[Commercial]

Introducer: Technology Evangelist Podcast for Wednesday May 30, 2007, recorded live with audience participation.

Benjamin Higginbotham: My name is Benjamin Higginbotham with me is Cariann Higginbotham and via the phone we have got a long-lost friend.

Cariann Higginbotham: Long, long-lost.

Benjamin Higginbotham: Long and lost.

Ed Kohler: Who is that?

Benjamin Higginbotham: I don’t know, voices in my head? Who could be? Sounds like Ed Kohler.

Ed Kohler: Hello.

Benjamin Higginbotham: Ed, welcome back.

Ed Kohler: Thank you.

Benjamin Higginbotham: We shifted the time of the podcast on here. So, you can’t join us live in the studio anymore, we have to bring you in via Gizmo.

Ed Kohler: Yeah, I am still recovered from that vacation last week too, so it is about 4 in the morning for me.

Benjamin Higginbotham: How was your vacation?

Ed Kohler: Awesome, if you were in like great weather and great food and things like that, it was pretty cool.

Benjamin Higginbotham: You were in Croatia. I can’t imagine that they have a ton of technology there though.

Ed Kohler: They have the Internet there. Actually we talked to a hostess or a waitress at one of the restaurants and I was explained to her that the keyboards are a little bit different over there, “y’ and the “z” for some reason are in opposite positions on the keyboard, but the rest of QWERTY keyboard is the same as we have here and I saw that was a little confusing and she said “oh really, when usually when I talk to Americans, stupid Americans they are like “do you have computers here?” so, she thought it was kind of respectful me to actually know that they did and of course they found a few cyber cafés along the way.

Benjamin Higginbotham: How wired were they?

Ed Kohler: They are pretty wired. You could get like three up – three down speeds at hotels and stuff. Every hotel I was at had Internet access, more there were cyber cafes everywhere. T-Mobile is huge in the country for cell phones and photo phone was also pretty big. There is no shortage of technology there.

Benjamin Higginbotham: I would say three up – three down that’s better than the hotels we have in the States?

Ed Kohler: Yeah.

Benjamin Higginbotham: That’s awesome. What they have in their homes? Do you have any idea? Did you just knock on random people’s door and like “hey, what kind of bandwidth you got?”

Ed Kohler: Actually I didn’t do much of that or any actually. So, I don’t really know.

Benjamin Higginbotham: Weren’t you working?

Ed Kohler: Generally the wealth of the country is less than what you see in Minnesota or Minneapolis or most of the US. So, owning computers in the home I am sure it is quite as high as we are used to.

Benjamin Higginbotham: Ed, you and I gone to a little spat – a blog spat today.

Ed Kohler: Yes, it was a point counter points.

Benjamin Higginbotham: It was you didn’t even know that going to pour counter point on you. I just pulled it out like “take that”. I like you start us of describe what the spat – the point counter point was about?

Ed Kohler: All right, background story is Apple stores have decided to change their policy about surfing in their stores and Apple actually is somewhat unique in that. They actually have all of their computers web enabled, where if go into an Apple store and you hop on any of the computers, you can click on the browser safari and open it up and you are on the web. So, it is a great user experience in that sense. My problem is some people are abusing that where they are basically squatting on the computers for way too long and apparently Apple has decided that one group that’s particularly bad offenders is MySpace users. So, they decide to implant new policy and that is “block MySpace”. So, they blocked one Internet site besides porn or some other things that I am sure they have blocked for a quite a while and so this is news and I think that Apple did the right thing, when they did that.

Benjamin Higginbotham: And I think it is end of civilization.

Ed Kohler: Yeah, pretty much. Ben thinks that Apple stores are like North Korea and Steve Job is like Kim Jong-il.

Benjamin Higginbotham: Well, that’s how lot of people interpreted my blog post. I think blocking my space is going to have absolutely no effect on the cyber squatters in the stores. I don’t think it is going to impact anything at all. I think it is a silly fool hearty move and then I will get into why I think it is the end of the civilization as we know it and you think it is great.

