Minnov8

Showcasing Minnesota Technology Innovation

Sorry. No Internet Video for You

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no-video-for-you1Are you enjoying the ability to watch TV shows and movies streamed through the internet to your computer or media center with the likes of Hulu, Joost and all the others? If the cable companies and other network providers have their way, your connection will need to be “authenticated” — verifying that the location of your internet connection also subscribes to cableTV — before you’d be able to watch video through your internet connection.

Like most strategic moves, this ‘authentication’ one seems benign on the surface. One provider, Comcast, is positioning the use of authentication only for their Hulu knockoff, Fancast, rather than for the competitive sites like Hulu itself. The way that authentication would work is that you’d start streaming a cableTV subscriber-only show or movie to your computer or media center, but then find that it would only be accessible to you if you also had a cableTV subscription!

How benign is this strategic and likely anti-competitive move? In my view, it’s not benign at all but rather setting the stage for the next phase of video delivery — already begun through the internet and accelerating rapidly — and for those who already control your internet connection to be in charge of what content can be delivered and whom can deliver it.

GigaOm‘s Chris Albrecht wrote a solid article here for BusinessWeek and Will Richmond dug a little deeper in this one on VideoNuze. Albrecht pointed out the following which I immediately saw as the most likley rationale for cable companies and others to move forward with authentication as one of the first control measures for video delivery over the internet:

Multi system operators (e.g. cable companies) pay networks big fees to carry programming, and as such are unhappy that networks are turning around and putting that content online for free. The result? Cable and media companies like Comcast (CMCSA) and Time Warner (TWX) are developing plans that require viewers to prove they have a subscription to an MSO before they can watch video online. Comcast is calling its plan “On Demand Online” and Time Warner’s is dubbed “TV Everywhere.”

So why am I concerned about the possibility that the MSO’s are trying to muscle their way in to internet delivery of video? How about the fact that my new Mac mini media center has exploded our use of streaming video and opened my eyes to the dizzying array of video channels, new offerings from services like NetFlix ($8.99 to stream hundreds of movies instantly), and amazing, innovative and quality tech channels like Revision3?  Also, why does this strengthen my belief that the Minnesota Ultra High Speed Broadband Task Force must recommend regulations for all MSO’s to our State Legislature this fall?  …  [Read More…]

Broadband Perspective

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perspectivesMike O’Connor, urban representative on the Minnesota Ultra High Speed Task Force, recently interviewed the “father of the internet” Vint Cerf, as well as the head of Best Buy’s Geek Squad, Robert Stephens about their perspectives on broadband.

After the jump, you can watch Mike’s interviews (broken in to chunks due to YouTube’s limits on filesize). They’re very enlightening if you care about this topic!  …  [Read More…]

Wired for 2020: Mentoring Our Youth

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wiredIn a world that is shifting from serial and linear processes (which can be easily outsourced) to one rapidly moving toward higher value being created by those people who can deal with the flood of information and ideas coming at us in parallel by making new associations, any of us who care about our kids and the next generation of workers and leaders intuitively understands the value of mentoring. This past weekend’s Wired for 2020 event was solely dedicated to mentoring and I was delighted to have had a small involvement in this worthwhile venture.

Wired for 2020 is the Mentoring Partnership of Minnesota’s year long engagement campaign to get more mentors involved with youth in the state of Minnesota. Their mission is to interest caring adults in becoming mentors to youth. Caring adults who are willing to help young people spark their future career interests and expand their possibilities.

Sponsors included names such as General Electric, Best Buy, Target, Federated Insurance, MN Dept of Education, Minnesota Interactive Media Association, Qwest, Science Museum of Minnesota, 3M, Thomson Reuters and many more.

With a daughter in college and a son in high school, you bet I care deeply about the future of education and work, the world they’ll inherit from us, and the value we can add to kids if we can help them locate their own, personal spark within and help them to see possibilites and opportunities that match their dreams.

In a world where high paying, yet low value jobs can be done elsewhere at a fraction of the cost of labor onshore, the challenge is in coaching our youth on how they can each strive and focus on higher value work and that they can, in fact, invent the future. It won’t be easy as global competition continues to grow. …  [Read More…]

Control Over Your TV: A Comcast Executive Conversation

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Our post, “Internet Providers Want Control Over Your TV” sparked concern within the ranks of regional Comcast leadership, especially when this cross-posting of that article on MinnPost appeared. It caused them to take action to correct what they viewed as factual errors within the article.

