Tuesday, June 1, 2004

Digital codestyle aggregation

Two datapoints, perhaps historical.

First, Sun apparently decides that the revenue model to beat (since charging for hardware and software seem to be losing propositions) is selling services. Bill Snyder (from that last link):

Stripped of the marketing hype, Sun hopes to sell services, rather than simply pushing hardware and software at its customers, and have them pay as they use those services.

Second, Marc Canter's latest rap: How to mnake money with digital lifestyle aggregators - Part I. Excerpts:

Aggregation is a killer app - that no one owns. It's public domain. Everyone benefits from it. So is integration as well...

To start to reap the benefits of digital lifestyle aggregation - you need to get smart about architecting systems that rely upon XML, open standards and web services.

So personalization and customization find their destiny intermixed with Integration and Aggregation. The only way to produce compelling enough experiences is by integrating a wide range of built-in constructs, combining that with agregated web servcies and content and topping it all off with unprecedented levels of control and customization. In one product or service.

All three of these tenets are tatooed on my forhead.

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OK so wait. This post was supposed to be about 'making money' - and you're lost. Right?

Well think about it - you couldn't possibly (on your own) produce even half of the built-in constructs, features and capabilities we're saying digital lifestyle aggreation (DLAs) requires. That's where open source comes in.

By supporting and contributing to open source projects - portal vendors will actually be able to have their cake and eat it too - proprietary solutions, branded memes and viral uptake. Just give open source a try - define it to your own requirements and insights and help out the world while you're helping yourself.

I think he's saying "sell your environment," no? Not clear.

In anycase, it's not about selling. It's about renting. You rent your domain names, your Net access, your disposable hardware. Stop and think about that last one for a bit. Your personal data — the stuff on your laptop's hard drive — may change constantly, but it's your life in a box. And it moves every two or three years (if not more often) from one laptop or desktop or removable drive or remote host to another. What you pay for a new box almost amounts to a revolving charge, an annuity. Rent.

So you charge on a project basis to build stuff, then you rent out your space or your services. Oldest models in the world.

Welcome to the land of deflated but sustainable margins. Also the land of the finally grown-up computer business. (When it gets there, which it isn't yet.)

Look at it this way: It's the work, stupid. A new slogan I'm trying on for size. Serves in architecture, design, construction, and a pile of other fields from which the computer biz borrows its lingo. Why not here too?

Still invaded

I just realized there was only one videogame I ever loved.

Yes it is

Craig Burton: ...blogging isn't just extracurricular but fundamental. That's in his History of Microsoft Blogging post.

Harder than ever

Cluetrain's hardcover edition still has an Amazon rank of 1,083. The paperback is 24,348. The hardcover is long since out of print. Strange.

Mel down

When I heard this morning that Mel Karmazin, clearly the best executive ever to come emerge from commercial radio, was out of Viacom, two thoughts immediately came to mind.

First, there goes Howard Stern's only corporate protection. Making money is clearly not enough in a regulatory environment that will soon (if the right laws pass, which apparently they will), allow the FCC to impose economic death penalties on offending programs, networks and even individuals. (By the way, Howard prophesied Mel's ouster.)

Second, sell Viacom. I see that Jeff agrees.

Bonus links: Neil Boortz on the Federal Censorship Commission.

Constructive engagement

Here are Jeff, Britt, Dan and Marc on Spirit of America, a Good Thing if there ever was one.

Be there then

Mark's notes from the Digital Be-In, featuring homonymic Marc at his operatic largest.

The pitch, the half-truth and nothing but the list

Back on April 11, I asked why NPR was only on Sirius satellite radio. This morning, while going through old email, I found a response I had missed from a reader who had asked XM satellite radio the same question, one year earlier, and received a response that gave two reasons: 1) NPR is available pretty much everywhere in the U.S. on terrestrial radio; and 2) NPR doesnt let Sirius carry its "A-list" programs, like Fresh Air (weekdays), All Things Considered and Morning Edition. (It does provide Car Talk, Fresh Air Weekend, Tavis Smiley and various "B-list" programs.) The XM correspondent added that this was perhaps a bit misleading by Sirius.

And it is.

I have the same problem with DishTV serving up "local" network channels that include all four main commercial network affiliates, plus PBS... but not the local PBS station. So we get Fox from KTTV/11, ABC from KABC/7, NBC from KNBC/4 and CBS from KCBS/2, all from Los Angeles; but not PBS from KCET/28. Instead we get a PBS feed on which prime time seems to consist of endless Charlie Rose interviews. So "Dawn of the Maya," which Dave Pentecost advised seeing, and which I wrote about here, was never carried anywhere among the several thousand (so it seems) channels on our DishTV system.

Now I'm not trying to make a big deal out of any of this. I'm not a satellite radio subscriber. And although I'm a DishTV subscriber, about all we use it for these days is watching parts of NBA basketball games, and listening to Sirius music channel feeds.

But there is something less than honest, or less than fully disclosing, about what Sirius and DishTV say they provide from public broadcasting.