I admit that I may be painting myself as a bit of an odd duck here, but I’m the type of person who purposely avoids taking transit during peak hours, going grocery shopping when most others do, hitting the gym during busy times and just generally avoiding rush hours, crowds and mobs. So much so that my entire schedule, including holidays, is designed around the idea.

The notion may seem anti-social, but in fact I think it has more to do with an evolutionary principle. If I seek out things that I need or run errands when there are less people about, there will be less competition for available resources, and I won’t be nearly as stressed out as I might otherwise be. Obviously, because of work schedules not everyone has the ability to do this, but it’s one of the major advantages of working from home.

While the Cat’s Away, the Mouse Will Work

The holidays are not a great time for doing much of anything. The malls are packed, transit is unbearable, and even the gym gets prohibitively busy for about three or four weeks following Christmas and New Year’s Eve celebrations. When there’s downtime for most, I spend the least amount of time on personal an leisure activities. Instead, I turn to work.

Work is the one refuge for the beleaguered loner during the holidays, for the very simple reason that almost no one else is doing any. This is especially beneficial if your job in any way involves competing with colleagues for publication space, as it does in my case, but it can also be useful in many other ways to any number different types of remote workers.

Less Distraction

During the holidays, and especially the Christmas season, I’ve noticed a significant decrease in the amount of Internet chatter going on. Twitter is a much less active place, as is Facebook, at least in my personal experience.

Even the news cycle seems to lull around Christmas, or maybe I just hear about it less because of the dip in social media activity. TV is totally bereft of any new content, and becomes a veritable wasteland of holiday special repeats and marathons of shows that last for 16 hours and can be pretty tedious, even if you’re a fan to begin with.

Your inbox fills up at a fraction of the pace you’re used to during ordinary working days, too. There was a day just recently when I received only five emails, total, for example. I can’t remember the last time that happened, but I guarantee it was long before I started making my money working online.

Less Competition

I know I already mentioned that there is less competition over the holiday period which can be good news for writers like me, but it also applies to other fields in less obvious ways. For example, holiday cover work is a great opportunity to make some extra money during a time when many people are on vacation. You’re especially well-placed to take advantage of this opportunity if you don’t yet have a family, or are semi-retired and don’t mind the time it takes away from your holiday.

In order to get some extra work over the holidays, make your employer and coworkers aware of your desire to help out long before the Christmas season actually hits. If you have to, make sure you put in some time beforehand training up and asking about how to go about doing the jobs you might be asked to cover when the time comes. If your organization is aware you know how to do the job, it’ll make their decision to use you when needed a lot easier.

A Gift for Yourself

While it can be hard to summon the motivation to go to work when everyone else around you is in the process of unwinding completely and enjoying the season, it an also be very rewarding. Just because the world slows down when the year winds down, doesn’t mean it stops completely. There’s still plenty of gears that need turning, and best of all, you’ll be in a much better position to pick and choose from a relative wealth of work.

Don’t get me wrong, I still crave a break. And a break I shall have, but it’ll be a time-shifted one, designed to take place at a time when everyone else has gone back to work.

Did you work over the holidays?

So it has been a while since we started dating long-distance and in the past few months we have come to appreciate Skype. Not only is it free to chat Skype to Skype, but we can video chat, thus saving us minutes on our cell phone plans and giving us visual images as well as sound. Granted, Skype doesn’t always work as well as I would like it to, but that is in part due to bandwidth and hardware. So far we have had a few kinds of dates via Skype, but the one I would like to showcase here is the most mediated and encompassing of what new technology has to offer.

Skype-dates where we watch TV together:

Mike has a DVR and is capable of time-shifting his viewing. I am on the west coast, so really we can only shift the 8pm and 9pm time-slots without it being too late in Indiana. We will plan ahead to meet up on Skype before the show starts, usually it is So You Think You Can Dance, Glee, or House. I will sit down with my laptop in front of the TV and he will do the same. While Skype watching we can comment to each other  either verbally or through text to be able to have the same running commentary that we would have if we were watching the show together.

The second kind of watching happens when things are not on live TV, usually if we have less than an hour to kill between something. We started watch How I Met Your Mother, because I had never seen it and Mike owns it on DVD. Watching things on DVD while on Skype enables us to pause as needed to take breaks. Similarly, streaming things on Hulu enables the same principle. Being able to pause allows us the time for tangential conversations without missing content.

Aside from the fact that I miss being able to watch TV with him and cuddle on the couch, Skype is the best possible alternative. In a highly mediated world, it is nice to know that these technological inventions and digital content culture,  that is causing the television industry so much strife-because they don’t want to become the music industry- is bringing so much joy to my life, and to the life of my boyfriend.

Dear TV people,

Don’t take away my content for free online. It helps me to connect emotionally with my sweetie even though he is far away. Find out how to deal with your industrial issues another way.

Thanks,

Meredith

I have to admit, I am a sucker for a good TV show.

Some years can prove sparse when it comes to finding quality TV programming. Ever since the rise of reality television (of which I refuse to watch…ok maybe American Idol but that’s it), networks have not, until recently, been putting their money into producing well-written television shows.

Fortunately, I have noticed a change in the tides of late.  Where a network would have pulled a television drama off the air a few years ago, shows are being given extended life these days…and it we really have the web to thank.

If you peruse the web, you’ll find that nearly every prime-time television show can be viewed online either for free (check out ABC, CBS, FOX, NBC, CW, or just watch them all on Hulu) or purchased for under $3 on iTunes. Programs are being made available the day after their original television air date, and the quality of online streaming video has hit a point in which resolution is no longer an issue – the picture on my computer monitor is comparable to that of my television.

Networks that have adopted this new fad of program viewing are allowing for “time shifting,” a phenomenon in which viewers can choose to watch their favorite programs at a time they choose rather than having to be home by 8pm to catch the latest episode of Lost. Additionally, the viewer metrics and ratings from online viewership can be measured much easier and much more in depth than that of television viewership, which relies on surveys and Nielsen ratings.

If anything, being able to watch television over the web gives me a feeling of power over what shows are worthy continued production. If there is a show I enjoy thoroughly, I make a point to watch the show online so that my viewership can be traced and the networks know that I am “tuning in.” In the television broadcast model, there is no guarantee that my viewership is being counted.

I like viewing television programs online because I feel like I am in control. Less commercials, more choices, and the networks know what shows I think are worthy of my viewership. If things keep going the way they are, I’ll happily drop my cable service and not think twice about it.

