I am…underwhelmed.

The idea of Joost fascinates me. But the execution of the service drives me nuts. I don’t like that it takes over my screen. I don’t really like the content to choose from…yet.

I also have serious questions about how Joost will offer local news.

Network affliates are already up-in-arms about their networks subverting the affiliate model and giving away primetime programing away via iTunes or their own sites (ABC has a player for affiliate Web sites, so you if you missed LOST, you might be able to watch it on your local ABC station Web site). Though, online revenue share for TV stations is probably worse off than newspaper revenue share.

It will be interesting to see how local TV stations will handle the disruption caused by the Web.

Alan Jacobson takes a critical look at EyeTrack07. In his post, he notes that the study, which tracks via nerdy glasses what articles people look at when reading the news.

The study notes that when people choose to read something, they tend to read it (duh?). But the critical flaw in the study is that it doesn’t offer much on why people select certain news items over others, says Jacobson:

The key word in this sentence is “selected.” I don’t believe EyeTrack07 provides any data that speaks to how or why test subjects made selections – which is what editors really want to know.

The most amazing thing is the banality of this finding. Did we really need a study to tell us that people read most of the stories they select?

Moreover, what is the practical application of this information? How can an editor boost the readership of his or her newspaper knowing that people tend to read most of the stories they choose to read?

It’s an interesting study, but what about the mounds of data showing that readers on Web sites tend to be in and out of a site in a matter of minutes? Clearly, when people read the news in their natural habitat (early morning in their underwear, most likely) they don’t wear crazy glasses and linger over the material for 90 minutes.

Remember that PEJ study I keep talking about? Top reason people don’t read the paper is that they don’t have enough time.

Maybe the correct solution to declining subscriptions is to force your readers to read for 90 minutes.

Project for Excellence in Journalism recent released analysis of cable TV networks, showing negative audience growth for CNN, FOX News Channel and MSNBC last year.

Andrew Tyndall attributes the decline to lack of compelling crises coverage last year, compared to previous years. And to be honest with you, I think crises coverage is where 24 hour TV news shines.

One of the first things I do when I discover something interesting is look it up on Wikipedia. I don’t know why, because Wikipedia truly is home to the C-grade high school paper, but I just do.

I guess Wikipedia quells my existential paranoia by showing me that other people believe something exists.

But ever since launch day, the Justin.tv article has been constantly deleted from Wikipedia by rogue admin (though he is a rouge admin, too) Chris Griswold. Here’s his excuse in the comments, finally posted today after days of silence:

I am tired of having to delete this article. Please show that the subject is notable so that the article does not qualify for a speedy deletion. Please see WP:WEB for information on how to do this. Additionally, you will need to work on the article either on this page or in userspace before I will again remove protection. –Chris Griswold (☎☓) 13:45, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

After much complaint from people talking to him in his discussion page, he decided to unlock the article on the 25th, asking people to cite “reliable sources” in the entry, but then locked the page again today, hours before G4TV plans to have a piece on Attack of the Show.

So here it is folks. The site that gives Start Trek’s fictional Rules of Acquisition 1,450 words (not including references) credence, won’t give an interesting new business, with a groundbreaking mobile Webcam (at least compared to jennicam, which has an article here), a wiki page, because it’s not notable.

The privacy issues alone should warrant a Wikipedia article. But that’s not enough for Wikipedia and the lone, surly admin, Chris Griswold.

Let’s do a Google fight of “Justin.tv” vs. “Rules of Acquisition,” shall we?

Griswold doesn’t feel that something already covered by San Fransisco Chronicle, Wired, BusinessWire, the Associated Press, TechCrunch, CNET, blogged about by hundreds, and dugg by thousands more is in any way notable.

Honestly, I think Griswold has something against the guys at Justin.tv. He’s also marked the artlicle for the Web calendar, Kiko, for deletion. Kiko was created by many of the same group involved in Justin.tv.

This is the kind of wikiality Stephen Colbert dreams about at night.

UPDATE: Scoble has decided to go on strike until Monday because of this idiocy. NOW I’M REALLY ANGRY.

Kathy Sierra wont be at ETech conference today because mindless idiots have been threatening her…on the Internet.

In her post (linked above), she accuses top bloggers Chris Locke (One guy who helped write The Cluetrain Manifesto, but now mostly posts Internet quiz results on his blog like 15 year olds on LiveJournal), Listics’ Frank Paynter (who does his best to “be respectful, not mean spirited…” and “express love” as per his disclaimer), Jeneane Sessum (writer of godawful Internet poetry), Raving Lunacy Allen Herrel and others of posting threats like:

fuck off you boring slut… i hope someone slits your throat and cums down your gob

And:

They posted a photo of a noose next to my head, and one of their members (posting as “Joey”) commented “the only thing Kathy has to offer me is that noose in her neck size.”

and posting this photo:

Well, Sierra has gone to the police with all this, and it seems they’re taking the threats very seriously.

