Located in the Antipodies (Australia), I have for a long time lamented the lack of timely local Television Programming of current US Sci-Fi Television shows.

 

Why?

 

Because Rupert Murdoch cut a deal for content in Australia that was so expensive that no-one else could afford to play.

 

As a result, to lower their licensing fees, Foxtel have no choice but to dish up crap, followed by 22 repeat servings of the crap, liberally interspersed with very LOUD advertising.

 

At my place, the two Milleniumites have decided that that Foxtel is boring with only the movie channels and possibly the music videos and the Discovery channel having some level of relevancy.

 

With two DVR’s  (like a TIVO but not, called IQ’s in Australia.) and a Platinum monthly subscription, Foxtel comes to almost $150.00 per month or $1,800 per annum.

 

OK – lets see, what actually gets consumed from Foxtel (i.e.: original content not previously viewed).

 

Parents retreat ? (4-5 movies a week and two to three hours of History Channel and occasionally one to hours of Sci-Fi channel.)

 

Kids Rumpus Room ?  about 8 movies a week and some MAX (about four hours) (mainly for workout purposes with the exercise machine)

 

The IQ’s are usually full of time shifted content which no-one ever seems to get around to viewing (mainly because it’s repeated again before you remember that you have already time-shifted it.)

 

Lets add-up the real value of entertainment received via Foxtel.

 

	Movies	Other Content (hrs)
Parents	4.5	3
Kids (2)	8	7
	18.75	10
Total Hours p/wk	28.75
@ 150 p/mth =	$    1.30	Per Hour

 

Gee, that’s more expensive than what we used to pay for renting DVD’s from the video shop.

 

By comparison, for less than $50.00 per month, via P2P the family could be enjoying day/date release (admittedly illegal file sharing) but non-repeat entertainment.

 

We are now on the third repeat of the entire Stargate series.

 

However, I am sure that somewhere there is a drover on a horse with a Telstra mobile (Well Telstra claim they are delivering Broadband to the bush…… <grin>,) paying his $12.00 a month to receive the Foxtel repeat fair, who hasn’t yet seen, Series 3, Episode 4 of Stargate.

 

BUT HE’s THE ONLY ONE FOXTEL.

For …….. sake, send him a complimentary copy of the entire series on DVD and let’s move on.

 

Until Foxtel’s content becomes more relevant to Australian’s with a lot less repeats, and maybe with some of ther new shows that are headlining overseas, P2P will continue to grow in Australia and at an increasing rate.  

 

I think it’s time I cancelled my Foxtel expenditure. After all for 150 bucks a month I could either take all four adults to the movies three times (with no popcorn) or order a high bandwidth Internet connection and download enough new content to keep the entire family happy – WITH NO REPEATS and NO ADVERTISING.

 

I find myself so desperate for unique uninterrupted content that I am tuning to ABC more and more.

 

As Movies, SCI-FI and Discovery were my three ONLY reasons for getting Foxtel….. and these are now ruined for me by

a) the repetition factor, i.e.: my partner saying…. “So what shall we watch again?”

b) the advertising frequency – Hell advertising was why I left the free to air brigade in favour of Foxtel in the first place.

c) the absolute lack of even a modicum of Hedonic value in keeping the subscription alive.

 

Goodbye Foxtel… I'm cancelling this service at the end of my current month.

 

Repeat as often as necessary to the Tune:

….. Another one bites the dust…….

Goodbye Foxtel…
....and another one....

Goodbye Foxtel…

.....and another one.....

Goodbye Foxtel…Another one bites the dust…….

How many times have you sat in a room with someone who tells you (when referring to some new product or invention that you start oohing or aahing about) I thought of that ten years ago....?

Yes there are people who have remarkable vision and prescience about ideas, products, and technologies.

Some of them like Gerald Celente, or the Trends Institute, spend a lot of time analysing the economic and political environment in order to be able to create predictions of what will happen next. And by the way, what Celente has to say is not something that everyone should be happy with, so if you respect track records you might want to look at his predictions and then act.