Ed Kohler: I think it is moving in right direction, because I think people who come in actually wanting to evaluate some things that depending on spending thousands dollars on may not want have to weave past bunch of mall rats in order to do such a thing. So, in my article I mentioned that, say “if I was going to drive my parents down there to help them decide which Mac could be right for them. When they decide to upgrade their current Mac, I don’t want to have to deal with that, they don’t want to have to deal with that. So you know that’s my perspective on it, but you seem to go in different direction with that?

Cariann Higginbotham: Well just to interject really quickly. I know here in the land of Minnesota, Minnesota Nice. We all have a tendency to be extremely forgiving and those kinds of things, but honestly what is the problem that if you really want to be on a computer and you can clearly see that all of these “kids are doing, is just messing around” what is the issue with just asking them “hey do you mind if I jump on really quick, I just want to show so and so something” or “I just wanted to look at something” or anything along those lines that you as a consumer can take that proactive point.

Ed Kohler: Right.

Benjamin Higginbotham: I don’t think so, I think that in general the customer shouldn’t have to ask the view the hardware from a non-paying customer, if that make sense. I just don’t think that they should be forced to be put into that position that Apple does need to take steps to correct for this problem, because this is a problem, we all agree it is problem. I don’t think anyone disagrees with that.

Ed Kohler: Well, I hate to see, perhaps you got a position that lot of other companies take, that is just cutting off Internet entirely, because that would be a really bad experience. So, I think if you look at your average buyer of an Apple computer, it is not really hurting them. They can still ever see evaluate computers just fine, if they can get to MySpace.

Benjamin Higginbotham: Here is the point where I go into the super conspiracy mode, that’s what everyone said and I think it is interesting, this is one final paragraph in the blog post, where I just went totally off the deep end and I even said I am going of the deep end here. This area is, when you start censoring content and while Apple is a private company and they have everywhere, they can do whatever they want with the content in the Internet that they provide to the customers, but when you start censoring content and no one cares and no one even thinks as everyone thinks “well, that’s just fine, they are trying to protect” or whatever. That actually thinking this through saying “well, that’s not going to solve anything, also doing this prevent them from getting to certain sites and then so you say on one side of them “yeah, you can censor content” then the other side of them say “but network neutrality is good and you have to make sure that all packets are treated equally”, I don’t think that’s OK. I don’t think that we should be doing that, I think that content should not be censored and that while they can censor certain sites if they are being harmful. MySpace is not a harmful site, blocking MySpace doesn’t fix the problem and it just scares me a little bit that people aren’t alarmed that Apple is starting to censor content, it is not just Apple, I am not picking on Apple. It is just interesting that now a company can start censoring content or just about anything that they want and we just shrug it off like “yeah, they are just censoring content” and that’s a little scary to me.

Ed Kohler: Well, I guess their aren't that many MySpace defenders out there. There are lot of MySpace addics, people don’t seem to think that the world is going to come to an end, if that particular site is blocked.

Benjamin Higginbotham: And I think the world will come to an end.

Ed Kohler: Yeah, apparently. It doesn't matter that it says it is their store, there you have it.

Benjamin Higginbotham: So, what is the solution Ed? Because I really don’t think it is my – would you say that blocking MySpace is definitely in the right direction. I say it’s not, either way it sounds like both of us think that more action need to be taken or something else needs to be taken. What is that step that will prevent? Well you can’t really prevent it, but at least dwindle down the number of users eating computer time, that’s shouldn’t be.

Ed Kohler: I had a chance actually talk about this Chris Brogan a little bit early today on a PulverTV and he came up with a great idea for this, because he don’t want to entirely press off the MySpace card, because eventually they may have some money and want to buy a computer, but what he said is may be they should just have like a photo booth or like set aside one specific computer that’s basically free for all, that’s like sit aside like in a low booth where people can take photos of themselves and their friends to put on the MySpace pages, because theirs is a nice marketing site to be all it say. The photo on MySpace page, I took it in Apple store, so you don’t really want to entirely cut that up, but you got to get them of those computers that people are actually trying to look at and buy.

