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Gravity Movie Review (spoiler-free)

Posted on September 13, 2013 by Jeremy Toeman

20130913-003420.jpgLet me start by disclaiming “spoiler free” – I assume you have seen a preview or read at least enough to know the most basic premise of the film. If you truly have no idea what it’s about, well, I make references to content used in the trailers. But seriously, if this does describe you, why are you even click to get this far?

I had a chance to see an early screener of the movie tonight, and felt like doing a little writing about it. In all candor, I’m more negative than positive on it personally, but I think there are a lot of reasons to go see it in theaters (if you are going to see it at all). Gravity might well define the “must see in theater” experience far more than any action movie ever would.

The Good:

  • Beautiful, amazing, breathtakingly phenomenal cinematography. I honestly feel closer to having an idea of what being in space might be like as a result of the way this was shot.
  • Solid acting. I felt the characters were genuine, and Clooney/Bullock fit their roles quite well – in fact I’m surprised at any negativity toward the acting on IMDB message boards or other spots.
  • Suspenseful. Cuaron did a great job keeping the audience on the edge of their seat, and had a solid balance between slowly built, drawn out sequences and other “gotcha” kind of moments.
  • Dialogue and characters. Great blends of comic and serious, deep and light, etc moments. Very well put together from that end.
  • The Bad:

  • Repetitive events. You know that scene in the preview where someone is grabbing on to some space ship part for dear life, and it appears that if they miss it they will be lost in space forever? Yeah, I’ve now seen that moment a few dozen times, to the point where I’d predict a Gravity Drinking Game around it. It’s just too much, and while I get it that that’s a big part of the premise, it becomes nearly comical after the first few times it occurs.
  • Too many crises. If you’ve read the trivia around Apollo 13, you’ve probably noticed they deliberately removed some of the events that transpired in real life from the film, mostly because they didn’t think the audience would find it believable. In Gravity, I felt that the cascading series of mishaps were just too many from start to finish. I think numerous moments could’ve been reduced or removed completely and the end result would’ve been more gripping. Instead, I kept getting that feeling where my suspension of disbelief was being taxed.
  • Too many “last possible moment” sequences. To avoid spoiling anything, just imagine a caper movie where the bomb is set to go off, and after a ton of action, the bomb is defused with less than a second to go. Now do it 3 or more (I’ve lost count) times in the same movie. It certainly builds up tension, but also increased the “okay, now they are just messing with me” effect.
  • The trailer. While I’d say it’s a tossup between Drive and Hancock as to “worst expectation setting for a movie, EVER,” I’d say Gravity’s trailer is on thin ice. If you’ve paid too much attention to it, it’s pretty ridden with spoilers (thankfully I had not seen it more than once before going into the movie). But if you also just saw it once or twice, you’d probably be thinking it’s a non-stop space action flick. It isn’t, and if you are unfamiliar with the director’s other works, you should definitely pay them some attention first. The movie paces really well actually, but it’s a much more drawn-out film than I think a lot of people will expect.
  • Annoying 3D. I wish I’d seen the IMAX 3D version, maybe that would change my feelings here. As it is, I didn’t, and other than 2-3 “really cool” uses of 3D, it was pretty superfluous to the movie.
  • Overall, I have negative feelings about Gravity. Per the above, it was wonderfully put together, but ultimately I felt the movie spent more time trying to manipulate me with unnecessary tension. I think the basic premise was suspenseful and dramatic enough, but had several too many “and now we’ll find a way for *another* crazy bad thing to happen” moments for me. I wish that weren’t the case, as I really did want to like it, but I’ve spent the past few hours picking it apart, not sitting around stunned at its beauty

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    Posted in General, Product Reviews | Tags: gravity, movie, review | 1 Comment |

    Nine Things You Might Not Know About Cord Cutting

    Posted on August 7, 2013 by Jeremy Toeman

    The topic of cord cutting is always an interesting one, one that waxes and wanes across technology and media outlets over time.  In all cases, there are compelling arguments for cord cutting, and just as compelling ones against it.  I thought I’d opine a little on the topic.

    1) Cord cutting is undeniably on the rise.  But how much is the real question. First, it’s important to acknowledge this is after the longest run of cable sub GROWTH we’ve ever seen. We hit the peak last year , and are now backing down to some other plateau – but i’m far from convinced we’re heading to an abysmal valley.  We might see decline continue for several quarters, but realistically – the rate of decline is virtually meaningless against the business operations of most Pay TV providers.

    2) How economic recovery is a factor. This may sound counterintuitive, but I believe much of the decline in subs is related to post-recession recovery – yes, recovery.  The #1 thing people spend money on in bad times is home entertainment – its much cheaper to go up to a premium cable package than go to the movies.  Now that the economy is doing better, people are reallocating their spend, and choosing to be entertained outside of the home.

