General – Page 16 – LIVEdigitally

Is TV really opening up soon?

Posted on February 10, 2007 by Jeremy Toeman

I’ve worked in the field of digital media and consumer technology for about 8 years now, and for all eight years, I’ve heard people predicting the imminent change and overhaul of the TV industry. Back in the late nineties, it was the dawn of interactive television. In the early 2000s, it was the dawn of IPTV, about to be launched by all the telcos everywhere. For the last couple of years, it’s the end of TV, as it’ll be completely replaced by streaming Internet video and user-generated content (UGC).

Guess what folks, the one hundred and ten million households (that’s 110,000,000) who consume cable and satellite TV are a lot further away from big change than some experts seem to think. Steve Rubel wrote a piece yesterday which I feel contains exactly the examples of misplaced hype:

The race is on to turn your TV into an open content platform. This will bring more programming to your set and much of it won’t come from the traditional networks. Conspicuously absent from the game are your local cable and satellite providers. Should they fail to act, they all run the risk of turning into commodity services.

…

If you wanted to, you can already ditch your cable or satellite provider. Wired news ran an experiment a few months back showing that it is possible to get a lot of content on your set without them, though there are still lots of caveats. As the big technologies players continue to refine their IPTV strategy, the need for cable TV programming will diminish.

It is most certainly possible to do such a thing, but in an era of increasing HDTV programming (DirecTV is en route to 100 HD channels this year), why on earth would you make such a change? I watch Heroes pretty religiously. Now I can stream every episode from NBC.com, which is a great way for people to catch up with the show, but the viewing experience doesn’t even come close to the one I have now.

Now I suppose I could find an illegal download of the HDTV version, then hook up a PC to my TV set (or buy one of the upcoming “connected home” devices), then watch it that way. But that’s a major shlep for the masses, and most certainly, in every way, a worse experience than using even a cable-company provided DVR (because $800 for a Series3 is still too much, no matter how great the product is).

We also saw a report circulate recently claiming YouTube users watch less TV.

Frequent YouTube users said they are spending less time visiting other websites (36 percent) less time watching TV (32 percent), less time on email and other online social networking (20 percent), and, well, less time on just about everything else.

I guess I’m just too much of a disbeliever in studies like these, and for one basic reason: most people tend to say they watch less TV when polled. It’s as if all of TV watching were merely a guilty pleasure. Yet, reports show Americans are watching more TV than ever before (whether you like Nielsen or not, it is still considered the de facto standard in TV viewership information).

Now I do believe in an increase of video consumption, and believe that the use of both PC-based TV watching and Internet-enabled TVs are on the rise. I believe we will see an increased quantity of diverse options as to how we choose to watch TV. In fact, after all we accomplished at Sling Media, I was surprised to see articles this week with the non-evil-doing Googlers claiming the Internet can’t deliver TV content yet (recommended reading from GigaOm, ZatzNotFunny, and WebTVWire). Sure it can, it’s just a question of how it should be used.

In my Mac-PC video debate last month, Fred Davis and I diverted to talking about broadcast vs IPTV delivered television, which Josh Catone chimed in on in his blog as well. I believe the future on this topic is going to be determined primarily from an economic basis. At present, we have the infrastructure in place where, if desired, every single household in the US can watch the same TV show live in real-time. Broadcasting of content requires no new infrastructure build-out (unless, of course, we want a lot more HD stuff, which, of course, we do). Doing the same thing over IP networks wouldn’t work, and wouldn’t even come close.

So why bother trying to make it work? It simply doesn’t make sense to build out a massive IP infrastructure to do it. However, let’s say that at any given time, all 110MM households want to watch a “recent episode” of a show (say, last week’s Heroes). Best method possible? Give them all DVRs, use the broadcast pipe to get it to the house, let them watch it time-shifted however they’d like.

