Looks like you don't have a CD drive."
I'm self-taught, blah blah blah. I have direct experience with why self-taught people get a bad rap. My boss is a non-techie in charge of a humongous web site. She believes that because she has cut and pasted some JavaScript, and knows the XML schema that our site runs on, she is technical.
I hear her on the phone all day extracting the information that she needs to do her job from anyone she can find, mostly unlucky programs from one of our main vendors. How does this work, how does that work, etc.
She somehow or another got in way over her head, and it is clear that she does not have the *aptitude* to learn what she needs to, nor the inclination. And she'll actually say mockingly to me "This seems like something you'd care about, you're one of those computer guys." My first day on the job she told me "Don't think." Then all kinds of crap started going wrong and I started asking questions like "Why does this happen? Why do we do things this way?" And she couldn't answer them. Ironically enough, the intern at the time *could.*
Ugh, anyway the bottom line is that some people have the aptitude and some don't, plain and simple, degree or no degree.
You've clearly never worked on a large website. The issue is that content is often relevant not only in a consumer context (internet), but also a vendor/partner context (extranet) and an employee context (intranet). Major communication problems arise when there are several different sources for the same piece of information. Inaccuracy creeps in and inevitably leads to wasted time or, even worse, loss of customers because the company cannot provide the info that is being sought.
Gaining business is only one aspect of a good web presence. You also have retaining business, maintaining good vendor relations, and fostering communication among all of the areas of the company.
So, content management means getting a grasp on all of the information that a company needs, then deciding who needs to see it, and who is ultimately responsible for it. In the end, this accuracy and accountability really speed things along; and, time is money--you'll have x more free time to get new customers.
Hey, I'm currently doing contracting work which has turned out to be hellish for completely different reasons. BUT, during my unemployment I learned of a company and job that was exactly what I wanted to do. I applied for it and never heard anything.
Then I got a call from some contracting company for that very position, so i sent along my stuff. Never heard back.
Then I got a call from a *different* contracting company. They not only got more info from me but gave me a screening interview. While there, it was obvious that the job was as good as I'd hoped. We were shaking hands and I was ready to make the date to inteview with the company when, somehow or another through a line of questioning I mentioned the other contracting company (who didn't do squat for me as far as getting the position).
They immediately became annoyed with me, saying "Why didn't you tell us" etc. etc. The whole thing ended then and there on the spot, and I drove home in a daze wondering what the hell I did wrong. I hadn't signed a contract or anything with either company, but I somehow breeched some kind of untold agreement. Now my chances for employment with said company are gone, and I'm sitting in a dead-end contracting position, bitter and annoyed.
Anyone familiar with this concept, whatever it may be, that I committed some kind of breech?? Seems a little sleezy to me.
...called "the Sims"??
With all of the chatter about DRM and file swapping, it's easy to miss the actual point of the article: Intuit actually *listened* to customers, quickly elminating the copy-protection that customers hated so much.
The insinuation about RIAA, MPAA, and Microsoft is that they take their customers for granted. But because they are monopolies, their anti-consumer behavior drives consumers underground because there is no substantial legitimate competition to turn to.
The Apple online store is a shiny happy example of a legitimate alternative; and the biggest point about it is that artists get paid, and customers have relatively good control over how they use the product that they pay for. They don't have to put up with heavy-handed DRM. The consumer wins.
As a GenXer with a degree in communications, I have paid pretty close attention to the evolution of the mainstream Internet. What I take away from this article is not that Lessig feels that "the Internet is dying," but rather that the unfettered, non-commercial, self-publishing spirit of the Internet is dying as media giants buy up all of the communications resources.
This can be directly tied to the political agendas of any large, powerful entity (government, big business) who wish to "manage" their reputations so that the masses only see "post-spin" facts. The great savior that is the self-publishing Internet (which Lessig predicts the death of), in its current state, is pregnant with possibilities. It is simultaneously commanding a lot of attention and beginning to bear the fruit of true, global free speech.
This is more dangerous than ever to big business and government alike (are the two seperable?). In its infancy, the user population of the mainstream Internet was small and, for the most part, early-adopting, geeky, libertarian-types. Now, the masses are beginning to flood in. Soooo, mixed in with "legitimate" news sources are individual points of view from "common" people; that is, people who *work for* people in power. This is true, uncensored speech with the potential for making another version of the "truth" more pervasive than the "politically correct truth."
