Catchup

: Rafat Ali's Paid Content reported the deal to bring a Starz movie network to the Internet with Real on June 10. The NY Times and LA Times reported it only today, four days later. If the reporters had only read blogs, they could have had the story long since.

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. . .

Passport

: Here's an AP story on the rash of newspaper sites requiring registration (it particarly seems rashy because Knight Ridder and Tribune have have been putting up the gate a paper at a time).

Years ago, the newspaper industry tried to start a constorium of its online news services, the New Century Network, and among the thing -- the too many things -- it tried to do was create a uniform registration and login for all member sites.

Oh, if only that existed: Register once and get into any news sites without having to reregister or even log in and the sites get the data they want without pissing off their readers.

It would be nice if somebody would try to restart that initiative. Hint. Hint.

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. . .

A nation undecided, not a nation divided

: I've been arguing for months, since the primaries (here, here, and here), that we are not a nation divided, we are a nation undecided.

Finally -- finally -- I have a story to link to that agrees with that argument. The cover of this weekend's NY Times Week in Review by John Tierney says -- at last -- that this red v. blue war we're supposedly waging is a product of the wishes of politicians. He neglects to say that it is also the figment of the wishful imagination of journalists raring for a fight to cover.

Most voters are still centrists willing to consider a candidate from either party, but they rarely get the chance: It's become difficult for a centrist to be nominated for president or to Congress or the state legislature, said Morris P. Fiorina, a political scientist at Stanford and senior fellow at the Hoover Institution.

"If the two presidential candidates this year were John McCain and Joe Lieberman, you'd see a lot more crossover and less polarization," said Professor Fiorina, mentioning the moderate Republican and Democratic senators. He is the co-author, along with Samuel J. Abrams of Harvard and Jeremy C. Pope of Stanford, of the forthcoming book, "Culture War? The Myth of a Polarized America."

"The bulk of the American citizenry is somewhat in the position of the unfortunate citizens of some third-world countries who try to stay out of the cross-fire while Maoist guerrillas and right-wing death squads shoot at each other," the book concludes. "Reports of a culture war are mostly wishful thinking and useful fund-raising strategies on the part of culture-war guerrillas, abetted by a media driven by the need to make the dull and everyday appear exciting and unprecedented."

The book presents evidence that voters in red and blue America are not far apart. Majorities in both places support stricter gun control as well as the death penalty; they strongly oppose giving blacks preference in hiring while also wanting the government to guarantee that blacks are treated fairly by employers. They're against outlawing abortion completely or allowing it under any circumstances, and their opinions on abortion have been fairly stable for three decades. Virtually identical majorities of Blues and Reds don't want a single party controlling the White House and Congress.

Right. We're Americans, not extremists.

There's more. Paul DiMaggio, a sociologist at Princeton, says:

"The two big surprises in our research," Professor DiMaggio said, "were the increasing agreement between churchgoing evangelicals and mainline Protestants, even on abortion, and the lack of increasing polarization between African-Americans and whites. Evangelicals have become less doctrinaire and more liberal on issues like gender roles. African-Americans are showing more diversity in straying from the liberal line on issues like government programs that assist minorities."

Alan Wolfe of Boston College "called the culture war largely a product of intellectuals." He said that gay rights could have been a dividing line but that's not proving to be the case.

But now, he says, it will probably be a minor issue.

Opinion on gay marriage and civil unions has fluctuated over the past year, but a Gallup poll last month showed increased support, with more than a third of Americans in favor of gay marriage and about half in favor of civil unions. The long-term trend has been to a great tolerance toward gays. The percentage of Americans favoring equal rights for homosexuals in employment has risen since 1977 by more than a third to about 80 percent today.

Support for gay rights has become especially strong among young voters, which suggests that the trend will continue.

"Gay rights could prove to be the issue that ends the culture war," Professor Wolfe said. "If gay marriage does not become a polarizing issue in 2004 - and it does not look like it will - there are no wedge issues left."

The article goes on to blather rather unhelpfully on possible causes and disagreement; that's what editors think these articles have to do. It's still a good and important and overdue piece.

But there is still a big story to be reported and written here: Are we really a nation divided? And if not -- and I see evidence here that we are not -- then how did this become the accepted wisdom of media and politics? Who benefits from this chronic illusion of internal war? Who helped foster this myth? What questions did reporters and editors fail to ask? When we concentrate on disagreements in a democracy, are we painting democracy as a failure? But when we concentrate on the agreements in a democracy, don't we instead paint a picture of the shared values of the nation?

