Just some things being discussed or that have caught my interest over the past week

The Cincy Nine
20pct of a team gets arrested. The NFL posts record ratings for a non Super Bowl Game. What happens in Southern Ohio next year. Do the fans abandon their team ? Does law enforcement become a growth industry ?
Does media finally realize that entertainment is just that, and that the resumes of the participants, whether film, TV or sport falls into the “too much information” category. We consume entertainment to get away from the real world, not get a stronger dose.

The Sports Media Dependency
Sports media is facing an interesting quandary right now. Any sports journalist or columnist goes to work every morning with some level of fear that a pink slip will be on their desk, or worst, an email in their in box telling them to not let the door hit them on the way out. Sure it may be sugarcoated as a buyout, but no one in the newspaper , magazine, local or national news sports business is immune to the fear. These same media members also know that the more interest in the sport they cover, the better chance they have to keep their job.

So they face a quandary unique for these times. Help enhance the interest in the sport(s) they cover, or risk losing their job if interest declines further.

The NBA All Star Game – The Biggest Party on the Continent ?
The biggest question about the All Star Game ? Not whether Josh Howard should make it. If you have to ask, you don’t know. The biggest question is whether the All Star Game will be able to shut down the city. Complete absolute gridlock. Sidewalk gridlock. Road gridlock. Free Buffet Gridlock. 2 dollar slots gridlock. Dwayne Wade shooting commercials gridlock. Party gridlock. Will there be bars opened on Strip sidewalks to serve people stuck in their limos in the same spot for 4 or 5 hours ?

I’ve been to many Super Bowls, The World Series, NBA Finals, The Olympics, The Final Four, The Stanley Cup, The Oscars, Bowl Games, The Consumer Electronics Show, Comdex at its height when cab lines took hours at any hotel at almost any time. I have been to pretty much every major event that draws major crowds, but there is nothing to compare to the NBA All Star Game. The NBA All Star Game Weekend beats them all. The NBA All Star Weekend is the ultimate party weekend. There may be only 17k tickets for the game itself, but there must be what seems like a million people who come just for the parties. Celebs come to truly party. Fans come to truly party. People who have never seen an NBA game come to truly party. Will it shutdown Vegas ? Stay Tuned.

Me and Dennis Rodman – Together Again
If you didnt see the announcement, my former roommate, Dennis Rodman’s new reality show, Geak to Freak premieres Feb 16th on HDNet. Just as the name suggest, Dennis takes every day people who decide they want to take a walk on the wild side. He turns secretaries into strippers, a biologist into a transvestite, its bizarre but gives Dennis a chance to have some fun, and he takes advantage. Here is a clip \

The NHL Beats College Basketball in the Ratings
The NHL on NBC beat College Basketball on CBS, 1.1 to .70 Is College Basketball doomed ? Does no one care anymore about college basketball ? Is the NHL on a resurgent climb ? (This just in, NHL was up again to 1.3 on NBC) Is NBC just really good ? Are both great sports in a crowded market ? Stay tuned

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For those who don’t know. Genarlow Wilson was sentenced to 10 years in jail for doing something every 17 year old I knew, including me, tried to do. He is two years into this nightmare that only makes the State of Georgia a posterchild for mistrust in government.

Rather than go into detail I will refer everyone to some wonderful articles written in support of Genarlow and to his lawyers reference site, WilsonAppeal.com

I wanted to thank and commend ESPN , The NY Times and our owh HDNet and others for great coverage leading to the introduction of a new bill aiming to right this gross injustice.

Personally, there is no chance I do business in the state of Georgia beyond the committment the Mavs have to play the Hawks until Genarlow is out of jail.

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Internet video is going to take over the world. We want unlimited choice. We want user generated content. We want our TV shows streamed to us. Give us the long tail. Please.

Because we want all of this magnificent video, we want, no we need to be able to hook up our computers to our brand new HDTVs. Of course its not that easy for non techies to get the internet video from the net, through your PC or router to your TV. But thats what we want.

Its exactly why Apple and others are coming out with product after product that transports that magical 100mbs of Youtube, AOL, Revver, Yahoo or whoever’s video from your PC to your TV.

So the contrarian in me asked the question: “Should we look at taking the video in the other direction? “. Should we be sourcing video from traditional TV delivery options. Can user generated content be uploaded to cable or satellite companies and then delivered as regular TV to be played back from a settop box or DVR.

