Google World, What's Next and On Creativity

 "The View From the Phlipside" is a media commentary program airing on WRFA-LP, Jamestown NY.  It can be heard Monday through Friday just after 8 AM and 5 PM.  The following are scripts which may not exactly match the aired version of the program.  Mostly because the host may suddenly choose to add or subtract words at a moments notice.  WRFA-LP is not responsible for any such silliness or the opinions expressed.  You can listen to a live stream of WRFA or find a podcast of this program at wrfalp.com.  Copyright 2013 by Jay Phillippi.  All Rights Reserved.  You like what you see?  Drop me a line and we can talk.

Program scripts from week of August 19, 2013


My name is Jay Phillippi and I've spent my life in and around the media.  TV, radio, the movies and more.  I love them, and I hate them and I always have an opinion.  Call this the View from the Phlipside. 

On Creativity                                                                                           

There are times when I just despair as I read through the news in the world of media.  We live in a time of absolutely incredible possibilities because so many more of us can be creative.  And yet I watch people in positions where they could do amazing things just get lazy and try to cheat.

Let’s talk about creativity in the TV/video world.  On the side of laziness and lacking in creativity we find Fox.  They have just announced that they will be creating an American version of the BBC program “Broadchurch”.  Now don’t get me wrong, I am second to none in my respect for the television programming done by our cousins across the pond.  

Here’s the problem with Fox re-making “Broadchurch”.  The show only debuted in England in March!  Add to that the fact that the original stars former Dr. Who star David Tennant and David Bradley who currently stars in HBO’s “Game of Thrones” and you’re just setting yourself up to fail.  Don’t believe me?  Take a look at the recent attempt to Americanize the iconic English cop show “Prime Suspect”.  Crashed and burned.  But hey, stealing other people’s creative ideas is still easier than doing the work yourself.

On the other hand out in the wide world of video on the web you can find some very interesting and innovative stuff.

If you like scary, X-Files/Twilight Zone stuff you want to check out “Marble Hornets”.  My daughter got me turned on to this one.  Created by a couple of college buddies as a lark it has grown a dedicated following.  The budget is super low but they use that to good effect.  If you’re familiar with the online character Slenderman this falls into that universe.  And it is both compelling and utterly chilling.

At the opposite end you have “Pittsburgh Dad”.  Again, originally the work of a couple of buddies from my home town, this video series is dedicated to all of us who grew up in around the ‘Burgh and that special point of view that comes from the dads of that area.  Think of it as the Steel City’s answer to “All In the Family”.

There is some creative work being done out there.  Sadly not enough of it is being done by the big bucks people.

What's Next?                                                                                         

We’ve talked a lot recently about the future of print and newspapers especially.  In the midst of this last discussion a new question popped into my mind.

What’s next?

When it comes to old line media there are really two different stories.  There’s the big boys, the NY Times, the TV networks, folks like that, and then there’s the local media.  In our case folks folks like the Post Journal, local radio and Buffalo TV stations.  Those two groups are playing on very different ground.  One has a nationwide or even worldwide audience and potential paying customer base.  The other one has a much more limited base for income.  Consequently they may feel the financial pinch brought on by massive shifts in how media is consumed before the big boys do.

And that brings me back to the question of what’s next.  Or perhaps more pointedly, WHO’S next?  We’ve talked about local print and we’ve talked about the stresses on local radio.  They’re already there.  Who’s next?

I think it’s local TV.  Think about it.  More and more of the best of what’s on TV, the network programming, is available online.  You can watch it anytime, anywhere.  Beyond that what’s left?  Local News and lots of either re-runs or syndicated programming.  In reality I think most of us watched that because it’s all there was.  For re-runs of my favorite shows I can now turn to my home collection of DVDs and Blu-Ray.  As for the rest of syndicated TV?  I was raised to believe that if you can’t say something nice say nothing at all.

(Silence)

Local TV is rapidly becoming a dinosaur.  In fact some experts think that all TV, broadcast, cable and satellite, is headed for the door. There’s one primary bit of programming that may slow that change because it generates huge audiences and profits.  Live sports.  Because of its short “shelf life” (meaning you really need to see the game when it’s played or it’s just not as interesting) sports remain “must see TV”.  Once the leagues figure out how to make the money they need without having to put up with the network providers I guarantee they will be gone in a shot.

And at that point we will know the answer to “What’s Next?”

Google World                                                                                                                

Things have been busy in the land of Google recently.

Start off with Google bouncing the Youtube app from the Android store for the second time.  Google claims the app violates Youtubes User agreement.  This despite the fact that they worked WITH Youtube to create the app and, oh-yeah-by-the-way, Google OWNS Youtube.  Some weird interoffice politics there I think.

On the Google Glass front what may be a big step forward.  Google Glass are the high tech eyeglasses that allow you to access the web while you’re walking around.  I continue to have doubts about the wisdom of this idea but not everyone agrees.  Last week German automaker Mercedes-Benz said they will work with Google to integrate the Google Glass concept into some future models.  So we can expect them to be extremely well engineered and ridiculously complicated.

But my favorite story from the last couple weeks has to do with Google’s recent update on Gmail.  This is the new tabbed sort of your email that’s rolled out over the last month or so.  It’s been met with the usual grumbles from the usual suspects but I have to admit I’m liking it.  Those talented little Google algorithms (I have no idea what an algorithm is by the way.  It some kind of computer coding mathematics thing that borders on either magic or computers thinking for themselves, neither of which helps me sleep peacefully at night), these algorithms sort your mail.  Like taking all the ones trying to sell you something and putting them in a separate folder from the mail you might actually care about.  It allows me to sort through those things quickly and remove the 99.9% of them that I don’t want.

