Hows that for a title.  Just thought it would be a fun day to rehash some old posts that made me look a little prescient

Today the feds arrested 2 programmers that worked for Madoff. I wrote this in January:

Jan 18th 2009 10:11AM

Im taking a flyer here, but if they were to put me on the case, the first people I would talk to are the software developers.  Somewhere along the line there was a software program written or modified that allowed Madoff to enter the numbers he made up, who they were paying out cash to and would print the checks and  statements.  Its very unlikely that it was off the shelf software because it would be impossible for all the numbers to balance, or he would need to use suspense type of accounts that would raise red flags for even the smallest of accounting firms.

Maybe I have missed it, but I have yet to see an article written or any commentary about the software Madoff Investments used or read about any programmers that have come forward that worked for him. Someone had to outline the details of what they wanted the software to do, and in a scam of this size, could it be anyone but Madoff himself ? Someone had to take that information and either create or modify software to keep the whole mess running smoothly for him.

Find the programmers who wrote the software and you will find out how the whole thing worked.

And as the Google, Murdoch discussions continue, some people have actually started to recognize there might be something to what I wrote in May of 08

Is there anything more fun than sitting around, growing your hair, drinking a Bud while listening to Jethro Tull and pondering how to change the balance of power in the search world and unseat Google ?
Better search ? Too subjective. Better monetization ? After the fact. Better User Interface ? Will we know it when we see it ? A new and different search ? Semantic ? Human powered ? We won’t know till we know.

But what about the Google Index, all the websites that are indexed by Google ? What is it worth to be in the Google Index ? What would you, as a website owner require in order to remove your site from the Google Index and no longer be available when someone does a google search ?

It should just be a matter of dollars and cents and sense, shouldn’t it ?

How many websites would have to recuse themselves from the Google Index before Google Search was negatively impacted ?

Mahalo.com thinks it needs to support the 25k most common search terms in order to be successful. What would happen if MicroSoft or Yahoo or a MicroHoo went to the 5 top results for the top 25k searches and paid them to leave the Google Index ?

A theoretical maximum of 125k sites, but with overlap, probably closer to 100k or less, times how much per site on average ?

The math starts to get interesting. At $1,000 per site average times 100k sites, thats only $ 1 Billion Dollars. The distribution would obviously favor the larger sites, so of that billion dollars, would the top 1k sites take 500k each and the remaining 99k split the rest ?

Given the stakes, why stop at $ 1 Billion Dollars ? Would the top 1k most visited sites take a cool $1mm each, plus a committment from MicroSoft or Yahoo to drive traffic through their search engines to more than make up for the lost Google Traffic. After all, once consumers realized that Google no longer had valid search results for the top 25k searchs, that traffic would most likely go to MicroSoft and Yahoo.

And why we are at it, why not require that these 100k sites switch from Googles Publisher Network to Yahoo’s or MicroSofts ? It would start to earn back the $1 Billion paid out very quickly.

On top of that, in order to grease the skids even further, why not issue advertising credits to the sites that switched off Google ? Its soft dollars, that would sweeten the pot and drive more traffic.

IN essence, its no different that any other content aggregation play. Its paying for content . But, It would take some big ones to go for it and see if it worked. However, without question, every search engine has some number of core sites, that when removed from its index , destabilizes the value of its search.

The question is how many ? What would it cost to get that number of sites to turn Google off and stay off, and would the traffic created as users switch from Google more than compensate for the cost ?

Or would Google recognize the risk and jump in and offer more to websites to stay ?

Sure would be interesting to find out.

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Im going to simplify this as much as possible. I probably should have just included this in the first post. Here are the best and worst cases of Newscorp opting out of the Google Index

1. Best Case: They opt out and see an increase in revenues and commitment to their sites because people choose to go directly to their sites. For those sites behind a paywall, they generate more revenue than when the site was free.   Other sites notice their success and copy Newscorp, choosing to opt out of the Google index. The opt out choice turns out to be the better business move for any and all sites looking to increase revenues. Google’s position as the leading search engine is called into question.  The Search business becomes competitive again. Content companies now understand how to best monetize their content efforts.

Far fetched ? Maybe. But not totally inconceivable.

2. Worst Case: They opt out of Google’s Index. Their traffic drops 99pct. No one buys their pay offerings. They all feel like idiots. Then the last idiot left in the office gets out the text editor and changes the robots.txt file or completely deletes it.  They turn off the paywalls. Make the content free again.  Life as they knew it before they opted out and started charging for content returns to normal as quickly as Google can reindex the Newscorp sites.

The upside of Option 1 is far more impactful than the downside is bad. There is no reason not to take the chance.

