davidstrom

Since most of the TV shows are on what appears to be a three-month vacation, now might be a good time to seek Internet alternatives. I got the idea from a story last week in the New York Times about how one of its reporters has gone completely cold-turkey on their cable TV consumption.

It got me thinking about two guys that I know in their 20s that have taken completely different approaches to their digital entertainment consumption. Their approaches illustrate what we have to do to get our TV these days.

J. is single and a DirecTV subscriber, at $95 a month. C. is engaged but doesn’t pay for his TV programming. Like the NYT reporter, he uses his computer to send video to his TV from various Internet sources, using a HDMI to DVI cable. Both are relatively computer savvy guys. Both bought their TVs earlier this spring – this is C.’s first TV since his college days, and did so because he wanted to make it easier for him and his girl friend to watch shows both separately and together. J. has a second TV in his bedroom, and a bigger plasma display in his living room. Both guys have 10 MB cable connections for their Internet service.

C. watches a combination of shows from various Web video sites, such as Hulu and Boxee and some on air TV too. He works in the financial industry, where he has Bloomberg TV streaming to his desktop PC as part of his job. J. works in sales and has some downtime during the work day, where he also watches TV on his PC, but only those Web stations that aren’t blocked by his employer. SpikeTV is his favorite. C. likes the Netflix streaming option, J. hates it – “if I wanted to watch ten-year old movies, I would just find them for free online.”

J. is a big computer gamer and has an Xbox and connects other gaming consoles when his friends bring them by. “The Xbox was difficult to setup to find my digital media,” he told me, much worse the Playstation 3, which easily found and played the majority of his video files that he has downloaded to his PC. It is ironic that a Microsoft gaming console connecting to a Microsoft Windows PC is more difficult to configure than a Sony console connecting to a Windows PC. C. runs on a Mac.

Curiously, the two guys also differ on how they watch movies. J. hasn’t been in a movie theater since 1996, and is proud about that record. Instead, he has downloaded hundreds of movies illegally from a file sharing service, and makes copies of the videos for all of his friends. C. goes to the theaters once every two months but says that it can get expensive, especially at big-city ticket prices.

C. has about 30 GB of music on his PC, most of it illegally downloaded. His last CD was purchased from a store about nine years ago. J. bought his last CD in 1996., and also has several gigabytes of stolen music on his computer. “There is no point in downloading a clip from a legal site,” he told me. “In the time it would take me to listen to the commercial and the first 15 or so seconds, I can find the entire MP3 song online and have it on my hard drive.”

So what can we learn from these two guys? First, going completely free-TV isn’t easy. Some shows aren’t readily available on the Internet. For example, HGTV has exactly 12 shows on Hulu at the moment, which is a very poor sample. Yes, you can find some old shows (C.’s current fave is the vintage Adam 12 series), but your mileage may vary. Yes, they are adding shows all the time, and in some cases you can find the shows on the networks’ own Web sites. I watched a few episodes of FlashFoward on ABC.com, but I had to watch short commercials and click on a button to continue playing the show when the commercials were done.

Second, the system isn’t spousal friendly, at least not for my generation. When I checked to see about my wife’s favorite local TV station, they didn’t have any stream that I could watch from their Web site. HGTV’s Web site is also miserable, making finding a show more of an Easter Egg hunt, and I mean that not in any good way. I know free-TV isn’t ready for my wife yet. C.’s fiancée is happy with their free-TV setup, but it has taken her a while to get used to the arrangement.

Third, while the TV producers and networks are trying mightily to avoid another Napsterization of video, they have yet to succeed. They have experimented with copy protection and that seems to be on the wane, and now concentrated on streaming. Some episodes are available for sale on iTunes.

One thing that is clear is that broadcast networks “must-see TV” is so over. Both guys don’t watch much in the way of sports or news programming. Both watch shows on their schedule, not the networks’.

Finally, the number of add-on devices and gotchas is still mind numbing if you want to deal with the Internet channel. For ABC’s shows, you need to download a player and not use Safari. Netflix has the best and widest streaming support but you’ll need a computer, a supported Blu-Ray DVD player, Xbox or PS3, or their Roku device. Some current shows don’t show up for days or weeks online. Others only have excerpted clips.

Speaking of Roku, I bought mine a month ago and unlike J., am happy with the Netflix choice of those older movies, especially the ones that have been upconverted to HD status. There is little interruption in the video streams, even with a Wifi connection to my network. And Roku continues to add other services, such as Pandora roll-your-own music channels, to make it easier to get content to my living room.

We certainly have come far with free TV — it wasn’t all that long ago that we were using videotapes and buying DVDs, both things that seem so quaint now. Streaming video gets better and better as our Internet pipes improve.

But we still have a long way to go before the Internet can replace the cable DVR. Certainly, Hulu is worth taking a look at and seeing if you can find your favorites and queue them up to watch on your computer. And as Netbooks and used Mac Minis are around $300, there isn’t much friction in having one of them connected to one of your TV outputs. The big remaining issue is having to deal with the various software pieces to try to play the videos.

Tags: Mentor

davidstrom

We all know about outsourcing, the ability to farm out work to people, often overseas, that will work for less, and sometimes for a lot less. But a not-so-new trend is changing the way that outsourcing happens, called crowdsourcing.

The idea is to take a job and divide it into small enough pieces that someone can do it quickly in their spare time. Think about transcribing an audio recording. Or Photoshopping a series of photographs. The difference between regular outsourcing and crowdsourcing is that you don’t necessarily know your contractors, and they mostly are here in the good ole U S of A. Think of it as stimulus package for our troubled times, but based entirely on the private sector.

