"Video Killed the Radio Star" 2006 version

When technology allowed cable tv to move from 12 channels to hundreds, the age of public access television became possible. In the ‘70s Sony produced inexpensive, portable video recorders – the PortaPack. People started seeing the possibilities of moving television out of corporate control. Michael Shamberg wrote Guerrilla television and then went on to produce The Big Chill and many other films.

With podcasting it was easy to produce your own radio shows with the help of mp3 players. We  now have new video podcasting, iTunes selling tv reruns, TiVo to go, etc, for video distribution. Video can even be shot with a cellphone or any of the millions of digital cameras sold this past year. So there will be an explosion of video production like what happened in the Guerrilla television days. And we’ll probably see a few new Michael Shambergs emerge, the Dawn and Drews of this video wave. Look for them soon. Television won’t be the same.

2006 Predictions

Mainly technology, but what will probably happen in 2006.

1. TV shoves out Radio. Podcasting gave new life to radio shows in 2005. It was an extension to the MP3 player boom of 2004. But now cell phones and iPod are accepting video podcasting. So will TiVo and other cable tv DVRs this year. “Video killed the radio star” with a twist.
2. Musicians will look for iTune alternatives. As a technology is heavily used, it shows weaknesses. Too many cars gave us traffic jams. With iTunes soon to be the major distributor of music, people will look for alternatives. These will probably work with cell phones and have little copy protection.
3. Cell phones as platform. AJAX really made the browser the new platform. Are there more cell phones than computers on the web yet? This is the new platform. More cell phone games than PC stand alone games this year.
4. RSS moves behind the firewall.  There will be a lot of action by vendors to RSS-enable their enterprise software which MS has already announced. Everyone will join in. With an RSS reader on every desktop, companies will adapt.
5. Executive Dashboard will finally make sense as an RSS aggregator. If every employee, every team, every project and every server is spitting out RSS then the executive can tune in. The executives will also be pressured to blog.
6. Ruby on Rails will get XML or die. Ruby was developed with disdain for XML, but if it flip-flops the the enterprise will adopt Ruby. So it will get XMLed.
7. Home RFID reader will be sold by major electronic chains. Won’t be a big seller, but home businesses might pickup a few.
8. GYM will change. Google, Yahoo and Microsoft will change order of their reputations. Just suggesting that one will stumble. Or we’ll add a letter like A or A.
9. AJAX is Web 2.0. For most users, Web 2.0 will be AJAX. It will be so widely adapted in increments that even the average user will sense a difference. The infrastructure that is really Web 2.0 will be the invisible hand.
10. HDTV will need universal “set top” box. DVRs like TiVo will be “required” components to HDTV. The clamor will start to allow other electronic products to replace cable TV set top boxes. The “cable-tv ready” set in reverse. If we don’t have to buy our phones from the telco then why do we need to buy their settop boxes?

D-Link USB Bluetooth Adapter

My new Sony Ericsson w600i cell phone has bluetooth. So I bought the D-Link USB Bluetooth Adapter and it works great. My only concern is that it is so small (my son said it looked like a tooth) that it might be easily misplace. $20 after rebates.

10 Good Books of 2005

Here are ten good books I read in 2005.

