Thinking about the Future

TV over IP - good, bad, or mixed?

I almost pointed to the news (pointless and annoying subscription required) that Disney are to start releasing some of their popular programmes (one is being watched on video downstairs, as I type upstairs) online the day after they are broadcast.

I almost pointed to some of the coverage. I almost pointed to the fact that the BBC is making full use of the freedoms afforded them by the licence fee and making sizeable chunks of their programming (such as the Apprentice) available online already, at least to their licence fee payers in the UK.

I almost said how good all this was, and almost agreed with Jeff that Disney/ABC's immovable ads would soon be moved.

Then I read this on bubblegeneration.

Now I'm thinking.

Technorati Tags: attention, Audience, DRM, Intellectual Property, Internet, Internet Law, Platforms, Web 2.0

Virtual Rights and the Attention Trust ?

Luke posted some information on the Virtual Rights Initiative over on his weaverluke blog.

It sounds like a great idea, but looks very similar to the Attention Trust, which seems to have somewhat more traction.

For information on the Attention Trust, listen to our latest podcast, with their Executive Director, over on Talking with Talis.

Technorati Tags: attention, AttentionTrust, Podcasting

Robert Scoble talks with the Gillmor Gang about Attention

One of the podcasts I listened to on the way home this evening struck a real chord.

In 'Disruption Gang', the Gillmor Gang spoke with Robert Scoble about matters related to 'attention'; something which has visibly grabbed Robert's interest recently.

The podcast was, as usual, great. But it was doubly interesting to me tonight as I listened to it straight after getting off the phone to California, where I'd been recording one of our Talking with Talis conversations with Ed Batista... Executive Director of the Attention Trust.

As Robert said, more than once, that Microsoft should join AttentionTrust, I'm sure he'll be interested to listen to our chat once it goes online.

Technorati Tags: attention, AttentionTrust, Microsoft, Podcasting, Gillmor Gang

OCA member Microsoft to digitise British Library books

The Financial Times reports that Microsoft is to digitise some 25 million pages of content from the British Library.

“Once some technical challenges have been overcome, the 'digitised' books, journals, maps and manuscripts would be made available on the library's website and on a new MSN Book Search service which Microsoft plans to launch next year.”

The work is to be conducted in association with the recently announced Open Content Alliance, of which Microsoft is now a member [PDF press release].

This new generation of deals between content holders (such as the BL) and access providers (such as Microsoft or Google), in which both parties retain rights to exploit the resulting content, mark an important step forward from earlier arrangements in which content holders gave access providers exclusive distribution rights in exchange for money and other services.

Technorati Tags: Google Print, Libraries, Microsoft, Open Content Alliance

Jonathan Schwartz talks about shifts in the value proposition

Jonathan Schwartz, President and Chief Operating Officer at Sun Microsystems, gave a fascinating address in San Francisco just last week.

The one hour audio recording is available here, and thanks to Dan Farber for bringing it to my attention.

Jonathan's messages, about the need to explore quite radical new models of doing business, and about the importance of unlocking content in order to realise (greater) value at a point downstream from the original act of accessing it, resonate.

In the new model, access to content and services need not be controlled by the Gate Keepers who purchase licenses to monolithic blocks of content on our behalf. Economies of scale obviously still have a place, as do coordinated acts of selection. But our employees and our public are increasingly going around the glacially slow straitjackets of institutional/organisational purchasing and interacting directly with those sources of content and services smart and nimble enough to respond. The value of each of these individual interactions is minuscule. The potential is enormous, as is that for a new breed of 'Gate Keeper'; one that facilitates and mediates rather than controls and constrains.

Jonathan has agreed to talk with me for a Talking with Talis conversation, and we're working out the final details on that just now... I've heard Jonathan a few times now, and am very much looking forward to it. Once we have a firm date I'll invite your questions, as usual.

As is my wont, I listened to this while driving home late yesterday evening. All the clinking cutlery to be heard in the background did my grumbling stomach no good whatsoever! I wonder if the Churchill Club's food tasted as good as it sounded?