Benjamin Higginbotham: No, I mean there is bunch of policy changes that have happened here. Not just MySpace, Apple doesn’t allow you to go in and take photos in their Apple stores anymore. You are not supposed to bring digital cameras in anymore, that policy has changed. So, that part of it is gone too. See they are making all these different policy changes and I don’t think it is in Apple’s best interest. Last time we tried to shoot a quick little segment in the Apple store, they are like “no, I am sorry, Apple’s policy is no video cameras”.

Ed Kohler: Well, Apple is pretty good at controlling their brands and I guess that must have something do worthwhile they are making these decisions. If you walk passing Apple store, all you see is a bunch of mole-rats, put surfing on MySpace, I guess that not what they are looking for as a user experience.

Benjamin Higginbotham: Here is another key point, it is a bunch of mole-rats, it is not just one kid that’s doing this and the idea of just setting up a quick little chaos that has photo booth in it, I don’t think it is going to solve the problem, either because it is a bunch of kids and their friends going into the Apple store using the Internet time and using that as a place to hang out and one computer that they all gather around isn’t really usually how it ends up. They usually each take a computer and they have these iChat video sessions open with each other, they have got like nine bazillion different web pages open and they are doing nine million different things and I think the computers smoking when they are done using it, so I don’t see that as a viable solution either. It is an interesting idea, I just don’t think it will work.

Ed Kohler: Yeah, it could be, but I think it could just be the start of a new policy that’s come into shape where, it starts with MySpace, but it is generally assertive behavior that they are really trying to control.

Benjamin Higginbotham: Yeah, everyone is saying the general consensus in the chat are two things. 1) it is problem, every Apple store you go into, you see these kids. I don’t think I have seen any Apple stores across the country where that has been an issue, at least not yet, not for me. 2) they are store and of course they can do whatever they want and I am not saying that they can’t do whatever they want, I am just saying that I don’t necessarily agree with the actions and choices that they have made. It doesn’t mean I am not going to shop there, doesn’t mean that I think they are bad company, I just don’t agree with them. I think it is going to be more harmful to them than good and then as a society as whole…

Ed Kohler: There you go.

Benjamin Higginbotham: You like how I just slit that in there at the end?

Ed Kohler: Yeah, it is exactly that’s right, there are the tipping point, is that what it is?

Benjamin Higginbotham: So, it is the true, it is right there. Cariann had an interesting topic and that is TV networks are getting sneaky here with their commercials.

Ed Kohler: I got to run for two minutes, I will come back, but you guys start that.

Benjamin Higginbotham: Bye Ed.

Ed Kohler: All right, I will be right back.

Benjamin Higginbotham: Only Ed, in the middle of the podcast just leave for two minutes. Start us of Cariann?

Cariann Higginbotham: OK, well I frequent CNN quite often and I know that there is this TV show that is based of the Geico Caveman that’s coming out and I personally don’t think that that’s the best idea in general, if we start taking our TV show ideas from commercials, that just scares me all the way around, more so that Apple deciding.

Benjamin Higginbotham: Me too.

Cariann Higginbotham: Which sites in the web sites you can’t go to that?

Benjamin Higginbotham: I think that’s an all new low for us, congratulations for the ABC.

Cariann Higginbotham: I am not really sure who is to be honest, in any case, but the point was that I was flipping through CNN and I hit the entertainment part and I saw picture of the Geico Caveman and I honestly didn’t even read the title before I clicked on it, because I thought it was going to be something along the lines of, “what are they thinking?” and it kind of it just not about the Caveman specifically, it is TV networks are getting sneakier about commercials and the whole idea is that with the advent of TiVo and DVR in general that I think the stats is something like 6 out of 10 people does zoom right through the commercials when they recorded something and then more and more of the population is recording TV shows to watch it at later time or etcetera, etcetera, and a lot of them at least in my circle of friends, we specifically record them to watch later even if it is only 20 minutes later, because we can skip the commercials. So,…

Benjamin Higginbotham: Yeah, absolutely. Actually I think our entire circle of friends does that, don’t they? Now we are all 30 and under, I think, right?

Cariann Higginbotham: Yeah, for most part.

Benjamin Higginbotham: So, we are all 30 and under and I don’t say we grew up with this, because we were there when TiVo was invented and came around, but we are definitely the generation that gets this – I would say that once you hit that 40-year-old mark and over, I know my parents don’t have one and they have no desire for TiVo, because they just don’t get it.