Some people foretell what technology can and will provide us with.

Check out this list of predictions of technologies in the metaverse roadmap that will be around us soon - many in the next 7 years.

Here is one: The Valuecosm...


What is remarkable about this list is that it was in the mid-nineties that Neal Stevenson coined the phrase "metaverse" in his incredible book, Snow Crash, along with predicting the rise of virtual worlds, search engines, and a whole lot of other stuff that frankly, it wouldn't do justice to for me to even try to describe.

The advent of a real metaverse rather than a fantasy one is phenomenal. But what about the social impact of virtual worlds. On the Science Show last week the entire programme was given over to looking at the addictive qualities of multiplayer games.

One of the things that I found fascinating was the fact that there has been so little research on the impact of games on people. Now researchers are starting to seriously look at how games cause adrenaline and dopamine levels to change in the human mind, how brain plasticity is impacted by game play, and a host of other things.

We are moving into uncharted territory. You have heard that phrase being applied to the economy. But the reality is that we are entering uncharted territory in almost every aspect of modern life. What is happening is that we have entered a new age in which we are no longer purely humanoid. We are now hybrid human/electric beings. We are becoming networked to one another.

Is it possible that we will move beyond being carbon based life systems too? At what point will there be enough power in a semiconductor and enough cheap storage available that we can transfer every aspect of the human psyche onto silicon? And how ironic will it be that in doing so we will probably utilize graphene as the conducting material (a carbon nanostructure) rather than metals. So the current will be transmitted via carbon and that will be our continuing association with the substance....

So change is with us. The only people resisting it are the governments and the corporations and the financial institutions of the day. They don't want change. They want the status quo. Under the status quo they can hoover up all the loose change that is sitting around while we are watching TV and playing games.

We all need to pay attention to what is going to happen next. There will be spin. But knowing what is next will be power.

Its winter in Australia. Supposedly the coldest time of the year. Yet my Serrissa Foetida’s (tree of a thousand stars) are all in full bloom.

Can’t be much of a winter if my Bonsai are all convinced that it’s already spring.

So if it’s still winter, and it’s already this warm, will there be a bumper crop at the apple orchard this year?

 

The original Apple Logo was a picture of Newton beneath a tree, waiting for the Apple to fall.

That logo is kinda appropriate. What goes up – must come down. Newton’s law of Gravity.

Apple in 1976 brought out a proprietary computer system that they then nailed shut by refusing to provide API’s or SDK’s to programmers.

You want software? Come and buy it from us. “Authorised Apple Software.” After all – we invented the Personal Computer, so we know what is best for you.

 

We all know how that one came out….. IBM, and then Microsoft stole 90% of their market share and kept it for a very long time.

 

Is Apple now regaining market share?

 

According to a Wired article last year:

 

Today it has a market cap of $105 billion, placing it ahead of Dell and behind Intel. Its iPod commands 70 percent of the MP3 player market. Four billion songs have been purchased from iTunes. The iPhone is reshaping the entire wireless industry. Even the underdog Mac operating system has begun to nibble into Windows' once-unassailable dominance; last year, its share of the US market topped 6 percent, more than double its portion in 2003.

 

But what’s this… do I hear another IBM and Microsoft coming over the hill ?

 

I sure do and they look like Chinese apple pickers from this distance, no wait,  I see an OGG format picker disguised as a browser there’s some Google folk a dreaming and I see a an ECO phone and some Palm guys…(I wonder why they’re grinning…).

Micosoft Zune – can I see any Zune apple pickers? Not many.

But they might pick a few million apples off the tree, mainly the clueless and lazy consumers. Especially when they start trading old iPods for a Zune “upgrade” at their new Microsoft “Theme” Palaces.

 

So what are the clued folk doing?

 

Well most of them are :

A)      Jailbreaking their iPhones

B)      Not buying iPhones

C)      Waiting to see what develops before buying their new phones.

 

What is developing?