Well, not everyone is as thrilled by this as I am.  Care to guess who has the greatest complaint?  Yep, the email marketing community.  They complain that fewer people are likely to read their emails and that will hurt business.  I understand that the core of advertising is views.  The more time you can get you message seen or heard the more likely your message will sink in.  At the same time if the deal is compelling I’m more likely to open that email.  And if it’s from someone I do regular business with then it’s easy to move that to my Primary folder.

And then those clever little algorithms will remember to put it there in the future.

Call that the View From the Phlipside

Life On the Farm, Stupider and Hot New Toy

 "The View From the Phlipside" is a media commentary program airing on WRFA-LP, Jamestown NY.  It can be heard Tuesday through Friday just after 8 AM and 5 PM.  The following are scripts which may not exactly match the aired version of the program.  Mostly because the host may suddenly choose to add or subtract words at a moments notice.  WRFA-LP is not responsible for any such silliness or the opinions expressed.  You can listen to a live stream of WRFA or find a podcast of this program at wrfalp.com.  Copyright 2013 by Jay Phillippi.  All Rights Reserved.  You like what you see?  Drop me a line and we can talk.



Program scripts from week of August 5, 2013


My name is Jay Phillippi and I've spent my life in and around the media.  TV, radio, the movies and more.  I love them, and I hate them and I always have an opinion.  Call this the View from the Phlipside. 

Hot New Toy                                                                                                        

There has been a “Holy Grail” out there for a lot of technology companies for a while now. It’s the ability to hook up the computer to the TV and make it all work together. Apple TV has tried with limited success, Google TV has had only limited success as well. The technology isn’t all that tough but getting the user experience down to something simple and intuitive seems to be the hang up. If you’re going to ask the consumer to put yet another box on top of the TV (and in all likelihood ask them to do the wiring themselves) consumers have been underwhelmed. As much as we complain about the cable guy or the satellite company guy coming in to hook up the box it’s done and it works. 
And that means a lot in this market.
So when Google launched their new Chromecast device last month people sat up and took notice. Because it was plug in simple.
Let’s deal with one thing right off the bat. The device that you plug into the HDMI slot on your TV is called a “dongle”. Get your snickering over with now because that’s a term that’s been around for a long time. Give it a year and it won’t sound weird anymore. Dongle. OK? Good.
The great thing is that you just plug it in, very much like a USB jump drive. There’s not wiring, there’s not even a remote control. You connect and control Chromecast through your laptop, tablet or smartphone. Basically you can now “cast” or send whatever you watch on those devices, Youtube, Netflix, et cetera, to the Chromecast dongle and it plays on your TV. Simple. And even better, cheap. The Chromecast device is selling for $35.
As with any brand new device it has some bugs and bumps. It already supports Youtube, Netflix streaming and Google Play. But folks are lining up to help make the experience even better. Hulu, HBO Go and Pandora are all in talks with Google. Behind them come folks like AOL, Redbox Instant by Verizon, Vevo and Vimeo. 
After trying far more complicated solutions it looks like Google may have finally found the “Holy Grail”. The even better news is that Google’s competitors won’t be far behind.
The days of truly bringing all your media together in one place just might be just around the corner.

Stupider?                                                                                                           

I must confess that I seem to be developing a new habit. I’m not sure at the moment if it’s a good one or a bad one. I am becoming a serious multiple screen multi-tasker. When I’m watching TV I often, not always but often, have my laptop with me. I will sometimes have the TV on and muted while I’m working on the computer (like writing scripts for this program). I like to have IMDB open when I’m watching a movie or TV show so I can check on a detail or who an actor is. I may have a Pirates or Steelers or Bills game when I’m writing. Usually it’s not problem (although interrupting Mrs. Phlipside’s movie viewing to bombard her with movie trivia is not advised) but there are times when I just feel myself zoning out.
I have become a little more concerned when I saw a new study about two things. First, I discover I am not alone. More of us than ever before are multi-tasking with technology. This year alone time watching media will rise by 13 minutes on average leaving us just a few minutes shy of 12 hours of media per person.
That’s a little intimidating all by itself. Then I came across a study out of South Korea. The Koreans are the most digitally connected country in the world. What is being seen is a spike in what they are calling digital dementia. That’s when folks who spend a lot of time viewing media show the same kinds of memory loss more commonly associated with head injury or psychiatric illness.
Ummmm, excuse me while I lean over and turn off the TV.
Ok. Now let’s take a step back. The study was looking especially at the effect on children and teens. The problem is that it doesn’t seem to take into account normal responses in the teen aged years. Teens do tend to become obsessed with ideas at that age. Take a look at Beatlemania or Sinatra’s bobby soxers and tell me that doesn’t look like mental illness. Plus remembering phone numbers (which is one of the tests used) has changed because of our access to smartphones. My wife has had the same cell phone number for years. I have no idea what it is. It’s programmed into my phone so I don’t worry about it.
Do we all spend more time with media that we probably should? 12 hours a day? Yeah, that’s an easy one. Seems like the cure for this is easy. Step away from the technology and go watch a sunset. Or talk with your family.
It’s a win-win situation.