And why aren't media reporting -- admiting -- today that we are a nation? Just that: A nation.

We are America. Today, of all times -- as others attack us because we are American -- it is vital that we acknowledge our nationhood and define it, not out of patriotism or ethnicity (we have none) but as a matter of principle, the principle we are defending and fighting for.

We are not a nation divided. Hell, we are not even a world divided. Most Americans, most people, are just people trying to get through a day and a life and do the decent thing and improve their future and avoid politics. It is a mistake -- it is a damned and dangerous lie -- to paint the extremists as normal, whether those extremists are of political or religious.

We're not red v. blue. We're Americans. It's the world vs. America. It's Islamic nut jobs vs. America.

There's the story that needs reporting.

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. . .

It's just like New York before Guliani

: Here's a villa for sale in Baghdad:

Big basement designed also as anti-aircraft bunker with water facilities.

A mere $665k. [via Loic]

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. . .

A place for my stuff, cont.

: Some reaction to the Place for My Stuff post, below:

: Evil Genius wants it and wants more: sync for contacts and calendars (a la .Mac), RSS information (including what has been read and what hasn't been... Shrook and FeedGator give you pieces of that), and TV and radio preferences to make better recommendations.

: VC Ed Sim doesn't want it all stored on the Internet but on a server in his home, like Mirra, solving privacy and security issues.

I still don't agree because: (1) Consumers won't understand why they should make a capital investment and it will be a hard sell -- witness the trouble TiVo has had getting going. (2) Consumers hate installing anything. (3) A service is more efficient -- it can offer you a terrabyte of storage but no one will use it all. (4) A service can constantly update itself with new software. (5) If the storage sits in the cloud, you can play your stuff on any device in the home -- or anywhere else -- without having to network anything; if you store your stuff on a home-based server in the den, it's not going to be easy to get to yourself from the bedroom TV. (6) It's possible -- possible -- that an in-the-cloud service can deal better with copyright issues. That is, you can store a legal copy of (or link to) a show or song among your stuff in the cloud and play it anytime anywhere and copy it onto limited devices (a la iPod) but not endlessly duplicate and distribute it.

For those last two reasons, cable companies stand well-positioned to provide place-for-my-stuff service. [Full disclosure: I sometimes work with a cable company.] A cable company can serve stuff to your home at high speed from the head-end and elsewhere via the Internet. A cable company will have relationships with entertainment companies and be trusted to hold "copies" of the shows you've bought or rented. But, as I said below, this service could be offered by many other service companies -- AOL, Yahoo, telco -- or software companiesy -- Microsoft -- or a new player.

In any case, I still think this will be a service business, not a hardware business. It will be an essential and big business.

: Fred Wilson didn't respond to the post but he is complaining that BitTorrent is filling up his hard drive rapidly. I left a taunting comment saying that what he needs is a place for his stuff.

: UPDATE: Ed Sim has a response to the response to the response. Go read it.

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. . .

Social censorship

: Well, here's a dark side to social software: The Chinese government set up a web site to get the citizens to report and rat out Internet sites so the regime can turn around and censor them.

Here's a South China Morning Post report. Here are some screenshots of censored sites. Says blogger Adam Morris:

With the record the PRC has on internet dissidents, it’s like asking Chinese people to invite the government to lock up and detain, or otherwise mess with other innocent Chinese people.
It’s like they’re looking for moles.
It’s like during the Cultural Revolution when neighbors ratted on each other and ended up having to face self-criticisms.

Adds Berkeley's Xiao Qiang at Many to Many:

My view is actually this form of censorship can be quite powerful. This strategy is complimentary to, yet much more effective than simply controlling internet use through law and regulations, and blocking access to foreign sites. It goes together with the governments other efforts such as forcing ISPs and ICPs to show what it calls self discipline and using internet police units to monitor online activity, including people surfing in the many thousands of internet cafes.

The Chinese authorities are once again using a strategy which mixes intimidation, uncertainty, and divide and conquer techniques to create fear and distrust among people, therefore forcing internet users to censor themselves online.

The Daily Stern: If it quacks like a censor...