A couple days ago News Corp. Deputy Chairman Chase Carey said at Broadcast & Cable’s OnScreen Media Summit that in 2010 the company will probably start charging for content on Hulu, most people’s favorite site for viewing broadcast shows online.  As one can imagine, this has caused quite a stir, as does everything that was formerly free when people have to start paying for it.

For people who don’t have cable or satellite—and no DVR—online viewing is the only convenient way to time-shift TV watching.  (Taping a show on a VCR does not count as convenient.)  Besides watching shows on network websites (Fox On Demand, Comedy Central, NBC, etc.), show-aggregator sites like Hulu and Fancast serve as the major venue for online viewing.  If you’ve got a computer with an HDMI out, a TV with an HDMI in, and access to the internet, you’ve got last Thursday’s FlashForward on a big screen with a great picture but now it’s showing at 3:17a while you’re drunk cramming a Nacho Crunch Burrito into your dip-hole.  (Because you were hammered, you won’t remember what happened and you’ll have to watch it again, which you can do anytime you want because of sites like Hulu.)

The best thing about these sites is that they are free.  You have to sit through some Blackberry or Epson ads, but the commercials are far less frequent and much shorter than the ads that run during the show’s actual broadcast slot.  A small price to pay.  This may not be the case much longer.

The aforementioned Chairman Carey says “It’s time to start getting paid for broadcast content online.” He continues, ““I think a free model is a very difficult way to capture the value of our content. I think what we need to do is deliver that content to consumers in a way where they will appreciate the value…Hulu concurs with that, it needs to evolve to have a meaningful subscription model as part of its business.” Mr. Carey, most viewers already appreciate the value of online viewing without paying for it.  If the free model, supported only by advertising, simply isn’t working, then by all means, try something different and see if it flies.  But don’t act like you’re doing us a favor or teaching us a lesson in economics by charging for something we now get gratis.  We don’t necessarily disagree with you, at least not on all points.  We just don’t like condescension.

Broadcast, analog programming didn’t cost anything because companies didn’t own the actual airwaves—they made money through ad revenue.  Cable and satellite services charge for the delivery method, and for bundled and tiered services.  We get that.  But will we pay, and how much if so, for online broadcast programming (for the most part) that we can get free just by turning on the TV?  We’re already paying for the delivery method: high-speed internet, so perhaps News Corp. is betting we’ll pay a little bit more for the convenience of time-shifted, always-available, pause-any-time viewing.  Next year, we’ll see if they’re right.

For years we (and others) have been discussing how TV shows get financed in a time-shifted and place-shifted world.  If viewers can use TiVo to skip the ads, where does the money come from?  If I cut my coax and go with iTunes or Roku or Vudu, is there enough money left to fund HBO, ESPN, CNBC, etc?

Will we really be lost without Lost?

One possible solution is increased product placements à la James Bond.  There are literally hundreds of examples to choose from, but a personal favorite of mine is the BMW chase scene in Tomorrow Never Dies:

In the season premier of Heroes, we saw an aggressive move in this direction by NBC.  An entire scene is dedicated to Claire and her friends playing Guitar Hero 3.  Another scene gets weird:  Hiro and Ando are standing in front of cardboard cut-outs of themselves and a giant cardboard smartphone with the Sprint logo emblazoned across the top – an ad within an ad within the TV show.

Look for more of this to come in future episodes of Heroes and other high production value TV.

HealthNews of the Week

Click on each headline to read the full article, or click the play button to listen.

Study Suggests Chiropractic Reduces Health Care Costs, Need for Surgery
“Findings from the Wellmark Blue Cross and Blue Shield 2008 Physical Medicine Pilot on Quality, a one-year pilot program designed to measure patient quality of care, suggest significant clinical outcomes and health care cost reductions attributable to the use of chiropractic and other physical medicine services.”

45% Of Doctors Would Consider Quitting If Congress Passes Health Care Overhaul
“Two of every three practicing physicians oppose the medical overhaul plan under consideration in Washington, and hundreds of thousands would think about shutting down their practices or retiring early if it were adopted, a new IBD/TIPP Poll has found.”

Activity Adds Years to Life, Even for Octogenarians
“Old people who are physically active are apt to live longer than their couch-potato peers, and are more likely to maintain their independence, new research from Israel shows.”

In One Study, a Heart Benefit for Chocolate
“People who eat chocolate have increased survival rates after a heart attack, researchers in Sweden found in an observational study.”

Download

Click here to Find out about a HealthNews Show of your own!

or just click on our contact link and we will get back to you!!

Just a couple of days ago I was watching a show that I had recorded from Comedy Central from a few nights before. I was in the family room – where my kids often play and hang out. I typically fast forward through the commercials but I was answering a question that my seven year old asked and simultaneously keeping an eye on my three year old girl who was playing with markers, when I realized that an ad for Girls Gone Wild came on and before I could grab the remote and hit a button, any button to stop, pause, change whatever, my son got an quick eyeful of… well – you know what he saw. It immediately occurred to me that I was watching a show in the middle of a weekend day that originally aired late in the evening – well past the confines of prime time. Ooops! Lesson learned. Time shifting needs context shifting as well.  This happens often… How many times have those blasted Cialis or Viagra ads come on while watching Colbert Report in the late afternoon and beg the question… “Daddy what is IT that’s being enhanced?” or “Why are those grandparents talking about sex?”. Seems like there would be an opportunity to serve up different ads dynamically targeted to the day part in which the show is actually being watched via DVR – and not just when it aired. As opposed to seeing the GGW ad, imagine my (and my son’s reaction) if it was an ad for Six Flags, Giant’s baseball or something else more appropriate for 11am on a Saturday afternoon? Take heed Tivo.

Tactless Logic:

The Emmy Awards Time-Shifting Fiasco

The Academy was so close to getting away with it.

Every year, the Emmys are faced with a mountain of criticism that no other award show really deals with, as the show in and of itself is part of the medium that it judges. While the Oscars or the Grammys are television presentations, the critics who analyze them as award shows are not likely film critics, and lack that personal connection with the material being dealt with. With the Emmys, however, the same television critics who (rightfully) criticize the Emmys for failing to recognize certain performers or certain shows for various reasons are the same ones who watch and criticize the show itself, making it a darn tough job to be in charge of the awards show.

This year, they are in the unenviable decision of having to make dramatic changes after two disastrous experiments: first, FOX confused just about everyone with their “Theater in the Round” setup, and last year ABC allowed the Reality Competition Program hosts to host the event and nearly caused a riot amongst angry critics questioning the lack of humour, chemistry, and just about anything worthwhile. They’re in the position where they needed to make changes, but when critics are always on the lookout for potential concerns they needed to step very carefully.