Life On The Farm                                                                                                                      

Consider today’s program a public service.
I’m sure you’re familiar with those annoying Facebook posts that say things like “Name a city whose name doesn’t have an “R” in it. It’s harder than you think!” (You mean like Jamestown, Buffalo, Cleveland, Chicago?) or the “Like if you hate cancer!” ones. You’ve seen them. The ones with tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of likes.
Most people fall into two categories. Those that click on those things and those that find them just too annoying to bother. I want to create a much larger third group. Those who know what’s going on.
It’s called “like farming”. And we're the farm animals.  The goal is to get a whole lot of people to connect with your page then sell it to an advertiser who now has a database to exploit. And that’s not the only thing they do. A lot of these involve photos taken from websites without permission or attribution, giving them a fake name and backstory, to generate likes. It’s a sham from start to finish.
Is this an end of the world kind of problem? Honestly, no. We are giving away our contact info right and left on the Internet most days. To be honest most of us don’t even realize how much of our info is out there and how freely we’ve granted the business community the opportunity to make use of it.
But there just seems to be something more insidious about this. There is something disturbing at a fundamental level about exploiting people’s decency for profit without their knowledge. The good news is that it’s a lot easier to fix than some of the problems with privacy issues on the World Wide Web.
Just stop doing it.
The reality is that you’re not accomplishing anything other than handing the keys to your digital life to someone you don’t know and don’t want to know. Oh there is one other thing you’re doing. You are annoying the daylights out of most of your friends.
I’m willing to stipulate that my friends are basically decent folks who hate cancer, love kittens and puppies and support our troops.
I’m hoping they’re smart enough not to continue to let themselves be “farm” animals.

Call that the View From the Phlipside

Vanity Google, Apologize, Unsolicited Advice

LP, Jamestown NY.  It can be heard Tuesday through Friday just after 8 AM and 5 PM.  The following are scripts which may not exactly match the aired version of the program.  Mostly because the host may suddenly choose to add or subtract words at a moments notice.  WRFA-LP is not responsible for any such silliness or the opinions expressed.  You can listen to a live stream of WRFA or find a podcast of this program at wrfalp.com.  Copyright 2013 by Jay Phillippi.  All Rights Reserved.  You like what you see?  Drop me a line and we can talk.

Program scripts from week of July 29, 2013


My name is Jay Phillippi and I've spent my life in and around the media.  TV, radio, the movies and more.  I love them, and I hate them and I always have an opinion.  Call this the View from the Phlipside. 

Unsolicited Advice                                                                                              

Periodically on this program I offer up some utterly unsolicited advice to various media personalities and major corporations. I will be the first to acknowledge that there is no evidence that any of them have ever actually taken this advice.

But they should.


In this case my advice is aimed at the folks at the television broadcast networks. It’s a tough life at the networks these days. Once upon a time just a few decades ago they were the king of the hill. 


Today their viewership is falling overall across the board and for the second year in a row NO broadcast network show was even nominated in the Outstanding Drama Series category. That’s the serious win category. It’s the one that makes everyone sit and take notice of the quality work you do. So let me repeat myself. NO, as in ZERO, broadcast network shows were even nominated.


Ouch.


This prompted NBC Entertainment chairman Bob Greenblatt to rise up on his hind legs and try to explain it all away. Kind of interesting that it’s someone from the #3 network making the noise. His arguments aren’t really worth getting into since they’re pretty mundane but I thought maybe it’s time for a little unsolicited advice.


The networks are desperate to figure out how to turn this all around. NBC’s plan apparently involves more “event programming” which apparently means mini-series about Hilary Clinton and live broadcasts. I think I’ve got a better idea. How about we actually try investing in top quality programming? Maybe take a page from the folks at the BBC and go for short run, high quality programming. I mean BBC is generally accepted as a quality TV producer. Take a look at the new “Sherlock” series. A season is 3 90 minute episodes. Dump some serious time, effort and yes money into creating some real “event programming”. Surround them with your best series TV.


My bet is that ratings will go up and award nominations will pick up too. Beyond that we’d finally get some TV worth watching.


But no one will listen.


Apologize                                                                                                              

Early on in my career I got into a dispute with one of my bosses. And yes it was just one of many, many such disputes I got into with various people. Who knew you could work with so many people who were wrong?

OK, not all of them were wrong.

But I still think I was right this time. I had messed up something on the air, misspoken myself reading a story, something like that. I apologized and went back and corrected myself. When I came off the air I was told I should never apologize because it just drew more attention to the mistake. Just read it correctly and move on.


The problem I have with this is that it assumes the audience is stupid. That they didn’t notice and if you act like it didn’t happen they’ll just forget about it. Pretending I didn’t do it didn’t work when I was 8 so why would I expect that it would work as an adult?

A couple of major news organizations found themselves in the same position. How they handled it is instructive.
A whole bunch of news organizations, including the L.A. Times and Business Insider, recently ran a quote by actress and new host on “The View” Jenny McCarthy about vaccines and autism. Now Jenny has said a lot of uninformed things about that subject but she didn’t say this one. The quote came from a satire site called “The Superficial”. When confronted with the mistake these organizations tried to bury the mistake. Which has allowed the false quote to continue to circulate with their names giving it weight.