While those (arguably) factual errors are corrected in the comments below the original post here and discussed within this article, Comcast’s “internet control” problem remains and I gained an unintended clarity about it from a conversation with a Comcast executive.

On Friday April 10th, I talked for an hour with David Diers, VP of Advanced Services for Comcast Twin Cities (he’s been involved in rollouts, for example, of Comcast’s Digital Voice, the 50/5 DOCSIS 3 service which I have at my office, and is now involved in accelerating the deployment of Comcast’s business services). Should mention that the setting up of this call was done by Tim Elliott (Disclosure: Tim is one of the Minnov8 team and involved with social media marketing for a firm engaged with Comcast and a friend of mine) so I went into this call with an open mind.

After letting the call sink in I realized that Mr. Diers regurgitation of the company positions and line were so well scrubbed (e.g., the comment here is mostly a cut-n-paste from Comcast press releases and FAQ’s) that the essence of the post in question was deflected and the overall issue remains: Comcast is attempting to control their internet pipe into your home or business and protect their cableTV franchise to your detriment, and arguably in a way that is already stifling innovation.

…  [Read More…]

Minnov8 Gang Podcast – Episode 33

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The Gang had a rare treat today to attend a session at a Fortune 500 company and hear Jeremiah Owyang, Senior Analyst at Forrester Research specializing in the social media space, provide an overview of Groundswell and also to speak about The Future of Social Media, an upcoming report from Forrester.

Jeremiah was gracious enough to carve out nearly half an hour to talk with us about some aspects of social media and networking he’d not explicitly covered in his talk, and also to allow us to drill-down on some areas of particular interest to us and to our listeners. This is a guy who not only analyzes the space, but if you follow his blog or him on Twitter, you’ll know that he is deeply involved as a social participant in ways that clearly provide him with a depth of knowledge about his subject that other analysts undoubtedly covet.

Hosts: Graeme Thickins, Phil Wilson, Don Smith and Steve Borsch (Tim Elliott was unable to attend).

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The Podcast

Podcast: Download (Duration: 21:07 — 12.3MB)

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MinneWebCon

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Yesterday’s MinneWebCon was a surprisingly packed event at my rough estimate of 400-450 people. The event was a full-day, three-track, continuing education conference for web professionals with the express intent of providing a venue to deliver “…technical and creative information from industry practitioners and educators directly to University of Minnesota staff, students, and web professionals from ad and design agencies, corporations, non-profit organizations, and other higher education institutions.“

The event was led off with a keynote by a key technology thought leader, Doc Searls, who famously was one of the authors of the seminal work, “The Cluetrain Manifesto“, required reading for anyone interested in the essence of conversational marketing, social media, and the shifts that were just beginning to occur when this thing called the Web was fairly new and the object of unrealistic expectations by too many chasing “eyeballs” instead of people.

At a high level, Doc discussed the progression from Cluetrain to today, telling stories which highlighted what many of us know as obvious truths when it comes to being a web participant. He spent time on a very interesting initiative, Vendor Relationship Management (VRM) as a much needed, power balance between we “customers” (managed within CRM or Customer Relationship Management software) and the vendors who’d like to sell us their stuff.

Sessions on tools, design, technologies, social media and much more were delivered to an audience of people who primarily make their living creating and building Web sites, assets and applications.

The second keynote, Web Culture & Privacy, was by security expert Bruce Schneier. With such quotable gems as, “Security does not equal privacy. Ephemeral is dead” and “Eventually we will have a president who sends LOLcats to other world leaders,” he really brought significantly more awareness to the audience about privacy and was clear that the only way to ensure privacy “…is to legislate it,” making the point that we need to become aware, pressure lawmakers, and drive legislation that makes it possible to retain privacy in an age where digital bits of ourselves are everywhere.

Hats off to Kris Layon and the team at the University of Minnesota for pulling off such a successful event and for opening it up to outside-the-university attendees.

Internet Providers Want Control Over Your TV

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broadbandEver watch video or TV shows over the Web? How would you feel if this became one of your preferred methods for doing so and your cable or internet provider said, “No…that’s not allowed?”