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Rupert Murdoch has said that his Newscorp sites are going to block Google indexes.  Of course, all the netizens freak out when this happens. Which I love.

I love to tweak all the internet information must be free bigots. They get so damn religious about information on the net that they lose what little objectivity and awareness of the real world they had in the first place.  First a little enlightenment for all of you that think Murdoch is making a mistake. This is not 1999, nor is it 2004, nor is it 2006, nor is it 2008.  The calendar is about to turn to 2010.  What worked and made sense 3,5 and 10 years ago, no longer does.

What has changed  ? Quite a bit, but lets start with this.  TWITTER IS SURPASSING  GOOGLE as a destination for finding information on breaking and recent news  of all types. Whats more,   TWITTER POSSES NO THREAT to any destination news site. 140 characters does not a story make.  Find it on twitter, link to a story on say, FoxNews and everyone is happy. The same concept applies to Facebook Links. Twitter and Facebook are not news  destinations that can compete with traditional news sources.  Google is.   Rupert loves him some twitter. Google, not so much.

Not only are Twitter and Facebook becoming strong competitors for referrals to news sources from topical searches, they both have one HUGE HUGE HUGE advantage for news outlets that Google does not:

TWITTER AND FACEBOOK are platforms that allow the news sources, like newscorp to post breaking news and gain value from their brand. Google does not.  In other words, if I trust a newspaper, tv or any  brand, I can follow it on twitter and expect the news to come to me.  The concept  of “If the news is important, it will find me” works better by the day.  If it matters to me, chances are very good its in one of the twitter feeds I follow.

Having to search for and find news in search engines is so 2008.

Twitter and Facebook have become the ultimate real time programming guides.  Look at it like this. “Hear about bubble boy from a follow”. If: “its a news source, go to that news source” If not: “Look it up on twitter (or i use icerocket.com it shows tweeter authority) to see if there are any 1st hand accouts or check my FB wall to see what my friends have to say,  if anything”  “See tweets/posts to determine how I want to get more information:  from  TV ( stream, regular, phone), or from online written or audio source” if online: “go to that source from link in twitter or facebook”

All of the above complements everything Rupert and Newscorp are doing.   Google is no where to be found in that equation.

Thats not to say Twitter is perfect. Its not. It has  a HUGE and growing problem with spam (unlike Facebook updates and another reason why I pimp Icerocket.com). Nor am I saying that Google is toast and has no role. Non real time feed users will continue to source news through Google.  I just see that as a declining number in an era where much of our first crack at news is via our phone.  But, perfect or not, the bottom line is that in this new era of twitter, things have changed.

News sites blocking Google ain’t what it used to be.  Rupert is right. Deal with it.

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I was thinking of ideas on how to add twitter and/or facebook fan page followers. I dont have a real need to have to do so. I was just curious about ways to do so.

Think of it as one of those things my minds wanders off to while Im working out.

One thing that poppedup as what I thought was a decent idea was the idea of  rewarding those who refer and/or generate followers to my pages on twitter (@mcuban), or on FAcebook (/markcuban) a unique page where they were the only person approved to have access and for some period of time, they would have exclusive access for questions and answers.

So for instance, if you helped me add 1k followers on twitter, i would create a new ,private account on twitter and you would be the only approved follower. You could ask me anything and I would respond for some period, probably 24 hours. After which I would replace you with another follower. I could do the same on facebook.  I would set up a private account and only friend this person.  Using the wall, we could have an exchange about any subject.

Good idea or bad idea ?

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Some people wondered why I stayed with my Sidekick despite still not getting my contacts back and all the troubles the network had. The answer is easy. They keyboard is so above any beyond any other phone, I can type a good 50 words per minute on it. (Its amazing how fast my thumbs are on this thing)  Which in turn allows me to answer emails quickly and accurately.  I dont lose any productivity when Im on my Sidekick compared to sitting  in front of my desktop or full sized laptop.  To me, thats money in the bank.

Thats not to say I never stray and try new phones and alternatives. I do.  I have tried any make and model of phone, with slideout keyboard, touchscreen, you name it. None match the sidekick.

Recently I bought a couple netbooks for my kids.  The kids love them.  I cant type of them to save my life.  Trying to pop over to check and respond to some emails is a frustrating experience.  Maybe I could learn to get used to them, but the keyboards are so small, it takes real concentration to try to touch type.

All of which got me thinking. Im not the only person who has mastered their phone keyboard. Regardless of model.  Plus, like most of us, I have an investment in “conforming” to the typing platform of my phone.  Texting is so popular, we quickly become productive typists on our phones. So rather than creating an entirely new “typing platform” like most Netbooks do, why not create a line of Netbooks that merely are an extension of our phones ? Do Netbooks need, or should they even have Keyboards ?  Why not a “monitor” that can travel and be tethered via bluetooth to any and all manner of phone ?

