Thursday, August 31, 2006

Message In A Cookie

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Vast. Really Vast.

This great message was in my fortune cookie today at the local Chinese restaurant (true story, forsooth):

Today's fortune cookie message.

The reason it resonated is that the groundwork is being laid for a new order. The growth takes a sizeable step each week. Painstaking to track, but progress that will manifest as roots deepen. The only embellishment that occurred to me is all our business may be about to assume vast proportions, not just mine.

What's the big deal? Why all the fortune telling? Three little nudges this week:

1) An eBay-Skype-Google Alliance is bringing "click to call" internet phone commerce to the web. Om's article title "Google, eBay Play Nice Over Skype" says it all. Good coverage.

2) According to some, Apple Computer and Silicon Valley are angling at redmondia, empire of the north. Apple welcomed a new board member this month: Eric Schmidt, CEO Google. Does Microsoft feel another shiver as the plates under the earth shift a little further? John Markoff's analysis provides all the skinny.

3) Video on cell phones and iPods is coming fast. So say the bullish crystal-ball-meisters at In-Stat. There will be 50 million portable media players in use globally by 2008, and as much as 10% of US wireless subscribers will be adopters by 2009 according to the analyst group.


Don't Panic. Just Scream.


On a lighter note, that quintessential vision of information anxiety, Munch's classic painting "The Scream" was recovered after its theft from an Oslo museum in broad daylight two years ago this month.

[from New York Times AUG 31, 2006]

"We are open for Champagne tonight to anyone who wants to come by and celebrate," said Knut Forsberg, the chairman of Blomqvist Fine Arts, which served as Munch'’s main gallery during his lifetime. By 9 p.m. more than 300 guests had accepted the offer.

Art lovers and public officials said they were relieved not only by the paintings' recovery but also by the relative lack of damage. Last year, the tabloid newspaper Dagbladet had quoted underworld sources as saying, "The paintings are burned up."

Iver Stensrud, the assistant chief of the Oslo police, said today, "“I have seen the pictures myself, and as for damages, they are far from what we really could have feared."


Don't anybody panic!

(The Scream is secure.)


Wednesday, August 23, 2006

We're All Amateurs Now (Content Producers)

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At Digital Hollywood meets Silicon Valley forum last week (http://www.digitalhollywood.com/BuildingBlocks.html) , some great quips and zeit geist as you might expect like this one from Google about video influx to the Internet:

“We just want to get to the point where you will put video on your website as a default behavior” said Peter Chane, Senior Product Manager for Google Video, speaking recently at the Digital Hollywood Building Blocks conference in Silicon Valley. “We support unlimited uploads” said Chane, “we have people that come with carloads of video and we find ways to work with them.”

For more, look for my upcoming feature September 2006 article for IPTV magazine, released for the IBC issue (Amsterdam, September 7-12, http://www.ibc.org).