    3) Cord cutting isn’t inherently disruptive, but it could tangentially be part of a massive change in the industry.  Here’s a “major impact” possible outcome: breakdown of geographic/regional MSO barriers.  Traditionally the only way for a Pay-TV Provider like Comcast/TWC to expand was via acquiring local providers (of which there are still ~12000 in the US alone, jfyi).  As we see these companies increasingly offer TV Everywhere and app-based offerings (on Apple TV, Roku, Smart TVs, iPads, and Web Browsers), it *must* be tempting for them to start figuring out how to legally encroach without boundaries.  I believe this must happen over time, and will be the “singularity” that most disrupts the ecosystem as it exists today.

    4) Awesome hype: I was recently discussing cord cutting with a reporter, and one thing that emerged from the conversation is the realization that nobody in the media is going to write a blog post/article entitled “TV: Doing Great!”.  It’s not interesting, not dramatic, and wouldn’t get page views – therefore isn’t news.  But to be the canary in the coal mine – now that’s enticing!  So we have a heap of prominent news outlets with articles written by people who don’t necessarily fully get the industry they are writing about (no offense intended – this is one of the most complicated industries to even attempt to understand!) AND are *incentivized* to write dramatic/sensational headlines.  “Death of TV” is a good one, “Nobody’s Cord Cutting At All” is not.

    5) Live TV is well-loved, and awesome – even if you don’t watch it. I find an amazing correlation between people who believe cord cutting is huge and also think everybody in the world has seen House of Cards, and in fact they all watched it opening weekend.  It leads to a terrible bias about how individuals perceive most TV audiences, which are nowhere near accurate.  The truth in TV watching comes down to this: even in households WITH DVRs (not the majority of US homes, btw), over 50% of TV watching is done live.  Now I personally cannot fathom that behavior, nor the desire to watch 4.5+ hours per day of TV – but it’s still more accurate than someone like myself, who watches virtually everything on my own schedule (and device of choice).

    6) MSOs will do just fine even if cord-cutting emerges more significantly.  These companies have spent a few decades with a lot of CapEx which has now enabled them to create new value-added services. Voice, for example, became a multi-billion dollar business for Comcast, with NO SIGNIFICANT investment whatsoever.  Now they are looking toward: Home Security, Home Automation/Monitoring, increased Communications, etc.  The revenue that fades (if any) from TV will shift to Internet and other value-added services.

    7) The real damage is to Broadcast Networks. If you really want to analyze the business impact, it’s essential understand the revenue flow and content itself.  Even in a cord-cutters utopia, with all of everything available fully on demand (and free, if I get them right), the content is still king. So in this utopia, however the business model works, it seems like the companies whose role is buying shows and distributing them to cable networks will need to find a new raison d’etre.  We’ll still need Internet, and we’ll still want stuff on demand – those two functions alone necessitate a service provider.

    8. Cord Cutting Paradise might really be more Hellish. Pretty much every analysis on the topic shows that a la carte pricing and unbundling will cost consumers more than it saves them.  Again, for everyone reading this who thinks most people are like them, and only watch two shows at a time, all marathon/binge-style – you are in the extreme minority of audiences.  Buying, for example, Game of Thrones on iTunes goes for roughly $39/season.  Or you can upgrade to get HBO (which typically comes with a bunch of other channels), and get all 3 seasons, and the entire back catalog of HBO originals for (depending on provider) typically $10-20 (or more) per month.  It’s a good deal.  For a household of 4, who watch 4.5 hours per day (on multiple TVs in multiple rooms, plus their mobile devices), that’s 540 viewing hours per month (or more) – so if you pay $100/month for TV, it’s averaging under a quarter an hour. Not too shabby.

    9) One more thing on the “great unbundling” of TV.  I’ve read numerous reports about how a variety of ambitious startups and tech ventures are negotiating with Hollywood to offer TV in different forms.  Sounds good in theory, and follows a very Google-like logical argument around content, but flies in the face of business interests and, more importantly, long term multi-billion dollar contracts.  The “big” service providers (Comcast, etc) all have “most favored nation” style clauses with the broadcasters that utterly prevent anyone else from buying it any cheaper.  So for anyone to offer it cheaper, they will likely do so at extreme loss.  Literally, any vision of any other type of offering is an unrealistic fantasy, and I cannot possibly imagine how it happens.

    Looking forward to thoughtful replies in the comments!

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    Posted in General | 1 Comment |

    All anyone needs to do to "disrupt" television is…

    Posted on July 19, 2013 by Jeremy Toeman

    Want to know how to “kill” the traditional TV industry?  It’s easy.  Come up with a cash flow of roughly $70 billion.  That’s it.  Pure and simple.