Your DVR, whether you know it or not is a PC. It has a hard drive that is probably as big as the hard drive in your PC. The one huge difference between your PC and your DVR is that the DVR has a user interface that is optimized to sort, select and display video content on your TV. In other words, dozens of companies are trying to create add on devices that will somehow make your PC act more like a DVR.

So why not just use the DVR ?

There is absolutely no reason why you couldnt subscribe from your DVR to a CBS “User Generated Content” feed that has the same content as what they offer to their Youtube Subscribers. The difference of course being its in TV or HDTV quality. The content would be delivered through your cable or satellite provider. There is no limit to the number of content providers , large or small that could offer subscriptions.

What about pure user generated content ? What about people’s cat, kids and response videos ? Simple.

Comcast, DirecTV, Dish, Time Warner, Charter, Insight, Cox, any cable or satellite provider could easily offer a website that allows users to upload content the same way they upload to Youtube. One key difference is that they wouldnt have to limit the length or encoding quality of the content. Youtube and other sites that make their money selling ads around content, have to limit quality and length of video to minimize file sizes, which inturn minimize their bandwidth costs. Bandwidth costs are so expensive at the volumes Youtube streams, many have questioned their ability to cover those costs even with the constraints.

Traditional TV delivery methods however are multicast , as opposed to internet videos unicast approach to video delivery. In English, that means that the cable and satellite companies could take the uploaded videos and push them out to all DVRs of anyone who has subscribed receive those videos in a single stream. internet video requires 1 stream per person per video.

The user side would be incredibly simple.

If you subscribed to all of CBS videos, you get them. If you subscribed to all of NBCs video, you get them. If you subscribed to all of Universal Music’s videos. You get them.

Or you could subscibe to all user uploaded videos that are in the comedy category. Or all user uploaded videos that are in the news category. Or you could subscribe to all the videos uploaded by Mark Cuban, or whoever. Or if your hard drive in your DVR was big enough, you could just subscribe to everything.,

If you subscribe to everything, it would be easy to have software that updated your DVR with just new offerings.

Basically, what would happen is that your DVR would act as your local server and rather than searching for videos on the net, you would search for them on your local DVR.

Of course there are challenges to this approach. It wont be easy to get users who upload things to go to cable and/or satellite sites to upload there instead or in addition to Youtube. So Youtube will probably have more content. This approach works best with content from the major media companies.

Plus there are general advantages to the Youtube approach. One of the cool things about Youtube is that it has so many videos that you can find almost anything. Youtube’s current large inventory of videos would be a big advantage

One key advantage the cable/satellite guys would have is with advertising. Whatever advertising DELIVERY methods Youtube, etc used to sell advertising could easily be implemented on a DVR. Like internet video, delivery of ads from a DVR is easily quantifiable and reportable, but of course the quality of the video and the ability to offer long form click through options (if a user clicked for more information, its easier to deliver a quality 1, 2, 5 minute or longer video thats already hosted on a DVR than it is from the net)

Each approach would have its plus and minuses, but if cable and/or satellite decided to dive into the user generated content businessgiving users a choice, things could get interesting.

ShareThis

Internet video is going to take over the world. We want unlimited choice. We want user generated content. We want our TV shows streamed to us. Give us the long tail. Please.

Because we want all of this magnificent video, we want, no we need to be able to hook up our computers to our brand new HDTVs. Of course its not that easy for non techies to get the internet video from the net, through your PC or router to your TV. But thats what we want.

Its exactly why Apple and others are coming out with product after product that transports that magical 100mbs of Youtube, AOL, Revver, Yahoo or whoever’s video from your PC to your TV.

So the contrarian in me asked the question: “Should we look at taking the video in the other direction? “. Should we be sourcing video from traditional TV delivery options. Can user generated content be uploaded to cable or satellite companies and then delivered as regular TV to be played back from a settop box or DVR.

Your DVR, whether you know it or not is a PC. It has a hard drive that is probably as big as the hard drive in your PC. The one huge difference between your PC and your DVR is that the DVR has a user interface that is optimized to sort, select and display video content on your TV. In other words, dozens of companies are trying to create add on devices that will somehow make your PC act more like a DVR.

So why not just use the DVR ?

There is absolutely no reason why you couldnt subscribe from your DVR to a CBS “User Generated Content” feed that has the same content as what they offer to their Youtube Subscribers. The difference of course being its in TV or HDTV quality. The content would be delivered through your cable or satellite provider. There is no limit to the number of content providers , large or small that could offer subscriptions.

