Some Random Dude

Some Random Dude is a blog by P.J. Onori that covers design & technology in the broadest sense possible.

Archive for March, 2007

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A Better Web is Coming – Big Business Or Not

I read a very interesting article, Why the Semantic Web Will Fail, about one person’s thoughts on why the web will never reach its full potential due to the greed and short-sidedness of big business. The author makes some very good points in the article and it is quite compelling to read.

Here’s an excerpt:

The Semantic Web will never work because it depends on businesses working together, on them cooperating.

We are talking about the most conservative bunch of people in the world, people who believe in greed and cut-throat business ethics. People who would steal one another’s property if it weren’t nailed down. People like, well, Conrad Black and Rupert Murdoch.

And they’re all going to play nice and create one seamless Semantic Web that will work between companies – competing entities choreographing their responses so they can work together to grant you a seamless experience?

I think the author is right about one thing – big business is not a big fan of an open, sharing web and will fight it tooth and nail in the name of profit. My feeling however is that business really does not have a choice in the matter. The web is built on a very open, uncontrollable model – opening up infinite possibilities for individuals, competitors and or startups to ruin them in a heartbeat. The web is moving towards a more open model, like it or not. We do not rely on big business, big business relies on us. If corporations do not want to work in that model, all it takes is $15 for a domain name, $100 a month for hosting and word of mouth for some David to take down Goliath.
Read On…

The Blogs I Read (and outright envy)

I have been writing this blog for close to two years now and reading blogs for nearly twice as long. There is no shortage of great writers and great blogs on the internet, but to me, these either represent my favorite content or are special to me for other reasons. Either way, I highly suggest all of the blogs below – not a day goes by where I do not wish I could incorporate the quality of writing or type of content in each of these sites. I do not spend enough time on this site giving my respect to what I consider good work, I thought now was as good of a time as ever. If I were to list all of my favorite blogs, the list would be in the hundreds and it would literally take me weeks to finish the article. Perhaps I will begin briefly talking about my favorite blogs on a monthly basis, but for now I will leave the list at this.
Read On…

This American Life Coming to Showtime – The Only Real Reason To Own a TV Nowadays

This American LifeMany of you who know me are well aware that my wife and I do not own a TV – nor do we plan to get one in the foreseeable future. However, after hearing the radio show This American Life was coming to Showtime as a TV series, I personally felt the slightest twinge to jump on the boob-tube bandwagon. It is no surprise to me that a channel such as Showtime would create such a series – frankly, anything resembling This American Life would never survive on network or basic cable TV. On a side note, I find it hilariously predictable how much better the website is for the Showtime version of This American Life than its public radio equivalent. To be expected I guess.

My wife and I have been long-time fans of this show and wish it the fullest of success on TV. Honestly, I could just as easily see folks swarming to it as I could see people not getting it and quickly moving on. Being so far detached from the culture of television at this point, I am not sure if I understand the medium enough anymore to be able to make a valid prediction. Still, I cannot express how happy I am to see a TV network willing to take a chance on something well worth it. As Ira Glass has made very clear, the radio show is not going away – the two will exist together. My hope is that some of the progressive methods that public radio and This American Life have instituted – free podcasts, audio downloads of programs, etc. – will be brought into the Showtime program as well. I know that one person cannot change a whole industry, and a very established industry at that. Still, my hope is that a little bit of public radio will rub off on this one show. Perhaps TV execs will then notice that fans react well to the attitude public radio fosters – you know, putting the priority of distributing the medium to the wide audience possible over pulling in the highest profit. I guess we will see…

Creative Payment Model For Indie Film – Big Media Could Learn a Lesson

Things like this get me really excited…

Very few of us enjoy the close-boxed mentality of big media. The whole mindset essentially flies right in the face of how the web works and continues to ignore how society interacts with media. I just ran across an example of how media 2.0 and the internet’s open model has seemed to influence an independent film titled Revoloution.

The premise is quite simple – moviegoers can watch the movie for free and then decide how much they wish to pay after they have finished watching it. We all have gone to movies and have felt quite robbed from the experience. Many people do not frequent theaters as often because it is not worth the gamble to spend a sizable chunk of change on something they may not like. Big-business media will almost assuredly never sign onto something like this for various reasons – one being that their product is, well, bad. Hollywood is already losing money, this would just speed up the process. Nonetheless, this model could be a much more beneficial model for aspiring filmmakers to garner an audience and begin to create buzz on a particular piece of work.

I could see a more hybridized version of this type of payment where less is paid up front and a ‘tip’ is requested after the movie is over. If I only had to pay $4 to $5 to get into a movie, I might just start going to movies again. Additionally, if the movie is decent, I definitely would provide a tip. Of course this model is more risky than the pay-up-front model, but with declining ticket sales, they may want to consider taking a few risks and getting creative. One thing I do know, hiking up the price of tickets is not going to work.

For more details on this experiment, watch the video below:

Much of the media online is free without even the slightest hint of payment. Even for the lucky (and talented) individuals publishing high-quality work exclusively on the web, compensation still is a challenge. However, people are making it and some are doing quite well for themselves. With the rise in popularity of web media with its low overhead and much less profit, big business is going to need to rethink payment models and the content they are willing to spend millions on to produce. (Many) people know crap when they see it – sadly, the majority of all media (internet or not) falls into that category. However, on the web, I do not have to pay $15 or sit through 20 minutes of commercials to see it.

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Am I the Last Person to Hear About Tumblelogs?

In the last week or so, I have been hearing a lot about tumblelogs. The concept of the tumblelog has been around for quite a long time and I have seen many examples of sites that fit the bill. I have always liked the idea what is now called a tumblelog because the content is easily digestible and content is usually updated much more often. Ironically, this very blog has taken on tumbleblog-esque traits with smaller, daily posts to go along with a longer, more in depth weekly article.

What really interesting here is that there seems to be a trend moving in the short-format direction. In a sense, Twitter is the world’s large public tumblelog. This stream-of-consciousness style of writing is obviously less substantiative, but the format is quite beneficial in its own unique way to both the writer and reader. To the writer, with less time commitment for each post, there is more time to write many more articles during the same span of time. More topics can be covered and current events can be touched on much more quickly. For the readers, they can get the gist of potentially many different topics and then go elsewhere for more in-depth content if they so desire.

The differences in format between blogs and tumblelogs could potentially create a strong symbiotic relationship between the two. Long format, in-depth blog articles are always going to be necessary for readers to get a thorough understanding of a concept or opinion. Still, many people many not be willing to commit to such long articles for various reasons. Tumblelog formats have the potential to whet the appetite of an otherwise unwilling audience. I myself would like to incorporate even more small-format content into this blog – I mean, who has time to read my long, boring articles?