: When I started writing the post above, I just wanted to tell you about this news from China. But as I followed more links and read more descriptions, I found that, hmmmmm, this sure does sound a lot like what the American FCC, the Federal Censorship Commission, is doing:

It set up a web site encouraging citizens to submit complaints about broadcast content. It listens to the zealots it wants to listen to and fines Howard Stern but not Oprah Winfrey. It won't issue specific rules of what is allowed and isn't and instead -- to paraphrase the words above -- uses a strategy that mixes intimidation, uncertainty, and divide-and-conquer techniques to create fear and distrust among broadcasters, therefore forcing them to censor themselves.

Government censorship is government censorship, no matter whether the governmnent is Chinese or American.

I guess that's why they call him Chairman Powell.

MORE...

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. . .

All the world's a network and all the men and women merely shows

: From Rafat Ali's intelligence service -- a listing of jobs that lets you know what companies are working on -- there's this radio job from Gallup:

We are expanding the world’s knowledge of important issues through a new polling-based Internet broadcast, Gallup World News. We are looking for a visionary Producer to manage and oversee production of this daily show. This individual must be creative and fascinated with ideas, new audiences to reach, and different markets to expand.

Of course, before the Internet, a company like Gallup never could have considered creating a radio show; the effort to get distribution would have been huge. Now that everyone has distribution, everyone can have a radio show (or TV show or magazine or newspaper). Of course, individuals are doing this with weblogs but companies can, too. They can create -- or better, underwrite -- programming that reaches the audience they want to reach and is compatible with their brands and message.

Of course, we assume Gallup will do more than just read poll results; that would be the dullest radio show or worst commercial ever created. But Gallup can create a show that's about opinion and what the people really think and why we do what we do, filled with experts and real opinionated people -- just as Nike got people to create films about speed -- and Motorola is underwriting a gallery of phonecam images. Gallup would be wise to draw people to its new show and brand by underwriting -- that is, sponsoring or advertising on -- lots of opinioned citizens media. The possibilities in this new world are endless.

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. . .

One of so many

: Today, June 12, Anne Frank would have celebrated her 75th birthday.

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. . .

Calling Flemington bloggers

: Go see Will Richardson's blog. If you're a blogger in or around Flemington, NJ, please stand up and be counted as we try to make Flemington into a pilot project for logging blogging... and video! More later.

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. . .

The right to an obituary

: Ronald Reagan is eulogized and memoralized and buried. And some around the world don't understand how we do this here. Some don't understand why we -- his political friends and foes -- can remember only the good at a time like this and nevermind the "buts."

But that is how we do it in America. We believe in a right to an obituary that pays tribute and remembers the good and says a fond farwell. So that is what we gave Ronald Reagan, (almost) all of us.

That is what I want. I always said when I worked on newspapers that the only fringe benefit I will ever get for having worked there is a nice obit. When I go, I expect obits to run wherever I worked: in Chicago and San Francisco and New York and Detroit and even Burlington, Iowa (perhaps that's why I worked so many places, to get so many obits). I hope for the courtesy of an obit in even The Times. And I expect that when they briefly run through my checkered career, they leave out the black squares and omit the customary word "troubled" before the phrase "launch of Entertainment Weekly," for example. I wish for a few nice words from family and friend.

That is how we say good-bye in America. I'm shocked when I read British obits that rehash the nasty bits in a life. I'm surprised when people expect us to dredge a life as we say farewell. That's how others do it. That's not how we do it.

Farewell, Mr. President, and rest in peace. Thank you for your service.

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. . .

God and the White House

: Ron Reagan had a message as he talked about his father at his burial tonight. He said his father was an unabashedly religious man who did not make the mistake of other politicians: wearing his religion on his sleeve to win votes. When he was shot and almost killed, Ron said, his father saw it as God's wish that he stay and do good. "He accepted that as a responsibility and not as a mandate -- and there is a big difference."

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. . .

Blogs 'n' brats

: Yup, we're definitely doing this weblog get-together thing all wrong. We have conferences. Iranians have festivals. And Germans grill wursts.

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Different

: When Americans go to Germany, the big cultural difference that hits them in the face is store hours. It's a very inconvenient place. And a high German court just ruled it's a matter of constitutionality to keep it that way.

: Heiko's unhappy.

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. . .