What about pure user generated content ? What about people’s cat, kids and response videos ? Simple.

Comcast, DirecTV, Dish, Time Warner, Charter, Insight, Cox, any cable or satellite provider could easily offer a website that allows users to upload content the same way they upload to Youtube. One key difference is that they wouldnt have to limit the length or encoding quality of the content. Youtube and other sites that make their money selling ads around content, have to limit quality and length of video to minimize file sizes, which inturn minimize their bandwidth costs. Bandwidth costs are so expensive at the volumes Youtube streams, many have questioned their ability to cover those costs even with the constraints.

Traditional TV delivery methods however are multicast , as opposed to internet videos unicast approach to video delivery. In English, that means that the cable and satellite companies could take the uploaded videos and push them out to all DVRs of anyone who has subscribed receive those videos in a single stream. internet video requires 1 stream per person per video.

The user side would be incredibly simple.

If you subscribed to all of CBS videos, you get them. If you subscribed to all of NBCs video, you get them. If you subscribed to all of Universal Music’s videos. You get them.

Or you could subscibe to all user uploaded videos that are in the comedy category. Or all user uploaded videos that are in the news category. Or you could subscribe to all the videos uploaded by Mark Cuban, or whoever. Or if your hard drive in your DVR was big enough, you could just subscribe to everything.,

If you subscribe to everything, it would be easy to have software that updated your DVR with just new offerings.

Basically, what would happen is that your DVR would act as your local server and rather than searching for videos on the net, you would search for them on your local DVR.

Of course there are challenges to this approach. It wont be easy to get users who upload things to go to cable and/or satellite sites to upload there instead or in addition to Youtube. So Youtube will probably have more content. This approach works best with content from the major media companies.

Plus there are general advantages to the Youtube approach. One of the cool things about Youtube is that it has so many videos that you can find almost anything. Youtube’s current large inventory of videos would be a big advantage

One key advantage the cable/satellite guys would have is with advertising. Whatever advertising DELIVERY methods Youtube, etc used to sell advertising could easily be implemented on a DVR. Like internet video, delivery of ads from a DVR is easily quantifiable and reportable, but of course the quality of the video and the ability to offer long form click through options (if a user clicked for more information, its easier to deliver a quality 1, 2, 5 minute or longer video thats already hosted on a DVR than it is from the net)

Each approach would have its plus and minuses, but if cable and/or satellite decided to dive into the user generated content businessgiving users a choice, things could get interesting.

ShareThis

Internet video is going to take over the world. We want unlimited choice. We want user generated content. We want our TV shows streamed to us. Give us the long tail. Please.

Because we want all of this magnificent video, we want, no we need to be able to hook up our computers to our brand new HDTVs. Of course its not that easy for non techies to get the internet video from the net, through your PC or router to your TV. But thats what we want.

Its exactly why Apple and others are coming out with product after product that transports that magical 100mbs of Youtube, AOL, Revver, Yahoo or whoever’s video from your PC to your TV.

So the contrarian in me asked the question: “Should we look at taking the video in the other direction? “. Should we be sourcing video from traditional TV delivery options. Can user generated content be uploaded to cable or satellite companies and then delivered as regular TV to be played back from a settop box or DVR.

Your DVR, whether you know it or not is a PC. It has a hard drive that is probably as big as the hard drive in your PC. The one huge difference between your PC and your DVR is that the DVR has a user interface that is optimized to sort, select and display video content on your TV. In other words, dozens of companies are trying to create add on devices that will somehow make your PC act more like a DVR.

So why not just use the DVR ?

There is absolutely no reason why you couldnt subscribe from your DVR to a CBS “User Generated Content” feed that has the same content as what they offer to their Youtube Subscribers. The difference of course being its in TV or HDTV quality. The content would be delivered through your cable or satellite provider. There is no limit to the number of content providers , large or small that could offer subscriptions.

What about pure user generated content ? What about people’s cat, kids and response videos ? Simple.

Comcast, DirecTV, Dish, Time Warner, Charter, Insight, Cox, any cable or satellite provider could easily offer a website that allows users to upload content the same way they upload to Youtube. One key difference is that they wouldnt have to limit the length or encoding quality of the content. Youtube and other sites that make their money selling ads around content, have to limit quality and length of video to minimize file sizes, which inturn minimize their bandwidth costs. Bandwidth costs are so expensive at the volumes Youtube streams, many have questioned their ability to cover those costs even with the constraints.