But now let’s say that all 110MM households want to watch radically different content, such as the episode of The Facts of Life where Blair learns a very important lesson, or that very special Blossom. Then, having access to a personalized, on-demand IP network is ideal. It’s costly to build, costly to maintain, and time-consuming to construct (not to mention dealing with the graphical user interface complexities), but it’s the right model.

Ultimately, I do believe in a future wherein a hybrid of services are available. But it’s the future, and not the present, and there is a lot less of a rush to make it happen than we in the technology community might like. Cable companies have increased billing rates higher than inflation for almost 10 consecutive years (since good old, helpful to consumers deregulation – that’s sarcasm people). The costs to get an IP service off the ground are staggering (ask the people at companies like Akimbo for validation).

So I’ll end by making my conservative prediction: the majority of US households will continue to consume television the way they do today for no less than 5 years, and even then the changes will be gradual and evolutionary, not drastic and revolutionary.

Guest Blogging for Netgear

Posted on February 9, 2007 by Jeremy Toeman

Back in December, Netgear tried an experiment in which they invited anyone who was interested to become their “blogger in residence” for CES. The winner was ushered off to ~~Monte Carlo~~ Las Vegas on a ~~private jet~~ coach seat where ~~a 30-foot stretch limo picked them up~~ they grabbed a cab to the ~~penthouse suite at the Bellagio~~ Marriott. They selected Dave Zatz as their guest blogger, and I thought he did a pretty bang-up job for them. Looks like I’m the next one up to bat for them.

Ready to hear how small a world this is? If you hadn’t heard, Dave recently joined Sling Media. Guess what he’s doing there… Blogging, community relations, interaction with the blogosphere, etc. In honor of this interesting confluence, I am going to recommend to Dave that we relaunch both our blogs – I’ll be ToesNotFunny, and he’ll become ZATZdigitally.

I’m looking forward to the blogging with Netgear, as I’ll have pretty open access to their executive team for the next few weeks (of course, I will have to drive all the way down to Santa Clara, which ain’t pretty). One topic definitely on my mind is to see how the company’s doing with regards to revenue-per-employee (back in 2003 they were making $1.4 million per employee), and hear about how that scales (or if it does). I’m also looking forward to catching up with CTO Mark Merrill (who I knew from when I worked for Mediabolic a few years back) and CMO Debbie Williams (we met at CES).

So, I hope you get the chance to follow the action over at the Netgear blog (it won’t be all-interviews, I have some other stuff to talk about too!). I think the company’s approach to bringing in external voices is a very interesting (and very welcome) approach to corporate blogging. Finally, in the spirit of open disclosure, I will say I have a strategic consulting relationship in place with the company~~, and I’m being given a lifetime supply of routers~~.

Brilliant Image review: Analog Art from Digital Pictures

Posted on February 8, 2007 by Jeremy Toeman

If you’ve owned a digital camera for a few years, you are probably like the rest of us, accumulating a ton of digital pictures (after editing, I still had over 200 from my week in Mexico), maybe emailing/sharing them online, occasionally printing a few, or making a coffee mug or a t-shirt once in a while. If you’re a little ahead of the curve, you’re probably starting to consider purchasing a digital picture frame this or next year. But at the end of the day, most of them are sitting on a hard drive, and if you’re smart about it, backed up in more than one location. I found one interesting new service that’ll let you take those pictures a little further than you’ve probably considered in the past, Brilliant Image. They take your digital pictures and turn them into pieces of art.

I was able to try out placing a sample order, and I’ll start by saying I’m quite happy with the results. As you’ll see by their online order form, there are quite a few different options, so you can have your own creative expression of what you want to make. While the form looks complex, it’s pretty straightforward. Step one – select a photo. I picked one of my wedding pictures – since our photographer was all-digital (which I can’t recommend highly enough), everything he took was extremely high quality, so I wanted to see what “the best” would look like. You can either upload the photo or mail it to them separately (you can even mail a printed picture if you want).