If these accusations turn out to be true, I expect to see sites like BlogHer to make formal apologies for the actions of their bloggers (Sessum is a regular contributor).

I also wouldn’t mind seeing their apology videos on blip.tv.

InfoWorld mag folds print edition!

SF Chronicle in Trouble?

Would you pay for the news?

These are the news items of the weekend in my feed reader. Over and over again these three stories came up. Theres a subsection of bloggers that get some kind of sick pleasure out of the death of print. They sit on death watch and rarely come up with solutions. It’s highly annoying to read on a Sunday afternoon.

Still, I’m left feeling that these three memes share a common talking point. How does a print product make money online, while slowing the decline in readership of said print product?

At the beginning of this year, Scott Karp made the prediction that a major newspaper would fold its print product and go strictly online. A bold statement, sure, but he makes an apt point.

Newspapers are struggling in multiple areas of their business. Craigslist and eBay have left many classifieds sections in shambles. Why read the source, when you can get the spin from your favorite pajama media personality? Display advertising dollars are moving towards away from the shotgun approach and are targeting ads with pinpoint accuracy on the Web.

While this all may be bad news for newspapers, this certainly isn’t bad news for news business.

InfoWorld has some tough competition with TechCrunch and GigaOM, but the magazine won’t have the kind of trouble with the move to online that a small weekly newspaper would. Its market is with people who probably already read TechCrunch and GigaOM and who would relish the idea of pulling in their InfoWorld news to their favorite newsreader.

If anything, the move will make more money for InfoWorld, since serving up Web pages offers so much more bang for buck than printing a magazine page.

People who read newspapers, really, really like newspapers. Which is why this shouldn’t be happening (via Tim O’reilly):

Apparently, Phil Bronstein, the editor-in-chief, told staff in a recent “emergency meeting” that the news business “is broken, and no one knows how to fix it.” (”And if any other paper says they do, they’re lying.”) Reportedly, the paper plans to announce more layoffs before the year is out.

Such gloom and doom is unnecessary. Newspapers have hardly become irrelevant. TV news doesn’t have the manpower to go out hunting for hard news, so they swipe it from the papers. Bloggers, god bless them, have yet to show they can do much original reporting (techmeme exists for this very reason!). David Lazurus is right. Most bloggers just comment on work done by others. 90% of the time the link trail leads to original reporting from a newspaper.

So instead of bitching about this and complaining about newspapers being irrelevant, old newspaper fogies need to figure out how to harness the blogosphere.

The answer, I’m afraid, is not to make people pay for content with a short life span like news. Especially once that content is purchased by one or two people, it can be “commented” on by bloggers giving the gist of the ideas therein. Here’s a great explanation if you don’t get what I’m talking about.

If newspapers want to make it online, they should do what they do best: gather information for readers. It’s not the content people don’t want. It’s the delivery mechanism. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: Build a better mousetrap instead of complaining about the inefficiencies of the one you already have.

General Council for Viacom, Michael Fricklas, wrote a column about the suit which has no digestible name. In it, he calls YouTube a media company, not a Web company, thereby negating YouTube’s DMCA protections:

YouTube has described itself as the place to go for video. It is far more than the kind of passive Web host or e-mail service the DMCA protects — it is an entertainment destination. The public at large is not attracted to YouTube’s storage facility or technical functionality — people are attracted to the entertainment value of what’s on the site.

Among many arguments, Viacom claims that YouTube “induces” users to upload copyrighted material, which looks like an argument out of MGM Studios, Inc. v. Grokster, Ltd.
which holds that software companies can be sued for copyright infringement by their users (by taking away safe harbor protections from Sony Corp. v. Universal City Studios) and that these companies must take steps to stop copyright infringement through labeling, according to Judge Souter:

We hold that one who distributes a device with the object of promoting its use to infringe copyright, as shown by clear expression or other affirmative steps taken to foster infringement, is liable for the resulting acts of infringement by third parties.

YouTube does this all over the site, and tries to nip the bud right at initial upload, (on both upload pages):

Clearly, that angle isn’t going to cut it in court. YouTube goes above and beyond the labeling requirements all over the site. So like any good lawyering, Fricklas and Viacom manufacture other arguments, like saying not only does YouTube not fall under protections from the Betamax and Grokster cases, it doesn’t even fall under the DMCA.

They claim that YouTube isn’t a service provider, it’s an “entertainment destination” as if it were one or the other. Even if for every 5 million videos watched, only 50 are uploaded, YouTube is still an “entertainment destination” and a service provider because it does both.

This is where things get murky. Some tech lawyers have rallied behind Google and YouTube:

To try to treat it like a media company, denying it the protections of the DMCA, would be like treating eBay as a full-fledged product company, said Gregory Rutchik, a partner at The Arts and Technology Law Group. (link)

The problem with that logic is that, on eBay, you buy products directly from other sellers and eBay simply facillitates the transaction, they don’t house the products. YouTube does house the products, so to speak.