The changes they came up with, and revealed this week, were changes designed in order to streamline the show, allowing more time to let critic-approved Neil Patrick Harris do his thing, and to clear the way for the show to be more engaging for the audience at home. Their purpose alone, is quite logical: everyone wants a better show, and people acknowledge that there need to be changes for that to happen.

Where the Academy (particularly producer Don Mischer) went wrong, however, is in how they sold these changes, changes that demonstrate a logical understanding of some of the award show’s struggles and yet also a tactless understanding of how critics, the industry and other observers would react to their reasoning. If sold differently, these changes would have remained a sticking point but one that would have been over time forgiven: as it stands, it’s a scandal that isn’t going away anytime soon, and a scandal that’s standing in the way of the Emmys making a much-needed comeback.

For those who don’t know, the plan for the Emmys is to take a selection of categories and pre-tape (or “time-shift”) them, allowing the producers to edit them down to the essentials (a list of nominees, the winning speech) and cut out the parts that take up time (the walking, the preamble, the verbal listing of nominees, and in some instances parts of the speech which are considered “unnecessary”) so as to “streamline” the process. The awards that were being moved were primarily in the Longform categories, meaning all non-acting TV Movie/Miniseries categories, with one notable exception: the Academy would also be relegating the Writing for a Drama Series award to this pre-taped status.

On the surface, I will say this much: cutting the longform categories is actually borderline logical. No, it’s not entirely fair, but the Emmys presents more awards than any other award show, and the Grammys has been doing similar relegation for years, without the same type of pre-taped presence within the show itself (remember, they’re not cutting the awards, just not airing them live). The fact of the matter is that there are fewer TV Movies and Miniseries each year: there are only two nominated miniseries this time around, and HBO’s Grey Gardens is going to sweep every TV Movie category in existence. The competition just isn’t there to make these categories feel as important as they may have once been when there were more networks producing these longer formats, and efforts to streamline seem to be quite logical in their focus on these areas.

However, this wasn’t the logic that was presented by the Academy. Instead, they were honest in that these changes were being done because HBO tends to dominate these categories, and that they believe the Emmys as an awards show appeals to a broader audience than that which watches prestige projects on the cable network. It’s at this point that the wheels start to go off the rails: it’s one thing to streamline based on television trends and questions of competition, but popularity is a variable that doesn’t feel at home in what is supposed to be an objective awards show. Yes, people were probably tired of seeing John Adams walk all over the Emmys last year, but isn’t the whole point of the Emmys (at some level) to expose a broader viewership to projects of high quality they may not have seen?

I would tend to argue that, if they had simply cut the Miniseries categories, this would have remained a fairly isolated incident: HBO would have been frustrated, and I’m sure there would have been some controversy, but for the most part it would considered a somewhat tactless but ultimately logical move to streamline the show by isolating the least competitive categories. However, the decision to cut the Writing for a Drama Series award took this scenario from a logical if tactless decision to an outright war against television writers.

There is nothing about the elimination of the Drama Series writing category that can be spun in any other way: it is an outright attack on the low-rated Mad Men, which has four of the nominations in the category and is likely to win. Forget the fact that the show is up for three acting awards and Outstanding Drama Series, and won the trophy last year: this is a category most likely won by a “niche cable show,” and as a result it was lumped in with the longform categories. It was at this point that controversy erupted: what was once an attempt to streamline an awards show was now unquestionably an attack on the apparent lack of “popularity” of certain show, shows that the Academy’s voting body has clearly deemed worthy of the honour and that both the industry and critics are quite fond of.

What I find fascinating about this whole scenario is that this has become an issue of equality the likes of which seems kind of surreal when you consider that it is a question of when the awards are TAPED rather than if they’ll air at all. I honestly don’t think that the actual format changes are even the issue anymore, replaced by a sense that the Academy is making those format changes with “Is the show popular with mass audiences?” as their most important consideration. I believe they would have faced similar concerns had they only downgraded the longform categories, as the writers and directors and producers of those programs would still be deemed “less worthy” than the actors in the same movies and miniseries, who help bring in ratings with their “celebrity” and the like. However, I believe those concerns could have been smoothed over with an understanding of how the streamlining would maintain their presence in the show itself, whereas this brouhaha has gone beyond the point of clarification smoothing things over.

I had the pleasure of communicating with Felicia Day, writer/creator/star of The Guild and most famous recently for her parts in the projects of Joss Whedon (Dr. Horrible, Dollhouse) over Twitter about her efforts earlier today at getting an “EmmysFail” hashtag into the social network’s trending topics. She cited, most directly, the recent letter from the Writers’ Guild of America, where numerous showrunners (from not only affected shows, but pretty much every show you could imagine) speaking out against the changes, in her effort to launch the campaign. It was ultimately successful: the hashtag was picked up by many, including fellow actors, and hit the trending topics this afternoon.

I asked her a question, though, about whether or not she sees this as an issue with the writing awards (the group most commonly listed as the most slighted of the groups, based on the Drama category) or in general, and she responded with the following:

All of them should be broadcast live. I wish that my OWN union, SAG. had a protest letter I could link to like WGA & DGA.

And here we have the ultimate evidence that this issue has spiraled out of the Academy’s control: this has become a question of solidarity, wherein the industry is banding together against this practice. Forget that the Grammys do the same thing even more harshly (for types of music just as valid as others, just far less popular, and without seeing the speeches or the nominees), the selection process is so frought with tactless references to skewed perceptions of television quality and craftsmanship that it has become an issue that goes beyond the actual changes to the very essence of the Academy itself. The reason SAG doesn’t have a protest letter is unclear, since the Supporting Acting Movie/Miniseries categories were amongst those time-shifted, but Day’s involvement indicates that actors are willing to fight for their writers and directors who are the “victims” of not streamlining for change, but a calculated attack on programming (and individual contributors to that programming) not considered popular enough to walk all the way to the stage during the three-hour telecast.

I don’t blame Day and others for being upset about the changes, which have been couched in terms that the Academy is, I promise you, regretting at this very minute. There’s speculation that the changes are about appealing to the networks, whose contract to air the awards show is up and who are “tired” of HBO, AMC, and other niche cable networks dominating the show and robbing their own shows of the added exposure. However, I think the changes being made (to longform categories) are actually quite logical when viewed in terms of television trends and award show precedent, and if they had only left off the Drama Writing award, and better explained their reasoning beyond the point of “popularity,” this wouldn’t have been the controversy it’s become.