Step two – pick your style. I went with the “gallery wrap”. There are tons of options, depending on the size of what you want, including square, rectangular, or rounded options. Also, you can pick from a variety of different frames, all with different prices.

Step three – choose effects. For a small additional fee, they can retouch your photos, create collages or add effects. You can also go black&white or sepia for no extra charge.

Step four – place your order. The total fee for the option I selected would normally be about $75 plus shipping, although some options are much more expensive. For example, the 30″x40″ Mahogany Black with a High Res proof is over $450. But hey, it’s art, right?

Mine showed up about 10 days later, well-packaged (see the photo above). When I opened it, I was stunned by the effect. It really looked like someone had painted the picture! Maybe I am impressed too easily, maybe other folks are used to this, but it was extremely compelling in my opinion. Take a look at some of these pictures and the zoomed-in details I took. There’s the canvas, and there’s no pixelization whatsoever.

It’s definitely more expensive “photo printing” service than anything out there (although SmugMug most certainly comes close for reasons I still cannot fathom), but then again, these aren’t just glossy photos. This looks, feels and possibly tastes (didn’t really try that one) like art.

If you want to add a little class or a touch of art to your home, and you want to use your own photos to do it, I highly recommend Brilliant Image’s services. They were professional and easy to work with, and provided a product that was better than I was expecting. I did ask their recommendation for megapixels to make a photo “paintable” and they recommend 4MP for “most reasonably sized paintings” (more details here).

Whether for you or as a gift, they are most assuredly “LD Approved” and my painting is hanging on the wall as you walk into my apartment (you can see a few more pictures here). It consistently gets a “that’s cool” when friends visit.

UPDATE: They’re offering a little promo to LIVEdigitally readers, simply enter the code “LIVDIG” for 10% off your order!

Note to Steve Jobs: Actions speak louder than Words

Posted on February 6, 2007 by Jeremy Toeman

So Steve, you came right out and said it: DRM is a bad thing. Nicely done, blogosphere in a tizzy (I highly recommend reading commentary at IP Democracy, Thomas Hawk, and ReadWriteWeb), good on ya. I liked a lot of what you said resonates well

Why would the big four music companies agree to let Apple and others distribute their music without using DRM systems to protect it? The simplest answer is because DRMs haven’t worked, and may never work, to halt music piracy.

Like it.

So if the music companies are selling over 90 percent of their music DRM-free, what benefits do they get from selling the remaining small percentage of their music encumbered with a DRM system? There appear to be none.

Love it.

Not sure if you saw it, but Ryan Block at Engadget wrote:

But don’t just leave it to the consumer to pressure the record industry, you need to lead the way — that’s why we wrote Microsoft that open letter. You and Bill have more power over this ecosystem than any two people in the world, and the big four knows it. Perhaps The Mac and The PC need to rally the troops (i.e. us) and lead this charge together.

I have an idea for you to “step up” the battle a little further. You wrote “In 2006, under 2 billion DRM-protected songs were sold worldwide by online stores” and we know that a really good chunk of those 2 billion songs were sold by your iTunes store. You want to lead the way for the world? Try this:

Stop selling DRM-protected music on iTunes, period.

Want to change things? I guarantee that causes a reaction.

Is there a Long Tail of Blogging Dollars?

Posted on February 5, 2007 by Jeremy Toeman

Saw an interesting post over at IP Democracy this morning on how there is a bit of a divide between those who make money from blogging (earning roughly $1K per year) and those who make money from blogging (earning more than $1K per day). In the article, Cynthia writes:

(It’s very depressing to me that one of the biggest and earliest bloggers out there, Jeff Jarvis, makes only $1,000 per month for his efforts.)

I share her sentiments, and recall Guy Kawasaki’s “reveal” earlier this year as to his ~$3K of “income” despite amazing site traffic and popularity. Although Google AdSense expert Ruben claims it’s Guy’s own fault, I think it is becoming more and more clear that the pot of gold is a lot closer to a lump of clay, albeit a slightly shiny one.