    The thing about it, that so many people out there seem to not grasp (which frustrates me to no end, I must say), is it takes about that much money to maintain the rough production costs (and profits) for all the shows we love to watch.  See, we all know that there’s some perfect blend between Live TV broadcasting and an all-streaming/on-demand library (neither end of the spectrum are “correct”), but we don’t know how to get there.  Meanwhile, everyone wants to talk about killing/disruption the TV ecosystem. So let’s talk about the cold hard facts of this world:

    TV Shows Are Expensive to Make. While new technologies across the spectrum certainly reduce many aspects of production, if you want a Game of Thrones, House of Cards, Mad Men, Breaking Bad, etc type of show, you need sets, lighting, etc.  We *cannot* get around that statement in any way.  So regardless of the surge in lower cost reality shows, if you enjoy quality dramas/comedies for 44/22 minutes at a time, you need a budget.  Unless you can get all the actors, directors, writers, key grips, etc to take a big salary haircut, this will not change.

    Advertising Pays The Bulk of it. Other than fine shows from HBO, Showtime, Netflix, and a handful of others, the wide array of money that covers costs of TV shows comes from the $70(+) billion ad industry.  There is no model, from subscription to a la carte to anything else that can easily replace this cash flow as far as I am aware, but if so, I’m sure we’d all love to hear about it.

    victoryag.org Advertising Models Are Based on Live/Near-Live Viewing. Another tough, but true, fact about the existing ecosystem is the revenue is predicated on live audiences.  While I love catch-up and streaming as much as anyone, it does not contribute to the bill-paying.  For this to change/shift/be disrupted, the massive amounts of people, and money, all have to come up with an entirely new model for their world.  Again, even if we know there’s a desire/trend toward a decrease in live viewership, nobody, anywhere, has come up with a successful alternate structure here.

    So the TL;DR version of the above: TV Shows Cost a Lot Of Money, and the Only Way to Pay for them is Advertising, and the Only Way Advertisers Spend Money is on Live Viewing.

    If you want/expect the above statement to change, get ready for more ads in your streaming – lots of them.  Like 8 of every 30 minutes worth.  That’s what it takes.

    While we’re at it, I just want to add two topics regarding the discussion around TV disruption:

    Pay-TV Operators Have an Arbitrarily Bad Rep. It’s easy to blame Comcast, ATamp;T, etc for anything and everything, but they should not be pointed to as “the problem” of television.  Yes, they have their part to play, but when you consider the fact that someone has to send people into homes to repair lines, answer customer service calls, etc, there is always going to be an easy enemy.  And as much as our cable bills have risen dramatically over the past two decades, the cost the operators are paying for content have risen *more* dramatically, and those costs are not entirely being passed along to consumers.  I’m not defending anything about Pay-TV providers, but I’m also not in agreement that they are “bad” and everyone else is “good”.

    Most Startups Are Clueless About the TV Industry. Yes, that probably sounds harsh, but considering the quantity of companies who spring out of nowhere and want to disrupt or change things, it amazes me how few of them actually take the time to learn enough about the world and business they are getting into (read Mike Wolf’s solid piece on this here).  This is important because the “TV Industry” is actually an amalgam of many industries, from service providers, content production, distribution, studios, data, etc.  It’s easy to say “TV Industry” but in reality, we shouldn’t say it at all – it’s isn’t “an” industry, it’s many.  My tip to startups: pick one specific sub-industry you want to get into/go after/change/kill/whatever, and go learn how it *really* works.

    So there you have it, your simple recipe for how to disrupt the simple world of television.  Good luck with that.

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    Posted in General | 4 Comments |

    Quickie: Introducing NextGuide Web

    Posted on May 20, 2013 by Jeremy Toeman

    TL;DR version: “Pinterest meets Evernote meets TV Guide” 🙂

    Today we introduced NextGuide Web. NextGuide Web is a new site that helps people find and explore TV shows and movies and see what their friends recommend and watch. The site lets users discover and watch shows on live TV and popular streaming services including Amazon Prime, Amazon Instant Video, iTunes, Hulu Plus, and Netflix.

    What can you do with it?

    Single Search – No more need to browse site after site to find your favorite show on a streaming service – search once on NextGuide for combined live and streaming results.

    Universal Watchlist and Queue – No need to maintain unique queues on all your favorite sites, just create one list at NextGuide for anything you’d ever like to see.

    Automatic Reminders – For any show or movie, set a reminder and NextGuide can email you whenever there’s a new airing on live TV or any streaming service.