Traditional TV delivery methods however are multicast , as opposed to internet videos unicast approach to video delivery. In English, that means that the cable and satellite companies could take the uploaded videos and push them out to all DVRs of anyone who has subscribed receive those videos in a single stream. internet video requires 1 stream per person per video.

The user side would be incredibly simple.

If you subscribed to all of CBS videos, you get them. If you subscribed to all of NBCs video, you get them. If you subscribed to all of Universal Music’s videos. You get them.

Or you could subscibe to all user uploaded videos that are in the comedy category. Or all user uploaded videos that are in the news category. Or you could subscribe to all the videos uploaded by Mark Cuban, or whoever. Or if your hard drive in your DVR was big enough, you could just subscribe to everything.,

If you subscribe to everything, it would be easy to have software that updated your DVR with just new offerings.

Basically, what would happen is that your DVR would act as your local server and rather than searching for videos on the net, you would search for them on your local DVR.

Of course there are challenges to this approach. It wont be easy to get users who upload things to go to cable and/or satellite sites to upload there instead or in addition to Youtube. So Youtube will probably have more content. This approach works best with content from the major media companies.

Plus there are general advantages to the Youtube approach. One of the cool things about Youtube is that it has so many videos that you can find almost anything. Youtube’s current large inventory of videos would be a big advantage

One key advantage the cable/satellite guys would have is with advertising. Whatever advertising DELIVERY methods Youtube, etc used to sell advertising could easily be implemented on a DVR. Like internet video, delivery of ads from a DVR is easily quantifiable and reportable, but of course the quality of the video and the ability to offer long form click through options (if a user clicked for more information, its easier to deliver a quality 1, 2, 5 minute or longer video thats already hosted on a DVR than it is from the net)

Each approach would have its plus and minuses, but if cable and/or satellite decided to dive into the user generated content businessgiving users a choice, things could get interesting.

ShareThis

When I started MicroSolutions I was 24 years old. I had just gotten fired from my job and was sleeping on the floor of a 3 bedroom apartment with 5 other guys living there. I didn’t have a closet or a bed, but I had 2 suits.

I bought both of those polyester wonders, one Grey pinstripe, the other blue pinstripe for a total of $99 dollars plus tax. To go with those fashion forward wonders, I had several white polo button downs that I had purchased used from a re-sale shop, and a couple ties that I had bought on sale or had gotten as hand me downs from friends.

I wore those babies when it was cold. I wore them when it was 100 degrees plus. I ironed them and when I could I got them dry cleaned. MicroSolutions was started in June and over the next 7 years , starting with those first 2 suits, I wore a suit every work day. I bought new suits as the business grew. I bought shirts and ties and shoes new instead of used. I went 7 years without a vacation to make that company work, but I didn’t go a work day without a suit.

Someone had once told me that you wear to work what your customers wear to work. That seemed to make sense to me, so I followed it, and expected those who worked for me to follow it as well.

After I sold MicroSolutions I decided that I never would wear a suit again. I was able to hold true to that while I was making a lot of money trading stocks for the next 5 years, but then Todd and I started AudioNet which would morph into Broadcast.com.

With our new business, I decided that I would have to wear a suit, but would modify the rule so that I would only wear a suit when someone I was selling to was wearing a suit. If they were selling to me, I didn’t care if they were wearing a tux. I was going to go comfortable and not wear a suit.

When Broadcast.com was sold, the suit went out the window completely. I vowed to never wear one again other than weddings and funerals, and only then because it wasn’t worth the hassle to deal with people asking why you didn’t wear a suit. I’m certain the people getting married dint care, and I don’t think anyone is going to be looking down at me wondering why I showed up at their funeral without a suit. Suits make no sense whatsoever.

Why am I such a suit hater ? I’m not a suit hater, I just could never think of any good reason for any sane person to wear a suit in the first place.

Exactly what purpose does a suit serve ? Why in the world are so many people required to wear a suit to work ? Do the clothes make the man or woman in the western world today ? Does wearing a tie make us work harder or smarter ? Is this a conspiracy by the clothing, fabric or dry cleaning industry to take our money ?

Or are we all just lemmings following a standard we all know makes zero sense, but we follow because we are afraid not to ?