Celebrating weblogs in Iran

: Hoder, who started the weblog revolution in Iran, couldn't go to the Weblog Fesitval just held there -- imagine how hard that must be -- but he summarized some Persian reports on some remarkable quotes from officials on blogs:

In Weblog Festival's closing ceremony, deputy of IT ministery and head research institute raised some important things about blogs in Iran.

The former, Nassrollah Jahangard, wished that every Iranian could have a blog one day and expressed the government's support for persian blogs which, in his mind, are defining the presence of Iran on the Net and make an identity for the Iranian community on the Internet. He also added that blogs are sort of cultureal heritage for Iran and they will make the future of it.

The latter, Sohrab Razeghi, said that blogs and the values they carry with themseves are the begining of a modern society in Iran. He said that the openness, subversiveness, and a sense of individualism which are visible among Iranian weblogs are completely new things in the society. he then rejected the idea of government support and said that they should leave the persian blogoshpere alone and let it go in whatever direction it wants.

I'm actually surprised by mr. Razaghi's comments and believe that he is one the few officials who has really understood the nature of blogging and how it's been evolving in the Iranian online commuinity.

What's also amazing about this is that the government is taking a prideful role in weblogs in Iran -- a country that has arrested bloggers for what they've blogged -- while here, the government could care less about this new trend. Come to think of it, I probably like the latter course better.

See Hoder's post for links to photos that look like no blog confab here.

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. . .

A place for my stuff

: I want a place on the Internet where I can store all my stuff so I can get to it from anywhere on any device to consume, modify, store, or share. This stuff could be anything -- my movies, music, to-do lists, shopping lists (for the family to update), contacts, documents, search history, bookmarks, photos, preferences, voicemail, anything, everything. And it should come with the functionality necessary to execute all those verbs I listed (e.g., a nice little list-making ap).

I want the ultimate -- in the words of George Carlin -- place for my stuff.

Count on this: It will be a big consumer business. I said below, in the middle of another post, that this could come from phone or cable companies, from Google or Microsoft or Yahoo, or from a new company (VCs: pay attention!). A server for everyone and everyone on a server.

I'm writing this again to highlight it because I see lots of people dancing around this need and desire. See Jason Kottke's smart post about his three wishes for TiVo, inspired by their move into Internet-delivered programming. I agree with two of his wants: He wants TiVo to make better, smarter, categorized recommendations. And he wants TiVo to create community around TV since it is, after all, a social experience.

But I disagree with his third wish: That TiVo becomes the Internet-accessible place for your stuff, complete with that list application. I wonder whether that's not better up in the cloud because (1) you can get to it from anywhere -- even multiple TVs, (2) the storage can be unlimited -- see GMail, and (3) it won't go obsolete. But I agree that I want it, too. Is technology like Christmas: If I hint enough, I'll get it?

: I once worked with a German company called Twest.de that was going to deliver the shopping-list ap and other great little bits that treated the Internet like a life's operating system. Wrong time, wrong platform, wrong VCs, too bad. But now the time has come.

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. . .

The click vote

: CBS Marketwatch quotes Nielsen on online political traffic and spending:

John Kerry appears to be the candidate of choice among Web surfers, but it's still a close race. During April, about 1.6 million people visited the Democrat's site, while 1.5 million perused GeorgeBush.com.

These numbers come from Nielsen/Net Ratings (NTRT: news, chart, profile).

Apparently, the Republicans' online advertising isn't doing them much good, even though the party is spending a lot more money. Re-election messages were flashed at 190 million people in April, compared to just 52 million who saw Democrat banners.

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. . .

Citizens' TV: The people's commercials

: In response to my Explode Your TV post below, Maury Rosenfeld emailed to tell me about the wonderful SpecSpot site, where filmmakers go to show off the commercials they've made on spec and on their own dime to impress the advertising community.

Any newspaper classified campaign should try this spot. Budweiser: Ditto for this one or even better this one. Canon (or any video camera maker): Grab this one. Coke: If you have any sense, go take this commercial and just run it. And MTV: Why not?

Maury explains:

Young directors are creating well thought out and well executed TV commercials, on their own dime, in order to "get discovered". These guys usually shoot high end video, sometimes film, with "real" LA crews... they beg/borrow/steal favors, and make promises of future work (when they "make it big")... burn through their credit cards, and, as you mentioned, they take maximum advantage of the inexpensive software: editing, audio, fx etc to make these. I'd imagine that the typical budget for one of these spots is between $500 and $5k, most closer to the former. For reference, comparable spots produced "conventionally" would cost at least $180k - $200k, and that would be hard to do. More typically, they'd be budgeted between $240k-$350k and higher.