Cariann Higginbotham: Right.

Benjamin Higginbotham: That’s fine, there is nothing wrong with that. I think we are going to see more and more users skipping through commercials, because why would I watch a commercial when I can “blup-pulp”.

Cariann Higginbotham: It is also interesting thing that some people have – or some networks have come up with, like CW “pioneer” what they called content wraps, where a hair-care company ditched the typical ad to present beauty tips and interviews within network stars. All involving of course the companies products, so saying Nexus, where they go “hey, you should really use Nexus because….” and it is somebody like Tyra Banks who is on the CW , so that you are in theory more apt to listen to it, because it is Tyra Banks and not some nameless person doing a Nexus commercial “isn’t my hair so shiny”, that kind of thing. I guess the whole thing, the advertisers are so enthusiastic about it, that they are going to do six different content wraps and they decided do 20, which I just think it is kind of interesting and of course they mentioned things like an American idol with all the judges having Coca-Cola cups, regardless of whether or not all of those actually filled with vodka, but they still have coca-cola out there and there was a huge push to design the new cups and all that kind of thing, so especially with American idol doing those four commercials in the middle of their show. That if you are watching American idol, granted I pass through those as well as I thought they were extremely hulky and stupid, but it is still they gets the point across that they are talking about Ford, they are talking about coke or other things and in that terms of getting sneakier, we are just kind of funny because I don’t think this is going to work personally, but they are talking about putting commercials in the background of TV shows. So, you are watching something like brothers and sisters and they have a TV show on, in the background and there is some sort of commercial for Nexus or I don’t know pepsi or tampons or whatever, but it will be off in the background and that’s somehow supposedly is going to be your commercial for you. Does that make sense? And I don’t know if that’s going to work? As far as I am concerned that’s product placement and it is so common place, we see all the times in movies and we see it so much in TV shows already that I just don’t think it is going to sync in, I don’t think sublimely, it is going to make any difference whatsoever and I think these people are crazy, honestly.

Benjamin Higginbotham: Well Waquib in the Ustream chat room brought up an interesting point and that is the commercials are doing now, like where you talking about nexus hair, it seems like we are actually jumping back in time, back to the 60s where they did the live standard commercials, integrated directly into the show.

Cariann Higginbotham: Yes, absolutely.

Benjamin Higginbotham: It is interesting how actually taking a step backwards to move forward, I believe that the future of advertising is actually interactive advertising like on a TiVo, they will just insert the ads directly, based on your preferences, ads that are relevant to you and stuff that you are actually interested in and may be you will just book in the show, before the show and after show and not disrupt the content in the middle, because how horrible is that, you just don’t what that to happen and I think that’s a great solution around it, may be it is not bookends or something along, but something along those lines where you can actually get content that you are interested in, get commercials that you are interested in, because I don’t care about the tampon commercial, I never have cared, I will never will care for obvious reasons, I am not going to watch that commercial and they are targeting the wrong people when I am watching it, but if they can target other people who are interested, that’s better for them.

Cariann Higginbotham: The other thing I think it is really interesting I hope that it means that the TV marketers and everyone associated with TV and marketing in general, really to take notice is that, this week Nelson media research beings offering ratings for commercial breaks. So, you could actually say “yeah, that was a good commercial, but no I don’t remember what the product was for”, because how many people remember where is the beef , some people remember the commercial, but do they really remember that it was for Wendy’s, may be you do – may be you don’t, that kind of thing, does that make sense?

Benjamin Higginbotham: Can you still sing the McDonalds song?

Cariann Higginbotham: Two all beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions on a sesame seed bun.

Benjamin Higginbotham: Isn’t that lot longer than that though, that’s the Big Mac Song, isn’t there a longer version of that?

Cariann Higginbotham: Yeah there is song.

Benjamin Higginbotham: How about you Ed, can you sing it?

Ed Kohler: I can’t sing it, but I do know that there are other technologies that they are trying to work to get more products informia, such as there is service now they can overlay products inside of a show they weren’t actually on the set when the show was shot, like say you are now filming someone who is there in front of fire place, you could put something in the mantle that wasn’t there. So, there is additional ways to product wise in that way as well.