The idea isn’t all that new, but is catching on due to some important trends. First off, there is a critical mass of people who are willing to do the work, and probably more people are going to be interested because of high unemployment over the past year. Second, the Internet-based tools that are used to farm out jobs and track completions and manage the crowds is getting better all the time. Broadband penetration helps: now most people don’t do dial-up, which is great if you are going to be online for hours at a time working the crowd-based tasks. Finally, many crowds have developed a solid track record, so it is more compelling for project managers looking for workers.

As a result, crowdsourcing is big business. There are several dozen firms that help organize the crowds of people that offer up their services, and some of them are making millions of dollars a year in fees that they collect from being brokers between buyer and provider. Amazon’s Mechanical Turk and eLance.com are two of the more well-known ones, and if you want to find out others I suggest you first listen to my podcast with my partner Paul Gillin and Brent Frei, the author of one of the first industry reports on crowdsourcing. You can find the links to his report and our podcast if you go to: http://MediaBlather.com/103.html

Frei runs a company that provides crowdsourcing, so it isn’t too difficult to see his self-interest. But the report opened my eyes to see the power and the promise behind the idea. For example, you can leverage your own billable time by farming out tedious tasks to someone else that would gladly do it for a lot less than your rates. Or compiling a list of vendors by doing online research of their Web sites. With a $10/hour intern, this project would have taken 12 hours or $120 to complete the task. By divvying it up among a crowd, Frei was able to get it done for about $18 total.

Now, I know what you are going to say. How can you ensure quality of the crowd-based researchers? What about the time and cost to manage them? There are ways to build in redundancy and have the results cross-checked, and with the right kind of project management, you can piece things apart in such a way that makes sense for your crowd.

Paul and I have been doing our MediaBlather podcasts for several years, and always on the lookout for someone interesting to interview, particularly on social media and new marketing tools. If you are interested in being on our show, let us know.

Tags: Mentor

saburkett

As a small business owner with little money for marketing, getting PR is the next best thing (ok, as long as it is GOOD PR)!  My downfall is creating press releases though.  I struggle with discovering what is interesting and creating a story worth telling.  Then I found out about PITCHRATE.com.  It is a site that connects journalist with experts.  I monitor the site for requests that fit my expertise and make the pitch.  I was skepitcal at first, but I just received an email for WE Magazine for Women that they used my interview!

The interview is at http://wemagazineforwomen.com/this-business-woman-helps-clients-solve-everyday-technology-challenges/.

I then used ping.fm to update all of my social networking status' (one update and boom, they are done) to share the news!

Tags: Mentor

saburkett

Creating a connection on the ITEN website can be done a couple of ways depending on the type of user you are on the site (Start-up, Mentor, Investor) and why you are creating a connection.  Hopefully this will help you use the site, but also help us identify other ways to make it easier!

Start-up connecting with a Mentor

One of the key features of the website is to allow a Start-up company search for the right mentor.  Start-up companies have access to a section called MENTOR MATCHING (accessed from START-UP>Mentor Matching link).  The Start-up user can select the types of experience they are looking for in a mentor.  After selecting the criteria and clicking MATCH, the user is given a page that lists mentors with that experience.  The user can view the profile of the mentor.  Once they have found the right person, they will click REQUEST ME!.  The request will be sent to the mentor along with some of your key company profile information.

Creating a Connection

To see a list of users registered on the site, select the FIND OTHERS link in the top right-hand corner of the screen.  When you find someone you are working with or know, click their user-name link.  You will be allowed to view their profile.  Above the profile picture you will find several links:  Community, Edit, View, Messages, Connections, Moderation.  When you hover over CONNECTIONS, you will see an option REQUEST CONNECTION.  There is an option to add a message to the connection request.

Why Connect?

This is a great way to manage your ITEN relationships, especially those between a company and a mentor.  It also makes it easier to see who is online and not, so that you can send them a quick message.

Thanks to everyone who has registered, logged in and started using the site.  If you are a start-up company and haven't requested a mentor, please try it out!

Tags: Mentor

saburkett

I am asked on a regular basis why I am a mentor.  Many people have difficulty understanding what motivates people to give their time to others.  Those who mentor understand the reward of helping others.  Below are just a few of the reasons why I mentor.

As a leader, I enjoy helping people achieve their goals.  One of the greatest rewards in my life is to help someone learn something new, accomplish the impossible or see a situation from a different perspective.  This is why I enjoy teaching.  It is so fun watching someone who has little confidence in themselves build a website and put it out for the whole world to see.  That single accomplishment allows my students to overcome that fear that technology is too difficult to understand.

I believe when I give to others, I get so much back in return.  In many ways, this is how I build my network.  It is amazing how much easier it is to ask someone something when you know that you have given them answers in the past.  I treasure those I work with and keep their interest at heart.  The become wonderful referral sources, communication networks and support when you need to ask for guidance.  

As someone who enjoys learning, I find when I mentor, I am able to learn so much.  Maybe it is my desire to "be in the know" all of the time.  It is so interesting hearing the innovative approaches being used, new technologies being discovered and new ways to solve old problems.

vI guess my final reason for being an ITEN mentor is that I am so excited about the start-up companies in St. Louis, especially those with innovative technology ideas.  As someone who LOVES St. Louis and wants everyone to make St. Louis (city & county) one of the best places to live and work, we need these companies to be successful.  If I can be a part of making that happen, what a great contribution to this community.  

Sheila Burkett

Tuxedo Park Management, LLC
sheila@tuxedoparkmgmt.com

Tags: Mentor