This site receives (at the time of writing) between 2000-3000 unique readers per day on average according to my server stats, and right around 2000 per day according to Google Analytics (which is probably a bit closer to reality). Alexa ranks the site around ~165,000 of all Web sites (although they state that anyone ranked below 100,000 should treat the data as “not reliable“). Technorati has me around ~21,000, placing me in the top 1% of their tracked blogs.

Most people will say this is at least average traffic, if not pretty good. It’s worth less than $1K per year, which covers hosting fees and a few incidentals. So in classic “long tail theory,” I’m somewhere off in that thin part of the graph. But the interesting part is this: so are the people in the top 0.01% of ranked blogs!

I’m going off on a limb here, but my hunch is this: the “thick part” of the graph is made up mostly of spam blogs and squatters. Either that, or the entire blogosphere is sitting in the tail, regardless of the traffic going to the top contributors.

So the money is clearly not much to write home about for most of us. Except when I consider that in that batch of 2000ish readers per day are a pretty good selection of key influencers and thought leaders in my industry (yes, you!). I might not be able to put a dollar figure, so I guess I’ve got to value it MasterCard-style: priceless.

More data points, facts, and figures on blogging for dollars over at BusinessWeek and the Christian Science Monitor.

Scobleized whilst en Vacaciones

Posted on February 4, 2007 by Jeremy Toeman

In a post just before my vacation, I mentioned a video Robert Scoble shot of a few of us chatting about the age-old Mac vs PC debate. Well, it’s online in its entirety (hour 1 and hour 2) and I think the part I’ve enjoyed the most is reading the comments written across the blogs who covered it (Scobleizer, Harry McCracken, Fred Davis, and especially Josh Catone – Josh, I’d be happy to debate the IPTV/DVR/TV2.0 topic any time!). The good, the bad, and the ugly. Thanks to Robert and the gang for the very interesting evening, and thanks to everyone who has taken the time to watch the action.

While I’d have really liked to be around last week to participate in the conversation live, I was just way too happy offline on the beach in Mexico. I kept a journal while there (on paper even) and typed it up on the flight home. I read a lot of travelogues (especially Bill Bryson, my personal favorite travel writer), and this is my little attempt to entertain with my travel story. You can start reading here, or just jump to the pictures if you’d prefer. I’ve got some video coming too, which needs a bit of editing and Muvee treatment, then I’ll put it up on YouTube later this week.

Hold on to your popcorn

Posted on January 28, 2007 by Guest Contributor

First, thanks to Jeremy for inviting me to join his blog and be one of his “friends” musing on consumer technology. I have started my own blog but we both thought it would be fun to combine a few things. Here is my first post….

Recently at the Barrett-Jackson auto auction in Scottsdale, Arizona I had the chance to test and talk to the folks at Custom Theater Solutions. They are the creators of a new and impressive custom motion seating design. After testing their new setup, all I can say is
spill your popcorn

Their motion seating puts you into the movie like never before! After sitting in their seats I expected clunky movements, a little vibration and swaying. What I got was full action movements, smooth, fast and completely natural. There are not many things that can impress me this much, to actually make me grin like a child, but this was definitely one of those times. We were watching scenes from Terminator 3. Every movement, vibration, explosion you feel. Camera zooms in, you zoom in, vehicle accelerates and you feel as is you are too. But it’s not just all about the action scenes, you feel it when the camera zooms in, pans, or just sit there quietly during slow scenes.

How do they do it?
They don’t use hydraulics or bulky mechanisms, they use metal actuators. These actuators are fast and strong.
They can give you up to 2Gs of acceleration! They simply hook up the actuators to their seats and using a pivot point they can give you complete pitch, roll and yaw.

How do they tell the actuators what to do?
My first guess was from the audio portion of the movie, boy was I wrong.