However, in their tactless logic, the Academy has turned a “change for the better” for their beleaguered telecast into a controversy that crosses guilds, genres, networks and social networks. They needed a change, that’s for sure, but I think they got more than they bargained for with this one.

Cultural Observations

• I know some have been critical of Neil Patrick Harris for defending these changes during his TCA Emmys press conference, but you can’t blame him: he’s an employee like anyone else, and the changes would actually help him to get more time to do his thing and entertain viewers. It’s a tough position to put an actor in, and I don’t think he should be deemed unsympathetic to the cause as a result of his efforts to clear the air – plus, as James Hibberd notes above, he was far more diplomatic about the whole thing.
• Full disclosure: my only real anger over the elimination of the “walking to the podium” section will be if David Simon and Ed Burns win an award. If I don’t get to see them strut to the podium and shove their Emmy(s) in the Academy’s face for shunning The Wire, I’ll be enormously angry.
• For more on this subject, you can find articles by Diane Kristine Wild and Mo Ryan.

While reading one of my favorite sites, I stumbled upon a news that’s news-worthy enough for us communication technologists. It is available here.

The Summary

To give you guys a summary of the news, it’s all about how the Canadian government would want to innovate its copyright laws due to the massive use of file-sharing processes. Bill C-61 was introduced by the Conservative Party of Canada in June 2008 and it created  a lot of noise in the consumers’ and creators’ worlds. The Bill, at first , is legislating for improvement in the copyright law. Concepts such as time-shifting (TiVo thingy), file sharing (P2P), DRM (Digital Rights Management), fines (C$500/pirated max instead of US$9,000/creation pirated), and laws that would protect creators from the hands of law-circumvence. The Bill created uproar in the different sectors of the Canadian society until news for the bill died out some months ago.

What’s Now?

The Canadian government is back, and now with a fresh perspective of the bill. Due to irreconcilable debate regarding the bill, the government is actually asking its citizens on their views regarding the bill. This time, they are not the ones who will be imposing on the bill that only created media mileage and achieved zero solution, but the government actually wants to hear from the people who use these technologies! How is that even possible? Is it fictitious? I don’t think so. The government has even put up a Copyright Consultation site to ask its citizens on how they would want the new copyright law to influence digital rights, consumer’s use of it, and the creators as well. To quote Minister of Industry Tony Clement: “Canadians are concerned with copyright and its implications in our increasingly digital environment. . .” Our goal is to give Canadians from across the country a chance to express their views on how the government should approach the modernization of copyright laws. Your opinions and suggestions will help us draft new, flexible legislation so that Canada can regain its place on the cutting edge of the digital economy.”

Flexible. I love the term.

So what is in the site? Essentially, just five questions.

1 . How do Canada’s copyright laws affect you? How should existing laws be modernized?
2 . Based on Canadian values and interests, how should copyright changes be made in order to withstand the test of time?
3. What sorts of copyright changes do you believe would best foster innovation and creativity in Canada?
4. What sorts of copyright changes do you believe would best foster competition and investment in Canada?
5. What kinds of changes would best position Canada as a leader in the global, digital economy?
My eyes suddenly filled itself with water for no reason (maybe because I’m rubbing it now :p). Is this for real? I mean, IS THIS FOR REAL? The government, the high institution that prides itself in getting work done by representatives that don’t speak representatively, and loves shooting binding walls to its citizens, is getting knowledge from the “ordinary” peasants? Yes. And it’s happening in one part of the globe, a huge part at that.

Implications

Going back by jet, we now focus on its implications on our country. What does it mean for our country?

The Philippines is, like Canada and many other countries, in need of a serious reform regardng DRM and Copyright laws. Taking into consideration the Canadian move, we might actually gain from this inspiration. How about setting up the kind of consulation Canada is doing right now? I think the government needs to listen to the people to prevent everlasting debates that the government itself is engaging by referencing on books, not on experience. The people need to be heard. That’s why social media is sprouting its cones like mushrooms-too fast you don’t even see it coming. What Canada has done is not only get better resource, knowledge, and wisdom from its constituents, but also embrace the face that times are changing, and people want to be heard because they have something to say.

Unfortunately, I could only hope that the Philippine administration adopted to these changes in society. We are still living in a classical environment, with classical procedures, even with classical leaders. Hayden Kho and Katrina Halili will still be toys of media, the administration and the Internet, forever holding to the sight of a law that would protect their interests. I am not saying that file-sharing is bad, but boundless file-sharing is gonna go kaboom like New Year. There should still be limitations, and the collective wisdom of the people will solve this problem.

As organizational communicologists as well, we are tasked by our principles to take an active part into the changes that our society is undergoing. Lots of repairs here and there, and reconciliations between baby boom, Gen X, Gen Y, and NetGen are being stitched. Let us be mindful of the implications of rules and procedures here in our country, and how they will shape our future. Let us be proactive in engaging people to speak out their concerns about the flux of technology, for without engagement, there could be no attachment-attachment to the country that Jose Rizal is calling as Nationality.

The choice is always within the people. And while you’re deciding, watch the 9-year “champ” with her awfully-crafted, bad-PR statements last year.

h

Cookies aren't what they used to be

A survey conducted by the Gadget Helpline” resulted in the following list of the Top Ten Technology Terms laypeople find the most confusing. That is, these were the ten most confusing terms at the time this blog was being written. There will probably be ten new ones by lunchtime!

For those of you who not fluent in Techno Speak, I have looked up these terms online and done my best to decipher their definitions.

Dongle – A small, portable piece of hardware that connects to your computer. For example, a USB device.

Cookie- Small parcels of text sent by a server to your web browser which may track or maintain information related to your browsing practices. Cookies have some positive uses, like remembering your login in and password so that you don’t have to sign back into a site (such as Facebook or Yahoo Mail), each time you visit it and they make online shopping carts possible.

WAP – A WAP is a unit used to measure the size of a software program. One WAP is equivalent to one-hundred thousand lines of source code.

Phone Jack – I thought maybe this was a trick term. Who doesn’t know what a phone jack is? Then it struck me; there are new millenials who cut their teeth on cell phones and who have had little experience with landlines. Maybe this was a case of a term being too old rather than too new to be understood by some of the people surveyed.

Navi Key – Answers.com defines Navi Key (short for Navigation Key) as “a keyboard key used to move the pointer around the screen.” On a traditional keyboard, the Navi Keys are your four arrow keys With the advent of the mouse and the touch screen, Navi Keys have become superfluous on keyboards, but they now appear on those portable electronic devices on which you have to navigate up, down, and sideways to display objects on a screen.