Technorati Tags: Library+2.0, Long Tail, Podcasting, Web 2.0

UK Government e-Strategy released

The document formerly known as the Government's e-Strategy is published today, now called Transformational Government - Enabled by Technology.

“The Government has published 'Transformational Government - Enabled by Technology', a strategy for transforming public services using technology. The strategy sets out how effective use of technology designed around citizens' and businesses' needs can make a real difference to people's daily lives. It is not simply about the internet, but is a far more profound approach that goes to the heart of public services delivery.”

A Press Release is available on the Cabinet Office web site, which lists the ways in which public services will be improved through the report's recommendations. Of these, the first two resonate particularly well with Library 2.0, and activities at Talis;

• “Designing technology and services around the needs of the citizen improving the citizen's choice of interaction with public services.
• Sharing services and information across public sector to achieve efficiency and reduce duplication for staff and the public.”

The Prime Minister's Foreword also fits this model;

“The future of public services has to use technology to give citizens choice, with personalised services designed around their needs not the needs of the provider.

Within the public services we have to use technology to join up and share services rather than duplicate them.”

Absolutely. And so nice to hear the Prime Minister agreeing with us.

More once I've read the report...

Technorati Tags: Government, Library 2.0, Talis

Internet Inside? Almost.

Overnight, Microsoft made their big announcement about Windows Live, Office Live, and their long-anticipated move to fully embrace the web-based applications space. The announcement seems to be everywhere online (except, currently, at the BBC).

Jonathan Schwartz at Sun also posted on more or less the same topic which was, I am sure, entirely coincidental.

The move towards network-empowered applications and modes of working is undoubtedly both welcome and powerful, leveraging services and data from around the world, and (Microsoft argue) largely freeing us from the tyranny of the upgrade. As in the old days, someone else updates the application once, on the server, and we simply receive the enhanced functionality.

At the moment, though, we suffer from lack of access to information resources when we are off-Net. How crippled will we be when fundamental aspects of our applications (or the applications themselves) and 'our' data are beyond our reach in non-Lufthansa planes, non-GNER trains, or on the other side of exorbitantly expensive hotel network access charges?

The move to embrace and embed the Network has many benefits. We need to crack ubiquitous and affordable access to that Network if those benefits are to truly be realised by people other than those who spend all their time sat at a desk, connected to a wire.

Technorati Tags: Internet, Microsoft, Platforms, Web 2.0

Google Library restarts

The BBC covers Google's announcement that their library digitisation project has recommenced as planned, despite ongoing complaints from some publishers.

Work, in the short term at least, will focus upon content firmly in the public domain.

Technorati Tags: Google Library, Libraries

Gillmor Gang explore Attention and Identity

In a welcome escape from the Today Programme's endless, pointless, carping about David Blunkett's latest indiscretion, I listened to an interesting Gillmor Gang on the drive down this morning.

The show was recorded towards the end of the Web 2.0 conference, and covered such topics as the release of Google's RSS reader.

A lot of time was spent talking about Identity 2.0 and the AttentionTrust, one of which was the topic of our inaugural Talking with Talis podcast, and the second of which will be the focus of the conversation I'm recording with Ed Batista next week.

The Gillmor Gang episode made me think again about some ideas I've had to explain the importance of Identity 2.0, and I really should devote some time to that.

The way in which they segued from one topic to the other also reinforced my feeling that attention and identity are the two big nuts we need to crack in order to move to the next level.

Exactly how they fit together practically remains a little unclear, though, and Gillmor's Gang didn't seem to have the answer either... yet.

Technorati Tags: attention, AttentionTrust, Identity 2.0, Podcasting, Trust, web2con

Annotatable audio

Hmm. Tom Coates discusses a project within the BBC that I meant to mention last week when he posted.

Is it a neat solution to part of my earlier request for transcribed podcasts?

Could I listen to podcasts as I currently do, whilst driving, and push a button on the car stereo to insert a flag at an interesting point, allowing me to return there later?

Could other people, listening to the podcast before I do, highlight the interesting bits in advance for those days when there are more podcasts on the SD card than time in the journey?

I look forward to finding out!

Technorati Tags: BBC, Podcasting