This raises all sorts of great possibilities. We've seen contests to make commercials for brands within tight restraints. But why not open it up? Help your customers sell your products: Give them footage and product and prizes and attention and money. Sure, there are risks: They could put up commercials that aren't compatible with your carefully crafted and expensive brand message. But what if one of those commercials becomes viral; what if your customers love it; what if it drives sales; what if that's their way of telling you what your brand message really is? What could be better than hiring your customers as your agency?

I think I'll make commercials for brands I like. I have no problem using this space to warn you away from companies I don't like (see DoubleTree Sucks). So I'll recommend my favorite brands: Taco Bell, Apple, Ikea, Lexus, Boss, Stern, HBO... After all, these days, we are our brands.

Now wouldn't/shouldn't that be a marketer's orgasm: Citizens using their creativity to sell products to each other... for free.

: I see that Tom Biro just wrote about SpecSpot too.

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. . .

The Daily Stern: Swinging the election

: TOLD YA: Polls are showing the impact of the Howard Stern voter.

Now, a new poll says Stern - with an estimated weekly audience of 8.5 million - could be Kerry's key to getting crucial swing voters on his bandwagon.

The New Democratic Network's poll says (my emphasis):

Potentially offsetting the conservative dominance of the radio waves is Howard Stern. The nationally-syndicated radio host is listened to by 17 percent of likely voters, and nationally, they would support Kerry over Bush by a margin of 53 percent to 43 percent. In the battleground states, their preference for Kerry is even stronger, backing him by a margin of 59 percent to 37 percent. More importantly, one-quarter of all likely voting Stern listeners are swing voters. This means that four percent of likely voters this fall are swing voters who listen to Howard Stern, showing Stern’s potential ability to impact the race. Generally, likely voters who are Stern listeners are: 2 to 1 male to female; 40 percent Democrats, 26 percent Republicans, and 34 percent Independents; more liberal and less conservative than the average voter; significantly younger than the average voter (two-thirds are under 50 and 40 percent are under 35); more diverse; and more driven in their vote by economic issues.

: Here are some other notes of interest from the poll on Kerry, Bush, Nader, and media:

Swing Voters Logging on for News. While television is still the dominant source of news, this poll shows that the Internet has emerged as major source of news, comparable in reach to radio. Indeed, among swing voters, 11 percent say that the Internet is their major source of news compared with 7 percent who say radio. Nationally, 12 percent say radio is their main source of news.

No, I'm not going to start into blog triumphalism, arguing that we can swing the election. But the Internet is the great media-leveler and the day will come when the people, publishing, can have as much impact as publishers printing.

: Stern can be a swinger but Nader is still a spoiler:

Without Nader on the ballot, Kerry has a tiny lead, 47 percent to 46 percent. With Nader on the ballot, Kerry is losing 43 percent to 45 percent (with Nader drawing 6 percent). Nader is drawing his votes from independents and Democrats, the majority of whom would otherwise be voting for Kerry. Without Nader on the ballot, Nader voters prefer Kerry over Bush 58 percent to 22 percent....

Ralph Nader likes to say that he’s just as likely to draw Republican votes as Democratic and hence is not a real threat to cost John Kerry the election. This simply is not true.

: Lots of other interesting notes in the poll, including the finding that among undecided voters, the swing issue is security and:

these voters are more concerned than the average voter about Kerry’s ability to handle Iraq and protect America from terrorist attack. Even among female swing voters, it is security that is keeping them from becoming a solid Democratic vote. Security is also driving the gender gap wider apart.

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. . .

BBC covers Iraqi bloggers

: The BBC reports on Iraqi bloggers, focusing on the blogging brothers Omar, Ali, and Mohammed:

One such blog is Iraq The Model, an online diary focusing mainly on politics and reform which is written and run by three Baghdad-based brothers - Mohammed, Omar and Ali.

Ali, a doctor, told BBC News Online that he and his brothers developed the blog because he wanted to send out a more positive message about events in his home country.

"More than 90% of major media outlets have a rather negative agenda and what's the benefit of us doing the same?" he asks.

"We do feel optimistic about the future of Iraq, but we see many facts about Iraq that are not covered, which is a shame."