Time Shifting – Recording a program so you can watch or listen to it later.

Digital TV – Apparently while many of the people surveyed own a digital TV, they have little concept of how it actually works. TV According to Answers.com, digital TV is the encoding of picture information into digital signals which are transmitted and then decoded by a receiver. Digital TV is a time series of discrete signals “consisting of a sequence of quantities… A time series that is a function over a domain of discrete integers.” Is there an algebra teacher in the house?

Ethernet – No, this term does not refer to the anaesthetizing effects of the web during prolonged surfing. Rather it has more to do with that jumble of cables behind your desk. The Ethernet consists of the cables and access points used to connect local area networks (LAN), which may include computers, printers, and other shared hardware, not to mention your DSL cable if you haven’t graduated to WiFi.

PC Suite – Nokia’s PC Suite is a proprietary software package that allows Nokia mobile devices to interface with computers running on Microsoft Windows.

Desktop – (1) A flat surface used to collect all manner of clutter; (2) What you see on your monitor: your background, virtual folders, icons representing the programs you frequently access, and the fingerprint left by a co-worker who pointed something out while eating greasy fries.

Llega otro informe sobre las pautas de consumo de televisión a nivel mundial. En realidad, hablar de televisión es una forma de entendernos porque el estudio, como es lógico, no se ocupa sólo de la televisión clásica (la televisión lineal), sino de los programas y contenidos audiovisuales consumidos mediante un conjunto de plataformas. Se trata de Television in Transition, el sondeo de consumo audiovisual 2008 de la consultora Accenture (prf; información en WorldScreen).

La conclusión principal es que cada vez más personas consumen contenidos audiovisuales en mayor número de plataformas distintas. Esta tendencia es universal (o por lo menos común en los 15 países estudiados) con pecualiariades nacionales, y mucho más acusada entre los jóvenes, sobre todo entre los menores de 25 años.

La verdad que la foto de portada es toda una declaración. El consejo subyacente -incluso un directivo del sector lo manifiesta abiertamente- es producir pensando en esos jóvenes, más dispuestos a consumir en cualquier plataforma, pagar por ello y soportar la publicidad. El informe reconoce que la televisión tradicional tiene por delante mucho futuro, pero pinta un panorama en el que producir pensando en los más jóvenes será cada vez más rentable. En una sociedad cada vez más gris ¿los contenidos audiovisuales estarán sólo dedicados a los jóvenes?.  Conclusión propia: sólo los servicios públicos sin criterios de rentabilidad comercial podrán satisfacer las necesidades del conjunto de la población, mientras que las compañías privadas se concentrarán en productos de múltiple explotación.

Uno de los hallazgos que me parecen más esclarecedores es que cada contenido, en función de su formato y su género, deberá ser editado para un conjunto de plataformas según sus características. Inserto un cuadro que muestra las preferencias de los consumidores con respecto a determinados contenidos y las plataformas PC y dispositivos móviles. Por ejemplo, resulta muy claro que vídeos de  actualizaciones y alertas informativas serán editados en formatos muy breves para dispositivos móviles. En cambio, series y tv-movies aparecen como contenidos especialmente aptos para plataformas de vídeo a la demanda (televisión a la carta).

El sondeo muestra que los espectadores son cada vez más fieles al programa o producto y menos al canal. Los canales que no sean capaces de producir contenidos con un sello propio, aptos para distintas plataformas, tienen un negro futuro. Con todo los respetos, creo que eso es lo que les ocurre a las televisiones privadas españolas y en menor grado a TVE, en la medida que su programación está mayoritariamente en manos de productoras externas. En cambio, pienso, canales productores de contenidos con un sello de calidad, como la BBC, se adaptarán bien al nuevo escenario.

De los nuevos servicios de la televisión interactiva, el más apreciado por los encuestados es el de interrumpir o demorar el visionado de un programa en directo (time-shifting) y a continuación formas de televisión a la carta, que aceptan mejor bajo la fórmula de pago de la tarifa plana. Creo que aquí también los servicios públicos pueden dar la batalla, como nuevamente muestra la BBC, que desarrolla ya una plataforma de televisión a la carta sobre banda ancha, el proyecto Canvass.

Por último, una referencia a España -donde, por cierto, el límite de edad de los encuestados ha sido 55 años. De la televisión que ven, los españoles son los espectadores más molestos con la publicidad.

Conclusión fina (propia): ¡Es la calidad de los contenidos, estúpido!

One of my cable boxes is also a digital video recorder (DVR). I occasionally use it to record a show. In that respect it’s basically like a fancy VCR without the tapes. I have to admit that function is pretty convenient (when you actually remember to set it to record). Fast forwarding through the commercials is another big plus.

The remote for the DVR has this other button, though. This other button promises to “pause live TV.” I never press this button. For some reason I find the idea of pausing anything that’s live a bit troubling. Don’t get me wrong – it’s not that I think the idea of pausing live television is going to cause a universal breakdown on some quantum level.

Here’s my problem: once I pause live TV how do I ever catch up? Think about for a minute. Let’s say you pause live television for ten minutes while you get a drink from the fridge. You come back, sit down and click the play button on the remote. The show continues playing and life is good. Right? Wrong. You are now ten minutes behind the rest of the world.

How are you ever going to catch up? That cold drink comes with a high cost. You could be ten minutes behind everyone for the rest of your life. While everyone else has moved on to the next show you’ll still be finishing up the previous one. Later, everyone else will learn the news ten minutes before you. Your buddy may call up to get your thoughts on the final score of the ballgame – except you won’t know the final score for another ten minutes.

And it only gets worse from there. If you don’t find a way to make up those ten minutes, you could be ten minutes late for everything: work, school, parties, dates, appointments. You’ll be playing catch-up for ever and all because you had to have a cold drink.

You could simply hit the “Resume” or “Live” button the remote, right? Wrong again. Now you’ve missed ten minutes. This little dilemma reminds us that things are never that simple. You can’t just click a button and pause life. Life continues with or without us. That’s why it’s important to live in each moment. Things are just more exciting when you’re not re-recorded.

And the next time you think about pressing that button to pause live television, just wait until the commercial like the rest of us.

How many times have you been in the car listening to a game or a news story and had to park and get out before it finished? I know it’s happened to me innumerable times. Sometimes the luxury of time is there and you can sit in the car and listen to the end, but far more often that is not the case.

