IE8 is falling! IE8 is falling!

From Statcounter via Shane Dingman (Globe and Mail)
Hooray!

It seems that the script is sometimes an after-thought on huge productions.

‘Yes and you swear that you’ll never get involved with shit like that, and it happens. On “Quantum”, we were fucked. We had the bare bones of a script and then there was a writers’ strike and there was nothing we could do. We couldn’t employ a writer to finish it. I say to myself, “Never again”, but who knows? There was me trying to rewrite scenes – and a writer I am not.’

You had to rewrite scenes yourself?

‘Me and the director [Marc Forster] were the ones allowed to do it. The rules were that you couldn’t employ anyone as a writer, but the actor and director could work on scenes together. We were stuffed. We got away with it, but only just. It was never meant to be as much of a sequel as it was, but it ended up being a sequel, starting where the last one finished.’

From Dave Calhoun. Time Out.

“But here’s one last idea: why doesn’t Chávez crowdsource the problem?”
Sounds utterly insane to me: put gold in the hands of desperate who (a)might just leg it, (b)will set up a constant and dependable stream of vulnerable robbery targets and fraud opportunities.
It would give birth to a criminal society that would probably rival some drug cartels.

We are talking about Venezuala here. This is a country that has a #5 ranked murder rate1. Apparently Venezuala has a higher murder rate than the Democratic Republic of Congo2. I understand the commenter’s concern about creating a stream of vulnerable targets for robbery. I’m just not sure that Chavez would risk creating “a criminal society” by following this line of thinking. Of course, I am equating the murder rate with the criminal tendencies of an entire nation. Perhaps that isn’t a fair metric to use.

The Pentagon has been working for nearly a decade on an audacious plan to strike anywhere on the planet in less than an hour. Thursday could prove to be the do-or-die moment for that plan.1

Seems like a duplication of effort to me. The United States already has a weapon capable of knocking the world back to the stone age in less than an hour – its financial services industry.

One European Union study this year found that 17 per cent of Britain’s youth are classified as “NEETs” – for Not in Employment, Education or Training, in other words high-school dropouts with no prospects of employment – the fourth-highest percentage in the European Union. There are 600,000 people under 25 in Britain who have never had a day of work.1

Imagine a game show where 600,000 young adults are stranded on an island on which all resources and power are tightly controlled by a jealous few. What outcome would you predict? (I’m pretty sure my 21 month old child could figure this one out…)

Representatives of Canada’s media industry have approached the federal broadcast regulator to ask it to consider regulating online TV and movie service Netflix, the way it does for traditional broadcasters.

Get the feeling that someone is scared? Even though the selection on Canadian Netflix leaves something to be desired my family is already watching Netflix content more than we are watching content off of traditional cable television. I can only imagine what would happen if Netflix improved their offerings.

My favourite part of the article was the quote from André Bureau, the chairman of the board at Astral Media Inc.:

The objective is really, that from an industry point of view, that we maintain a level playing field within the system – a system that is a very positive and strong element in terms of our Canadian culture, identity and the Canadian economy.

This isn’t about a level playing field. This isn’t about “Canadian culture.” Rogers, Bell, etc. know that their current business models cannot compete, so they are trying to hobble and wound their competition. This is about dying dictators lashing out at a population about to taste choice and freedom.

Netflix isn’t within “the system” that Mr. Bureau describes. They do not own the pipes which their content travels — Rogers, Bell, etc. own that. They do not control the devices required to play the content — Apple, Microsoft, Sony, etc do. A Netflix customer is by definition the customer of an ISP. Even if Netflix become the market leader Rogers, Bell, etc. will continue to make money. The fear, however, will be that their services will become mere commodities with no way to charge premium prices. Right now the existing companies charge massive premiums for their service because of the monopoly they have on content. This, in particular, is why SportsnetONE exists. It is why Bell bought CTV. For the content. If the customer can sidestep the content side of the business, the company loses the part of the business that allows them to charge a premium. Then they are just the company that provides wires and switching. And that’s not the business they want to be in.