This could cause breakdown in the current power structure. Let's face it: You're right, GenXers and GenYers love the internet for social interaction, etc. But we are still stagnant and ineffectual in the political process. But the prospect of our being able to put together free speech with a mechanism for taking action-- online voting, online petitions, online donations to political organizations-- is a powder keg that could turn the current system over on its ear if we discover that we actually have a voice and can make a difference.
So, the point is that this consolidation of mass media ownership will inevitably lead to their control of the proliferation of broadband, which is the big Next Step for the Internet. Once they make all of their content deals, they can essentially make this web-page-based, self-publishing model of the Internet all but disappear, taking most of our generation's eyeballs with it. And making it all the easier for them to perpetuate our stereotypical "why bother" attitude about politics, silencing our voices as they gain total control over us.
Or something.
.
Yeah, just look at "A Clockwork Orange." That kind of stuff works really well. After all, behavior comes before humanity.
Cool, then we could have a Disney ride where you go through the center of the Earth, then up an elevator into outer space!
better hope it takes < 3 years' worth for that little thing to grow to the size you wanted it.
I see, but you could be mistaken.
I don't think that's the heart of the problem: Thievery is thievery, blah blah blah. BUT: The very definition of human relationships has shifted radically. Way back when you had things called "parties" where people congregated in physical places and listened to music and drank beer; this was the backbone of friendships, social interaction. Clearly sharing music in this way is acceptable.
Nowadays there is no dependence whatsoever on meatspace; you can have friendships with people who exist merely as screen names and their ideas represented in text, possibly from all over the world. So the idea of being able to share music with these people with whom you have forged a relationship, IMHO, is the same thing.
Gluttonously logging onto Kazaa and blindly hunting down as many songs and movies as you can without thinking twice is stealing, plain and simple. Sharing music with friends creates a gray area, and I can imagine that it will eventually come down to agreeing upon a definition of a human relationship. Or maybe I'm crazy because I certainly haven't heard anybody else framing the issue this way??!!
Ha, I'm a web guy who came to it from a communications perspective, seeing the Internet as a medium of communication. As such, I have delved much more deeply into programming and technology than I would have ever imagined. But I have always maintained that my "content" saavy will eventually be able to merge with my technical know-how. That is the core of my fascination with the Web.
Imagine my horror at having to work with the worst of the worst; the weenies who took an html class, and who are high enough in the organization that they can run things. So there now exists a whole class of higher-up people who moved into Web to make the big bucks and are at best mediocre creatives with little to no knowledge of technology making poor decision after poor decision when it comes to companies' web usage.
Here I sit with this foresight of content and technology in this horrible job market, knowing that none of these weenies want someone like me because I will be able to call them out on how they know nothing and are wasting everyone's time. At the same time, I'm not a tech guru, so I don't kid myself about taking a hard-core tech job. I do know enough to be technically functional but, more importantly, I can communicate with both technical people and creative people.
For people like me, there may or may not always be jobs, because a company has to be smart enough to see the value of someone like me. Maybe the "maturity" of the industry will create a niche for me?? Ugh.
I don't know about all this businessy stuff, but I'm gonna have nightmares for weeks about that disturbing graphic with the floating heads and devil baby.
As a musician who's seen a lot of local bands, I can tell you that the "suits" are doing the majority of people a favor by filtering out people who are kidding themselves about how good they are. "Majority" meaning "popular" or "mass" culture. The problem with the suits is that they've made the supposed artistic venture of music into 100% business. There is money to be made. Because that is their sole objective, they take the corporate tact of conservativism, seeking trends and not necessarily relishing the idea of originality or breaking new ground.
As a musician, I am completely sympathetic to the plight of trying to get my stuff heard, and someone like you is the exception rather than the norm; someone who understands that the best place to find music is probably not going to be your Top 40 radio station. But, what REALLY needs to happen is that indies need to unite to *compete* with the RIAA and use whatever criteria *they* see fit to define "good" music and boost their roster of excellent musicians.
In this way, they too are filtering through the zillions of crappy or mediocre musicians doing ad hoc recording and showcasing the "good" ones. When banded together, these indies can equal the might of the larger corporate labels in a marketing sense but who bring to the table more discerning taste in music. That will help "press the flesh" for musicians with fewer resources, and still help to filter out the inevitable crap that exists everywhere you look.