Now there is a gizmo that can solve this problem for some listeners. Some public radio stations are using a device that attaches to your key chain to bookmark stories being broadcast so that you can listen to the rest over the Internet.

Via Jim Finkle at Reuters:

The radio bookmark, which looks like a car-door remote control, logs the time of the show a user wants to pull up. At home, a search engine accessed through a website checks to see what the station was broadcasting at that time and delivers the audio recording over the Internet.

“It’s kinda neat. You just press a button. Then you take it and plug it into your computer and up comes the story,” said Mike Steffon, director of marketing for Boston-based public radio station WBUR.

The devices are being used as premiums for donations, the primary revenue source for public stations. At this point he maker of the devices, Sky Blue Technologies, has no plans to offer the unit to commercial stations. The idea and implementation are worth watching though. While this exact device may not be offered to the commercial broadcasters similar functionality could well be inspired for the iPhone, Blackberry or other portable devices.

The concept is the key. I’ll be quite curious to see what this approach inspires!

Photo courtesy of kozumel, used under its Creative Commons license

Recent grumblings from Republican politicos claiming that Obama is doing “too much” before he is sworn into office on January 20, 2009 elicited this response from President Obama. OK, President Elect Obama.

“I’m sure you’re all familiar with the famous Supreme Court ruling in Sony Corp. of America v. Universal City Studios, Inc., also known as the “Betamax case”, which was a decision ruling that the making of individual copies of complete television shows for purposes of time-shifting does not constitute copyright infringement, but is fair use.

So what I’m doing now, is merely time shifting instructions to my staff and cabinet. By the time January 20 comes around and I’m officially President of the United States, these instructions will be there, ready for play back. I’m not infringing on President Bush in any way. I’m just time shifting my presidency.”

Republican strategists are scrambling to find a case precedent for filing suit against Obama, but don’t expect to be able to have a case heard by January 20.

To call Albert Cheng a TV industry insider is a supreme understatement. As the Executive Vice President over Digital Media at Disney’s ABC Television Group, Albert not only has a front row seat inside the industry, many would say he occupies the driver’s seat. Yeah, I’m mixing metaphors there, but you get what you get.

In fact, in my writings and in the speeches I give, I typically refer to Albert Cheng as the Father of Online TV. And though you can practically hear him blush when I say it to him over the phone for the first time, all hyperbole aside, it’s an accurate description of Cheng’s role in the dramatic changes sweeping over the television industry today.

It all started in April of 2006. It’s hard to believe it has only been that recently that ABC, in what seemed like an out-of-nowhere move, announced it would test streaming of two of it’s hottest shows, Lost, and Desperate Housewives, online, for free. Yes, free. The rest, as they say, is history. Today, ABC.com streams well over 50 million videos a month and is likely to cross the 100 million threshhold sometime next year. 

After Albert and I participated in the same conference on online video recently, I took the opportunity to interview him in more depth about his own experience with TV and his expectations of the future of the medium. The full-length interview I’m keeping to myself for a future project that shall remain nameless for now, but I’ll share three important things I learned from and about Albert Cheng here:

1. Cheng learned about TV technology from the VCR

One of my favorite images of Cheng’s childhood is of him watching the CBS soap opera As the World Turns alongside his mother each day. It became such an integral part of their lives that he admitted to following the show right up through high school. Unlike the soap opera itself, his relationship with it finally ended. “I lost track of it once I went to college.”

Buried in all of this soap opera goodness, however, were the seeds of the future. “In those days my mom’s schedule got busier. She couldn’t watch her soap operas during the day anymore. So she recorded them on the VCR, every day.” It was an early form of time-shifting, one that was rare elsewhere. But thanks to the Cheng household’s commitment to As the World Turns, the VCR was used as aggressively as most people use a DVR today. “My mom watched her daytime soap operas in primetime,” concluded Cheng.

This was a secret Cheng learned about new TV technology: it can make people watch more than they otherwise would. “Our media consumption started to go up, for sure.” 

2. How you watch depends on what you want to watch

Cheng lives a life of TV superabundance that he lives every day. “I have three televisions,” he begins, then with a pause, admits, “for a two-person household.” The largest television (65- or 70-inch, he can’t exactly recall) sits in the family room and is the center of their viewing life. There are two others in the home for specialized viewing – one in the home gym and one in the master bedroom. True to the lessons he learned at his mother’s side, he explains, “Our typical watching is predominantly time-shifted. It’s a combination of DVR and online.”

As I’m seeing more and more, where he watches depends on the show he wants to watch. “I choose shows for live viewing, then others that I record but prefer to watch on the TV.” He performs a kind of triage on potential shows. At the top are shows he has to watch on the big screen. “Even though Lost is available online [on his own network’s site, no less], I choose to watch it on TV.” For shows he wants to keep up with but doesn’t have to experience fully, he turns to the Web. “Online is a great way to keep up with shows I don’t have time to follow, but when I find a spare minute I can quickly catch up with.”

3. There’s a lot more to come in the future

In the long run Cheng proves he’s got what it takes to dream big. “I’m just going to put a flyer out there, this might be insane, but right now we see more and more 3D content for theaters and the TV.” I nod, thinking that I know where he’s heading with this. It’s the age-old maxim that in the end, all future predictions, when taken far enough, end up at the same place: Star Trek. With pervasive computers, matter replication, and clothing that doesn’t fit very well. I often end up there myself. In this case, I sense Cheng’s line of reasoning is headed straight to the holodeck made popular in the Star Trek: The Next Generation series.

“I’ll take it one step further and say there will be people who watch content in laser holographic 3D environments.” Bingo. “That would be the next theater level of entertainment, it eventually goes to the home, where you take virtual worlds and combine that with filmed entertainment. Then you get to 3D feel in a 3D world.”

I like that Cheng can think this big. I also like that someone with such unorthodox predilections is an insider with the power to lead us forward. Expect to see the mark of Albert Cheng on many a future video innovation.

As technology continues to advance, copyright owners must continue to be ever vigilant for new avenues of infringement. The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) recently filed suit against RealNetworks, Inc., the creator of the RealDVD software, seeking an injunction to prevent this software from being distributed. The suit is based mainly on a contract claim arising out of a license the MPAA gave to RealNetworks to create a player, although there is also a claim under the DMCA. This software allows a user to make a back-up copy of any DVD while still maintaining some of the protections required by the DMCA. RealNetworks, of course, claims that this software is designed to allow DVD owners to make back-ups of DVD’s they already own, while the MPAA claims that the software will be used to rip copies of rented and borrowed movies. Sounds like a job for the Sony doctrine.

