Now, there are the people who watch the telly, TiVo, stream via internet, get the DVD after the season’s over, and download using bit torrent. It would be interesting to see whether the media industry fights the multiple streams or go beyond harnessing the new market segmentation with sites like tv.com and actually use the new market segmentation to target specific audiences. For example, starting shows like Dollhouse on mainstream TV for the first few episodes to raise awareness then move it to an internet-based series or even limit the launch to the web (e.g. Dr. Horrible’s Sing-a-long Blog).

What’s encouraging is that most TV channels seem to have finally moved from fighting the internet, but still have trouble deciding what to do about and measure possible revenue streams. Likely, they’ll have to move away from the SuperBowl-style “as many eyeballs as possible on one ad” to a more sophisticated ad sales plan that puts one or two specific relevant products tailored for a particular show show . A bit of a long tail take on ads, if you will. Takes more finesse and relies on a high spread of viewers and smaller payments from ad buyers across multiple shows rather than a high volume of viewers and ads for one prime time slot.

First, it was robots who could hunt for their own food.  Now, it looks like the University of Aberdeen has a robot that can mimic biological evolution. At the moment, it’s limited to adaptation ability, but the researchers hope to open doors to a robot that can instruct its creator on what parts to add to it. Does anyone else find the rapid developments kind of cool and very creepy?

User Content Responsibility

To what extent should companies be held liable for how people use their products? If the old school “Caution HOT” law suit for McDonald’s coffee is any indicator, it’s - very liable. But what about user generated content on the web? YouTube has struggled with that and tried various responses, from removing videos to muting the sound. But what if the company (especially in popular websites) is simply not aware of the content? Is it still liable then?

Yes, if the Italian prosecution in the current Google case has their way.

Crashing aside, I’m a fan of Chiptole’s app and see other “me too” apps a-coming. A particularly good market for these apps would be college students, who are happy early-ish adopters and appreciate convenient food orders all hours of the day (and night). Sites like campusfood.com could benefit from developing an app like this, as would smaller-scale services like Tiffin Dinner, which already allows orders via phone, email, and IM.

This New Year’s Eve was spent at the SF Symphony. It was quite a bit of fun with bands, dancing, performances, food, and champagne. Oh, and 2009 balloons falling from the ceiling at countdown, which the event website would have me point out.

Anyhow, going to the performance reminded me of when I used to play the cello in school orchestras. I remembered the fuss of getting certain pages taped together and timing the page turnings with my partner and the knocking down of flimsy stands and random pages. Now, wouldn’t it be nice if there were some Kindle equivalent for music scores? Just download a bunch of scores to your screen instead of lugging a bunch of books about and use a pedal (wireless or wired) to “turn” the pages back and forth? With today’s touch screen technology, it probably wouldn’t be too difficult to let musicians add notes, phrasing, bow markings and such during rehearsal either.

The only thing is, classical musicians aren’t at the forefront when it comes to embracing technology. Also, while the self-illumination of a screen would eliminate the need for separate lighting when the orchestra acts as an accompaniment to other acts, the glare of the screen would light all the musicians’ faces. Hmmm…

Korea’s affinity for technology is high, hi-speed broadband is readily available, and the downloading community strong. So the lack of centralized internet TV and connection between the TV and internet surprised me. Given, the various TV stations adopted internet streaming of past shows early on and TVs could be hooked up to computers if one wanted to create a dual-system BUT there was no official streamlined process that I knew of.
Enter, the IPTV - or Internet Protocol TV. Now supported by the government. Finally, Korea’s catching up with America’s offerings (for more on the US IPTV industry, click here). Previously, broadcasters were wary of losing advertising money and declined to share content with IPTV. Now, they are sensing the shift and realizing that if they don’t move along with it, the new “it” child of media will move right along without them.
IPTV uses a set up box to converge services between one’s TV and high-speed internet (in the future, I’m presuming that you could simply download the package onto your TV). IPTV may seem a lot like regular cable at first, but it has little add-ons and potential for further development. Video on Demand does not require checking the TV schedule, you can order it using remote controls. Home shopping channels also do not require separate phone calls but a simple few clicks on the screen using your remote. It’s also a product placement dream in that you can get extra information about the clothes and products used by the actors on screen and order them without extra research. It also has the potential to create a YouTube-like environment where individuals could create their own broadcasting channels as easily as they currently blog or vlog. IPTV could also provide a new outlet for education in remote regions that goes a step above EBS (in Korea) or PBS (in the United States) since it allows greater interactivity.
I can also see this technology being popular with foodies and game show-lovers. Imagine cooking shows where you could ask the IPTV to select and ship necessary ingredients for that particular show to your home so that you could cook along while watching or game shows where you could watch the show with a minimized window where you “play” the game along with the contestant and see how your answers stack up.
If there is a high adoption rate of IPTV, as the creators hope, it will develop its own set of regulatory, copyright, and social problems. If creating a broadcasting channel becomes as easy as YouTubing, then who regulates the content? Should it be regulated? How do you wade through the numerous channels? How much product-placement can dramas take for it to be effective without turning off jaded consumers? IPTV will bring in many existing questions in the internet and TV fields as well as generate new challenges, but for now, I’m simply excited.

You really can’t look down on China, no matter what the cynics say. With that many people, there have to be a countless number of extremely talented people, whether it is in theoretical physics or the practical physics of balancing two pigs on a motorcycle (for delivery). Go here for more.

[via brotherhood 2.0]

[found via Gizmodo]