The REAL New Wireless World

In the year plus I've been working in the entertainment business' bastard stepchild world (read: Wireless/Mobile entertainment), a couple of thoughts have begun to form. In my last month or so with CBS, these thoughts have really crystallized.

From both a business, and content creator standpoint there a number of elements that kind of keep me up at night thinking.

1. Audiences want to watch whatever they want, on any device they want, any time they want.

To this end, it is stupid and cost and time prohibitive for content providers and distributors to create file type after file type after file type (Quicktime here, Windows Media files there, 3GPP2 files over there). What we need is a backend/backbone that we can place on one (or several) file servers, preferably in HD resolution, and an application that can sit on top of that and serve out real-time scaling to users dependent upon the device type AND LICENSE TYPE that they purchase. Yes, I know this is a massive computing challenge. Get to it.

2. Instead of selling FILES or copies, we should be selling licenses to consumers. Licenses whose pricing structure correlates with the device license they are buying (not what the tech actually costs per device). The license billing would be scalable depending on what kind of device they watch it on.

If it's a cell phone, it should be cheap, because it's *not* a high-quality entertainment experience.

If it's being watched in a home theater, with full HD download and a 5.1 digital audio, it should cost more, because it is a high-quality experience.

3. Audiences should be able to purchase these over their phones, and if they want to download an HD file to their phone, they can. I can currently hold 1GB on my phones SD card. A LOT more memory is coming.

4. Audiences will one day be able to SYNC their mobile device to their home entertainment network. So if I want to buy and download an HD movie so that I can simply sync it and watch when I get home, I can do that.

and lastly,

5. If I were say, Citibank, or Chase, I would be heavily considering BUYING companies like Cingular/AT&T or Sprint. The REAL value of wireless devices is NOT in the voice minutes or the data minutes, it's in TRANSACTION FEES. This is the holy grail of wireless devices as far as I can see.

Whoever enables reliable, EASY wireless purchasing and transaction management wins, and wins big.

Or, we can all just be happy to sit back and pay vCast 15 bucks a month to watch "highlights" and commercials for the TV shows that we won't watch anymore because we have Tivo.

No thanks.

The Perfect Storm

Take these four elements, and I think we're in for some very very difficult financial times in America, sooner, rather than later.

Rising Energy Costs +
Higher Minimum Credit Card Payments +
The Decoupling of Oil from the US Dollar +
Housing Prices (After the Fall).

Ladies and Gentlemen, these things scare the hell out of me altogether.

Disney's Footbridge Revisited

About six months ago, I wrote a post just trashing Disney's cutesy "footbridge" as a symbol of arrogance, old school thinking, and general Disneyfication Crap.

I think the time has come to admit that I too, can be a flip-flopper.

I've come to think that maybe, just maybe, I can appreciate the fact that they didn't build just a plain old stupid looking, but functional piece of concrete blah-ness. While I personally may not find it inspiring, nor maybe do the employees of Mouseschwitz, perhaps at the same time it's value lies more in what it is not, than what it is.

So that's as far as my retraction of hatred for the footbridge will go.

As a footnote, and in reference to the above "flip flopper" statement, it occurs to me that being a flip flopper is GOOD. That being a flip flopper means that you are not a total egalitarian who believes they're infallible enough in their thinking that they never need to change their minds about things.

It's good to change your mind about things if new information, or some retrospective allows one to do so. Just my two cents (which is worth considerably less than .02 Euro...).

Kudos Les

Leslie Moonves won one of the first annual "Ho'Wood Awards" from industry blogger Assistant Atlas yesterday, when he and his "panel" of (in)distinguished(able) judges voted Les "Most Caesar-Like Executive of the Year"! In a post full of appropos derision and general flinging of poo, Mr. Moonves made out pretty durn well. Way to go!

(And for the record, I think Atlas is right:)

*Footnote Edit* While the title of Atlas' awards are the "Ho'Wood" awards, and supposedly given out to the "worst" executives, somehow in his bestowing of the award to Leslie Moonves, it comes across as a rather complimentary event. That is the part I agree with.

Going Down?

Yesterday I dress down a bit, because I'm working on putting togther our edit systems and chasing down computers and other equipment all over the byzantine maze that is CBS Television City. Then at some point in the morning I'm up on the third flooring running stuff up and down, and I get in the elevator in my t-shirt and jeans (nice t-shirt, to be sure), next to Les Moonves, my boss (well, one of them anyway...).

He presses the button for the lobby. I ask him to press the button for the "Dungeon" - referring to the basement where our "new digs" are. He laughs, and says "Tell all the people down there I said 'hello'."

I'll do that sir.

Nice intro. Gonna be interesting.

Times They Are a Changin'

A very interesting end to 2005, and beginning of 2006.

On December 18, I was brought into the brand new "Wireless" division of broadcasting powerhouse, CBS. Today, I was offered an opportunity to "do more" in the division in which I am the fourth hire so far.

We are more or less a startup, doing something interesting and I get to write my own job description along the way? How freakin' cool is that?

Today, I spent some time with my head under a cubicle desk putting together the first of our new editing stations. I had to resist the urge to scrawl "Jon was here" just for posterity's sake on a portion of the wall under the desk.

Maybe I'll do that tomorrow (in really small letters...), after I get done going through some programming scheduling stuff and some resumes for people to interview next week for more positions.

Interesting things afoot - 2006 is off to a great start.

Apple vs. Microsoft... how times have changed

It doesn't seem so long ago to me, that Microsoft was the big bad meanie on the block, beating everyone up and being generally ornery towards... well, everyone.

Very interesting to see how times have changed, and nowhere is that better exemplified perhaps that this line:

...brand-wimpy Microsoft has hundreds of bloggers [a well-known fact], and why you can get fired for blogging at uber-brand Apple [so I've been told].

From Hugh at GapingVoid, and more contextually considered here: Doc Searls - A Theory on Corporate Blogging.

Odd how times change, and how fast. I wonder how long it will take Apple's uber-fan base to start acting more warily towards what is becoming the 1600lb gorilla that makes Microsoft's 800 lbs. look soft and fluffy.

My guess? Not long at all. And the users will revolt. They won't revolt by not buying, they'll revolt by stealing. My prediction anyway...

Gonna be a Good Year.

Well, as 2006 begins and I feel vaguely guilty (alright, a LOT guilty) about my dearth of postings (as if anyone reads my ranting anyway), it's clear that this year will be interesting and wonderful - and I'm sure it will be both in ways that I don't even yet know about.

For starters one good thing already happened this morning. I'm a subscriber and fairly avid reader of Mark Cuban's "Blog Maverick," and his writing has at times yielded some really fascinating and prescient forward-thinking posts (albeit, some of it with a decided HDNET bias.. but hey, he's not a reporter, and doesn't have to *claim* to be unbiased!).

At any rate, Mark is also one of the principals of an outfit shaking up and shaping up the future of the entertainment biz with his company called 2929 Entertainment. So, this morning, New Years morning, at 10:40am, I email Mark via his blog to see if he could steer me towards the right person to speak to at HDNET and 2929 to send over a screener of "Family" for distribution consideration. He writes back to me literally within 15 minutes. On New Year's Day. Along with the name of the person to send it to.

That's a beautiful thing.