I would love nothing better than to be able to take a nice monitor with some PC/Netbook like features that pairs with my SideKick.  Less to carry. Less cost.  Just as I can send the sound to an external device, why not allow me to connect from my phone to the monitor , using my phone as my keyboard and even have the option of using the storage on my phone as the hard drive ?

Am I the only one who would prefer this approach ?

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I got this email today.  Of course Im being marginally facetious about the following idea. Why only marginally ? Because all he has to do is find one sucker to say yes. Enjoy.

I have an idea to solve all of Americas problems, just as all great ideas are really very simple so is this.  I am self made, retired, age 45 and financially independant.  I will sell this idea for $5,000,000.  When you learn of this plan, you will be shocked at how simple and effective it will be.  I want a cashiers check up front and I will give you the idea once it is cleared.  I have it written on an index card here on my desk.  This idea will probably be the biggest proponent of postitve change in American History.  I give you 24 hours to respond and I am going to start shopping this around.  Next is Rupert Murdoch, he will love i

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have you seen sports ratings lately ? Just this week:

The NBA on TNT had its highest ratings in TWENTY SIX YEARS .  Versus had its highest rated regular season NHL game EVER.  The first game of the World Series was the highest rated in 5 years.  The NFL was setting records on cable and achieving viewing levels not seen in TWENTY YEARS !. College Football ratings are killing it as well.

But wait there is more.  TV viewing is up considerably in each of the last several years. We can even look at the box office for movies and the fact that the industry is seeing a theatrical revival.

The question is simple. Whats going on ?

The answer is simple as well.

The internet has trained us.

It has trained us to assign two distinct values to content that is available to us, regardless of media.    The 1st variable is participation value. The 2nd variable is shelf life.  The two variables go hand in hand.

Every type of content has some quotient of participation value. At the bottom of the spectrum are games/shows/movies/events that you watch or attend by yourself, and you have no interest in telling anyone about.  Those shows have zero participation value.  They could be Perry Mason reruns (happened to catch one while I was working out on the road) or shows you watch when you have nothing better to do.

At the top of the scale are games/shows/movies/events that potential viewers have predicted to have high participation value.  These are events that we look forward to not only watching or attending, but that we plan in advance how we are going to extend our participation.  We may plan on tweeting about it or posting a facebook update because we know our friends are there and we are bragging to each other, while at the same time showing off to friends who cant be there. Think going to the opening of Cowboys stadium, or going to a concert or opening night of a movie, or watching the big game.

Or we may plan on going online and participating in discussion forums or chats. Or we may be planning on posting comments on our favorite websites where others have shared interests.  For others it may be some version of gaming, ala fantasy sports.

Sports of course have high affinity engagement, and because of the internet, they have increasing participation opportunities.  You may watch a Magic game just to be able to tweet to Dwight Howard what you saw while watching the game.  You may watch the Giants Eagles game because your fantasy teams are stacked with players from those teams and your league allows first come changes. Or you may just want to see how your guys did so you can text your friends in the league and give them a hard time, or take a hard time. Its very, very common for fans of MMA (mixed martial arts) to stay up to the wee hours to watch our Dream Fights from Japan on HDNet , all the while online discussing the fight and then arguing over the outcome with others doing the exact same thing.

The higher the participation value, the shorter the shelf life.  The role of the internet for high participation games/shows/events is not to show them, its to enable the participation. The explosion of Social Networking and social networking enabled games and applications has strengthened this as the internet’s role. Its improving TV ratings of shows with high participation value.

While some may think that combining the presentation of events/shows/etc and the participation into a single webpage makes sense. It doesn’t.  The internet has also trained us that if it can be shown on the internet, its probably not going to have a high participation value. Why ? Because the expectation is that if its on the internet, you can get to it any time you want it.  Its out there waiting for you to stream or download at your pleasure. There is a long perceived shelf life.  So there is no rush.

The latest U2 concert on Youtube is a perfect example.  I thought that when I went to Akamai’s status page the number of concurrent users would be in the millions. As you can see from this link, it was about 1.15mm. Nothing to sneeze at, but that is for ALL of the streaming Akamai was doing at the time and its not dramatically more than a normal night for Akamai (as I write this, the total on the akamai visualization page is 1.3mm, more than during the concert) .  I shouldn’t have been surprised.  There was no reason to rush to watch it. Its available now and probably forever more on the net.