Benjamin Higginbotham: That’s mind boggling.

Cariann Higginbotham: Well, not just that, but I have heard that they are doing that to older shows as well, so when a sign fell gets repeated that now suddenly, you are not just seeing that it has serial on the shelf, but you can see that he has got Kellog’s Cornflakes and he has got General Mill’s Honey Kong or whatever it is and that’s little scary to me too.

Ed Kohler: Yeah, but it depends on what’s more intrusive having a branded cereals that are on the shelf or having to wait 30 seconds to a commercial. So, it is a trade-off, in either way. If you are not paying for the show, they have to pay for it some other way, so…

Benjamin Higginbotham: Do you think we will move into paid content? Where I just buy the show like of iTunes or do you think that users perceive television is being free one way or another, even if they are paying for the cable that the perception is it is still free, we are just paying for an upgraded service to it and that they are not willing to pay for the content again?

Ed Kohler: I think for shows that have a large audience that has afforded models seems to be the preferred model, as the audience get smaller and then it transitions to a paid audience, such as there obscure paper view type of that, there is an audience for it, but say like boxing. Boxing is heart of the Everon, like a big title match or something like that, there is no reason they couldn’t be on NBC and I remember that used to be, but now, those are mostly paper view, where they just can monetize it better that way so.

Benjamin Higginbotham: We will just move online…

Ed Kohler: Scary goes boxing, I was curious boxing has a huge audience big freaky, yes – yes, but now the audience of the NFL apparently, otherwise or they just can’t find the sponsor who all throw of the money at it, supported on NBC otherwise they would be there.

Benjamin Higginbotham: Well, those more obscure stuff, move online or they think don’t understand television as it is right now.

Ed Kohler: It depends on the cost of distribution, so it is not very expensive to do a show on a cable these days and you will get a larger audience obviously, if you are on cable today versus be it on the Internet, so…

Benjamin Higginbotham: Now, you got them started, now they want the XFL back, good for you.

Ed Kohler: I watched the opening game of the XFL and I loved it.

Benjamin Higginbotham: Yeah, I did too. I thought it was great.

Ed Kohler: It was Jessy Ventura, but I love on field camera guy, who had the hand held camera with external server, telescope system where he basically just ran behind the quarter back and he got this awesome angle, because it is a angle you could only get if he was actually on the field, because he was rushing the ball going up as he threw it and it was cool.

Benjamin Higginbotham: Well, I thought that it was a camera that was dangling over the field that was the big thing.

Cariann Higginbotham: Turned across.

Benjamin Higginbotham: Yeah, it was turned across, they can move it.

Ed Kohler: Yeah, that one too.

Benjamin Higginbotham: I just remember that the way they shot it, the way that everything was just so fantastic, I loved every moment of it, I am not a huge football fan, but man that was fun, I just really liked it. There were something that were wired.

Ed Kohler: I didn’t like the quality of the play or the trash talking aspect didn’t really work for me, but I thought it was a great way shoot football.

Benjamin Higginbotham: Absolutely. PulverTV with Chris, I think that’s your topic Ed?

Ed Kohler: Yeah, I had a chance of watch that today and with that I just know that they are using a different system for their show, they are using NIRO and it was just interesting to checkout that particular player and the options that provided, when someone from audience, if they want to jump in they can do so, but on NIRO it is a video chat, it is like a frame and frame type thing, where everyone who is in the audience can see someone else who is out there, which I thought it was really cool, because you see these people, you see the username stuff like that, but you actually get to know the other people who are out there in cyber space.

Benjamin Higginbotham: What’s the URL for that?

Ed Kohler: I will look it up.

Benjamin Higginbotham: When you say NIRO, a lot of the tech geeks think Nero the CD/DVD burning software that has little fire symbol on it, that’s pretty cool, that you use on a bunch of windows boxes, because it built in windows burning stuff.

Ed Kohler: Yeah, but not nero player, I think it is NIRO, but I just searched for that I got Robert De Nero…

Benjamin Higginbotham: Isn’t it blogtv.com?