On the other hand the Chicago Tribune recently ran a story about a disabled veteran and his seeing eye dog. Problem was the man in the story lied about being a veteran and how he’d lost his eyesight. The Trib ran an apology that explained what was wrong with the original story, took responsibility for not getting it right, explained the mistakes they made and promised that steps were being taken to insure that it never happened again.
So one news organization acted like professional adults. The other ones acted like guilty 8 year olds. Which one do you have more respect for? 

Cover of the Rolling Stone                                                                                                          

Have you ever done a vanity Google? That’s when you type in your own name to see what comes up. For public figures it has become something of a must do because it’s the fastest way to check out your online image. Google’s search will take things into consideration like the how often terms are searched for and common words associated with those terms.
For a cancer surgeon in New South Wales, Australia that was part of the problem. You see when you googled his name the search engine’s autocomplete function added the word “bankruptcy”. He claimed that this cost him patients and financial backers so he sued Google in California court.
This may sound silly but I guarantee the folks at Google don’t find it funny. It is one of a series of such suits brought against the search giant. Another suit had been thrown out in Wisconsin concerning a woman whose name brought up an autocomplete association with the prescription drug Levitra.
Here’s the problem I have with these suits. Both of the people in these two cases DO in fact have connections with the words they dislike so much. The doctor was listed as a creditor to a company that had gone bankrupt and the woman had already sued Yahoo over the same issue with Levitra.
The equations used to determine Google’s search process are way beyond my understanding so I thought I’d try a simple test. I googled myself.
With just my first name entered I got “Jay Phillippi Princeton” (I did some study there years ago), my full name then entries for Jay Leno, Jay Z and Jay McKee. By the time I got my full name in it was just the first two listings. So is that association with Princeton any fairer than the bankruptcy? No, although this makes me look good while making the doctor look bad.
The reality is that if you search the doctor’s name today you get dozens of stories about his suit against Google (which he has dropped without prejudice at the moment). All of which means that the word bankruptcy has that many more associations with his name.
I find it hard to blame Google for this problem. Your online reputation is made up of all the things that appear on the World Wide Web. For the professional it is more and more important that we spend some time working that system.

Call that the View From the Phlipside

RIP Reader, ESPN and Crowdsourced Creation

 "The View From the Phlipside" is a media commentary program airing on WRFA-LP, Jamestown NY.  It can be heard Tuesday through Friday just after 8 AM and 5 PM.  The following are scripts which may not exactly match the aired version of the program.  Mostly because the host may suddenly choose to add or subtract words at a moments notice.  WRFA-LP is not responsible for any such silliness or the opinions expressed.  You can listen to a live stream of WRFA or find a podcast of this program at wrfalp.com.  Copyright 2013 by Jay Phillippi.  All Rights Reserved.  You like what you see?  Drop me a line and we can talk.

Program scripts from week of March 18, 2013



My name is Jay Phillippi and I've spent my life in and around the media.  TV, radio, the movies and more.  I love them, and I hate them and I always have an opinion.  Call this the View from the Phlipside. 

Crowdsourced Creation                                                                                                        

One of the coolest things that the Internet allows us to do is called crowdsourcing.  If you’re not familiar with the term it is a way of getting services provided or tasks accomplished by calling on a large group of people.  The idea is an old one really.  It’s called “Many hands make light work”.  Crowdsourcing has been used by all kinds of groups to do all kinds of things.

Here are just a few examples - movies have been made, translations done, the Department of Defense has done some research using crowdsourcing, satellite photo review searching for lost people, creating texts that are accessible to the visually impaired, creating maps, creating an encyclopedia, environmental monitoring.  Heck you can even fund a new album for your band by crowdsourcing the finances!

But of all those projects (and several of them are really cool) I think THE coolest one was the project that crowdsourced the design of a sports car.  A company called Local Motors wanted to see if they could use the Internet community to design a race car more efficiently and less expensively than the old school way.  What they got took only 18 months and three million dollars to develop the Rally Fighter, an eight cylinder, 430 horsepower racing machine.  Cost?  $99,900.  There is one other small catch.  You have to build the car yourself.  Included in the price is a six day stay at the factory, all the instructions you can use (including wikis and videos) plus the assistance of the Local Motors expert staff.  Pretty amazing really.

The old school way requires a large design team and layers of corporate bureaucracy.  Sometimes that creates great cars.  Most of the time it just generates pretty good ones.  And Local Motors isn’t done.  They have a design process underway for a military vehicle for the folks at DARPA, the Pentagon’s research arm (and ironically the origin of the World Wide Web) plus they have community challenges out there for the creation of a new pizza delivery vehicle for Domino’s (which explains part of their current ad campaign) and the best design for a driving shoe as requested by Nike.

Imagine hopping into your crowdsource designed car, opening your crowdsource created map to plan your trip while you listen to a crowdsource financed album from your favorite band.

The mind boggles.

The March of Time                                                                                                       

If there is one entity in the TV world that stands pretty much unchallenged right now it’s the network that has adopted the title of “World Wide Leader in Sports”, ESPN.  Yes there are other sports networks out there, most of them focused on specific sport, a few of them trying to be more all encompassing but the reality is that second place in this particular race is so distant that first place can barely be glimpsed.

Now I’m a big sports fan and I watch more than my share of ESPN.  At the same time I’ve recently become more and more annoyed with the sports network.  Maybe it’s just because it’s my least favorite sports month of the year.  March.  When most of the sporting media world in the U.S. seem to forget that there’s anything other than basketball going on right now.  Between the avalanche known as March Madness and ESPN’s over emphasis on the NBA trying to find any other sports on the “World Leader” can be problematic.

