Dude, get on Video...
Video Conferencing is already in your home, without you even knowing it. Where is Facebook?
The battleground for living room supremacy is about to heat up significantly with the promise of video conferencing using your HD television. The technology has been around since the early 80's with expensive wall phones, yet no company has successfully been able to monopolize it. There are expensive systems corporations buy that cost tens of thousands of dollars to hundreds of thousands of dollars and run on highly optimized network connections. None of this is feasible for the home [see the 80's for past failures]. Yet I imagine this week at CES a number of companies will unveil so called revolutionary devices that have the capability to finally make this happen...
The thing is, anyone with DSL, a MacBook Pro, an HDMI to DVI cable ($10 on Amazon), and a TV with HDMI inputs already has the ability to do video conferencing. I imagine its just as simple with a PC [I just don't have one].
Its simple. In your MBP settings setup an additional display (I have mine such that my 52" screen is an additional monitor I can drag things over to). And then use any of the free video conferencing options out there. Google is particularly useful as a lot of my friends use gChat. iChat is pretty good for my buddies stuck on AOL. Put your MBP in a position so that you can be seen sitting on the couch, or have it in your lap, your choice, make sure there is a decent lighting... maximize the window and voila...
I actually do 3-4 video conferences daily with my friends and family. Here is a picture of my sister who I used to see once a year; I'd talk to on the phone maybe once every other month, but now I video chat with almost nightly. She is completely computer illiterate, yet set this up herself and is usually the one that initiates the conference with me.
Amazing and free, though I'm sure the hardware vendors will find some way to force consumers into a refresh for new integrated features.
The application side of the house is what really needs some work. Using gChat or iChat full screen is a quick and easy way to do a video conference with buddies, but Facebook may have the golden goose if they can catch up to and leapfrog Google's video capability and become the de-facto video conferencing initiation point for people. The leap-frog is simple, multi-user video chat. And it makes sense for them to do this.
Lets face it, anyone that is afraid to get on video conference because they look bad isn't the target audience. The truth is the generations below grew up under a lens and have no problem broadcasting themselves. We may have vague memories of our dad fumbling with the expensive camera for that one picture which was dropped off once the roll was complete and picked up 2 days later. But kids today are taking multiple shots until they see one they like and can instantly post on facebook. They want this. I want this!
Ultimately if facebook's mission is to become the modern day replacement for people's personal phonebook, this is their opportunity to seal the deal and be the default communication portal for people worldwide. If I could only video conference with Zuckerberg, I'd tell him myself...
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NASA's return to glory
It never sat well with me that NASA doesn't hold the same clout it did during my adolescence. Whereas passing by Moffett Field during my childhood would cause our old volvo station wagon to tilt sideways from the weight of my siblings and I pressed up against the windows to perhaps catch a glimpse of the space shuttle, today seeing the iconic hangar only elicits thoughts of drunk Googlers getting off the party plane.
The end of the Cold War gave many government agencies moment of pause as they sought out new adversaries to compete with. In the private sector, it is competition among companies that not only yield the best prices but also drive innovation so as to stay ahead. With our Cold War enemies disposed, NASA sat in obsolesce for many years. It's only threat was from the military agencies space ambitions', which ultimately were one in the same. Internal competition is an important element of hierarchal development and can lead to product breakthrough, but simply cannot serve the same purpose as an external adversary to put in your sights.
Yes, there is the hubble telescope and I'm sure there have been a number of scientific discoveries I've long since forgotten since the glory days of Kennedy's administration. It's just hard to get excited about news of the shuttle docking with a space station. We landed on the moon over 30 years ago and today all we have to get excited about is parking? Exploration of the final frontier has to have more to it.
Obama's proclamation of combining military and civilian space programs in an effort to leap frog the Chinese and Indian Missions to the moon is precisely the type of action that has the potential to spark the sort of scientific innovations only possible at a well funded government research organization. Not even academic institutions have the sort of endowments that would make the breakthroughs possible.
Start-ups and entrepreneurs in the valley have a strong reputation for doing more with less and innovating in rapid clips. The whole web movement continues to essentially come from our backyard. But the difference between launching a user driven business built on smart code and open protocols and that of making the type of scientific breakthrough necessary for green technology to indeed become an industry as well as replace fossil fuels can only come from a well funded government organization teeming with eager Ph.D's clamoring to make a name for themselves. Much like in the NASA of yesteryears.
Venture Capitalits's, unlike the government, simply can't make $700 Billion appear and disappear in 6 months.
