Tim Howell’s Weblog

The erosion of traditional media continues, with the New York Times reporting that CNet’s financial future is uncertain.

Years ago – and we’re going back to the late nineties here – I used to diligently read CNet’s News.com news service virtually every hour. News.com was comprehensive in its coverage of the tech industry, across all facets, and met my news requirements for the best part of a decade. Not only did they break news first, there was also analysis, lengthy and detailed features, and – most of all – the site was considered authoritative in this area. I relied on News.com to be the first and best resource for giving me the news I needed.

As we all know, over the past few years the media industry has been impacted by online media, with the arrival of multiple online sources, including blogs. With the arrival of these, and the emergence of RSS, my news consumption habits have changed.

Going back to News.com, I’ve very rarely visited this site in recent years: I’ve found it to offer dated information, from fewer writers, and its focus has diverged from the things that I’m interested. I’ve located alternative resources for tech news and information, many of these blogs, whose writers either directly create the content or point me to the stories I need.  Typically, I don’t visit the web sites themselves either – rather, I consume the feeds with Google Reader or the feed reader within Outlook 2007.

As a result, my approach to getting news has changed:

• I use Techmeme to give me the significant stories of the day. News tends to break here early, and important stories rise to the top of the page as more people report and comment on a piece of news. With the velocity and volume of news, Techmeme has replaced News.com in guiding me to where news is breaking.
• I read dozens of blogs – time permitting – including obvious choices such as TechCrunch and the GigaOm Network, New Zealand blogs such as Rod’s and Geekzone, and a more eclectic mix of news, start-up, finance, analyst and technology sites, amongst others. My current interests are in start-ups, marketing and – more broadly – technology and media trends, so my focus is on sites that service these areas; in six months time it could well be different.
• And, so that I don’t ignore the other world events, I continue to glance through Stuff, the New York Times and other traditional publications when time permits.

Media is changing and it will be those sites and services which offer timely, accurate and authoritative information that will survive. In recent years the quality of media here in New Zealand has really diminished, and there are ample opportunities in this area right now.

Where do you get your news from? Tech news or otherwise?

A few locals have blogged about Sam Morgan speaking at the elite TED Conference held last week. TED is a conference now run by Chris Anderson, a man I used to work for and with in the early 1990’s. Chris’ initial claim to fame was founding Future Publishing, a UK-based magazine publishing company that achieved great success during the 1990s and into the early part of this decade. You may have heard of some of their titles including PC Plus, PC Format, MacFormat, Future Music and many, many others.

Like many startups, Chris founded the company from a garage using a bank loan, and over several years the company grew into being one of the largest leisure magazine publishers in the UK. The company went public in the early part of the decade, and for a while Chris was on the Sunday Times rich list, worth hundreds of millions of pounds. Since the tech wreck, his fortune shrank, but he’s obviously mixing in the right circles at TED, his latest venture.

I’ve always found the Future Publishing story inspirational, especially given my early association with the company, and it’s great seeing how Chris is now giving so many others inspiration through TED.

(For Wired readers, it’s worth mentioning this is a different Chris Anderson than the one who is responsible for The Long Tail and who is editor in chief of this publication.)

The Venice Project is the next venture from Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis, serial entrepreneurs and founders of Kazaa and Skype. The Venice Project, as it’s known, is a venture for distributing TV and other types of video over the Web, with the intention of disrupting media in a similar way to how Skype disrupted the telco space.

More coverage is available at GigaOm, amongst others, but I’ve just received my beta invite and will be trying it out soon. Let me know if you want an invite when they become available.

Recognizing that they are more than a computer company, Apple’s changed its name to Apple Inc.

Way more interesting, though, and inevitably something that will be covered in blogs and in the press for weeks, were its iPhone and Apple TV announcements, proving once again that Apple is thinking different - and thinking big - when it comes to consumer electronics.

More revolutionary to be is the iPhone which, at less than half an inch thick, the doesn’t use a keyboard or a phone keypad for interaction, instead using a touchscreen to access a broad set of features including making phone calls, watching videos, listening to music, surfing the Web and checking e-mail.

I really like the way in which the device appears to “switch” between roles when you’re listening to a phone call, emailing someone and listening to music, although time will tell whether a multipurpose device such as this will succeed against more specialist devices. It sure gives the Zune a run for its money, though.

Also, the way in which you can flip between contacts and things like album art, using the tip of your finger, sounds like a really interesting approach to interaction - can’t wait to try it.

While FCC approval is now being sought, the release timeframes indicate a midyear 2007 release for the US, through to an early 2008 release in Asia. Cingular is the telco they’ve partnered with, and the partnership appears exclusive for the short-term at least. Presumably this means the devices are locked down, preventing their use elsewhere. I guess that means a release is 12-18 months away here in New Zealand.

Nevertheless, Apple had to impress at this year’s Macworld to distract from their recent options issues, and with the iPhone and Apple TV, they surely have.

Forget The Wiggles and Dora, in recent months our home has been hijacked by the sounds of Dan Zanes, a Brooklyn, US-based performer of music which combines rock, folk and other music genres into a fun combination of sounds that can be enjoyed by adults and kids alike.

After seeing selections of music videos, we ordered a DVD from Amazon and within a couple of weeks (for not much more than the cost of a locally available DVD) we were able to rid the house of the infamous battle of the TV by finding something we could all enjoy.

Definitely worth a look if you have kids and want a change from the mainstream fare, and if you want to enjoy the entertainment too – in New Zealand he can be found on Playhouse Disney, Channel 41 on New Zealand’s Sky Television Network and is often played inbetween their standard shows.

Congratulations to my brother and the team at StarNow, featured in this month’s issue of Idealog magazine as part of a broader look at the software innovation that’s happening in Wellington. Like many start-ups in this city, they’re on the lookout for people at the moment - if you’re a good .NET developer, drop them a line.

Via Media Buyer Planner: “The use of URLs as a direct response method in TV commercials has overtaken the use of toll-free phone numbers, according to a report commissioned by 800response, a provider of 800 numbers. Including a URL in TV commercials has jumped from just 19 percent in 1998 to 51 percent in 2005.” So… more than half of the advertisements in the US that want you to respond, want you to use the web. Who would have thought that was the case 10 years ago?

To me, live TV means watching a program - often a sports event - at exactly the same time that event is happening. There is definite value in this, and that is why paid TV providers such as Sky here in New Zealand have so many subscribers.

Can Sky therefore explain why last night, when we were watching supposed live coverage of the Australian Open tennis tournament, that their coverage was probably 1-2 hours behind what was actually happening? How did we know? We surfed over to Sky news and got details of the Lleyton Hewitt vs. Robin Vik match which was two sets ahead of the match we were watching.