And yes I said over emphasis on the NBA.  Now I know that this will bring on the howls of the hoops fandom world.  They would have you believe that pro hoops is on the verge of becoming the second most popular team sport in America behind only the NFL.  Everybody loves the NBA.  What would you add in?  Football is off season, Baseball is only spring training and it’s not like the NHL is a major sport.  But there’s a problem with that argument.

It’s the assumption that the NBA is more popular than it really is.  Take a look at the attendance statistics for the 2011-12 seasons.  Baseball and football are way out in first and second place.  It’s baseball for overall attendance and football for per game attendance.  But when you take a look at the hockey versus basketball numbers it’s very interesting.  Because the NHL actually draws a little better.  

So why the imbalance in coverage on ESPN?  That’s easy.  They have a basketball contract but no hockey contract.  That may be the opening some new competition needs.  And both NBCSports and the deep pockets of Rupert Murdoch and FoxSport Network are coming.  FoxSports is quite upfront that they are gunning for ESPN.

Maybe we’ll end up with just another “World Wide Leader in Sports We Have Contracts With” but at the moment I think I’d take that happily.

Next On Tonight

It has become something of a tradition here on The View From the Phlipside to note the passing of folks that I believe deserve a final salute but who may not get it.  Today we’ll alter that just a bit by offering a salute to a lesser known but sorely to be missed computer application.  Farewell to Google Reader.

Google Reader is (for a few weeks more) an RSS aggregator.  RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication.  It’s an old online application but a potentially useful one.  Think of it as a simple subscription system that allows you to sign up to follow your favorite web sites.  An aggregator is the application that handles all those subscriptions.  

Now there are three groups of people on the subject of Google pulling the plug on Reader July 1.  People like me for whom Reader is a part of our daily lives.  We are not happy.  There are people who think, for various reasons, that Reader needs to die.  And then there’s everybody else.  Who mostly don’t care.

Here’s the reality - RSS has been around for a long time but not a lot of people use it.  And the number has been falling especially the last couple years.  So there is a reasonable argument for Google’s decision.

What’s really stood out for me has been some of the arguments made by the “Reader should die” camp.  This is includes Dave Winer who is actually one of the guys who helped create RSS.  What jumped out at me was this quote “Next time, please pay a fair price for the services you depend on.”

And that’s the rub isn’t it?  We’ve become accustomed to getting cool stuff and services on the Internet for free.  The problem is that free is a tough business model to make work.

But here’s the challenge I’d offer in return.  When cable took on “free TV” (which wasn’t really free of course but a different topic for a different day) conventional wisdom said it couldn’t be done.  So why is pay TV virtually universal these days?  Because they offered something over the air TV couldn’t.

Just dumping free services doesn’t guarantee that we’ll move to fee based services unless there’s an improvement in our experience.  In the end you can take away our Reader but you can’t make us pay.

Call that the View From the Phlipside

Facebook Creeper, Google Books, Turning Out the Lights

 "The View From the Phlipside" is a media commentary program airing on WRFA-LP, Jamestown NY.  It can be heard Tuesday through Friday just after 8 AM and 5 PM.  The following are scripts which may not exactly match the aired version of the program.  Mostly because the host may suddenly choose to add or subtract words at a moments notice.  WRFA-LP is not responsible for any such silliness or the opinions expressed.  You can listen to a live stream of WRFA or find a podcast of this program at wrfalp.com.  Copyright 2012 by Jay Phillippi.  All Rights Reserved.  You like what you see?  Drop me a line and we can talk.

Program scripts from week of November 19, 2012



My name is Jay Phillippi and I've spent my life in and around the media.  TV, radio, the movies and more.  I love them, and I hate them and I always have an opinion.  Call this the View from the Phlipside. 

Turning Out the Lights                                                                                                                 

There’s an old saying that what goes around comes around.  Also that there’s nothing new under the sun.  A lot of folks in the digital media world want to believe otherwise.  And yet reality just keeps jumping up and biting them in the butt.  For all the nearly religious chanting that it’s a whole new world with new rules blah, blah blah in the end some things never change.  For example in the end if you want to play in the big leagues of the media there’s a simple gold standard for success.  You either make money or you don’t.  If you’re not competing in that arena then you’re a really talented amateur.  Now really talented amateurs can do a lot of really cool things.  But you’re not playing in the big leagues.

Of course the down side of playing with the big boys is that they’re relatively unforgiving.  They don’t try to be nice, they don’t cut you any slack and they’re not going to give you a break.  A year ago YouTube decided it wanted to play with the big boys.  They knew they needed to move away from just being the host of endless Gangnam Style and laughing baby videos.  The big leagues required original high quality content so they created “channels”.  These were folks that received at least some financial support from YouTube to create that kind of must see video content.  A year later and YouTube has taken a long look at those channels.

Well that makes one of us.

As it turns out most of us have paid zero attention to the majority of the channels.  So in the very near future most of those channels will face some cold hard reality.  YouTube will be pulling the plug on 60% of the channels.  The reason is simple economics.  YouTube dropped as much as five million dollars per channel and over half of them didn’t turn enough of a profit.  The channels that showed some potential will continue to have the support of the video media giant.  The others will be left to their own devices AND expected to continue to work on paying back the original investment.