The seats, mounted on a platform with all the electronics inside the platform are programmed with something called, ‘motion codes’. “When you need motion codes for the latest DVD, you connect a special set-top box to your internet connection and also to your DVD player. All your motion codes will be downloaded automatically as soon as they come out. Keep in mind that the motion codes aren’t part of the actual DVD, so it doesn’t matter if your movie is rented, store bought or downloaded from the internet. The system will automatically find the specific motion code for that movie and cue it up in real time. There are already over 600-plus movie motion codes available, with more than five new movies coded every week. The CTS system also has an alternate audio feedback mode for video games and TV shows.

They also can hook the actuators to almost any seating setup. Want your whole couch to move, no problem. One, two, three or four theater seats, no problem. This makes the system very versatile.

All in all I give this system a wow factor of 10.
Pros and Cons

Pros

Less expensive than other systems on the market. A three seat system is around $17,000.
Very versatile, can be made to fit any home theater environment.
If local they can bring their special built demo trailer directly to your home to test.
Wow your friends factor of 10.

Cons

Have to download the motion code before watching latest released movies, or check if availble before you purchase the movie.
It’s almost too much. After watching for awhile, it’s so intense you need a break.
Doesn’t work with regular TV… Yet.

Heading to the Beach

Posted on January 26, 2007 by Jeremy Toeman

Well, I haven’t done a real vacation in a long time, so the wife and I are heading to Mexico tomorrow morning. We’re staying at the Iberostar resort, which looks wonderful. While I’m gone, please hold all my calls.

ps – gadgets I am bringing are down to three: cell phone (which will be off, but I like to have it for emergencies), laptop (mostly for the 5+ hour flight, but I like to write a journal when I travel), and digital camera.

Mac vs PC – a NONreligious debate!

Posted on January 25, 2007 by Jeremy Toeman

Had dinner and great conversation at Robert Scoble’s last night, which most of the time would be a good enough excuse for a blog post. But to add a little icing to the cake, I got to spend a few hours chatting with some really brilliant people: Fred Davis (former Editor in Chief of MacUser and Editor at PC Week!), Sam Levin (influence marketing expert and die-hard Mac pro-sumer), and Harry McCracken (current Editor in Chief of PC World).

Now we actually had a purpose for the evening beyond just hanging out and chatting (which was entertaining on its own). Our focus was to discuss OSX vs Vista, from a variety perspectives. Typically these discussions turn into nasty debates and people throw out terms incuding “monopolistic”, “egomaniac”, “incompatible”, and “blue screen”, then a fistfight ensues. Interestingly, none of that occurred. More interestingly was the lack of side-taking we as a group had.

I’m not going to give any other “spoilers” away, since Scoble video’d the whole thing, and I’m sure the edit will come out pretty well. You should be able to see it on the ScobleShow right around the Vista launch. Make sure you have the volume up, because in addition to our pretty faces, you’ll often hear Robert add some of his own thoughts into the discussion.

Thanks for hosting us Robert and Maryam, and thanks for the great conversation everyone! You can read more from Fred’s perspective on his blog too and I threw a few pictures up on Flickr.

Classic Games: Redo, Remaster, Rerelease, or RIP?

Posted on January 25, 2007 by Jeremy Toeman

Warning: this is one of my geekier posts!

Brett Thomas over at bit-tech wrote a nice piece on games he felt needed a “remaster” job. Remastering, in this context, means the gameplay is just fine, but the graphics and sound need an overhaul. I liked his list for the most part, and its inspired me to make my own. In addition to the “remaster” category, I’m adding “redo” (which means the game has a good storyline, but should be rebuilt using current tools and interface concepts), “rerelease” (if the game is perfect as is, but might need new drivers to work in XP or Vista) and RIP (which reflects a game that was great, but should remain in our memories – kinda like the movie “The Dark Crystal”).