If you are a CEO , are there not better things your employees could spend money on than multiple suits, ties, dress shirts, dress shoes, dress socks, dry cleaning, and all the other associated costs ? Gee, no suits would be the same as giving your employees a tax free raise. Think that might make them happy ? Or do employees consider having to spend money on suits a perk ?

Now I understand some people think wearing a suit provides them with a certain level of stature. It gives them confidence. It helps them feel good about themselves. Well let me be the first to tell you that if you feel like you need a suit to gain that confidence, you got problems. The minute you open your mouth, all those people who might think you have a great suit, forget about the suit and have to deal with the person wearing it.

Is there a reason other than “thats just the way it is” ? Haven’t you looked at someone in a suit, trying to look important and just thought how stupid and out of place it is ? Why do we do this to ourselves ?

I know this all is a crazy rant, but come on now. If you have had to wear a suit to work every day, haven’t you wondered why ? If you are the CEO or in charge of a company, haven’t you wondered yourself why you are making your employees waste all that money and come to work and spend the day in uncomfortable clothing ?

Give your suit wearing employees a raise. Tell them every day is casual day.

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When I started MicroSolutions I was 24 years old. I had just gotten fired from my job and was sleeping on the floor of a 3 bedroom apartment with 5 other guys living there. I didn’t have a closet or a bed, but I had 2 suits.

I bought both of those polyester wonders, one Grey pinstripe, the other blue pinstripe for a total of $99 dollars plus tax. To go with those fashion forward wonders, I had several white polo button downs that I had purchased used from a re-sale shop, and a couple ties that I had bought on sale or had gotten as hand me downs from friends.

I wore those babies when it was cold. I wore them when it was 100 degrees plus. I ironed them and when I could I got them dry cleaned. MicroSolutions was started in June and over the next 7 years , starting with those first 2 suits, I wore a suit every work day. I bought new suits as the business grew. I bought shirts and ties and shoes new instead of used. I went 7 years without a vacation to make that company work, but I didn’t go a work day without a suit.

Someone had once told me that you wear to work what your customers wear to work. That seemed to make sense to me, so I followed it, and expected those who worked for me to follow it as well.

After I sold MicroSolutions I decided that I never would wear a suit again. I was able to hold true to that while I was making a lot of money trading stocks for the next 5 years, but then Todd and I started AudioNet which would morph into Broadcast.com.

With our new business, I decided that I would have to wear a suit, but would modify the rule so that I would only wear a suit when someone I was selling to was wearing a suit. If they were selling to me, I didn’t care if they were wearing a tux. I was going to go comfortable and not wear a suit.

When Broadcast.com was sold, the suit went out the window completely. I vowed to never wear one again other than weddings and funerals, and only then because it wasn’t worth the hassle to deal with people asking why you didn’t wear a suit. I’m certain the people getting married dint care, and I don’t think anyone is going to be looking down at me wondering why I showed up at their funeral without a suit. Suits make no sense whatsoever.

Why am I such a suit hater ? I’m not a suit hater, I just could never think of any good reason for any sane person to wear a suit in the first place.

Exactly what purpose does a suit serve ? Why in the world are so many people required to wear a suit to work ? Do the clothes make the man or woman in the western world today ? Does wearing a tie make us work harder or smarter ? Is this a conspiracy by the clothing, fabric or dry cleaning industry to take our money ?

Or are we all just lemmings following a standard we all know makes zero sense, but we follow because we are afraid not to ?

If you are a CEO , are there not better things your employees could spend money on than multiple suits, ties, dress shirts, dress shoes, dress socks, dry cleaning, and all the other associated costs ? Gee, no suits would be the same as giving your employees a tax free raise. Think that might make them happy ? Or do employees consider having to spend money on suits a perk ?

Now I understand some people think wearing a suit provides them with a certain level of stature. It gives them confidence. It helps them feel good about themselves. Well let me be the first to tell you that if you feel like you need a suit to gain that confidence, you got problems. The minute you open your mouth, all those people who might think you have a great suit, forget about the suit and have to deal with the person wearing it.

Is there a reason other than “thats just the way it is” ? Haven’t you looked at someone in a suit, trying to look important and just thought how stupid and out of place it is ? Why do we do this to ourselves ?

I know this all is a crazy rant, but come on now. If you have had to wear a suit to work every day, haven’t you wondered why ? If you are the CEO or in charge of a company, haven’t you wondered yourself why you are making your employees waste all that money and come to work and spend the day in uncomfortable clothing ?

Give your suit wearing employees a raise. Tell them every day is casual day.