Compare this to live, competitive reality tv.  THe opportunity to watch a train wreck or to catch a spectacular performance, live , can easily trigger a high participation event.  Think watching me on Dancing with the Stars hoping or expecting me to wipe out.  You go in knowing and hoping and ready to let all your friends who werent watching know about it, and to talk about it with all your friends who are watching.  So while the ratings may have fallen off some for these shows, one episode comparable to Marie Osmond fainting, which led to a huge surge in viewing on my DWTS season, or a Brett Favre last second touchdown or interception return, or even a movie that is a hugely positive surprise like Paranormal Activity, all have short shelf lives while creating the expectation among viewers that they are or could be high participation events.

Which brings us to our conclusion. THe longer the shelf life, the more likely that there is a lower perceived participation value. Sure you may want to talk about your favorite TV show with others, but there is no rush.  You can get to it when you get to it. More importantly, networks and production companies should work a lot harder at creating realtime  participation around their content. If you can increase the value of participation, you increase the value of the show and the desire to watch the show at the same time as others.  Which is exactly what is happening with sports in record numbers.

You cant stop people from recording shows on their DVRs, and you shouldnt try. But you should try to give them as many reasons as possible to take advantage of the increased entertainment value of participating  with others. High participation  equals high viewership. That is exactly what record ratings for sports are telling us.

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I am so firedup for this season to start.  No predictions other than to say I think we are much better than last year and if we can stay healthy….

And of course off the court, we are always trying to do new fun things that create fun and value for our fans. From the new amazing VideoBoard (largest and highest resolution indoor board in the world !),  to the new soundsystem, because great sound matters ! And as always , we have lower ticket prices and great season ticket deals available. Some even include All  Star and Event tickets as well . Mavs.com has all the scoop.

You will also see continued improvements in the Mavs websites.  Mavs.com , Friends.Mavs.com, Mavswiki.com, all will have more original content,and we will be twittering and updating facebook pages with scoops, pictures, videos, everything and anything we can think of.  Most importantly, rather than the very limited AP post game reports that are the bane of the sports business, we will have complete write ups about every game minutes after the game is over.  So Mavs fans should make Mavs.com your starting point for all things Mavs !

We have also partnered with Hewlett Packard to create a really cool new opportunity for Mavs fans called The HP Insider ( www.theHPInsider.com).  We are going to be offering select Mavs fans the chance to go “deep inside” all things Mavs and become the ultimate insider. You will have access to pretty much everything that we are allowed to give you access to, and then some !  I dont want to give it all away, the scoop is on the Insider website, but lets just say you will not only get to sit next to me at a game, but we are going to take you with us on a road trip !

All you have to do is go to www.theHPInsider.com and upload a video showing me why you are the Mavs biggest fan.  If you are chosen, you get to go where no Mavs fans have gone before and HP is going to throw in a ton of really cool goodies to help you document your experience.  After all, you do need a new HP Touchsmart Laptop and an HP PhotoSmart printer to look all official and all when you travel with us and print up all the pics you take, dont you !

Thanks to  HP for coming up with this idea and supporting Mavs fans everywhere.  Its going to be a fun year !

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The “conventional wisdom” of internet intellectuals is that its a foregone conclusion that the future of content delivery is via the internet.  Furthermore, the same internet panel populaters seem to be of the mindset that traditional entertainment and content companies “just dont get it”.  History has written that if it can be gotten for free, it should be gotten for free.  It’s a given that the next re-make of Planet of the Apes is supposed to end with  Taylor looking not at The Statue of Liberty, but an enormous Comcast or DIRECTV logo when he screams  they “blew it all to hell”.  That major content conglomerates like Viacom, Disney and the like, that depend on traditional TV models are doomed because they just dont understand the new world.

I agree.

Those big companies just don’t get it. Forget the Internet.  For some reason they want to kill off the DVR. They think the DVR is the bane of their existence.  That because consumers fast forward through commercials, DVRs must be dumbed down,  limited in any and every way possible and even eliminated.

To this I reply, “Are you serious ?”

Do you not realize that the DVR is the one device that can save all things traditional and holy to your business and stock price ?  That the DVR is what every internet based TV delivery device or service aims to be when they grow up ? That the more powerful and feature rich that you allow DVRs to become, the sooner your customers, the people that pay  an average of what, $80 dollars a month to consume your content,  will realize that all the capabilities that the internet pundits predict that the future of the internet will offer, are available today for the DVR ?

Let me ask a simple question, if everyone had a DVR that could record any and every series they liked, enabling them to watch the shows they missed immediately, why would they go to Hulu ever again ? Lunchtime at work you say ? I respond simply with “slingbox enabled DVR”. Let them stream the shows from their homes. Oh, and one more thing. When they do stream it from home to work, they pay for the bandwidth, not you.