"They [the media] ignore pictures of good relations between the Iraqis and the coalition and the good interaction between both sides, they only focus on bad events - like what is happening in Abu Ghraib." ...

Ali attributes the rise in popularity of such Iraqi blogs to both the growing number of Iraqis who have access to the internet and an emotional sense that Iraqis want to tell the world about their lives.

"There is an eagerness to reach out to the world and talk because we were silent for a long time," he says.

"They are happy that they can reach the world and that some people are listening and interacting."

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. . .

Scoops

: Rafat Ali has a scoop about Starz and Real starting an Internet movie service. And Om Malik has a few scoops, too.

As online bloggers -- especially in the trade arena -- get more readers they will get more sources and more scoops.

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. . .

The mullahs strike again

: An Iranian journalist has been arrested because of what he published on the Iranian new portal Gooya.

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. . .

The Daily Stern

: OFF WITH THEIR HEADS: Ernie Miller gets into a rightful and proper snitfit as he fisks Federal Censor Michael Powell's misplaced trumphalism after the Clear Quisling settlement:

Clear Channel copped a plea that some of its broadcasts were indecent. We never find out which specific broadcasts though. "Mistakes were made, although we aren't quite sure exactly what." This is actually one of the scariest sentences in Powell's statement. These are the sort of government settlements one expects in dictatorships. The government gets people or organizations to admit some vague guilt, but how, exactly, they violated the law is never clearly demonstrated.

: Ernie -- who has been a leader in media analyzing the importance of the FCC's expansion into profanity -- also wonders why the Clear Quisling decree does not mention profanity.

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. . .

Travelin' man

: Won't be on the air much today because I'll be in the air and then going to an all-afternoon untrendy trend seminar without wi-fi.

I'm not meant to travel anymore. Got up too damned early this morning and checked my Continental flight status because, hey, I'm an online wonk and I can. Uh-oh: "Mandatory crew delay." Arrives at Newark too late for untrendy trends. Try to use airline sites to reserve new flight; can't because it's too close to flight time; rush out of room and throw the key at the desk; rush from airport hotel to airport hoping for 6a flight to Laguardia (worry about car at Newark later); American sold out until 8a; grab it; slink back to hotel to get room back; get back online; write this dumb post.

Man, I'm not meant to do this anymore. Make my travels virtual.

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. . .

Schmeckt gut

: Took the Northwestern crew out to the Berghoff tonight. Still the best damned creamed spinach anywhere.

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. . .

F' vous

: Chirac, in the words of the BBC, snubs Bush's suggestion that NATO should get involved in Iraq. Well, that means he's snubbing Kerry's suggestion, too, since that's at the heart of his strategy. He's just snubbing America, again.

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. . .

Blogs read in the halls of power

: For the second time (the first was in the NY Post, this is in the Wall Street Journal), Paul Wolfowitz is quoting Iraqi bloggers.

After a suicide car bombing killed Iraqi Interim Governing Council President Izzedine Salim and eight others on May 17, one Iraqi put that act of terror into a larger perspective for those who wonder if democracy can work in Iraq. His name is Omar, one of the new Iraqi "bloggers," and he wrote on his Web log: "We cannot . . . protect every single person, including our leaders and the higher officials who make favorite targets for the terrorists--but we can make their attempts go in vain by making our leadership 'replaceable.' "

Exercising his newfound freedom of speech via the Internet, Omar addressed what he sees as the terrorists' fundamental misunderstanding about where Iraq is going. Terrorists--whether Saddamists or foreigners--"think in the same way their dictator-masters do," failing to grasp that the idea of leadership by an indispensable strongman applies to totalitarian regimes--not democracies.

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. . .

Explode your TV

: TV is about to explode, just as publishing is exploding thanks to the web and weblogs.

Many elements are coming together that will mean the barrier to entry to TV is dropped to the ground. Anybody can produce TV. Anybody can distribute TV. And TV will thus be able to serve any interest. Just as you no longer need a printing press to publish, you no longer need a tower (or cable or satellite) to broadcast.

Of course, that's hardly a new prognostication. Many smart folks, like Adam Curry and Ernie Miller, have been writing about this for a long time (more links shortly). But now all the things that will make this happen are coming together quickly -- why, as fast as global climate change in The Day After Tomorrow.

