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Saturday, August 09, 2003 |
 Just in case you missed it: Phil Wolff -- scaling syndication in the blogosphere (I think he is off by an order of magnitude, but the concept is sound). Basically, the only way out is P2P (to handle large payloads) and feed portals (feedster, Google, etc. to help people make sense of it all).
2:20:33 PM 
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J.D. Lasica. Personal Broadcasting opens another front for journalists. Excellent. The only thing I want to reinforce is the idea of audio and video weblogs as discreet entities is wrong-headed. It is the combination of all media in a single weblog that has power.
The only element that is missing from taking video and audio weblogging mainstream is an efficient delivery network. It is too damn expensive to for an individual to do otherwise (an audience of 10,000 people that view a short video clip every day would cost a small forture in bandwidth).
I wrote about this in 1996, while at Forrester, in a report entitled, "Personal Broadcast Networks." The report was a very forward looking effort (5-10 years out) and proved so popular that Forrester used it as the theme for their conference that year (I got tons of play at the major papers and TV networks due to it and some efforts at Microsoft, Netscape, and Akamai used it in their start-up phase). The idea was that an open delivery system (a combination of a Napster P2P clone, weblogs, and RSS with desktop software/browser) would push the Web to a new level of experience.
Unfortunately, this concept was distorted by the popular press into something called "PUSH" in early 1997 (primarily due to Wired's fumble). That coverage plus Pointcast's demise (due to a grossly expensive distribution system and difficulties dealing with corporate networks -- I got the quote on the launch of the system in '96 in the WSJ and predicted exactly what happened) tanked the concept. Now Personal Broadcast Networks are back with the open architecture necessary for some very exciting things.
9:40:56 AM
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Dan Gillmor cracks the code at Microsoft: the company doesn't have a clue about weblogging. This is a good thing.
9:21:11 AM
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Edcone.com An interview with Mark Cuban (Broadcast.com multi-billionaire, owner of the Mavericks, and HDTV enthusiast) about his recent flap in the press about Kobe, rape, and TV ratings. It is nice to see that people have a way to get their complete view onto the permanent record (to the extent that is cached in Google and comes up on keywords used to find it online). Snipets of interviews run on TV and Radio often distort the situation. Ed Cone is onto something. Find somebody that has been harshed by negative publicity and allow them to expand, deny, or retract the statements/situation. Get it into the Web's flow for them. Nice creative thinking Ed, even if this may not have been what you intended.
NOTE: Check the keyword ownership on the terms: Mark Cuban Kobe Rape and you will find that Rush Limbaugh owns it.
9:13:33 AM
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Whatever. "In a couple of weeks, I start blogging for AOL."
8:56:42 AM
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David Hill writes an interesting article about the inability of webloggers to ever match the quality of Rush Limbaugh's radio program. His conclusions are incorrect. Doc quickly and eloquently takes him to task for this. The bulk of Hill's critique is based on the concept of "show" prep or the lack of it in the weblog world. In my experience, the quality of an effort or an experience is closely correlated to the amount of money you are able to spend on it. A comparison between the shoestring budgets of the early mega-bloggers and Rush's multi-million $$ production machine (that has been in development for 20 years) is misguided.
Everything that Rush does and more can be done through a weblog. In addition to the running text/link commentary (even links to full documentation and annotated source data), a meta-weblogger can add audio snippets (attached to key words), song parodies, audio interviews pictures, home video, video spoofs, interactive elements (discussions, name that caption, etc.), polls/surveys, actionable items (such as e-mail campaigns to targeted individuals/organizations), and much more to their weblog. Frankly, a weblog can include everything a reader/listener/viewer needs to fully immerse themselves in the show's reality distortion zone.
The advantages don't stop there. Performance marketing (ads on keywords, pay for click-through, and keyword ownership through PageRank) can quickly drive huge flow to the site on short dollars. With a big budget, that flow could skyrocket. Technological connections between the audience and the weblog (through proprietary client software that connects to P2P networks for heavy content and aggregates RSS streams) could bind the audience and gain desktop real estate. Delivery of this 'experience' can also leverage the Internet's infrastructure to penetrate workplaces, homes, and international locations that fall outside of a radio station's footprint. Finally, the economics of the weblog would be substantially more lucrative than talk radio given the costs and potential revenues.
Aw shucks ma'am. Given a couple million $$ and a great weblogging personality to work with, I could put together a team/effort that would make headlines, corral and huge audience, and get to break-even within 2 years. Given another 3-5 years, Rush (even if he did embrace weblogging), would be in for some serious competition.
8:33:13 AM
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© Copyright 2004 John Robb.
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