It’s a brave new world out there on the digital frontier.  Some people have managed to forget just how tough the frontier has always been.

Google Books                                                                                                          

You may not have noticed but the folks at Google have been working on digitizing the world.  All forms of data, all forms of information and everything in print.  This includes books.  And that has created a little bit of problem.  You see there are folks out there who actually kind of own the publishing rights to some of those books.  Turns out they’re not really happy with having their property offered up for free by Google.  So in that great American tradition they’re settling it in court.

The good news is that it seems like they have actually come to an agreement.  At the center of the disagreement is Google’s Library Project, which they describe as “An enhanced card catalog of the world’s books”.  What they were doing was scanning books from public libraries, making the books searchable and offering snippets of them online.  That resulted in groups representing both the publishers and the authors bringing suit.  This settlement covers the publishers only.  Google maintains this is all covered under the concept of “Fair Use”.  The courts have yet to rule on that issue.

Now the deal would seem to be a win-win-win for Google, the publishers and readers like you and me.  Google is one step closer to moving forward with the project.  The publishers get the right to exclude a title from the project if they so choose.  And the rest of us get a better way of finding books online.  Financial terms, if any, have not been disclosed.

I will note that the publishers did get one thing they may not want.  They get a free digital copy of every book in their list.  I’ve looked at a fair number of those Google scanned books and a lot of them are a mess.  Seems like maybe some of the scans put more emphasis on quantity rather than quality.
Given that these legal shenanigans date back to 2005 getting some kind of settlement done is a good thing.  Even the publishers acknowledge that there will be a growing influence of e-books in the years to come and having a digital card catalog works to their advantage.

Getting it done right is just as important.

Facebook Creeper

I have to admit I was a little cranky when I heard about this next item.  A little cranky and a little creeped out.  You see I just discovered that someone has created a page about my relationship with the Lady in My Life.  For those of you new to the world of the Phlipside that’s my long standing nickname for my wife.  We’ve been together for over 30 years.  That doesn’t mean I wasn’t upset to discover that someone has been collecting photos of the two of us, scanning our personal social media postings and amassing them all on a web page.  A web page I knew nothing about and for which they did hot have the permission of me or my wife.  That’s pretty creepy.

Now the bad news.  You probably have one too.  If you’re on Facebook and are listed as being in a relationship then Facebook has probably created a page about you and your significant other.  Did a chill just run up and down your spine?  Check it out at www dot facebook dot com front slash us.

The pages are called Friendship Pages and they’re actually not new.  The social media giant introduced them two years ago with a certain amount of fanfare but they promptly slipped off of most people’s radar pretty quickly.  Let’s face it Facebook is constantly changing things, adding features and generally running amok.

What I find creepy, that is creepy beyond the fact that Facebook is doing this at all, is that it happens without my permission or knowledge and the fact that there’s basically nothing I can do about it.  You can not make the page go away.  You can not opt out.  The best you can do is crank up your privacy levels nice and high to limit what the creeper page can post about you.  That, of course, is the best defense against any online creeper out there.
My question is simple.  Why do I need to protect myself against Facebook?  In what possible alternate universe did the brain trust at Facebook decide that turning itself into the world’s biggest creeper was a good idea?  Unfortunately this is symptomatic of the overall attitude within the Kingdom of Zuckerberg.  An attitude that they know better than we do how to run our lives online and control our information.

Now they’ve decided they know what I want said about the most significant relationship in my life.  And that makes Facebook a creeper.

Call that the View From the Phlipside

Newsweek, the Price of Immediacy, Tracking You

 "The View From the Phlipside" is a media commentary program airing on WRFA-LP, Jamestown NY.  It can be heard Tuesday through Friday just after 8 AM and 5 PM.  The following are scripts which may not exactly match the aired version of the program.  Mostly because the host may suddenly choose to add or subtract words at a moments notice.  WRFA-LP is not responsible for any such silliness or the opinions expressed.  You can listen to a live stream of WRFA or find a podcast of this program at wrfalp.com.  Copyright 2012 by Jay Phillippi.  All Rights Reserved.  You like what you see?  Drop me a line and we can talk.

Program scripts from week of October 22, 2012



My name is Jay Phillippi and I've spent my life in and around the media.  TV, radio, the movies and more.  I love them, and I hate them and I always have an opinion.  Call this the View from the Phlipside. 

 Newsweek Goes Digital                                                                                        

It really feels like I ought to be doing one of my RIP commentaries.  The ones I do when someone or something has passed away or closed up shop.  The passing of an icon, something like that.  But it’s not really that.  At least not yet.

Last week Tina Brown, a publishing icon in her own right and editor of Newsweek magazine, announced that effective later this year the news magazine would completely cease the printed version and go all in on a digital version.  It is the end of an era even though it’s not the end of the line.

This news is really no small thing.  Newsweek has been around for just shy of 80 years.  It never rose to the top of the pile constantly trailing “Time”.  At the same time it was the second largest weekly news magazine in the United States.  I remember getting a copy every week during my high school Current Affairs class to study.  It even got mentioned in a popular Paul Simon song.  Newsweek has probably felt the shift in paradigm of the print media as painfully as anyone.  How else do you explain the sale of the magazine by owner The Washington Post Company to 92 year old audio innovator Sidney Harmon in 2010 for a dollar.  You heard me right, one dollar.   Harman took on the magazine’s debts in the deal as well.