    One Click to Watch amp; Record to DVR – When browsing shows, NextGuide includes direct links to watch on streaming services, or queue recordings to your home DVR (note: DVR features only for Comcast and DIRECTV subscribers at present).

    Social Recommendations – Easily discover what shows and movies your Facebook friends are Liking, and get recommendations from other people who watch similar shows and movies as you do.

    For an example, here’s my personal TV profile on NextGuide.

    Here’s some of the other coverage about NextGuide Web.

    VentureBeat: http://venturebeat.com/2013/05/20/dijit-launches-a-web-version-of-its-nextguide-app-tv-utility/

    TechCrunch: http://techcrunch.com/2013/05/20/dijit-nextguide-web/

    Robert Scoble : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MRZlfml5Aowamp;feature=youtu.beamp;a

    The Verge: http://www.theverge.com/2013/5/20/4346866/nextguide-web-replaces-your-dvr-interface-with-your-web-browser

    GigaOm: http://gigaom.com/2013/05/20/nextguide-web-app/

    Engadget: http://www.engadget.com/2013/05/20/dijit-unveils-nextguide-web/

    The Next Web: http://thenextweb.com/insider/2013/05/20/dijit-media-launches-nextguide-web-a-site-to-help-discover-tv-and-movies-your-friends-love-to-watch/

    CNET: http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-57585296-93/social-tv-app-nextguide-goes-from-mobile-to-the-web/

    PandoDaily: http://pandodaily.com/2013/05/20/nextguide-web-launches-can-it-possibly-be-a-discovery-powerhouse/

    Lost Remote: http://lostremote.com/dijit-media-debuts-nextguide-on-the-web-to-make-it-easier-to-find-and-watch-tv-shows_b37680

    TechNewsDaily: http://www.technewsdaily.com/18109-nextguide-keeps-track-favorite-shows.html

    Multichannel News: http://www.multichannel.com/technology/dijit%E2%80%99s-personal-tv-guide-targets-web/143394

    Appmarket.TV: http://www.appmarket.tv/second-screen/2124-dijit-media-introduces-nextguide-web-a-next-generation-social-tv-discovery-and-sharing-web-experience.html

    nScreenMedia: http://www.nscreenmedia.com/1/post/2013/05/guide-web-seeks-to-unify-search-and-discovery-of-video-online.html

    The End of Television: http://www.theendoftelevision.com/nextguide-tv-dijit-introduces-a-web-version-of-nextguide/

    Would love your feedback, so please take a glance around and let us know!

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    Posted in General | 1 Comment |

    Was Releasing House of Cards All At Once a Mistake?

    Posted on February 13, 2013 by Jeremy Toeman

    Though I haven’t watched House of Cards yet (no spoilers!), I’ve followed the viewing behaviors and studies around the show extensively, and have come to an interesting conclusion: I believe, fundamentally, that shows should not be released all at once for optimal viewing.  Instead, my proposal would be a monthly release cycle of 4 episodes per month, followed by a season finale. Let me also state I’m a *huge* Netflix fan and supporter, so this isn’t intended as criticism of that company – this is uncharted territory and the company must be applauded for their (expensive) risk-taking.

    For backgrounder, here are some stats (not necessarily accurate) on per-episode viewing and others on overall Netflix traffic during opening weekend.  The TL;DR version of them is that Netflix did not experience an overall bump in usage – in effect House of Cards cannibalized against other Netflix traffic, not against live TV watching.  This isn’t necessarily a bad thing at all, though I’m sure they’d prefer to have eaten away at primetime content.  I’d postulate that perhaps a weekend launch wasn’t the right timing, and a mid-week release cycle of 4 episodes could have had a better impact.

    Next, the waiting cycle. I have a few friends who’ve binged the whole season already (as did TheVerge apparently), all of whom loved it, and are now waiting for a year to get the next season.  With any other show, the typical cycle is watch one, wait a week, get a new one.  That said, many shows really benefit from being able to watch more than one in a row (especially shows with a lot of nuance, such as my personal favorite Arrested Development), so there’s clearly value in the batch release.  If 4 episodes came out once a month, the audience would get the recurring sip of nectar whilst also enjoying the back-to-back viewing.

    Next, there’s a lack of scarcity being created here.  There’s no anticipation, no wait, no build-up – until next year. This basically benefits Netflix only once annually, whereas with a high quality show like House of Cards, they could see the uptake in “water cooler” effects on a monthly basis.  And the season finale would be “an event” as opposed to an utter non-event like it is now.  There’s no social pressure, no “OMG That Happened!?!” moment possible amongst any group of people.  In fact, there’s literally nothing tying together any form of a “community” around the show.  A cycle would help this immensely.