The Globe and Mail currently has a banner at the bottom of their website that reads “subscribe to the Globe and Mail and get the Globe and Mail how you want it.” Really? Because when I click through to a link, I see a placeholder for a format that my iPad cannot display. Does this ad imply that if I subscribe they will deliver a compatible video format? I hope so.

Formats have been on my mind a lot lately. Between the New York Times’ new subscription model, the Financial Times declaring it will not release an iPad app with built-in suibscriptions, Netflix announcing that it has secured the rights to Mad Men and my continuing disdain for MLB.com’s blackout policy I’m starting to wonder who is wrong… me or the media industry.

Here’s my premise: audience is power. Apple is a tectonic force in media these days. They didn’t get there by developing content (which they don’t) or by developing great computers (which they do), they did it by cultivating a database of millions and millions of credit card numbers and a drop-dead-easy purchasing interface (seriously, find me something easier than iTunes). Their audience straddles operating systems, age groups, demographics, genders, etc. etc. Same goes for Amazon. Audience has brought them power.

No consider baseball. Blue Jays games are blacked out from the entire country of Canada on MLB.com. I don’t have Rogers’ sports channels. I don’t want Rogers’ sports channels. I do, however, want to watch the Blue Jays. I like baseball and will pay to watch it. I won’t, however, pay a premium for 15 hours a day of darts and poker (which are not sports…ever) just to get the content that I want. Actually, it is worse than that. I have to subscribe to hundreds of channels full of things I don’t care about just to be able to watch the occasional Jays game. This is infuriating, especially when, for a *completely reasonable fee* I can watch *every other team in the majors* anywhere, anytime, in high-resolution… without ads and without having to pay for content I don’t want/need!

Now, I get it. Rogers owns the Bluejays and they want me watching their team on their channel. But they’ve just put a giant -1 in their audience statistics. Audience — loyal audience pays for things on a scale that a casual audience or passive subscriber (someone who subscribes to sportsnet, but doesn’t watch it) never will. Apple knows this. Amazon knows this. If I watch more Jays, perhaps I go to more games. Perhaps I get more friends watching/attending. Maybe I buy a jersey or get my kids hats. By raising the cost of entry into fandom Rogers has caused my wallet to slam shut. I can’t become a casual fan of the jays, so I won’t become a passionate fan of the game.20 years ago this might have made sense. The technology wasn’t there. But now it is. Ironically, I can watch every Yankees, Phillies, Giants, Red Sox game that I can handle (just as someone living in Buffalo can watch every Jays game online). I have to pay to watch a team that hasn’t done squat since 94 whereas I can watch successful franchises at my leisure. Lost opportunity, Rogers. You’ve traded profit now for loyalty later (and just ask the Yankees and Red Sox — or Apple just what the value of brand-loyalty is). Rogers wants me subscribing to cable because that is the medium that has made them rich over the latter part of the 20th century. Innovating requires risk. Ironically, it requires the same kind of risk that Rogers undertook establishing a cable company in Canada.

They New York Times’ new pricing model has a similar feature. In both cases the corporation is driving their customer base to choose a specific legacy medium. The New York Times wants to send you paper. Rogers wants you to subscribe to cable television packages. And don’t get me wrong… both organizations know their business and know how to make money. But they’ve tied themselves to legacy media (which may still win “the war,” who knows) What both organizations lack is the sense of adventure of a venture capitalist or a gold prospector to take a radical chance.

What happens if the New York Times has *one* price for subscriptions and readers could choose how they want the paper (heck, even discount for people who don’t want 3/4 of a tree dropped on their door every morning). What if Rogers tries to maximize the exposure of the Blue Jays decided that Sportsnet was just one way that fans could catch a game. Sure, the value of a property like sportsnet would decline. But it could open up new revenue streams that haven’t yet been tapped, much less measured.

The marketers in the room (and given the traffic on my blog, that number = 0) will tell me that in both cases the property’s value as an advertising property is reduced (in Rogers case, both the channels and the team decline) and a declining ad revenue stream is an almost untreatable cancer. I would say that advertising revenue is nice, but it is a flawed model. When dealing with advertisers you tell the client that you can promise x eyeballs per cycle. The advertiser negotiates what that is worth to them and you receive remuneration based on performance. Advertisers, however, want predictability and measurability. That’s how click-through became the standard (yet stupidest) measure of internet impact. I suspect that Rogers doesn’t want Jays fans watching the game on MLB.com because they feel that it would take eyeballs away from their advertisers. And that’s bad. Because Rogers has become addicted to their stable revenue from middleman.