The software’s function seems similar enough to a VCR to get the same sort of fair use protection those devices were given in the Supreme Court’s decision in Sony Corp. of America v. Universal City Studios Inc. In Sony, the Court held that device manufacturers will be immune from liability for secondary infringement if the device has substantial non-infringing uses. However, in Sony, the activity was considered time-shifting, or taping television shows to be watched later, while the RealDVD software seems to be more useful for creating a library, a use the Court did not address in Sony.

Representatives of RealNetworks have made some interesting choices in their communications with consumers, especially considering the decision from MGM Inc. v. Grokster Ltd., where the Court found that the Sony decision did not protect a device manufacturer who actively induced third-parties to infringe. Rob Glazer, the CEO of RealNetworks, was once quoted as saying “[i]f you want to steal, we remind you what the rules are and we discourage you from doing it, but we’re not your nanny.” Nanny or not, it sounds like RealNetworks was planning on selling a lot of software to people who will use it to infringe, and if Grokster is any guide, courts don’t like defendants who mainly profit from their customers’ infringement.

– Josh Bohannon

Además de ser el líder de The Alan Parson’s Project, Alan Parsons es un reconocido ingeniero de grabación que participó en discos como “Let it Be” y “Abbey Road” de The Beatles, y tuvo un papel destacado en la grabación de “The Dark Side of The Moon” de Pink Floyd.

Pues bien, el blog Music Thing publicó una lista de los 10 equipos favoritos del artista en el estudio, escrita por él mismo, y estos son:

1. Micrófono Neumann Km84, bueno para casi tod, excepto voces
2. Limitador valvular Fairchild 660, excelente para voces y bajos
3. Noise Gate Drawner, aunque los plugins de hoy en día pueden hacer lo mismo
4. De-esser Orban o dbx, para voces con problemas de siseo
5. Micrófono Audio Technica AT 4033. Lo vengo usando hace años como mi micrófono favorito para voces
6. El Autotune cuando se usa con discreción. La mayoría de las veces no es así.
7. El Fairlight y la Linn LM1 Drum Machine cambiaron el mundo. Yo trabajé con ambas. Es difícil imaginar la vida sin samplers y sin Sequencers de ritmos.
8. Una gran orquesta con un buen arreglo y un director competente. Ahorra tiempo y seguramente dinero.
9. El sintetizador Yamaha Motif XS. Fácil de usar y con gran sonido
10. Cualquier DAW que permita comprimir/estirar el tiempo (time shifting) en cualquier dirección por microsegundos o varios minutos. Este es un nuevo lujo que nos damos en la era digital.

Interesante selección, verdad? A mi particularmente me gustó la elección de “una gran orquesta en vivo”. Será realmente más barato que programar la sección de cuerdas?

Vía Music Thing

Michael Geist on Tory copyright legislation introduced in the House today:

I’ll have more to say soon, but the takeaway is that the DMCA provisions are worse than the U.S. and the consumer exceptions riddled with limitations as the government promotes a strategy of locking down content and launching lawsuits against Internet users.

When NBC and Fox announced their ‘me too’ online video joint venture, Hulu, I was understandably skeptical. After all, Joost had already launched to much fanfare with top partners like Viacom’s MTV and Turner’s Cartoon Network. YouTube had quite a niche already, and I satisfied all my TV time-shifting needs via BitTorrent.

“What would the big ol’ networks know about online video?” I thought. Evidently, they know quite a bit. Unlike the record industry’s litigious reaction to music downloads, Hulu is now a shining star of acceptance and business model revolution on the part of the TV industry. Bravo!

Boy, did Hulu get it right. Why did millions of folks download TV illegally? (And why do people still download music illegally?) Because it was cheaper and easier than ‘purchasing’ the legit product, traditional TV. Traditional TV is annoying — you have to sit in front of a box in your living room at a specific time and 1/3 of the time you’re sitting through ads.

Hulu tipped the scales just far enough to make high quality, instant streaming video of premium TV shows available to end-users. It is significantly more convenient than BitTorrent, which required 1-2 days of turtle-speed downloading, and it’s legal. AND, it’s even better than regular TV! While traditional TV ads drive me crazy (four minutes of ads per break is excessive), Hulu maxes out with at most four ads over the entire length of the video. And, of course, I can watch Hulu content whenever I want.

Now, Hulu just hammered the final nail by offering recent episodes of the Daily Show and the Colbert Report. With Colbert, Daily Show, The Office, Simpsons and the Family Guy, Hulu proves content is king. I’m a believer.

What happened to Joost? Two major factors come to mind:

• Joost required a proprietary, closed-source client (a la Skype per their founders), a step that turned off many users and just plain excluded many — no Linux or Mac PowerPC Joost client has been ever released. Hulu is open, not platform dependent and requires nothing more than a browser with a recent version of Flash.
• Joost’s content sucked. Which is a bit odd, especially considering their prime partners like Viacom and Turner. Funny that NBC/Fox’s Hulu was able to score Viacom owned Daily Show/Colbert content, even though Viacom is an investor in Joost. That should tell us something.

Link:

• Colbert Report on Hulu
• Daily Show on Hulu
• TechCrunch coverage

Pools of Time, Points of Perception

Time is one of the Big Mysteries to we earthlings.  If we were to journey out into space, our experience of time would be altogether different than it is here.  We may not age a day outside the earth’s time grids — which could be a huge selling point for extended space travel for boomers, should Richard Branson care to launch an industry in that direction.

Also, time can be traveled.  I don’t know how it works, but I know it is possible — physically and energetically.  I’ve experienced time travel in OBE states.  For instance, I once worked on an extensive program for an entrepreneurial awards bash in Boulder CO; I conceived the theme, worked out the script, and put together a fine multimedia program, as the thunderous response to it attested.  :)  While working on that project, I researched the history of the town and the area, which revolved around mining — lots of mining in the “rush” days of the late 1800’s. Anyway, while working on that project, I had two spontaneous ‘trips’ back to frontier days in Boulder!

One was quite a detailed vignette in which I was in the body of a woman riding in a very basic horse-drawn wagon. “I” was alone in this wagon, driving it, and we (horse & I) came upon a flooded area in the road. The wagon turned over in the deep water, and ”my” wedding ring slipped off of my finger as I dredged around with much difficulty,  dragging the tonnage of soaking wet, long, full “skirts” I wore in that murky water, all made even more problematic by the sucking mud at the bottom. So the rest of that scene involved trying to find the ring in that wet, muddy mess. By the time I was ‘back home,’ the ring had yet to be found.