    So overall, I think that the “all at once” model is a great experiment, but one that certainly doesn’t “break” anything about TV.  I believe some shows deserve the weekly treatment (especially genres like traditional sitcoms, reality shows, etc), and others would be great with a monthly batch.  Personally, I find some shows have their own rhythms – I am catching up on The Wire only once every week or two specifically to savor the sweet deliciousness of that awesome show.  Let’s see what happens with House of Cards for Season 2.

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    To Win in Technology, Sell Benefits, Not Features

    Posted on January 24, 2013 by Jeremy Toeman

    Passoverriffic!

    Pictured here is a container of good ol’ Manischewitz brand cake meal (a staple of my pantry every Passover).  The packaging could show the contents, which is basically flour.  Instead, we see a picture of a cake (enticing or not).  I couldn’t think of a simpler way to make the point: if you really want to sell, focus on the benefits or outcome, not the features or process.

    Every time I read about a new phone and I hear about the processor, the cache, the RAM, etc, I think about cake meal.  This is something only Apple’s mastered, and Samsung’s rapidly learning – nobody cares about what’s inside the phone, they care about what it can do.

    And the same is true for computers, for TVs, even for Websites and apps.  In fact I can’t think of anything involving technology, other than cars, where this isn’t the case.

    Back when I was a consultant, this was possibly my most common advice.  When I mentor with 500Startups or FounderFuel, again, a topic that comes up virtually every meeting.

    And the reality is this is the blunt feedback so few people in technology seem to receive: other than your team and your supporters, nobody cares about what’s under the hood.

    I recommend exactly two things for anyone not sold on this:

    1 – think about how you’d try to sell cake meal

    2 – watch this video by Simon Sinek, one of my all time favorite TED Talks.

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    Prediction: Cord Nevers Become Cord Getters

    Posted on January 22, 2013 by Jeremy Toeman

    El Cable Guy es Mucho Loco

    As the phenomenon of predicting the death of TV via cord cutters is waning, it’s being replaced by a plausible (at first) sounding theory: cord nevers.  Whereas a cord cutter is one who cancels their Pay-TV service for free/streaming alternatives, a cord never is, roughly, a person under the age of 22 who, upon renting their first apartment after college, never subscribes for TV services in the first place.  My theory at this point is these people may live happily cable-free for a year or few, but sooner or later, they’ll pay.  Here’s a few reasons why:

    Cultural Zeitgeist
    The single most common binding element pulling modern culture together today is TV, and I can’t see anything replacing that in the short term.  As someone nearing the end of their first year watching entirely “catch up” I’ve noticed, multiple times, the feeling of being left out of some conversations.  By the way, I’d like to keep this post and ensuing discussion free from judgment regarding watching decisions – I don’t care what the show is, everyone’s free to be entertained however they’d like.  But I currently have no idea what exactly a Honey Boo Boo is, nor what the Amish Mafia are after, and I have literally zero friends who just finished Season 4 of The Wire like I just did (btw – awesome).  I believe the natural gravitas of “fitting in” will drive most people toward paying.

    Cheapest Entertainment Around
    Estimates vary, but for a typical 4+ hours/day home, watching TV with a pay-TV provider works out to about $0.25/hour.  People love to complain about their cable bill, but they really wouldn’t if they did the math. (not that I’m advocating any provider, I’m just not dissing on them either).   Then again, math is hard.

    victoryag.org Laziness FTW
    While it’s certainly simple enough to browse Netflix on my Apple TV, find a show, then watch it, it’s nowhere near as simple as turning on the TV, then pushing “channel up” enough times until something watchable appears.  As I’ve blogged about elsewhere, I fundamentally believe in the “escapism” nature of TV watching, which makes an all-on-demand lifestyle a lot of work.

    More Money, Less Time
    It’s easy to talk about “those kids today” and their willingness to watch movies in 10 minute increments on YouTube.  Yeah, I remember college too –  I had loads of free time, no money.  Now I have no time, and while I don’t have loads of money, I can easily do the mental math to figure out the money value of time makes hunting around websites and menus not a good use of time.

    TV, now with Free Internets!
    As the pay-TV industry has morphed into MVPDs (“multichannel video programming distributor” – worst rename ever!) and offer Internet and voice and home automation and monitoring and security and dishwashing and laundry and other services (mostly for sheer profit – other than the laundry part), the allocation of revenue is less relevant for them.  They can offer quintuple packages and more because it doesn’t really cost them anything, and most have invested so much money into capital expansion that they can continue to lay out new value added services for incremental costs.  So perhaps we’ll eventually pay for TV, with free everything else – or vice versa – it just won’t matter that much.

    While I do fundamentally believe we are in the middle of the most transformative era of television behaviors since the advent of the cable industry, I also think we are far from a radical new world.  Looking forward to constructive comments and feedback below.