ShareThis

When I started MicroSolutions I was 24 years old. I had just gotten fired from my job and was sleeping on the floor of a 3 bedroom apartment with 5 other guys living there. I didn’t have a closet or a bed, but I had 2 suits.

I bought both of those polyester wonders, one Grey pinstripe, the other blue pinstripe for a total of $99 dollars plus tax. To go with those fashion forward wonders, I had several white polo button downs that I had purchased used from a re-sale shop, and a couple ties that I had bought on sale or had gotten as hand me downs from friends.

I wore those babies when it was cold. I wore them when it was 100 degrees plus. I ironed them and when I could I got them dry cleaned. MicroSolutions was started in June and over the next 7 years , starting with those first 2 suits, I wore a suit every work day. I bought new suits as the business grew. I bought shirts and ties and shoes new instead of used. I went 7 years without a vacation to make that company work, but I didn’t go a work day without a suit.

Someone had once told me that you wear to work what your customers wear to work. That seemed to make sense to me, so I followed it, and expected those who worked for me to follow it as well.

After I sold MicroSolutions I decided that I never would wear a suit again. I was able to hold true to that while I was making a lot of money trading stocks for the next 5 years, but then Todd and I started AudioNet which would morph into Broadcast.com.

With our new business, I decided that I would have to wear a suit, but would modify the rule so that I would only wear a suit when someone I was selling to was wearing a suit. If they were selling to me, I didn’t care if they were wearing a tux. I was going to go comfortable and not wear a suit.

When Broadcast.com was sold, the suit went out the window completely. I vowed to never wear one again other than weddings and funerals, and only then because it wasn’t worth the hassle to deal with people asking why you didn’t wear a suit. I’m certain the people getting married dint care, and I don’t think anyone is going to be looking down at me wondering why I showed up at their funeral without a suit. Suits make no sense whatsoever.

Why am I such a suit hater ? I’m not a suit hater, I just could never think of any good reason for any sane person to wear a suit in the first place.

Exactly what purpose does a suit serve ? Why in the world are so many people required to wear a suit to work ? Do the clothes make the man or woman in the western world today ? Does wearing a tie make us work harder or smarter ? Is this a conspiracy by the clothing, fabric or dry cleaning industry to take our money ?

Or are we all just lemmings following a standard we all know makes zero sense, but we follow because we are afraid not to ?

If you are a CEO , are there not better things your employees could spend money on than multiple suits, ties, dress shirts, dress shoes, dress socks, dry cleaning, and all the other associated costs ? Gee, no suits would be the same as giving your employees a tax free raise. Think that might make them happy ? Or do employees consider having to spend money on suits a perk ?

Now I understand some people think wearing a suit provides them with a certain level of stature. It gives them confidence. It helps them feel good about themselves. Well let me be the first to tell you that if you feel like you need a suit to gain that confidence, you got problems. The minute you open your mouth, all those people who might think you have a great suit, forget about the suit and have to deal with the person wearing it.

Is there a reason other than “thats just the way it is” ? Haven’t you looked at someone in a suit, trying to look important and just thought how stupid and out of place it is ? Why do we do this to ourselves ?

I know this all is a crazy rant, but come on now. If you have had to wear a suit to work every day, haven’t you wondered why ? If you are the CEO or in charge of a company, haven’t you wondered yourself why you are making your employees waste all that money and come to work and spend the day in uncomfortable clothing ?

Give your suit wearing employees a raise. Tell them every day is casual day.

ShareThis

One of the problems all of us marketers has is that we lie to ourselves. We want so badly to reinforce what we think we know that we often miss the obvious.

We turn to focus groups and see what we want to see.
We turn to “experts” and hear what we want to hear.
We turn to research to read what we want to read.

We even talk to our customers. Unfortunately, our customers perception of how they interact with our products and services don’t alway match reality. No where is this more obvious than at sporting events.

No where in any research have customers told us that they get most excited at a sporting event by T Shirts. But its true. I have gone to NBA games in every arena and many NHL and MLB games across the country . Without exception, the response to T Shirts being thrown into the audience exceeds the response to actual game action for all but the most exciting of game action moments.

The minute the T Shirt cannons or slingshots come on the court, field or ice, every man, woman or child of any age is up screaming their head off trying to get a free T Shirt . They have no idea what is on the shirt. They know the chances of getting one are slim, but it doesnt matter. Its T Shirts gone wild.

