LB's Rambles

CBS Marries CNET

In an alphabet soup marriage, CBS has decided to acquire Internet news purveyor CNET, in a deal worth about 1.75 Billion dollars according to Crain's New York Business. It's another example of old media looking for quick ways to expand further into the new media space, and it could make a lot of sense. Certainly, it looks like a good deal for CNET, as CBS will be paying $11.50 a share - up from the closing price yesterday of $7.95. Nice work if you can get it.

There's nothing hostile about the takeover; CNET is recommending approval to its shareholders, while CBS chief Les Moonves is praising CNET's virtues as "a profitable, growing, well-managed Internet company ." On the surface, it's probably a good move for both companies. We'll see what kind of reaction it draws.

Aargh

I like and admire Steve Rubel. His Micropersuasion blog is on my list of must-visit-daily sites, and a great deal of what he says is valuable. But he is also a perfect example of one of the things that drives me crazy about Twitter. So far this morning, Steve has sent 25 tweets on Twitter. Ten of them were within the last hour alone. 25 tweets. 25 times my Twhirl has set off an audible alarm and popped up a message box. 25 interruptions to my work flow.

I'm not singling Steve out. But I can tell you that I'd far rather he rolled all these together into one blog post which I could read at my convenience. Instead, the last post on his blog was four days ago. I guess blogging is so...yesterday. But 25 interruptions is simply too much - it becomes a time-waster, not a time-saver. As I say, it's one of my major complaints with Twitter.

Two more tweets from Steve while writing this. We're up to 27 and counting.

Are You "Hyperconnected"?

There's a fascinating nugget buried in a new study of workers around the world, as reported in Bulldog Reporter's Daily Dog today. The study itself, sponsored by Nortel and carried out by research company IDC, has some interesting findings about what one thing people would take with them if they had to leave everything else home - 30% say their mobile phone. But here's the nugget: the study found about 16% of the workers are what they called "hyperconnected."

It's the definition of hyperconnected that brought me up short: it means, according to the study, a person who uses a MINIMUM of seven devices for work and/or personal access, and a MINIMUM of nine applications such as IMs, texting or web conferencing.

Those are MINUMUMS.

Let's see. I use three computers - a desktop Dell, a desktop Mac and a laptop Dell (my wife uses a Mac iBook too, but I don't really use it, so I can't count that one). I have a cell phone. That's five. I don't know if they count iPods and such, or the land line phone, but I suspect I may not make the hyperconnected category.

And do I really use nine applications? Do separate social networks count? I use LinkedIn and Facebook and Twitter, but are those all part of one? I don't use IM very much and I mostly receive (rather than send) text messages. Nope, I'm not going to be hyperconnected.

The point is, 16% - ONE IN SIX - workers are already "hyperconnected." And the study predicts that will increase to 40% in five years.

Suddenly, I feel very old indeed...

To Catch a Thief

Score another point for today's communication technology: The Boston Herald has a story about how a woman whose computer was stolen managed to use another computer to locate the stolen machine  - and then use the multimedia capabilities of the stolen computer to finger (or maybe eyeball) the suspects.

Hat tip: Jules Crittenden

Unhappy Birthday

According to ABCNEWS.com, this past weekend marked the 30th "birthday" of email spam. Let us wish this nuisance a hearty Unhappy Birthday.

Personally, I'd far rather be attending a wake or memorial service for email spam. We'd all be able to sit around, maybe have a few drinks, and reminisce about all those get-rich-quick opportunities from wealthy bank scammers, those male-enhancement ads (particularly the ones sent to women), the endless opportunities to refinance with NO CREDIT WORRIES, the innumerable sales of foreign and/or phony drugs...the list goes on. And, after waxing nostalgic, we could bury the damned stuff. Permanently. And go home and get on with our lives, spam-free forever.

No, alas - email spam will live on. It will probably outlive us all. I wonder if, 70 years from now, someone will be writing about the hundredth birthday of this garbage.

Enhancing the Consumer Video Experience

3D technology has been used in movies for more than half a century – with considerable success, in some cases. The Disney Corporation has incorporated some of it into top-of-the-line attractions at Disney World and Disneyland. As the world moves to HDTV, what are the chances for improving this technology to expand the use of 3D in both movies and television?

At Bill Sobel’s monthly breakfast for the New York Media Information Exchange Group, we had a demonstration of the work being done in this field, and a chance to see how it is working right now.