I’m not exactly sure if this is my “all-time” favorite games list, as I’ll probably forget as many great ones as I remember. Also, the list is in no particular order:

Civilization 2. It’s now 10 years old, which means I’ve been playing it for 10 years. The original version is actually still installable on XP, although it seems there was a ‘refresh’ edition in 2002. The graphics are poor, the sound is bad, but the gameplay is terrific (although I’d love it even more with a non-cheating AI) and I wouldn’t sacrifice the speed of the old version just for prettier icons.
Verdict: Rerelease (already done)
Wing Commander 2. Still the best “space shooter” I’ve ever seen, with a fun, vivid storyline and great gameplay. I really liked the ‘mortality’ aspect of the story arcs – failing a mission early on had long-term impacts, something that I find lacking in more modern games. Would love to revisit the game in HD. By the way, never, ever, ever watch the movie.
Verdict: Remaster (especially on an Xbox 360)
Ultima 4 and 6. Best. RPGs. Ever. Both were playable and beatable without needing cheats or hints. Both took tremendous time investments to play, but had extremely rewarding storytelling (I literally had chills when I beat Ultima VI). Check the links for both games – apparently both can still be run in DOS emulators. I’m happy to have my fond memories here, especially because I just don’t have the time anymore!
Verdict: RIP
Out of this World (aka Another World). This groundbreaking game was probably the last game I ever really got into until this past year, as I didn’t game all that much in my 20’s. Again, I loved the storyline and the polygon graphics were state-of-the-art at the time. I believe with a refresh it’d do very well in the current crop of games and gamers.
Verdict: Remaster
Kaboom!. Nothing made better use of the Atari paddle controller than Kaboom. Nothing.
Verdict: RIP
NHL 94. While the modern versions of EA’s NHL series are wonderful to behold, they are so much more complicated than video game hockey used to be. I still think hockey is the best video game sport to play, as the games have the most auto-intelligence (in other words, if the guy you are controlling screws up, the rest of the players still play “right”). I’d love to see NHL 2008 leverage the simplicity of the original, but with the gorgeous graphics the series boasts today.
Verdict: Redo
Bubble Bobble. How about turning it into a first-person shooter? Just kidding.
Verdict: RIP
Blood Money. This is the first of the Amiga games I’m mentioning. This great side-scroller had one of the most amazing soundtracks I’ve still ever heard in a video game. No real need to bring it back to life, but if you get the chance to hear the sound, check it out.
Verdict: RIP
Cyberball. I like this game so much I actually had a full free-standing arcade version of it in my home in Pittsburgh, back in the late 90s. Football. Robots. Explosions. Multiplayer. Awesome. Bring it back as it was, or refreshed, or whatever it takes. Just bring it (supposedly coming to Xbox this year)!
Verdict: Remaster or Rerelease.
Gauntlet II. I think I gave up more allowance quarters to Gauntlet II than any other game in history (maybe Ikari Warriors, but it’s close). I played and beat the Secret Room Challenge enough times to win a t-shirt! Atari revived Gauntlet a few years ago, but I don’t think it had the same magic as the original. Red warrior needs food… Badly.
Verdict: Remaster
Lode Runner and Lemmings. Two games that suffered through way too many derivatives and sequels, none of which touched the original. Both allowed “user-generated content” (ooh!) and both had virtually endless replayability. Unfortunately something tells me they’d both be best left preserved as they were.
Verdict: RIP
Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. I know most people seem to pick Zork for the legendary Infocom games, but Hitchhiker’s was my favorite. The humor combined with the amazing challenge (I did need to resort to a hint book for the damned “dark room” early into the game, as well as the whole “tea – no tea” thing) just made for a wonderful combination. In fact, I think this game and the original BBC TV series both rate higher for me than the original books! I’d love to see a new take on the content with all the current technology, or just see how ‘the kids today’ handle the difficulty of the original (which is playable online).
Verdict: Redo or Rerelease
Populous. The second Amiga game on the list (even though it was ported elsewhere, the Amiga version was hands-down the best. Why? The breathing). Invented by Peter Molyneux, the guy who then created Black & White and other amazing AI-heavy games, Populous was the original RTS game in my book. I recall struggling for hours to get serial-to-serial connections or 9600 baud modems working just to play it multiplayer. You can actually still play the DOS version (downloads here), but this would be spectacular if recreated today.
Verdict: Redo or Remaster
Total Annihilation. The king of RTS games. Better than StarCraft, WarCraft, Total War, and Command & Conquer. Once called the best game ever made, it’s definitely in the tops of my lists. The fan base even today is amazing, and there is a “spiritual successor” coming in 2007 in the form of Supreme Commander. Getting the original TA to work in XP is a pain, and should be supported.
Verdict: Rerelease
Wizardry. My favorite “old-school” RPG. Gave players all the geekiness required to enjoy D&D, but in a very playable way. The story was so-so, but the game was very addictive because of the simplicity of the interface. Back when you had to actually make your own maps in a game (I miss grid paper).
Verdict: Redo
Zak McCracken/Maniac Mansion. Two of the funniest “adventure” games ever made, back when LucasArts was a bit more of a light-hearted studio. Took the whole concept of in-game puzzles and easter eggs to a new level, so much that you didn’t really care if you didn’t “get” all the inside jokes around you. Both games’ plotlines were extremely well thought-out, and would do great today.
Verdict: Remaster
Mind Walker. Now I’m going old-school. Considered by some to be the original Amiga game (by the way, I never even owned an Amiga, but yet 3 of their games made my list!), Mind Walker lived in a category of its own, and still doesn’t fit in any genre. Should be refreshed and put on the market for every console ASAP.
Verdict: Redo