I’ve always felt that magazines were probably better positioned to make the move to digital better than newspapers.  The daily paper has to concern itself with the news plus the minutiae  of day to day life.  Magazines have the opportunity to range more widely, delve a little deeper and explore issues from more angles.  Consequently the opportunity that the new Newsweek, to be called Newsweek Global, has is to use all the tools of the new media world as it presents its case for continued existence.
Of course the problem is that magazines are pretty much by their nature long form and the digital world has been a bit more short form in its nature.  There are plenty of things that go well beyond Twitter’s 140 character limit.  Newsweek might be able to offer a winning package as Newsweek Global.  The highest hurdle may not be making the new digital world work but whether it can make enough money fast enough to deal with the legacy debt burden it brings with it.

This may not be RIP for Newsweek but it certainly feels like the patient is in need of some serious care.

The Price of Immediacy                                                                                             

One of the great innovations of the world wide web has also turned out to be one of the great pitfalls as well.  It’s immediacy, the fact that what you post to the world wide web is in fact world wide in just a split second.  Because there is so little processing time that immediacy has been a great assist to things like people’s revolutions like the Arab Spring.  The fact that it is spread so widely and quickly means that it’s virtually impossible for governments or censors to have much impact.  By the time you realize you have a problem it’s long past the time when you can do anything about it.

Of course that immediacy also causes problems when people post ideas and thoughts before they’ve had a chance to really consider what they are saying.  The list of athletes and celebrities who have gotten themselves into trouble by posting whatever pops into their heads in a kind of stream of consciousness foolishness.  I suppose it was only a matter of time before we took the step from foolish trouble to real trouble.

That happened last week.  The financial markets wait with bated breath for the earnings reports from all the big companies.  If earnings are better or worse than expected it can cause big changes in the value of a variety of stocks and other financial instruments.  So the that information is very carefully handled.  Now take the case of Google.  Information of all kinds is taken VERY seriously at Google.  Paranoid would not be over stating Google’s approach to their corporate information.

So imagine their unhappiness when someone at financial publisher R.R. Donnelly released quarterly earning report before the report was finalized.  Given that the news in the report was not particularly good it set Google’s stock into a tail spin.  A 22 Billion dollar tail spin.  Google had planned to release the report AFTER the market had closed to try and ease the damage.  But that’s when immediacy jumped into the equation.

In theater we say that timing is everything.  In the age of immediacy timing is even more vital than that.  And the only way to make sure you’re handling the timing right in such an environment is to slow down and take a little more care along the way.

Tracking You

It’s not something most of us think about.  But our computers are tracking where we go, what we watch and what we do online.  Everything.  Let me tell you a slightly embarrassing personal story as an example.

A couple months ago I was looking for a particular style of let’s just say undergarment.  I couldn’t find it at our local stores so I went online.  I spent a grand total of about 15 minutes researching the subject.  Ever since then I spend most of my time when I’m on Facebook looking at ads that feature men’s behinds.  Seriously.  Sometimes two at a time.  It’s not my idea of a good time.

Now how does that happen?  Simple.  My computer tracks where I’ve been and some websites, like Facebook, make use of that information.  Those sites even sell that information to other websites.  It’s called tracking and a lot of folks don’t the concept.  So there has been an ongoing push to give users (that’s you and me) control over who tracks us.  It’s called the Do Not Track movement.

Well don’t get too comfortable just yet that you will be able to decide who gets your info.  The National Association of Advertisers is raising a huge stink about Microsoft actually making Do Not Track the default setting on the newest Explorer browser.  They claim that Microsoft should side with the advertising community who wants that data rather than the overwhelming number of users who want Do Not Track.  As much as I like to pick on the folks up in Redmond  Washington I have to give them credit this time for choosing what their users want.

So what’s the bottom line?  For me there is a little bit of a balancing act here.  I understand the need for advertising to help pay for what is out there on the World Wide Web.  At the same time where I go and what I do is the center of the privacy discussion.  I want the final decision to be mine.  I don’t believe that the advertisers have any “right” to that information.  They need to do a better job of selling why we should allow them to track us.  And they need to let us determine just how much tracking we are comfortable with in our browsing.

I’d be happy if they could just forget those 15 minutes of my life.

Call that the View From the Phlipside

Rise of the Tablet, You Could Look It Up (A Rant), and Historical Trend

 "The View From the Phlipside" is a media commentary program airing on WRFA-LP, Jamestown NY.  It can be heard Tuesday through Friday just after 8 AM and 5 PM.  The following are scripts which may not exactly match the aired version of the program.  Mostly because the host may suddenly choose to add or subtract words at a moments notice.  WRFA-LP is not responsible for any such silliness or the opinions expressed.  You can listen to a live stream of WRFA or find a podcast of this program at wrfalp.com.  Copyright 2012 by Jay Phillippi.  All Rights Reserved.  You like what you see?  Drop me a line and we can talk.

Program scripts from week of September 17, 2012

My name is Jay Phillippi and I've spent my life in and around the media.  TV, radio, the movies and more.  I love them, and I hate them and I always have an opinion.  Call this the View from the Phlipside. 