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    Why the HBO/Universal deal is VERY important

    Posted on January 6, 2013 by Jeremy Toeman

    HBO and Universal just renewed a distribution deal.  For the next 10 years.

    If you are in any ways connected to the TV industry, be it for the past, present, or future of it, this is quite significant.  Why?

    Part of the reason TV as an industry is fairly impervious to disruption is the unbelievably tangled knot of deals and relationships.  In TV/Movie-land, deals are (1) worth Billions, and (2) made for the long-term.

    victoryag.org

    But with all the kerfuffle about TV changing, TV dying, TV this and that,we should take note that two of the biggest players in the industry just renewed a deal that is (1) worth Billions and (2) made for the long term.

    The significance is, in a nutshell, that in TV-land, business as usual is still going on.

    ps – dont think I’ve ever made a point before in 100 or less words!  😉

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    My New Year's Tech Resolution: Quitting Real-Time

    Posted on January 2, 2013 by Jeremy Toeman

    Let’s take a long trip back in time.  Let’s remember a world where you were running a little late for a dinner date with friends, and you just showed up a bit late, no texts.  You got to the restaurant and didn’t check-in on Facebook, Yelp, or FourSquare (oh, and you didn’t even use Yelp to find the restaurant, or double-check that it has 4 stars, you just heard about it from a friend).  When the menu arrived, you read it, picked the item(s) that looked good, and placed your order, and if you wanted to know what was the most popular, you asked the waiter.  While waiting for the food, you drank wine and chatted with your friends.  When the meal arrived, you didn’t take a picture of it (or apply a filter) and shared with others.  If the service was lousy, you told the manager, not your Followers or Friends.  When you finished up the meal, you drove home, without using crowd-sourced GPS to get there.  And as a final note, at no point in the meal did you get interrupted by others sharing equally unimportant minutia with you, but if they really *really* needed to track you down, maybe you got a call.

    If you are under 25 and reading this, the above probably sounds like a nightmare, but trust me, it wasn’t.

    I think it’s time to admit that living in “real-time” is a bit of a disaster, and there’s tons of studies arising that lend evidence to social media (among other things) as problematic to society (here’s a funny take, but full of facts on the topic).  But you really don’t need the studies, just some common sense.  We’ve evolved over millions of years (or, as they teach in several US States – a few thousand plus some fairy dust) and until the last half a decade, the only thing that was really crucial to do in real-time was running from sabre-tooth tigers, which we were actually pretty good at.

    Since I started writing this a few minutes ago I’ve received two texts and one IM – every one of which disrupted my writing and thinking.  Thankfully I had already closed my email client (something I plan to do much more frequently), and I have push notifications OFF for Facebook and Email on my phone.  But that’s a core to it: we’ve somehow made ourselves constantly interruptible, and I can’t see how anything good comes of it.  How do you think deeply on anything if your pocket is buzzing, the corner of your screen is flashing, and other little whooshing and tweeting sound effects keep rolling by.

    If you are reading this and thinking “that guy’s just an old-fuddy-duddy” (which, to be fair, no young person today would ever actually say), and you are also patting yourself on the back because YOU are a great multitasker, go take a break from this piece, google “multitasking myths” (or just read this) and then come on back.  Bummer, eh?

    And it’s not just about getting stuff done, as that too is just massively overrated.  It’s about a lack of peace and calmness. When do we take time anymore just to do nothing.  Even standing in line for a coffee (which is, of course a take out coffee, since there’s no time to just sit in a cafe and enjoy a hot cup of coffee in a real cup) everyone’s on their phones, doing stuff.  The human brain actually needs time, every day, just to do nothing and process all of the events that are transpiring (great article here on “doing nothing”).

    So what am I doing?  Focusing on purposeful activity, single-tasking, and shutting down virtually anything that expects me to deal with it imminently, as there are truly very few events which can transpire that I must reply to in real-time.  Somehow I doubt this will negatively impact either my professional or personal life in any way.   This doesn’t mean I won’t use services like Yelp, Twitter, Facebook, IM, and the like – it just means I’m getting a lot more comfortable turning them off for long stretches.

    My focus in 2013: Enjoying the moments, and having them for myself – not others.  Enjoying the view, not the retweets of the photos. Enjoying the funny/cute/silly kids, not worrying about grabbing the camera, nor counting the likes or comments.  Enjoying walking into an unknown restaurant, ordering anything I like, getting delighted by it, and telling a friend about it some other time.  Sorry real-time, I’m pushing pause.

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    Posted in General | Tags: calm, checking in, facebook, foursquare, getting things done, peace, productivity, social media, twitter, yelp | 2 Comments |

    The Dijit Remote Refresh, Now With NextGuide Social TV Profiles!