Traditional media should be blasting the cable/telco/sat companies for not adding DVR features and dropping pricing fast enough.  Not only should remote internet access to content be a given, but the ability to save shows at “internet quality”  and original quality, side by side, should be as well. This would not only improve streaming, but also increase the number of shows that could be saved. I could go on for days with features that could and should be added to DVRs, but I will shortcut this by once again butchering a quote from Charlton Heston, this time from Soylent Green. “Its PCs. DVRs are made out of PCs.”.  Which means that they can not only be upgraded with features, but if someone where smart and fully opened up  Tru2way and added net connectivity, it could be a rich foundation for applications. Anyone got a Charlton Heston quote for the Iphone App store ? So what if Netflix does instant streaming to it.  Go out and get the same rights and add them to your VOD Offering and create a movie on demand subscription service that you host on the internet or  implement when you go IP. The full feature DVR is the killer of all boxes designed to integrate internet video into traditional TV viewing.

If you have gotten this far, you need to wipe away the tears.  Yes, advertising dollars could take a hit. Sometimes the business world requires you to make a choice.  Call me crazy, but a device that consumers love and further commits them to paying the cable/sat/telco distributors that PAY YOU BILLIONS EVERY YEAR, IS A GOOD THING ! A device that can pre empt whatever threat there might be from over the top video, is a good thing for you.  A device that makes people watch MORE traditional TV is a good thing too, right ?

I know its tough recognizing that 40pct plus of DVR users want to and will skip through commercials.  But do you think if you kill the golden goose and push people to the internet they will be more likely to watch your commercials ?  No. They won’t.

Its time for you to finally understand the new world of technology and content. You have an amazing technology, the DVR,  that has almost tripled its installed based to more than 30pct in just 2 years.  DVR users watch 8 hours per month of time shifted TV, which by the way is more than total average consumption of 3 hours of internet video per month.  Even kids 18 to 24 watch more video on their DVR than they do on the net ! Don’t you think its worth noting that the number of DVR users is growing faster than the number of video watching internet users ? The individual  consumption of DVR video far exceeds internet video. More importantly, since most DVR users are cable/telco subscribers, they actually PAY YOU MONEY to do all the above.

Its time you come not to crush the DVR but to praise it.

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First, let me say I love when I can talk about other leagues. It’s a freedom I really, really enjoy.  But lets get to the issue.

I’m guessing the NFL doesn’t really care about what Rush has said before on his show and on other platforms. If it were really an issue, they never would have let him in the broadcast booth a few years back.

What they should be terrified about , and why they should keep him out,  is what he might say AFTER he was an approved investor in the St Louis Rams.

The NFL has plenty of owners who I am sure have very strong political opinions.  I’m willing to bet that many of them back up those opinions with donations that are all part of the public record.  I’m sure some of those probably don’t align with the best interests of the NFL or even the majority of their fans and customers.    I can give you a minor example I have had with the NBA.  I am never on the same page as the NBA when it comes to copyright issues. I believe we waste too much  NBA money trying to fight piracy and other intellectual property issues.  We have agreed to disagree on this and other issues. It’s not a problem.  Nor do individuals who fall on either side of the copyright issue make their sports consumption decisions based on copyright positions.

Its a great thing that we all  just accept the fact that owners, leagues and fans can be on different sides of a variety of issues.  We love our sports and want to reserve a spot for them away from life’s partisan issues and problems. Thank goodness for that !

The problem with Rush is that its his job to take on all of life’s partisan issues and problems.  Not only is it his job to take on these issues and problems, its key to his success that he be very opinionated about whichever issues he feels are important to him and/or will cause his very large audience to tune in.  Given that we will never know what the “next big issue ” in this world that Rush will be discussing on his show is,  its impossible for the NFL to even try to predict or gauge the impact on the NFL’s business if something controversial, or even worse yet, something nationally polarizing happens. There is an unquantifiable risk that comes with the size of Rush’s audience.  The wrong thing said on the show, even if its not spoken by Rush himself,  about a sensitive national or world issue could turn into a Black Swan event for the NFL.

Thats a huge risk that is not commensurate with the value a minority investment in a franchise brings.

This isnt about Free Speech. Its about the NFL protecting their business.  There is no reason to put it at risk.  If Rush were to retire from his show, or become a local DJ in Sacramento, or just about anything else he may want as a vocation, then I dont think they would have any problem with him being an investor in a team.

Given the current set of circumstances, they would be crazy to approve him as an owner.

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