Its a huge marketing lesson.

The Customer is always right, but often they tell you want they want not by their responses to your inquiries but by their actions.

Sporting events are special because they allow customers to be part of and participate in an energetic environment that is unique. Some leagues are trying to minimize that energy by reducing sound, lights and other activities. Its a huge mistake. Maybe they should take a step back , or better yet a step up and sit with their customers and watch how they act during a game.

Its much more rewarding than sitting through a focus group.

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Peer to Peer technologies are getting more and more press lately. Verisign and Adobe signed a deal, The Venice Project, BIttorrent.com is announcing content deals, and of course there is the ever present treasure trove of illegal content available online via torrents.

The reason there has been excitement about P2P technologies built around BitTorrent type technology is simple. It saves bandwidth on file distribution and it creates the opportunity to speed the delivery of files, large or small. If it were able to live up to the hype, the notion is that how multimedia is distributed on the net, and its economics would change.

I’m not as sure it will as some others are.

The premise of the technically is to break up files into pieces and distribute those pieces on to the PCs of end users who have downloaded the BitTorrent type client. Then when a user requests the file to be delivered or streamed to them, rather than having to go to a host server, a tracker determines where all the file pieces are, and defines how the user reassembles them into a copy of the original on his or her computer as a file or a stream.
Thats the very, very simplific explanation of how it works.

From a business perspective, the important element is that if X number of people request a 1gbs file, rather than a host computer having to deliver files consuming Xgbs, the file is tracked among the peers and delivered using their bandwidth and resources , relieving the host of the bandwidth cost and obligation and hopefully speeding the delivery of the content

All good, right ?

For people creating content. Absolutely. For the end user, not so much.

P2P technology expects the end user to contribute bandwidth, hard drive storage and processing power. Something that in most cases, we all have available to spare. Most of the bit torrent client softwares have a “give to get ” algorithm , In other words, it will opportunistically deliver content to you as quickly as the bandwidth you make available to it. So if you make 100k of bandwidht available to upload file segments being hosted on your PC, it will allow you to download up to 100k (there are other variables involved, but this is the simple way to understand).

All of this works very, very well in controlled environments. It also works well on a public internet tests when there are a lot of clients fully participating. In other words, they are offering their bandwidth, and open to seeding all content.

In real world execution however, it doesnt happen that way. There are multiple problems with P2P systems that could kill the golden goose.

1. Conflicting Clients . There are a ton of clients, with the number growing all the time. Although they work on basically the same source code and protocols, they all install and operate as if they had exclusive access. They want to control the PC so that they are in charge of what resources are available. When multiple clients are installed on a PC, not only does that create confusion among users, its a “last installed, first in charge” approach. THat approach and lack of respect for other clients will lead to user configuration problems. Thats not going to work. At some point they get considered to be malware and the clients will get uninstalled

2. End Users dont understand how P2P works, and once they do, they get concerned about giving up bandwidth. Most users dont know how to go in and edit the default settings. So even if they settle on a single client and are happy with just the content available on that network or to that client, they arent going to be happy about their banwidth being in constant use to save a content provider money .

3. The P2P model of seeding is a HUGE problem for those using wireless broadband with bandwidth constraints or per bit or per minute costs. People are going to wake up and find that they owe Verizon, Sprint, whoever a lot more than they ever thought possible because they installed a client on their Laptops. That could lead to these networks blocking the protocol.

4. There is a misconception that there is bandwidth savings for the end user. If you want to download a 1gb size file, 1gb of data will be delivered to your PC. There is no savings of bandwidth on the client side. In fact, the client is charged a bandwidth premium because after they have received the entire file, they are asked to particpate in the peering by delivering parts of the file to other users.

This in turn becomes an issue to services providers, whether DSL, cable, whoever. If quite a few users on a network segment are seeding files, it can slow down the network segment..

Its interesting to note that some feel that more than 55pct of internet bandwidth is consumed by Torrents. I dont know what percentage of internet users are using bitTorrent clients to acquire content, but it has to be relatively small. If that percentage doubles, what happens to performance on the net ?

If bittorrent client installation doubles or triples, does the pct of internet bandwidth used by torrents go from 55pct to 100pct ? Of course it wont work that way, but the 55pct to current client base ratio raises some very interesting questions about whether torrents truly do save bandwidth and can speed delivery of content

In conclusion, P2P is a product that tests great. In application however, it has a ton of challenges

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