Ed Kohler: Yes, that’s it, He is a guy in Israel that owns it.

Benjamin Higginbotham: Get along backward, so other than being able to bring other the people in on the conversation, what did you like about it? Or is that basically you could bring other people in on the conversation?

Ed Kohler: I like that, that was the aspect that was about I really thought it was cool.

Benjamin Higginbotham: How many people could you bring in at the same time?

Ed Kohler: One, so you bring in one at a time. So, well may be there is more, but I think it is just one. Where in the side panel a user can pop in there and so he would bring people in and he thought he wasn’t that great, he could bounce it back out, but it actually work really well.

Benjamin Higginbotham: Now, we have been trying a bunch of different streaming services. We started on Ustream, we are still on Ustream then we tried Operator 11, we have tried Stickam, that’s a horrible brand. I looked at blogtv earlier today and I always end up back on Ustream and may be it is because it was my first and so I am more comfortable with it, but I was find some sort of weird issue with anything else that I touch. Like Operator 11, I can’t route the audio and you are limited to one hour show, so that’s basically useless. Stickam you just get buried in the sea of nothingness, it is horrible and there is something about Ustream that simple, elegant and just it works, but I agree I need to be able to communicate with the audience base a little bit better than we have got right now.

Cariann Higginbotham: You did that picture-in-picture thing one of the last shows that we had, right?

Benjamin Higginbotham: Right, but that’s done through software on the Macintosh through CamTwist, that’s not done directly in the flash interface. Like what you can do with blogtv, which is pretty cool, describe that a little bit better Ed?

Ed Kohler: Yeah, you have the main know kind like we have and then just aside of that there is like one inch square window where the person is pulled into, so you could see them and you can hear them just like you normally could, so it works great. When you pull people in just like with any sort of talk-show the quality of their experience is up to your audience, so some people where trying to talk without a microphone, just through their built-in microphone and stuff, so it is kind of some people call in to radio talk-show and they are on their bad cell phone connection, so you have to moderate that way. So, that’s a problem there, but as what you mentioned bit earlier that, you don’t necessarily want to see everyone in the chat room and that it is not setup for that, it is just set up for someone volunteers to come-in, that’s the way Chris was using it, where he was just doing open session when I was talking to him, where he said is anyone having anything you want to talk about? Anything on the mind and you just let someone bouncing quick and talk about something and you get to see him and get to meet him, so kind of cool.

Benjamin Higginbotham: It is interesting that we have got one of these services popping up, feels like once per week now. You got a new service site, just crops and you kind of test it and do you thing and each one bring something new to the table, but it is actually they are all flash streaming at their core. I just wonder if this is the future of online video or part of it, are we really going to hit that true-man show effect going on, or this going to be use more for like what we are doing, a live talk-show where you can bring in multiple people into your conversation or see all of the above?

Ed Kohler: I don’t know, I think people will use it in lot of different ways, that’s the part of power of it.

Benjamin Higginbotham: Well, that was a lame cop out answer.

Ed Kohler: Well, everyone going to use it in one way and this is what’s going to be.

Benjamin Higginbotham: All right Ed, you probably again pretty tired as probably about 2 AM for you in Croatian time. All right I am going to let you go.

Ed Kohler: Right on.

Cariann Higginbotham: Have a good night, Ed.

Benjamin Higginbotham: Thank you for joining us Ed.

Ed Kohler: Take care, see you, bye.

Benjamin Higginbotham: All right everyone, we are going to wrap this show up tonight. We are actually not doing theme nights this week, we are going to try something new. Normally tomorrow would be Search Thursday, we are not going to do that, we are keeping all topics open, we are going to keep them technology based. So, it is not freestyle Friday, but it is definitely whatever we want to talk about, whatever the news of the day is almost. Make sure to join us tomorrow night that’s at 9 – Central, 7 – Pacific. If you would like more information you can visit us online at technologyevangelist.com and watch us on Ustream at Ustream.tv. For those of you who are listening to us live stick with us little bit longer, we will be going into post show. For those of who are listening to this as a download, good for you now, join the live show when you are ready, thank you so much, have a great night.