    Posted on December 19, 2012 by Jeremy Toeman

    The Dijit team’s been really hard at work all year building NextGuide, which was quite the task and accomplishment. A few months ago we recognized it was time to give the Dijit Remote another round of enhancements as well, so we got to work on giving it a good refresh.  Most importantly, of course, was updating it to support everything new in iOS-land since last winter, which includes Retina iPads, the iPhone 5, and iOS 6 support too.

    Additionally, we incorporated the NextGuide social TV profiles into the Dijit Remote, so users of either app can discover and share content back and forth.  We are building the most robust personalized TV discovery platform out there, and this is the first step to bring it to iPhones as well.  Between our two apps we now have a lot of people finding new shows and movies to watch on live TV, as well as streaming services like Netflix, Amazon Prime, and more (note: the Dijit Remote app only supports Netflix search at present).  We also added the extremely popular “record to DVR” button for DirecTV subscribers, allowing anyone to program their home DVR the moment they find a great show or move to watch on live TV.

    Lastly – accessibility.  We’ve heard story after story from people who use accessibility enhancements on their iOS devices, and how the Dijit Remote is integrated into their personal needs.  I was shared images of a young girl in a hospital room with extremely limited mobility, but just enough to control the TV using her iPad and the Dijit Remote app.  Unfortunately she couldn’t access all of the features, so we set about fixing that, and now we’re very proud to bring accessibility enhancements across virtually every feature in the app to help anyone who might need it.  It’s not often we get to be in a position to just help people, so it’s something that we all feel pretty good about.

    It’s been a long while, but we’re happy to bring this update to the legions of loyal Dijit Remote users, hope you love it! Check out the new and improved Dijit Remote here!

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    Posted in General | 2 Comments |

    Introducing NextGuide

    Posted on September 7, 2012 by Jeremy Toeman

    It’s my pleasure to unveil my newest product, NextGuide.  NextGuide is a hyper-personalized TV listings guide designed specifically for the iPad™.  It’s been a six month labor of lots and lots of love, and I’m extremely excited to tell you about it.  In a nutshell?  We went to the drawing board and utterly reinvented the concept of the TV program guide.

    If you think about the concept of a “guide” it’s something that’s evolved over 60 years from supporting 3 to 13 to 80 to 500+ channels.  But that’s really all it does, and let’s face it, we no longer live in a 500-channel world.  We live in a 500 channel, plus tens of thousands of hours of streaming content on services like Netflix, huge libraries of video on demand from our cable and satellite companies, as well as iTunes itself.  It’s effectively an infinite content landscape, and having so much content has crippled the formerly easy process of discovering shows to watch.

    As an example, in my house at night, we start by browsing our DVR library, don’t see anything we’re in the mood for, then switch over to live TV.  After browsing (painfully) the grid for a while, we give up, turn on the Apple TV, and head to Netflix.  Netflix is great, but I have a tendency to see stuff I already know about – Mad Men, Dexter, Weeds, Breaking Bad, etc – all great shows, but not really anything new that I’m ready to consume.  Part of the problem here is catch-up TV: if I’ve never watched Mad Men before then I’m a good 80+ hours away from catching up to live, and that sounds painful.  Anyhow, after an unsuccessful attempt to find something to stream, I generally end up watching whatever’s on (either Cops, the Shawshank Redemption, or an infomercial), then go to sleep.  Sound familiar at all?

    So we invented NextGuide, designed to actually help me discover things I *want* to watch. We do that by tilting the concept of Channels, Times, and Genres on its head a little, and instead focus on Shows, People, and Interests.

    Shows – we believe people care more about the show they watch than the channel number or time it airs.  So NextGuide uses beautiful show cover art to make it easy to find things and “escape” the grid view of numbers and times.

    People – we believe TV remains a central zeitgeist component to modern society. When was the last time you chatted with any friend about a show you like (or love)?  Probably in the past day or so.  NextGuide makes it ridiculously easy to turn conversations, not to mention Facebook Likes, into easily discoverable shows.

    Interests – we believe people care about finding things of interest to them, personally.  We all have interests, from bands to sports, from cities to hobbies, and these interests define so much of our lives. NextGuide connects you to your interests, and finds them all on TV and streaming services, in a seamless, organic way.  Examples of what NextGuide’s found for me over the past few weeks: Bill Murray’s guest appearance on Letterman (seriously, how would I even have known that unless I watch every night??), a live Coldplay concert on Palladium (I didn’t even know the channel was in my lineup), and Bizarre Foods goes to San Francisco (not a show I normally care for, but had to see what Andrew found in my city).