Therefore with the Mission set and the funding [hopefully] on the way. NASA's return to glory should involve taking this mission and investing in research that spans Green Technology breakthroughs. After all what better test of sustainability is there than a mission to a distant object off in space. There aren't going to be any refueling spots along the way. The investment in things like solar technology, batteries with an exponentially larger lifetime, building material that is eco-friendly and durable, water preservation, sanitary disposal etc are all necessary to keep the brave hero's who embark on this mission alive. But these types of technology once invented, will create whole new industries by being commercialized and will spawn higher living standard for the world.
Afterall it was NASA and the original mission to mars that gave us things like Teflon, water filters, cordless tools, long distance. By focusing on sustainability as a means to ensure longer space explorations, NASA's return to glory could serve the greater human good.
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Monetization of information: Newspapers heed the call
2009 will likely bring a number of newspapers to terms with the drop
in circulation numbers and subsequent ad dollars. It is not uncommon
for these publicly traded entities to rely on their corporate
investment portfolios to keep their core business that of reporting
news going. At some point they will have to re-evaluate whether
reporting the news is profitable at all. Objectively this comes as a
surprise as it could easily be argued that more people (than ever
before) are actively seeking out and even reporting the news. Its
just that the mediums have changed (mostly in the form of smart
phones) and the traditional media companies have failed to monetize
the receiving/delivering of information on these devices.
The first wave of internet popularity was largely driven by the
democratization of information for free. All of a sudden anyone with
a connection (regardless of the service provider company) had access
to seemingly infinite information they searched for. Many companies
attempted to monopolize information by providing it in the form of
portals that users would choose to go to when initially connected.
Much like a digital newspaper, only it was free, and dynamically
updated throughout the day.
Yahoo! was particularly successful at this. Their ability to
categorize content in an aesthetically pleasing manner made them the
de-facto starting point (homepage) for many users.
But as users matured the information Yahoo had categorized for the
home portal was too general and increasingly irrelevant to their
needs. Quickly adapting, Yahoo! provided the ability to customize the
portal specific to each user though this ultimately failed due to a
time investment from users who hadn't yet developed the aptitude or
the appetite for digital information.
As such, a simplified more robust search engine (Google), allowed
users to find what they were specifically looking for, emerged as the
leader. Yahoo!'s portals posed no threat to newspapers who largely
ignored the internet as a medium for information distribution. Just
as users were unwilling to spend time customizing their portals, they
were just as unwilling to pay any type of subscription fee, making it
unattractive to pursue. However reading habits changed significantly
once users were able to find what they were specifically looking for
as did the attention of advertisers who were enticed by placing ads on
reliably accountable page views that sometimes dwarfed entire
newspaper subscriber counts .
As with any new technology the adoption rate of getting information
from the internet over time grew substantially with relative maturity.
The newspaper held on as there was still no replacement for the news
while in transit. The internet had yet to proliferate airspace. It
was once this became a reality that newspapers really started to feel
the pinch. The ability for users to read what they're specifically
looking when they want in the palm of their hands is tough to compete
with even for a technology [newspapers] that has stood the test of
time.
This reality should be looked at as an opportunity instead of a
determent for media companies. The simple fact that should not be
overlooked is, people are still reading the news, arguably in larger
numbers. The monetization of it just hasn't been effectively
executed.
Another point to note is that during the early days of the internet,
people were largely unwilling to pay for any software. The internet's
popularity was propelled by users ability to exploit their connection
for piracy of just about anything. While still a large aggressively
growing aspect of the internet, Apple's iTunes has shown that the
monetization of movies and music is very real and should not be
ignored. The lesson there is, if it is cheap enough, for example
$0.99 for a song, people are just as willing to pay for it. Using a
similar model, apple has done what was largely considered impossible:
monetized consumer mobile software applications. Many gimmick
programs, including iFart, iSmoke, iBeer, have made substantial
amounts proving that if effectively priced, people are now willing to
pay for things. The simplicity of the payment method (click to buy)
as well as the social acceptance of giving out iTunes gift cards has
fueled an unlikely industry.
The price of a daily newspaper [which I had to google because its been
so long since I bought one] is still less than $1 and presumably still
has 5 sections with approximately 20 articles in each. It could be
argued (of course simplified) that the value of each article is $0.01.
It is this minimal investment by readers that allow them to
carelessly dispose of them at the end of the ride or graciously offer
it to the person sitting next to them.
If in a similar fashion, one were given the option of seamlessly
paying for only articles they read it is conceivable for far less
content, physical manufacturing and production, a newspaper could make
the same amount (from daily readership revenue). If a reader spends
less than a dollar reading the paper (in digital format) they are
likely to not even consider the cost as long as payment is 100%
seamless to them.
Original newspapers won reader loyalty for outstanding journalism that
was one step ahead of the competition and worth the minimal cost.
Newspapers today are still the most reliable source of news
information, have the most thought provoking and important editorial
staff that users would be willing to pay for if the monetization of
the information went back to the basics employed by cheap newspapers.
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