Well the Cell phone manufacturers have realised the potential of owning their very own “App store”. Allowing third party developers to program for the platform appears to have delivered several benefits to Apple.

 

How do those iPhone developers create iPhone apps? On Apples of course. Which is obviously Stephen Job’s secret and very successful plan to increase the sales of Apples.

 

Therefore what will happen when twelve handset manufacturers open up their SDK’s ad API’s to third party developers and don’t require the developers to buy an Apple running OSX with Xcode installed to write the code ?

 

Apple, if Job’s continues to insist on proprietary systems and hardware, can only move in one direction;

 

Down.

 

Which is likely to be the direction of the Apple share price, in about twelve months time.

 

References:

Apple Logo

http://www.goodlogo.com/extended.info/2390

 

How Apple Got Everything Right By Doing Everything Wrong

http://www.wired.com/techbiz/it/magazine/16-04/bz_apple

 

Wikipedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Computer

 

The crime: Playing iTunes on devices not named iPod

http://www.zeropaid.com/news/7704/the_crime_playing_itunes_on_devices_not_named_ipod/

 

Apple stifling Iphone Apps developers

http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/1031390/apple-stifling-iphone-apps-developers

 

Someone once told me that all publicity is good publicity.

 

I’m not quite so sure.

 

It’s not often that a small radio station in Australia can be heard around the world. But today, Nova 96.9 managed to do it.

 

Making the number 1 spot on Twitter, the story of the young girls admission on on live radio obviously will help to drive the ratings through the roof.

 

Here’s the Tweet description of Why Tweeters think the Kyle is a douchebag.

 

Kyle Sandilands and Co-Host Jackie O were running a radio stunt where they strap people to a fake lie detector while friends and family asked them embarrassing questions. The segment broke down when a mother asked her 14 year old daughter if she had had sex, to which the daughter replied that she had been raped at the age of 12. Sandilands asked "Right ... is that the only sexual experience you've had?".

 

The name of the Tweet ? #sandilandsisadouche

 

Twitter has judged and the verdict is GUILTY.

At what point does decency and fair play come into Australian media.

Obviously not at Nova 96.9

 

I know that Radio Stations and Television needs to fight for ratings, and unfortunately this kind of stunt will obviously secure those ratings for them, but someone should be made to pay. And unfortunately, it’s not just Kyle.  Who was it that authorized live to air with no 7 second delay button?

And who was it that authorized the specific segment?

 

Senator Conroy wants to filter the Internet because it’s content is deemed inappropriate for our younger generation. What about radio stations Senator?

 

Should radio stations be allowed to say “But we only did it because our listeners are all the younger generation….”

 

Years ago in school, when a student broke the school rules in a serious manner, they were suspended and sent home for three days.

 

Possibly Radio Station licenses should be suspended for three days as well. Especially for this travesty against human sensibilities that poses as entertainment.

 

I think that would send a message. Be more responsible about the meme that you teach today’s youth.

 

I’m not a youthful member of Nova’s audience, but I for one will be erasing the 96.9 pre-tuning button on the car radio.

 

I suggest that every Sydney person do the same thing.

 

The hunt for ratings in this instance went past the point of decency and discovered a new level of indecency that psychologically goes far beyond any porn that might be available on the Internet.

References:

http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/sack_him_and_call_the_police/

 

http://www.whatthetrend.com/trend/%23sandilandsisadouche

 

 

At the end of WWII we saw the real beginnings of the social welfare state. This was when the concept of local community started to disappear and the state took on responsibility for things like what the education policy should be for all the schools in the country, and what the standard of healthcare should be.

Along the line people became more and more passive and reliant on the state and when bad things happened in the country people started saying, “They should fix that!”

It was the beginning of the nanny state. In this mode most of the people became vassals of the state. They went to their jobs, paid their taxes, and allowed the state to fundamentally take control of their lives.

Then along came the Internet.

People started talking to each other. People had different views. And even though many of their views turn out to be the same, the people who have those views actually function as separate individuals.

