Future's new Media

Future's new Media:

1) The Internet will be the King. Most of the entertainment will be on IP.

2) The Media WILL have to change, to adapt to new requirements. No more centralized delivery, no more centralized production.

"Last November, the Pew Internet & American Life Project found that 57% of American teenagers create content for the internet, from text to pictures, music and video. In this new-media culture, says Paul Saffo, a director at the Institute for the Future in California, people no longer passively "consume" media (and thus advertising, its main revenue source) but actively participate in them, which usually means creating content, in whatever form and on whatever scale. This does not have to mean that "people write their own newspaper", says Jeremy Zawodny, a prominent blogger and software engineer at Yahoo!, an internet portal. It could be as simple as rating the restaurants they went to or the movie they saw, or as sophisticated as shooting a home video. "

3) No more traditional business models in the media industry, which are based on aggregating large passive audiences and holding them captive during advertising interruptions. Thanks to the Net interactivity audiences will actively participate in the entertainment.
This means new kinds of it.

4) In the new-media era, audiences will occasionally be large, but often small, and usually tiny. Long tail Media. Niche market.
Not only can die-hards discuss their favorite shows on message boards, they can create high-tech tributes online, such as "best of" video montages.

5) [Advertisers] look forward to a time when they can use the Web's data-gathering capabilities to get a breakdown of who's watching a show and create ads targeted to each demographic segment.
Interactive TV will be available with all its implications and possible (huge) revenues of course.
And REVENUES are what drives the market......

"With participatory media, the boundaries between audiences and creators become blurred and often invisible."

Net Neutrality in Italy

There are two big tragedies in life: the first is not being able to get what you want and the second, far bigger, is to be able to get it.
We Italians can consider ourselves lucky people, because we have been spared the second, and it looks there is no hope we will ever get it.

In this way, our government, which is at the service of the big countries' monopolies, avoids a lot of problems that are common to the rest of the civilized world.
One of them is Net Neutrality.

Here we do not even have to begin to talk about it.
What's the use of Net Neutrality when you do not even have the Net?

The Telecom is a Christian Institution (well, we are the country which hosts the Vatican).
It is there to remind us that all progress and innovation will open the doors of hell.
Do we need all the Porno stuff that dominates the Net?
Do we need all the Free thoughts that run on line?

Aren't we better off going on thinking and believing what they say and want us to do?
Why should we bother to know the rest of the world?
To use and IMPORT goods from abroad, endangering the business of our country?
Be Italian, eat Italian, live Italian.

Thanks Telecom and you fucking bastard of Managers to deprive me from the use of progress.
In the rest of the world people connect to the Net with high speed lines?
Isn't it better as you do with us Italian?
A line of 2 kbits, interrupted every 50 seconds, so that to get the mail it takes 4 hours. Then you have to spend another four hours to get to a search engine, and your day is gone.
It is true, you didn't do anything.
But you also didn't do anything wrong, like for example endangering the Monopoly of the few companies who rule our country.
Be Italian from top to bottom, breath Italian, eat Italian, surf Italian.
Wasn't there once somebody called Benito who preached something like that?

The magic and magnetism of Silicon Valley

Startups in US
Paul Graham writes about the magic and magnetism of Silicon Valley:



Startups happen in clusters. There are a lot of them in Silicon Valley and Boston, and few in Chicago or Miami. A country that wants startups will probably also have to reproduce whatever makes these clusters form.

The magic and magnetism of Silicon Valley is called "good infrastructures" "cheap bandwidth" and "open mind".

That is the reason why in most part of the world it is impossible to find the "magic magnetism". We have still to go a long way...

Minding one's own business

This should be one of the basic man's virtues.
It is not to be interpreted as really minding your own business (getting on with your job, keeping your promises etc...)it simply means that you are not to interfere with others.
If a man happens to be standing on your foot in the bus, you must not ask him to get off, since it is clearly his business where he chooses to stand; if your neighbourg's television or radio is blaring military marches till midnight, you may not remonstrate with him because it is his business what he pleases to listen to and at what time...
I remember an old story from my childhood which ought to be one of the basic ideological parables of life:
A man bends down in a road to tie his shoelace.
While he is at it, someone kicks him in the behind with such force that he falls on his nose.
He gets up somewhat bewildered and looks at his assailant questioningly.
The latter explains:
"I am sorry. I seem to have made a mistake. I thought you were my friend so and so. I meant this as a joke."
The man is not altogether satisfied with this explanation and remarks plaintively:
"But even if I had been so and so...must you kick him quite so hard?"
The other man replies cooly and pointedly:
"What has it got to do with you HOW hard I choose to kick my friend?"