Now, I’m 36 and griping about how I can’t get what I want, when I want it, where I want it. Imagine what is awaiting the cable television and newspaper industries as a generation weaned on YouTube begins to express their preferences in the marketplace. Imagine the start-ups they will create. Image, as they begin their production companies and media outlets how they will choose to deliver their product. Now ask if I’m being unreasonable or naive in my demands for access to fairly priced, easily accessed media.

Over the last few days we at HarperCollins have been listening to the discussion about changes to our e-book policy. HarperCollins is committed to libraries and recognizes that they are a crucial part of our local communities. We count on librarians reading our books and spreading the word about our authors’ good works.

However, we really wish you’d stop lending copies of our books after you’ve promoted them. That’s not why we sold you a copy.

Our goal is to continue to sell e-books to libraries, while balancing the challenges and opportunities that the growth of e-books presents to all who are actively engaged in buying, selling, lending, promoting, writing and publishing books.

And by balance we mean “maximize.” And by “all those who are actively engaged” we mean “HarperCollins.”

We are striving to find the best model for all parties. Guiding our decisions is our goal to make sure that all of our sales channels, in both print and digital formats, remain viable, not just today but in the future. Ensuring broad distribution through booksellers and libraries provides the greatest choice for readers and the greatest opportunity for authors’ books to be discovered.

We’re pretty sure our current business model is screwed so we’re working with our legal department to devise terms and conditions on licenses that will force all players in the market to work in a non-efficient manner.

Our prior e-book policy for libraries dates back almost 10 years to a time when the number of e-readers was too small to measure. It is projected that the installed base of e-reading devices domestically will reach nearly 40 million this year.

This e-reader thing is blowing our mind. I mean, Kindles, wow! Who would have thought that some silly dot-com nerds would find a way to improve sales and distribution right under our noses! We’re gonna make this awkward and painful for everyone until we get a bigger piece of the pie! 70/30? Bite me Steve Jobs! Actually, we’d just like this fad to go the way of the 8-track so that we can get back to selling books.

We have serious concerns that our previous e-book policy, selling e-books to libraries in perpetuity, if left unchanged, would undermine the emerging e-book eco-system, hurt the growing e-book channel, place additional pressure on physical bookstores, and in the end lead to a decrease in book sales and royalties paid to authors.

Will someone please think of the children! (er… I mean… bookstores!)

We are looking to balance the mission and needs of libraries and their patrons with those of authors and booksellers, so that the library channel can thrive alongside the growing e-book retail channel.

See earlier notes on balance.

We spent many months examining the issues before making this change. We talked to agents and distributors, had discussions with librarians, and participated in the Library Journal e-book Summit and other conferences.

We spoke to all of the pieces of the system that come between author and reader and worked to ensure that we imposed a layer of inefficiency on-top of the existing relationships to ensure the maximum possible screwing of the book reading public.

Twenty-six circulations can provide a year of availability for titles with the highest demand, and much longer for other titles and core backlist. If a library decides to repurchase an e-book later in the book’s life, the price will be significantly lower as it will be pegged to a paperback price point.

Don’t worry darling, we’ll be gentle.

Our hope is to make the cost per circulation for e-books less than that of the corresponding physical book.

It’s those pesky physical books! We’ve already developed an efficient way of fleecing bookstore operators. Heck, we even screw over our Canadian readers by charging them more than their American friends, no matter what the value of the Canadian dollar. We just want to keep selling these physical books because, well, golly, that’s what we’re good at. All this techno-mumbo-jumbo just gives us the willies! I mean, have you see Terminator 3?

In fact, the digital list price is generally 20% lower than the print version, and sold to distributors at a discount.

And we promise to never, ever, change the terms of service…

We invite libraries and library distributors to partner with us as we move forward with these new policies. We look forward to ongoing discussions about changes in this space and will continue to look to collaborate on mutually beneficial opportunities.

Take it or leave it. (Please take it…)