The Rise of the Tablet                                                                                               

 I am fascinated by the impact that is being felt all across the media world with the meteoric rise of the tablet computer.  Folks have been trying to make a go the tablet concept for years now and none of them have managed to hit the sweet spot of versatility, ease of use and price that tablets seem to have found in just the last couple years.  Even Apple’s first attempt, the Newton, crashed and burned.  They’ve done it by making being a computer secondary to being a media delivery system.  In barely two years tablet computers have become the most powerful force for change in the popular technology world.  Think I’m over stating my case?  Let’s take a look.

One of the big movements in how we deal with media is the fact that more and more of us are doing it on multiple screens now.  This is especially profound on how we watch television.  Take a look at the number of television shows and even commercials that invite you get involved with the program by checking into the show’s forum or Twitter feed or Facebook page.  This is not television leading the way (it almost never leads the way) it’s TV reacting to what’s already going on.  There are so many people already cyber-chatting about their favorite shows that the networks are just climbing on the band wagon.

Even more than that now you don’t even need the television any more.  More folks are choosing to watch programming on their tablets on the move.  

You can’t do that with a desktop and it’s even awkward with a laptop or a netbook.  But it’s a piece of cake with a tablet.  Yes, smart phones play a huge role in this as well but smart phones and tablets are headed toward an inevitable collision right now.  And the tablet is going to win because it’s a better experience of the media we’ll be watching than a phone screen.

Still don’t think that tablets are going to take over your future?  Then check out this - Toys R Us is launching the Tabeo.  A tablet computer aimed at children.  Pre-loaded with over 50 apps and with a library of six thousand educational programs and games.  All for $149.  And it’s a serious tablet.

Why would there be a market for that?  Easy.  If the kid has their own tablet they won’t keep trying to borrow yours.  And that means you can keep telling your friends how awesome the latest episode of “Breaking Bad” is.

You Could Look It Up                                                                                                

The following is a rant.  Pure and simple.  Some folks out there have finally pushed me over the edge and I just can’t take it any more.  You have been warned.

We live in a age where billions upon billions of bits of information at our very finger tips.  We are surrounded by it and with our computers we have access to it in just a matter of seconds.  Now I need to also note that our computers give us access to millions of pieces of junk as well.  Rumors, hoaxes, opinion masquerading as fact and imagination run wild.  If you’ve spent more than 10 minutes out there you would know that.

Well you’d know that if you bothered to pay any attention.  Here’s the problem as I see it.  Too many people are just lazy.  And with that I’m being kind because the more cynical, angry side of me wants to say that they’re just stupid.  But I’ll behave myself and stick with lazy.

So what is it that has finally pushed my button and gotten on my last nerve?  People who don’t take a couple seconds to check on something before accepting something on blind faith.  In the last two weeks we’ve had hoaxes concerning the death of beloved comedian Bill Cosby and iconic actor Morgan Freeman.  Now I want you to know I double checked both of those items.  In fact let me do it right now.  Minimize the window where I’m recording this program, open my browser, open Google, type in Morgan Freeman.  Hit enter.

And Google tells me 10 personal results. 76,500,000 other results.  Boom, just that simple.

So explain to me why people just blindly follow along on things like this?  Why do they continue to click on links that claim Microsoft (or any of a dozen other companies) will give away money every time you click?  Why do the repeat absurd claims about celebrities, politicians or religious groups?

I think I know the answer.  Because it’s easier than thinking.  It’s easier than exercising our critical thinking muscles.  It’s because we’re lazy.

All that information at our finger tips and we still want to believe that Mr. Rogers was a Marine Corps sniper or that in December the universe will align in such a way that will result in a world wide blackout.

Really?  Really?  Try a little mental exercise instead.
Rant over.

Historical Trend

There are a couple of movies coming out between now and the end of the year if memory serves that I am very interested in getting a look at.  First because they involve characters about whom I am profoundly interested, second because they involve actors for whom I have great respect and third because they are not the kind of movie we generally get from Hollywood these days.  They are historical stories involving two of America’s great Presidents.

The first one I heard about was “Hyde Park on the Hudson” which tells the story of the visit by King George VI of England and his wife Queen Elizabeth (parents of the current queen) to the Roosevelt home in 1939.  The meeting was of great historic importance coming just before the war.  This is the same king we saw in the movie “The King’s Speech” two years ago (portrayed by a different actor of course).  But what really grabbed me was discovering that comedian Bill Murray had been cast as Franklin Delano Roosevelt.  The trailer for the movie shows Murray at his absolute best disappearing into the role.  The movie debuts here on December 7.

Alone that might have been an interesting aberration.  When you add in Daniel Day Lewis as Abraham Lincoln in the movie “Lincoln” suddenly you have an interesting mini-trend.  The trailer for this movie also shows the actor doing a wonderful turn as the former President.  Because Lincoln lived before the advent of audio recording we don’t know the sound of his voice the way we do FDR’s.  That may be the easiest part of taking on the role of an American icon.  “Lincoln” debuts November 16.

The real question for me is what will the audience reaction be?  Coming right after the election will we be too exhausted by politics to want to hear any more?  “Lincoln” will focus on the intense pressures on a President of a nation split by Civil War.  Or will the return to a simpler time and supposedly simpler issues have an appeal?  

Once upon a time biographical pictures like this of the great figures in our history were more common.  The history they portrayed was not always very accurate.  My hope is that a couple great movies with great casts and hopefully decent history could re-ignite an interest in our own history that seems sadly lacking these days.  It almost makes me wish that these movies had come out BEFORE the election.  Now is the time when we could all use a clearer understanding of our roots.

Call that the View From the Phlipside.