Viacom should enforce its copyright protections, and it may have a partial case here. But the whining needs to stop:

Is it fair to burden YouTube with finding content on its site that infringes others’ copyright? Putting the burden on the owners of creative works would require every copyright owner, big and small, to patrol the Web continually on an ever-burgeoning number of sites. That’s hardly a workable or equitable solution. And it would tend to disadvantage ventures such as the one recently announced by NBC Universal and News Corp. that are built on respect for copyright. Under the law, the obligation is right where it belongs: on the people who derive a benefit from the creative works and are in the position to keep infringement out of their businesses.

YouTube is well within its rights (assuming its protected under Title II of theDMCA):

(1) In general.—A service provider shall not be liable for monetary relief, or, except as provided in subsection (j), for injunctive or other equitable relief, for infringement of copyright by reason of the storage at the direction of a user of material that resides on a system or network controlled or operated by or for the service provider, if the service provider—

“(A)(i) does not have actual knowledge that the material or an activity using the material on the system or network is infringing;

“(ii) in the absence of such actual knowledge, is not aware of facts or circumstances from which infringing activity is apparent; or

“(iii) upon obtaining such knowledge or awareness, acts expeditiously to remove, or disable access to, the material;

So, please, Viacom, stop telling us how much you hate having to manage your own copyrights and (boo hoo) have to pay someone else to manage them for you. Obstructing markets is costly and hardly works (see the black market for guns and drugs if you need a reference point). Figure out how to go with the flow.

Around the Web: Related reading

Analysis of the Viacom/YouTube Showdown: Google’s Site May Have “Safe Harbor,” But Still Needs Media Allies for Suc (sic)
Viacom vs. YouTube: The Billion Dollar Question
PBS Analysis: Viacom Sues YouTube for Copyright Infringement
Viacom lawsuit could imperil Internet models

I don’t have Showtime but I do love public radio. If you’ve been under a rock for the past few weeks, you know that This American Life has been adapted for television. Since I don’t have Showtime and really can’t justify getting it for one show I may like, I was pretty disappointed until…

I found this.

The whole pilot episode is online. For free. I like free things.

There’s been some debate over whether or not the Web is going to dramatically change public relations (some have had the audacity to dub it–drum roll please–PR 2.0), but clearly where before you’d have to nibble on a blurb or two in papers and magazines about the Showtime program, now you can see it all for yourself.

I hesitate to call it PR 2.0, because media hustlers have always given away their products in one form or another. In the past it was just given to critics who in turn spit out 50 word blurbs in the back of Rolling Stone. With Web 2.0, everybody’s a critic, I suppose, so why not give your product away to everybody to build buzz for your radio-program-turned-television-program/death metal album/movie about carnies who get lost in outer space?

Anyway, the Showtime treatment of the radio favorite is worth a look.

For the past 30 hours or so, I’ve been infatuated with Justin.tv. Not because it’s a particularly interesting thing to watch, because it’s really, really not. Rather the application of the technology sorta blows my mind just thinking about the possibilities for this.

Justin.tv is basically a guy with a camera strapped to his head and a transmitter on his back, freeing him up to roam the streets of San Francisco while broadcasting a video stream on the site. I’d link to the wikipedia article for a better explanation, but it looks like Justin.tv is somehow too trivial for wikipedia (i didn’t even know that was possible).

In a quick chat with Justin.tv COO, Michael, he said he sees it as a “satellite truck in a backpack.” Essentially, Justin.tv is a gimmick to sell their idea. Certainly, watching Justin sleep isn’t all that interesting content, but the implications of the technology are far reaching and highly disruptive to traditional broadcasters if this can take off.

As for their plans, I’m not completely sure what they have up their sleeves. They’re going to be working with some bloggers in Iowa covering the upcoming caucuses, which could be interesting and they’re also looking for more people whose lives they can broadcast.

A few months ago, I saw how simple the backend for live video streaming through Flash Media Server can be implemented (through a client-side application in a browser, with a camera hooked up to the computer) and I instantly began to think about how journalists could use this in the field, provided they have a solid, high-speed connection to the Internet.

Looks like the folks at Justin.tv, Inc. found a work around for that by using four EVDO Rev A cards that can kick out the speeds needed for streaming live video.

Imagine the disruption that would cause to TV news, if anybody could broadcast an event live and cheaply (though, I wouldn’t call this set up anywhere near cheap, yet).

I’m calling it. In then next 2 to 5 years, live streaming on the net will be the norm for breaking news video online.

kottke found some prime search engine space with the phrase: “au contraire mon frere-jones” (in quotes, without them brings 3 pages). Well, we can’t let kottke have all the fun, now can we?