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techcrunch

the medium is the message

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In the past week I found it interesting how there were two separate initiatives taken by companies that were better known for the distribution of content into the area of content creation. First up was the announcement by YouTube of its NextUp program:

Today we’re announcing YouTube Next’s second initiative, designed exclusively for up-and-coming YouTube Partners: YouTube NextUp. YouTube NextUp is about accelerating the growth of the next big YouTube stars. Up to 25 Partners from around the United States will be selected for the development program, which offers:

  • $35,000 in funding to produce a new project, purchase new tools or advance their overall YouTube careers
  • A spot at a four-day YouTube Creator Camp in which they’ll benefit from 1:1 mentoring and learn an array of production techniques from leading industry and YouTube experts
  • Promotion of their final work and channel
  • The opportunity to become better connected with a special community of aspiring and talented content creators from around the world

Second was an announcement from Netflix that they are, in a way, “funding” the production of an original TV show. Here`s how they describe it:

In all of these cases, the shows are produced before we bring them to Netflix. “House of Cards” represents a slightly more risky approach; while we aren’t producing the show and don’t own it, we are agreeing to license it before it is successfully produced.

TechCrunch has a piece on the Netflix announcement which is, shall we say, rather enthusiastic about the announcement (one of the hints being the title – “Netflix Original Content Is Much More Than A Strategy Shift — It Could Shift An Industry“):

But with House of Cards, the game changes. For the first time, they’re going to get people signing up to Netflix to get first access to content. And if it’s as good as the talent behind it suggests, they might get a lot of people signing up for that very reason.

And if that’s the case, they’ll be doing a lot more of these deals. And that would effectively make them a premium cable television channel — like HBO or Showtime. But they’ll be one with thousands more pieces of content for a lower monthly price. And they’ll be one not burdened by any artificial show times. Most importantly, they’ll be one not burdened by the cable television model — at all.

If Netflix’s new gamble here works, this is the absolutely the future. In three years, we won’t be paying $75 a month to a giant cable conglomerate. We’ll be paying $8 to Netflix and other players that pop up — like HBO (by themselves), perhaps. Sure, there will still be the monthly fee for Internet. But most of us are already paying that. We’d just be removing the ridiculous $75 cable television fee that gives us thousands of channels with content only on at a certain time — and most of which we don’t want.

It’s interesting that TC mentions HBO. If memory serves they also used to be purely a distribution channel until they started getting into content production.

To some extent, I agree with the TC piece (though perhaps not as enthusiastically). I think watching TV on cable (especially with a DVR) is a rather horrific nightmare as compared to watching streamed, on-demand content through the internet. Why flips through pages and pages of schedules or programming grids on digital tuners to figure out what you want to watch and when you can watch it, rather than looking for the show you want to watch, when you want to watch it, and clicking? I really do think the latter form of delivery will become more and more prevalent over time.

On the other hand, I don’t think either Netflix or YouTube venturing into somewhat more direct participation in content creation (and to be clear, in neither case are they actually producing the content) is all that much of a sea change itself. Vertical integration, whether in the entertainment industry or elsewhere isn’t all that new, nor has it necessarily changed the experience of end users. Would I care whether I could watch the show on demand whenever I wanted through the internet, wherever there is a browser, rather than having to figure out when it would be broadcast and either buying a DVR or making sure I’m am home? Yes, definitely. Would I care if, instead getting first crack at the show through Netflix, that I paid David Fincher’s production company (or anyone else for that matter) directly for the privilege of watching it first streamed through his website? Not so much.

Will this really shake up the cable industry and/or kill it? I guess that depends in part on what pipe you’re using to connect to the internet to view your content.

 

free legal advice (at least in California, for now)

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And no, I don’t mean this blog, because as you know I don’t dispense legal advice here.

In any event, read about a new startup called LawPivot in an entry from the venerable TechCrunch. It’s described by TC as “a self described “Quora for legal” that allows technology companies to confidentially ask legal questions to expert attorneys.” And currently, for free. By the looks of it, seems to be limited to California for the time being. But hurry! Apparently the business model is to eventually charge both the askers and the askees for access.

TechCrunch seems to be bullish on its prospects. Myself a bit less so. I would think that one of the drivers of something like this would be to develop a critical mass of legal information or advice, much in the same way that many law firms have started developing massive indexed and searchable databases both for their internal use and sometimes for access by clients. Limiting it to one-off queries seems to limit the ability to leverage advice and to result in, to some extent, a duplication of efforts by the various lawyers seeking to impress a potential client.