And I’d like to give a special mention to Nethack, for my all-time most-played game (I still play it occasionally both on the PC and on my PPC-6700!). Now, nobody touch it, please. If you’ve never played it, you are missing out. It’s free, and you can start playing immediately. It has more depth than any other game, in the history of games. It doesn’t need any pretty graphics or surround sound, and I don’t think it ever will get either! And with that nod, I officially out-geek even myself.

How to actually Make Money off Second Life

Posted on January 24, 2007 by Jeremy Toeman

It’s pretty easy: Become a consultant/studio who provides services that get First Life companies onto Second Life.

I say this because it’s about the only way I see to actually be profitable off the site/game/world. The guys at Linden Labs (the company behind Second Life, or SL as they call it) are possibly the best hype-masters I’ve ever seen. For example, today their partner Universal Pictures issued a press release with the title “‘Smokin’ Aces: Second Life Assassin’ Game Proves an Unprecedented Hit in Virtual World.” Unprecedented Hit, eh? There isn’t a single stat of any kind in the release text – no usage, performance, subscribers, etc. Nothing.

I’ve watched two main themes emerge on SL in the past two weeks:

“Tech leaders” think Second Life could be a “gold mine” (discussion: BlackRimGlasses, CNNMoney)
Second Life is a pyramid scheme (discussion: ValleyWag, Capitalism 2.0, Duncan Riley)

I also enjoyed Mathew Ingram’s and Webomatica’s thoughts on SL and these issues. All stats below come from one of these or the above sources.

Now I don’t know if it’s a game or a world, and I don’t much care. I know I believe the ~100,000 users number more than I do the 2,000,000 users number. But fundamentally it doesn’t matter to me. When clients come to me to ask my opinion on SL, I just don’t want them spending money on it today. When I see companies like ShowTime launch a show property in SL (congrats to Akela, a former LD blogger!), I don’t understand how they cost-justify it.

Today, like it or not, SL is a small number of people enjoying their free reign in a fantasy world. They are, for the most part, very technically savvy. There’s a lot of gaming, gambling, and sex in SL. When I read there’s a Second Life millionnaire, I want to see that person actually cash out before I get excited. I’ve seen virtual press conferences and read about someone finding a job there. That’s nice.