David Dever, VP Broadcast and Network Sales of Quantel, presented a 3D video on their HDTV system. It’s pretty impressive. It does require wearing a set of special glasses to make the imagery work, but – once you get past that hurdle – the images themselves are quite impressive; the illusion of 3D is very good on a large HDTV screen.

According to Danny Peters, Director of Creative Services, Quantel, what’s different now is that we are able to do stereoscopic processing in post production. That has always been the primary problem in doing 3D productions. Traditionally, left and right images had to be edited separately. Quantel has come up with a way to make it work in post production. Peters provided a hands-on demonstration of how the editing can be carried out. Other techniques are possible as well – ways to provide color correction, depth perception and convergence, etc. Peters calls this one of the most significant developments in post production creation.

The demo was followed by a broader panel discussion of the 3D process and its possibilities, along with a review of some of the many considerations that need to be considered when shooting, editing and displaying 3D video.

The post-production technology on display could be used for virtually any display technology – from HDTV to Imax to the old Viewmaster “stereoscopic” viewer slides.

One key question: when will this get into the home and reach a much wider audience? Chris Chinnock says there are already a lot of 3D capable HDTVs in people’s homes – and nobody knows it. They do still require glasses. Some of the manufacturers are starting to do demo programs – it’s just starting to happen

Chinnock says there IS an audience for this. More theaters are coming on line virtually every day with the capability to display 3D entertainment releases, including fine arts and Metropolitan Opera productions. He also discussed a 3D in home consortium that is working on getting the technology into homes.

But there was also discussion of the need to change focus – to use the technology not as a novelty, but as a storytelling mechanism. There was general agreement on the panel that it is important to move past novelty and exploit the creative possibilities of the medium and the technology.

Chris Chinnock also says there are displays being made today that do not require glasses. This seems to me to be the direction that the industry will have to go. As long as you require an extra piece of hardware – the glasses – you’re going to be limiting your impact. Not a universally held sentiment among this group – but these are the pioneers in extending the technology.

Service Counts

I've written before about the information age dangers of providing bad service. At the risk of boring you, however, let me back my opinions up with some new statistics, courtesy of eMarketer. They say that more than 70% of US Internet users use social media at least sometimes BEFORE making a purchase, to find out what kind of customer service a company provides. According to eMarketer, "More than nine out of 10 respondents agreed with the statement, 'I have chosen companies/brands based on my customer care experiences.'"

Bottom line to would-be marketers, once again: if you're relying on advertising and PR to build your brand, and you're ignoring your customer service, you are in for serious disappointment.

Twitter: Maybe It's Not Just Me

An interesting, and rather surprising, story today in the Online Media Daily tells me - as the headline has it - that "Twitter Hasn't Reached Mainstream."  The story cites some new statistics from Hitwise Intelligence that place Twitter #439 among all social networks and forums.

OK. Maybe I'm going to reveal my total un-coolness here. But that "mainstream" would include me, I fear.

I use Twitter, but I do so with the definite feeling that I don't quite, you know, get it. Now I don't use it (or want it) on my mobile phone, for example. I follow the service on my desktop where I do most of my work and on my laptop.

But I don't follow that many people and don't have that many following me. I have enough trouble keeping up with the few people that I do follow, some of whom appear to hit the send key on virtually any pretext. Sometimes the notes are interesting; too often, I fear, they're boring. Or drivel. The same may be said - absolutely and with an emphasis on the "drivel" - of my own tweets.

I suppose it's because I'm not using my mobile phone to track this stuff. I suppose that multi-platform and super-mobile ability is what sets Twitter apart. It's just that I can't see a whole lot of use for it, at least not for me personally.

But then, it took me a while to warm to Facebook. Maybe I'm not completely ineducable. Just too mainstream, for now at least, to give Twitter its due.

China Takes the Lead

How's your command of Mandarin Chinese?

You might want to polish it up, now that China has surpassed the U. S. as the country with the largest number of people on the Internet.

Granted, that's with a relatively small percentage of the population - 16 percent - online in China. But that number will only grow.

Jump On the Privacy Bandwagon

I've posted before about the attempts to force websites to get permission from site visitors before tracking and recording their actions, so that advertisers can target advertising that might or might not be of interest to them. I think the attempts are a bad idea, particularly the idea of legislating such requirements on a state-by-state basis.

George Simpson apparently agrees, and, on the Online Media Daily blog, he has a very funny post suggesting that we not stop with the Internet. If we're going to have these privacy concerns, let's add on other marketers. He has some modest proposals for form letters for use by magazines, mail-order catalogues, telemarketers, government agencies, etc. They're funny and, I think, quite to the point. Take a look.