    That’s enough writing already, this is one of those apps you just have to experience to get a sense of what we’ve done. It’s a complete paradigm shift for TV viewing, and I’m happy to share it with you.  You can download it from the App Store, or watch our quick intro video below.

    Introducing NextGuide from Dijit Media on Vimeo.

    I can’t wait for your feedback, thanks so much for trying out the app.  Thanks to Apple for inventing the iPad so we could have such a cool platform to bring something like this to life. Extra special thanks to my family, friends, coworkers and investors who have made the process of inventing something disruptive more fun than I think I really deserve.

    We are getting some amazing press so far today, here are some great pieces:

    • TUAW – check out this quote: “Until Apple comes up with whatever groundbreaking interface for TV discovery it’s hiding in the labs, NextGuide is likely the next best thing.”
    • Scobleizer (includes a great video)
    • TechCrunch (also with video)
    • Multichannel News
    • Engadget
    • Slashgear
    • Gizmodo
    • GigaOm
    • TheStreet
    • VentureBeat

    Oh, and here’s the actual announcement on our newly revised site!

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    Posted in General, LD Approved, Mobile Technology, Product Announcements | Tags: app, dijit, ipad, itunes, Netflix, nextguide, tv guide | 1 Comment |

    Why Apple Will Make a MacBook Touch (eventually)

    Posted on May 14, 2012 by Jeremy Toeman

    A few weeks ago someone mocked up a concept MacBook touch, and in a nutshell, they way-y-y-y-y overthought it.  After a week(ish) using my iPad with an external keyboard, I can see how the worlds could and should collide.  And I think it’s exactly what Apple plans to do – one day. The concept is already as much as there in their products anyway: ship Mountain Lion with the ability to “launch” iOS.  That’s it.

    In the current OS X, Lion, we already have LaunchPad, a feature clearly designed for a touch-screen interface, mainly because it’s the exact UI for iOS apps.  This would/should be touch-enabled.

    Next, OS X already has an App Store, the inventory of which could easily expand to include iOS apps.

    The LaunchPad would become the primary “desktop”, and Finder would move to be an app instead of the primary navigation metaphor.

    Apps could then be written as OS X, or OS X with touch, or iOS.  Standard OS X apps would function like they do today, expecting a mouse + keyboard interface.  That’s the easy part.

    iOS apps would go into full-screen, thought likely not include the ability to rotate – but maybe they wouldn’t have to.  The next-gen MacBooks are already rumored to go retina anyway, which provides enough pixels for a portrait-mode app to run on the screen size of a 13″ laptop.  Granted, a ton of apps would work poorly – things that require lots of motion sensitive or heavy gesture inputs.  But maybe that’s okay.  Maybe this isn’t about a laptop with great Infinity Blade capabilities, it’s a bit more focused on productivity.  More on this in a bit.

    OS X with touch apps would be able to support mouse + keyboard + touch interfaces.  This is the tricky part.  There are times when touch works great, other times when the mouse is ideal.  For example, a pull-down menu is going to be too tiny to easily work with a finger, but the mouse is perfect.  Similarly, mouse-overs are useful for many applications, and the pixel-level work in design apps could never be done without a mouse.  But moving files, selecting apps to run, and creating free-form quick designs are all radically better with a touch input.  Gestures are awesome methods of navigating through computing interfaces.  There’s a right balance, and as long as Apple can clearly delineate best practices, I think some great new experiences would emerge.

    Combining the full power of OS X and iOS brings great power, and accordingly, great… You know.  But in all seriousness, this isn’t meant as a “make a MacBook all fun like the iPad” nor is it “turn the iPad into a productivity center”.  It’s both.  The computing era has evolved to the point where touch is a key part of things.  Further, Apple is uniquely positioned to create a product like this, where the touch features augment the overall platform, as opposed to just being gimmicky.  Lastly, they’ll create yet another leap forward that their competition will have to spend eons catching up to.

    ps – for those wondering, I’m using the Logitech Ultrathin Keyboard for iPad. I love it.  I started with the Apple Wireless Keyboard (with great sleeve by SF Bags) but ultimately preferred Logitech’s solution.  Amazingly.

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    Posted in General | Tags: Apple, ios, ipad, logitech ultrathin wireless keyboard, macbook, macbook air, touch, user experience | Leave a comment |
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    About

    Jeremy Toeman is a seasoned Product leader with over 20 years experience in the convergence of digital media, mobile entertainment, social entertainment, smart TV and consumer technology. Prior ventures and projects include CNET, Viggle/Dijit/Nextguide, Sling Media, VUDU, Clicker, DivX, Rovi, Mediabolic, Boxee, and many other consumer technology companies. This blog represents his personal opinion and outlook on things.

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