Was I that woman in an earlier life? Or did I just time-jump and “piggyback” on this woman’s consciousness for that harrowing slice-of-life experience she had that day?  I tend to think the latter; I had no cognizance of her life beyond that immediate situation, for one thing.  It was an interesting little experience, and not one I could have spontaneously dreamed up!

The second OBE was altogether different: I was just a rocket of conscious energy that zoomed (flew) through a tavern – in through the back door and out through the front. I saw all these utterly slimey-looking spittoons that were situated every few bar stools for the customers, plus towels that hung off the bar to presumably mop stinky black juice off their facial hair, all for the delightful activity of tobacco chewing. Ech. Anyway, the bartender had quite a start as “something” blasted through his bar! He picked up on my presence, though just what he saw, I have no idea. I suspect something along the line of a streaking energy flash.

Last year I read a book that really amazed me, for reasons I can’t even begin to get into now.  The book is titled A Gathering of Selves, by the man (now quite elderly if even still alive) who for decades wrote and illustrated all the Superman and Batman comics for DC Comics.  This man, Alvin Schwartz, had amazing parallel-self (among other) experiences!  He wrote two books about them… of which this was the second.  Anyway, he talks about how on some level, events sort of “group together” beyond time, closely related (ie, are all about the same thing), even though the events themselves are playing out hundreds or thousands of years apart in 3D on our timeline.  In the ”no time” realm of — what — the ethers?  The 4th dimension?  At some location in our grids… the events are clustered together, all reflecting or involving the same issue, theme, or what have you.

For instance, I wouldn’t be surprised if THIS time we’re in right now is actually ”clustered” at the same intersection of reality that holds the shakedown days of Atlantis, which is ALSO clustered with the Lemurian continent and their issues, beliefs, and ways of doing things.  Lemuria was more about doing things as masters of the energies directly, or organically, I think, whereas Atlantis took their big shot at ”energy manipulation” that went far more into technology, which ended badly when the technology got bigger than they knew what to do with. I’ve always thought there was quite a strong parallel between America’s story &  trajectory, and Atlantis’. This culture seems to crave power via mechanics and technology, where the power lies with an elite few. So I’m thinking, somewhere in our earthly grids, these three cultures are clustered together in a “pool of time” that very closely resemble one another, though we are all playing with the components that we found and developed in our respective linear timelines.  And there are probably numerous other “historic” (or future) cultures in that “coagulation” as well.

On a more personal level, my pressing (and oh-so-tiresome at this point) issues have been grappled with in numerous other lifetimes, if various past-life readings are to be believed.  So does this mean that while I am dealing with them in the context of 2008, in a dimension of time a breath away from my “here/now” I’m dealing with the same themes in another context?  I suspect so.

I *do* twist my mind up into pretzels pondering things like this.  Time and the multidimensional, holographic universe are just too fascinating!

Right now, time is feeling rather tight. The clock graphic up top seems a fitting representation of our NOW, for, as the ancient Mayans foresaw and mapped out with their calendars, time and its contents are getting exponentially fleeting and intense with each ‘octave’ we pass (a whole other story; perhaps research on your own).  At this point (as of 11/07)  we are entering the end zone of tightening, quickening time. Still “linear,” but careening toward “zero point,” the point at which we pop through to a new system altogether — one of far lower density and a higher energetic frequency or vibration.  According to (interpretations of) the Mayan calendar, 2008 puts us smack in the midst of great mayhem.  Our crazy economic and changing earth situations make me wonder ever more about time and our holographic experience(s) of it.  Is there somewhere in time where all this has already shaken out, and, what were the results?  Are there millions of versions of results, spun by millions of souls who are focusing on myriad options, creating many of those options, that split “reality” off into endless versions?  The CD ROM with many many end-game scenarios programmed into it.  Do they all actualize… somewhere in the vast, multidimensional grids?  What would your ideal future outcome look like?

Ok; now my signal about time is–it’s time to STOP!  But one more thing.  Very mundane.  The other day I was browsing around one of those “lots” stores, that are full of all kinds of closeout crap.  This song came on over their sound system that had me literally dancing and singing in the aisle.  This was between dark scary tornado warnings and property-pummeling wind and rain, so I had a moment of playful release apparently!  The song is “Time Has Come Today.”  It’s a rockin’ great song.  I thought for sure it was by some “British invasion” band in the 60’s, picturing in my mind Beatles haircuts and dark suits and shades, but to my surprise it’s the Chambers Brothers! Who’da thunk? I got such a kick out of hearing it, I’m popping a video of it in here for your listening pleasure. :-}  I chose this particular video out of numerous ones on YouTube because it was the exact version they played on the radio in the 60’s — the “45″ version.  The video is merely a 45 spinning on a turntable.  Which was even kind of a hoot to see, actually.  Other vids show the band on Ed Sullivan and other live venues.  One is just last year in Golden Gate Park at a Summer of Love revival – a TIME warp! But listen up, and I defy you to remain seated when you do.  I’m also posting the lyrics, because some of them seem very apropos for today, if you check it out.  The lyrics are on the ‘read more’ post extension after the video.  Cheers ~ Whitehawk — whose soul has been galacticized (Hey!

Lyrics here (click)

Now the time has come (Time)
There’s no place to run (Time)
I might get burned up by the sun (Time)
But I had my fun (Time)
I’ve been loved and put aside (Time)
I’ve been crushed by the tumbling tide (Time)
And my soul has been psychedelicized (Time)

Tom Rogers, President
TiVo Inc.
150 East 52nd Street, 15th Floor
New York, NY 10022

June 4, 2008

Dear Mr. Rogers:

I noticed that you are partnering with Focus on the Family “SuperDad” promotion at family.org/fathersday.

What were you thinking? As a gay man, Focus on the Family is like the Ku Klux Clan to me. They are spending $11 million this year to block committed couples in California from making the commitment of marriage. They operate “ex-gay” programs, such as the one that just concluded in Orlando, that teach kids who think they might be gay that their only options are celibacy or suicide. They proclaim on their home page that “God created humans in His image, intentionally male and female, each bringing unique and complementary qualities to sexuality and relationships.” And that kind of talk gets people like me beaten, harassed and killed just for who we are.

While I believe these positions and ministries are un-American and un-Christian, I can’t fault Focus on the Family for believing them. However your sponsorship of these wicked activities gives them credibility. If TiVo believes what Focus on the Family is preaching, God help you. Otherwise, I wish you would reconsider the “SuperDad” promotion and the message that it is sending.

Sincerely,