1. Shaping Things. Bruce Sterling has a wide view. He looks at what can be given where we already are. I’m about to read this book another time and will probably refer to the  book, Laws of Form, this time through. This book is about design and what things are becoming. Highly recommended to anyone interested in considering the shape of the future. 
2. DHTML Utopia Modern Web Design Using JavaScript & DOM. AJAX was the dominant new "technology" in 2005 and this book was the first to really cover it with great examples and clear explanations. When I first saw Gmail, I knew we were looking at a new way of “doing business” on the web with JavaScript. This makes it accessible to any JavaScript coder.
3. Who Was Marshall McLuhan: Exploring a Mosaic of Impressions. I order almost any book on Marshall McLuhan and many rehash old material. Nevitt was a co-author and friend of McLuhan and this was a great read and very helpful on my “McLuhan’s Laws of Media” web site that I’m working on.
4. Jack Trout on Strategy. “Positioning” is one of my favorite books and Jack Trout co-author it. In previous years I had been reading a lot of Al Ries, the other co-author, so it was great to read this other brilliant marketing thinker.
5. Programming Ruby: The Pragmatic Programmers' Guide. Some may consider Ruby as the “technology” of 2005. This is the introduction to this object oriented language that I believe gain a major presence. This is where my web server is going.
6. The Ten Faces of Innovation : IDEO's Strategies for Defeating the Devil's Advocate and Driving Creativity Throughout Your Organization. For more than two decades I’ve been reading business books. I’ve learned not to believe that they are a cure-all. Design is also important to me. So I’m intrigued by the entire D-school movement and innovation in business. This book makes me think a different way and therefore gives rise to new ideas. I’m enjoying a slow reading of it.
7. Head First Design Patterns. New programming methods give us new ways of logically thinking. Now more than two years old, it is still good and a very fun read for what could be very dry subject. I’ve got a lot more to absorb.
8. Home By Design. Sarah Susanka is better known for Not So Big House. She, like many, were influenced by Pattern Language. While this book is great inspiration, I’m still partial to Patterns of Home by Jacobson, Silverstein and Winslow which covers broader principles. Helpful in my home re-design.
9. The Father of Spin: Edward L. Bernays and The Birth of Public Relations. Ries and Trout have convinced me that PR is often more important than advertising especially for a new venture or brand. This is my start at educating myself. Interesting history but uncertain of usefulness to this century. I need more education to judge this book.
10. A Theory of Fun for Game Design. I’ve always liked computer games. I’ve sold more titles than anyone else in the 80’s and 90’s from my stores. And I wrote a few. Koster’s book is a great history of computer games, good design theory and good fun!

Non-profits and Open Source

David Weinberger writes that “the most powerful institutions in our society don’t like the Net much.” He sees hope that seven American univerisites will be making their software freely available. I was thinking that non-profits, especially unions, should consider the same.

The Math of Sudoku

Added a section to my Sudoku Lens on Squidoo. This links to articles on the Math of Sudoku. Here’s the introduction I wrote:

No arithmetic is required to solve Sudoku. You don't add or multiple the numbers. In fact the numbers could just as well be hamsters or any other nine symbols.

The logic of Sudoku is mathematics. For example, there are computer programs to solve and to create Sudoku. So it is now the subject of a large number of papers. This is not the definitive list but a place to start if you want to explore Sudoku in more depth.

Comment on my Soduku Squidoo

As the creator of the Sudoku lens, let me tell you my experience.

I've now built four different lenses on Squidoo. I started not knowing what to expect with no particular business purpose. My first lens was on Marshall McLuhan, former patron saint of Wired. I didn't expect this to be popular, but thought it might be useful for my work-in-progress on McLuhan's Laws of Media. At first it was a way to publicly organize my research. This was rather static, or so I thought.

My Sudoku lens was built with a more public audience in mind. I had been working on a Sudoku site www.allsudoku.com and had found some sites and feeds that really did not fit on my site. It also gave me a chance to see how my site could be used to supply content to Squidoo. (This is where I think the web is going: subscribing not surfing pages.) In particular I knew several good Sudoku game feeds.

I then built a Lens on Christmas Ales and Beers. I have a vintage collection and was interested in exploring what was on the web. So as I surfed I put together the lens. I also used it to test the format of lenses.

SURPRISES

First, I was very surprised that my Sudoku lens was in the tip 10. It is a fun ride.

Second, I'm surprised at how often I go back to my lenses to read them and update them. The lens itself becomes a research tool for updating the lens.

There is a lot unknown about Squidoo. Improvements will be made as will mistakes. In summary, like blogs Squidoo is a very interesting new web format worth exploring for personal and business use.

Squidoo Out of Beta

I’ve been working with the beta version of Squidoo. This is an interesting site pushing a concept of Seth Godin. It is a cross between blogs and about.com. So far there are some very interesting “Lens” (Topics) that have been created. I just sent on about diabetes to my family tonight, for example.

Time to brag though. My Sudoku Lens is rated as the 9th most popular. A few links to my site allsudoku.com and others.

Now if only they’d had comments and trackbacks, then maybe the site would be complete.

Gather Your Family Around For A Laugh

Sometimes everything gets too serious and we need a simple, childless laugh.

Future of Media

A good look forward of RSS as a media. Just as the first TV shows were radio shows, the first RSS feeds were web sites (or blogs). RSS is microcontent and the result is mashups. This post looks at that future [future is here again]. I’ll read this post again.