I've been thinking a lot about what Doc Searls started here and continued here regarding radio and I believe that the tsunami will come first to TV because:
: TV is more exciting to consumers.
: TV is more exciting to advertisers (who have been trying to turn the Web into TV ever since it started).
: Thus there's more money in TV.
: There are also far greater savings in TV. Radio's already cheap to produce. TV isn't. But with new cameras and tools and citizen producers, just a few people (or even one person) can turn out decent TV today.
: TV does not bring with it the added expectation and difficulty of portability; we do expect to get radio everywhere but we don't (yet) watch it in our cars (much).

Citizens TV will not look like the early efforts at TV online. It won't be all edgy Atom films (nobody watches them). Neither will it exactly mimic broadcast and cable (why bother?). But you can, today, turn out useful TV with little effort and expense.

For example, you could with one camera person and one host and a little editing create a house remake show like the ones my wife and I now love to watch. You could create local shows about sports or politics. You could review movies. You could test drive cars or gadgets. You could teach people how to use, oh, PowerPoint. Or you could create source material: Tape the board of ed meeting and put it online. And then you can distribute it. And then you can get people to watch it.

Here's how it comes together:

: Tools: It will take one now-inexpensive camera, one host, and some editing on inexpensive tools like Visual Communicator or even free, open-source tools, if you wish (Terry Heaton sent me to the work of Drazen Pantic, who can put an entire free editing suite on one bootable disc). That's cheap.

: Distribution: You'll no longer need to break into the cable or broadcast or syndication biz. You can put it up on the Internet. Once was, that would cost you a fortune in bandwidth. But thanks to BitTorrent and Broadcatching (see frequent Ernie Miller posts) -- peer-to-peer distribution -- the audience shares the cost. That (pardon me) is the wonder of distributed distribution.

: Marketing: The only way to market TV content in the past was, of course, to get distribution. But that changes in this new world where everyone can distribute. How does a weblog get seen? Because people link to it. How will citizens TV get seen? When weblogs and citizens link to it. Also see what Doc has been saying about sending out RSS notifications of new content.

Again, this isn't all new but it is all coming together. I've been collecting links to stories that dance around all this in recent days:
: The New York Times today reports that TiVo will allow you to store and watch shows not just from cable and broadcast but also from the Internet. Soon you can create shows direct-to-TiVo.
: The BBC is going to change the way you watch the Olympics, allowing you to make your own sportscast.
: CableNewser reports that CNN is developing a broadband channel, competing with its cable channels.
: The Times also reported the other day about TV networks that can't get on regular analog cable tiers and so they're moving to the digital tier and then to the video-on-demand tier. Well, it's not far at all to see them distributed on the Internet.
: See PaidContent.org's coverage of Internet-delivered TV networks that go into boxes on your TV: Akimbo and TimeShiftv.com. And get a load of the programming they offer: niches of niches -- Africa Movies, Asian Beauties, Billiard Club, OutOfTheCloset.tv, Sail.tv, The Yoga Learning Center.
: And, of course, see various pioneers who've been writing about all this for sometime: Adam Curry, Doc Searls, Ernie Miller, Dave Winer....

TV's exploding before our very eyes. Can't wait.

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Six column-inches under

: Conventions you wish you were invited to: the 6th Great Obituary Writers' International Conference:

In the closing minutes of the 6th Great Obituary Writers' International Conference (their title), one of the events that obituarists hate the most burst in on them. Just as Tim Bullamore, a Bath city councillor who writes for Fleet Street newspapers and the British Medical Journal, began an elaborate slide show on the glories of his city, where the conference takes place next year, someone rushed in and shouted: "Reagan's died!"

Gasps of astonishment, cries of surprise, uproar and confusion. Several delegates sprinted to the hotel lobby's public call boxes or grabbed cellphones. The bringer of the news was surrounded and peppered with questions. Bullamore's presentation was ruined. Finally, he grabbed the microphone and bellowed: "Reagan's dead and he'll be deader. Let's go on with the show."

He resumed his slides, but it wasn't the same. The 40th president of the United States, Ronald Wilson Reagan, had died inconveniently and thrust obituarists into disarray. But really, they loved it. One delegate, her eyes sparkling, gushed: "Isn't this just wild?"

[via Editors Weblog]

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Do you speak fiddish?

: Protoblogger Steven I Weiss has just launched a blog for The Forward.

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