Even the most naive and casual observer can see that the threat from services like Hulu; both Apple’s TV and movie offerings within iTunes; Joost; and the accelerating number of media center software offerings (providing access to ANY video on the internet), pose a huge threat to the cable TV companies and other broadband providers increasingly positioning themselves to deliver multimedia services.

With recent strategic moves it’s clear they are trying to get out ahead of the user market (and the maturity of video provider business models as well as the open source media center software) and put caps on broadband use in place before wider adoption occurs and alternative providers gain a foothold in your home.

As a tail-end baby boomer with enough of a geek nature to be involved far too deeply in the ‘net, web and social media in my business, I realize I’m atypical within my demographic on how I, and as a result my family, use our Comcast broadband connection. With Comcast’s 50mbps down/10mbps up DOCSIS 3 setup in my office (Note: we were one of two companies in their Minnesota rollout of this new technology) and 16mbps down/2mbps up at home, I’m dealing daily in video, photos, moving around large Zip files, screensharing, personal publishing, and numerous other online activities. These activities are mission critical to our small business, my wife’s and my client interactions, as well as family activities and connecting with others.

Comcast, one of the largest providers in this space, directly affects all aspects of our digital lives. With my family and my current, and increasing, use of the internet for an ever expanding array of online activities (Skype calling; my son’s video gaming; Flickr and Vimeo for photo/video sharing; online backup of our computers; use of our new Mac mini media center), we are certain to end up violating Comcast’s draconian 250GB bandwidth caps (er, I mean, Network Management Policy).  …  [Read More…]

Minnov8 Gang Podcast – Episode 32

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disruptionThis week’s show is a discussion primarily about the future of newspapers…and the Minneapolis StarTribune in specific.

B: Steve Borsch, Tim Elliott and Phil Wilson (Graeme Thickins is off celebrating his birthday today).

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The Podcast

Podcast: Download (Duration: 39:10 — 22.7MB)

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“Discussed During the Show” Notes:

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Minnov8 Gang Podcast – Episode 31

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This week’s show is a discussion primarily about the future of newspapers…and the Minneapolis StarTribune in specific.

Hosts: Steve Borsch, Tim Elliott, Graeme Thickins and Phil Wilson.

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The Podcast

Podcast: Download (Duration: 43:28 — 25.2MB)

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“Discussed During the Show” Notes:

Fallon Releases Free Social App?

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As social media and networking continues its advance and integration in to the very fabric of our lives (which is especially the case as more of us become a part of the always on, always connected online culture) it continually intrigues us at Minnov8 that most organizations are still either taking a wait-n-see attitude toward the whole category while others have quickly become a part of the smart and select few taking calculated risks and subsequent bold actions. We’ve seen very little in-between, even as the shift in marketing and communications has accelerated as traditional media has downtrended rapidly while social media and networking use has increased dramatically (e.g., Twitter grows to 8M users).

Fallon, a division of Fallon Worldwide (a part of Publicis Groupe S.A., based in Paris), has moved forward with an innovative new lifestreaming application called skimmer. Lifestreaming is the practice of collecting one’s online digital breadcrumbs and presence — on sites like Facebook, Flickr, Twitter, YouTube or Blogger — within applications or services which enable we connected folk to bring all of our friend and acquaintance connections (and everything we’re each doing online in all of these various online venues) together in one central place and with a single, unified application.

What is skimmer exactly? As Fallon describes the value proposition for the app they say, “Skimmer is an Adobe AIR-based desktop application that serves as a dashboard for a person’s social networks, saving people the time and hassle of manually checking Facebook®, Twitter®, Flickr®, Blogger® and YouTube® by consolidating their feeds into a single stream of real-time, relevant content on the desktop.” Skimmer was developed in conjunction with the firm that seems to be popping up everywhere, Sierra Bravo, and the application has performed flawlessly for the few days I’ve been using and feels rock-solid.

I had a chance to to talk with Chris Wiggins, Creative Director at Fallon about the motivations and strategy behind skimmer and what initially appeared to me to be fuzzy reasons why a creative brand agency would deliver such an application. I also wanted to potentially uncover whether the app they’re delivering is intended as a true value giveaway or just another scheme to surreptitiously give away a platform that would end up as another backdoor carrier of ad or messaging distribution.  …  [Read More…]