The bottom line is there are few users and it’s a very narrow niche. Furthermore, in order to get in as a big company, you have to be willing to invest a lot of money, since it requires a very specific skill-set. While some might say “sounds like 1995 and the Web all over again” I point out one quick difference: when new users try Second Life, most do not return. The same was simply not the case 12 years ago.

So, want to take advantage of the Second Life “gold mine”? Jump on the bandwagon and ride the gravy train as long as you can. That is, until the pyramid begins to crumble…

Geek Dinner 2007:01

Posted on January 24, 2007 by Jeremy Toeman

When I first started my Geek Dinners last fall, I figured they’d be quaint affairs, with 4 or 5 people getting together to pseudo-geek out, chat about tech trends and whatnot. Little did I expect last night’s crew of 20 guys & gals (yes, actual gals – plural even!) to come enjoy the finest in Italian Haute Cuisine – Buca di Beppo.

As usual, here’s a list of our merry crew (from left to right):

Thomas Hawk – photographer, photowalker, and blogger extraordinaire
Jason Whitt – venture capitalist with VantagePoint Ventures
Scott Cronce – CTO of Electronic Arts
Melanie Westlake – the queen of Yahoo! Mobile
Jeremy Toeman – him?
Lisa Whelan – business development consultant and social media blogger
Andrew Kippen – “technology scout” for the French Trade Commission
Daniel Riveong – technology marketing expert at e-Storm
Davis Freeberg – prolific digital media blogger and photographer
Esther Lim – VP, Client Services and Interactive Strategy for e-Storm
Mehrshad Mansouri – still unemployed
Cindy Wang – Technical Yahoo! for mobile Web applications
Joel Sacks (or at least his eyes and forehead) – account exec for CNet
Sam Levin – influencer marketing expert
Kristopher Tate – founder of Zooomr
Guy Horowitz – venture capitalist with Gemini Ventures
Brian Meckler – product manager at Sling Media
Jeff Allen – reformed VC, now founder of a new stealthy startup
Heidi Pollock – another Technical Yahoo! (thus making it Yahoo 3, Google 0 for Geek Dinners)

Dinner was a lot of fun, we even had a little “musical chairs” moment where we shuffled the whole seating arrangement to ~~confuse the waitress~~ help get more people meeting each other. I overheard and participated in discussions on topics ranging from CES (not much new, lots of bigger/smaller products, with more convergence) to truly converged mobile devices (not gonna happen) to Second Life (wherein I pronounced my desire to start a SL Mob that goes around graffiting things, then charging for “protection”).

We also had a little “around-the-table” on the iPhone, with the simple question of: will you buy it in the first 30 days? 13 said no (primary reasons: no keyboard and locked-down with Cingular service), but 6 said yes (although one was technically a freebie). While that might be the minority, that’s clearly a good indication of how much excitement Apple has generated so far.

Lastly, I had a few gadgets from CES that I showed the group, and here were the quick reactions:

Cell phone call light-up bracelet – didn’t really work
Netgear travel router – nice idea, but too big compared to Airport Express
Ethereal’s high-end HDMI cable – don’t spend a lot of money on cables!
Shure SE420 and E500PTH headphones – tremendous waves of jealousy
CameraBright – nead idea, might not work well enough
The Tornado file transfer USB tool – great concept, a little big
quik-pod solo camera “tripod” – awesome, huge round of applause

I also did a giveaway with a variety of products from the show (and some chocolate), to the people with The Most Video Game Consoles (10), The First Cell Phone Owner (1992), The First GPS Owner (2002), The Most Computers in their Home (12), and the First Portable Computer Owner (I don’t recall the year, but it was a while ago).

Thanks again for coming everyone, please don’t hesitate to add any comments for any highlights I may have forgotten!

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