But who knows. Perhaps they plan to leverage content in some other way at a later stage. Worth keeping an eye on. And of course, if you’re in Calfornia, worth giving a spin if you’re looking for some free legal advice.

press neutrality and lawsuits

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Techcrunch (Mr. Arrington) has put up an article suggesting Digg sue Wired (that’s also the headline – “Digg Should Sue Wired”). Because Wired posted some negative reviews of Digg. And because Wired’s parent, Condé Nast, owns a competitor of Digg (reddit). The nub:

Digg can’t treat Wired like any other user that’s engaged in fraud. Wired is the press, and the press has tremendous power. Wired is putting Digg in an impossible situation, and they should be called on it. Reporting news is one thing (although they should note the conflict of interest there as well), but actively creating negative news about a competitor and then using the massive reach of Wired to promote that “news” is way over the line.

Very strog words indeed. I’m quite surprised by this comment, as I understand Mr. Arrington has legal training and in fact practiced as a lawyer for some time. Why surprised? Because, apart from the possibility that the reporter who wrote the second article to which he refers (who basically tried to see if Digg’s system of user rankings could be “gamed”) breached Digg’s terms of use (of course – because rightly so their terms would prohibit such gaming…), its really, really tough for me to see exactly what Digg should sue Wired for? What exactly is the cause of action? Surely he’s not accusing Digg of actually committing fraud, is he? It difficult for me to see how fraud has been committed – what exactly is fraudulent about the articles?

Sure, there is a conflict of interest situation here, the usual cure for which is full disclosure, but hardly the basis for a lawsuit. And if he thinks that Wired suffers from conflict of interest, well, I invite him to check out the ownership of most major media in the US and Canada, and see how many times they are taking a stab at competitors of other companies that their ultimate owners control. If this is as big a deal as Mr. Arrington suggests, the Chomsky’s Manufacturing Consent should be considered a field manual to endless lawsuits against not only Condé Nast but also CBS, NBC, ABC, CanWest Global, etc. etc. etc.

But perhaps I took the words too seriously – perhaps he was just using the words “sue” and “fraud” figuratively or to illustrate his point. Or perhaps, given the more litigious nature of the US, and the somewhat kindler, gentler, less punitive (as in damages) environment in Canada, there is actually a basis for Digg suing the heck out of Wired.

Bit of a tempest in a teapot, I think…

And of course in the interest of full disclosure, I am a subscriber to Wired, and also hope someday to see one tiny link from their site to this little blog.

Rapleaf

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Interesting article on Techcrunch about a company called Rapleaf. The nub:

Rapleaf will allow anyone to leave feedback for anyone they’ve transacted with. Others can use this feedback to help them determine if they are doing business with someone who’d likely to engage in fraud. Rapleaf is eBay feedback for the rest of the web, and the offline world.

Very interesting idea. Of course, there have been various solutions that people have tried to address the curse (and perhaps sometimes blessing) that, on the internet, no one knows if you’re a dog. I always thought encryption and the whole public key infrastructure thing would go somewhere, you know, with PGP and all being used, then of course the various bodies around the world setting up certification authorities, and then related legislation, etc. etc. That could have solved a lot of problems, including, amongst others, spam. And of course fraud. Surprisingly enough it never got off the ground all that well and in its stead we find reputational markers such as this.

Interesting how the internet has enabled the scaling of these sorts of reputational mechanisms. Where it was once a couple of neighbours chatting about the best butcher, its now millions of folks spread across dozens of countries having their opinions on thousands (or more) vendors. Talk about network effects.

Were You Once a Brobeck Client?

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Very interesting post on TechCrunch on how the digital records of law firm Brobeck, Phleger & Harrison, for some 10,000 clients, will be preserved and made available to a limited group of scholars and researchers, through what will be called the Brobeck Closed Archive.
Wow. At first blush I had the same reaction as Michael Arrington (the TechCrunch guy) and the guy who wrote the original article that he cited. But if you read through the FAQ at the sight, as well as the comments that the professor who is running the thing posted on TechCrunch, its pretty clear that they’re not going to be displaying lawyer-client documents on a website for all to see – there will be some measure of protection put into place.

That being said, though I certainly understand the historical significance of these records, and the objectives of the archive (which seem entirely noble) I get a bad feeling about this generally – you know, kind of like that little tickle at the back of your throat that almost, but not quite, wants to make you cough. Heck, if I were a client of a law firm, would I want anyone looking at my counsel’s records on me? Even if it were a researcher? Even under NDA? And even with restrictions? Well, no, I don’t think so. Not at all. Its not any researcher’s business – not at all. So sure, maybe as an opt in program, if the client consents, but otherwise, even, I think, where a corporate client no longer exists to approve disclosure, the records should also do the same.

So, if you were once a Brobeck client, and haven’t seen the notice, you might want to get in touch with the archive.