As separate individuals they are absolutely the opposite of the kind of creatures that they were, the kind of vassals that are reliant on the nanny state. In many respects they are a kind of “virtual libertarian” – a primal free market capitalist – even though their personal politics could be of any flavour at all.

This new virtual libertarian is totally misunderstood by governments, if they have even become aware of their existence.

The virtual libertarian rejects totally the controls that are quietly put upon them by governments and by business. The virtual libertarian rejoices in the ability to share information freely with his or her peers.

This new social order that is emerging has opinions that are diametrically opposed to almost every concept that is espoused today by the traditional powers that be – and particularly issues that face us all like the environment and the economy.

I had a conversation today with Silvia the CEO at Vquence (a company that I co-founded). She was telling me some of the statistics on YouTube videos for Australian politicians – basically how few the views are on these guys’ material.

Is it any surprise? YouTube deals in that which resonates. And that which resonates comes from the heart – and what comes out of the politicians’ mouths is so controlled by the head that it is irrelevant to the normal person.

This disconnect that the politicians have currently is going to become more and more critical over the next year or so.

At the moment P2P is still in the realm of the geeks and frankly so is online video.

But in the early nineties before Netscape graphics online were strictly for the geeks. And most mainstream business people didn’t even know what email was – and if they did – they thought it was irrelevant.

Amazing what a decade can do isn’t it.

And now we have a populace that is not just interested and awake. Now we have a population that is emerging from a fifty year social welfare sleep. This new virtual libertarian only needs to be motivated to move from being part of a horde into being part of a crowd. At that point that this happens, watch out because we will see the rise of a new kind of politics along with a new attitude to many things.

Let’s hope that it will signify a move into a great new age of enlightenment and not a dark age of totalitarian ignorance.

I had an interesting experience with the ANZ Bank during the last week.

First I got a call last Wednesday to tell me that one of my credit cards was about to expire and a new one was ready for pick up at the branch where I have that particular account.

I asked if I could pick up the card from the branch nearest to where I live. The guy at the ANZ told me, “no problem” and said that it should be available for pick up on Friday.

So on Friday, I went to the branch and there was no card. I was told that they would call me when they received it…

Now it is three days working days beyond the original target date, so I thought it might be a good idea to track down where the replacement card is.

Fortunately I had kept the number from which I got the original call. I called it and got a recorded message that said, “This number is only in use intermittently, so please do not call it … etc”.

So I figured I needed to call Card Services.

I got through to a human who I explained the problem to. He told me that he couldn’t track down what had happened to my card. But that he would be happy to provide a replacement. Seemed pretty easy…

Then he asked me if I would like it to be mailed to my home address…

I said that would be fine and asked why the original card hadn’t gone to my home address…

He told me that cards issued to replace cards that have expired go to the branch, but cards issued to replace another card could be sent direct to the recipient….

I understand the need to check that the person getting the card is the person that is supposed to be getting it, so you need to do ID checks and so on, but it seems to me that the way that the ANZ works on this is somewhat illogical.

I wonder if the ANZ monitors blogs in the way that Telstra does.

If so, perhaps someone from the ANZ would like to call me and explain...

Many will have noticed that my extremely popular Top 50/Top 200 P2P listing is conspicuous in it’s absence over the last two weeks.

 

Have I stopped collecting the statistics ? Nope, I analyse them every night before I go to sleep.

So why, you may ask, am I not publishing the results ?

 

You, my reader want those stats.

 

The problem is that I have started noticing anomalies in the data listed in the Australian Aria Physical Media Top 50.

Far be it for me to suggest that any respected organisation would deliberately introduce material on the Top 50 physical Sales chart that isn’t on any radio station, MTV, MAX, V or Rage playlist; (in other words can’t possibly be on the top 50 if no-one can hear it).

 

But if I was a gambling man, I would take fifty cents each way on the foregoing premise.

 

So what am I doing with the stats ?

 

Patiently collating, adding playlists, making comparisons and all will be revealed – eventually.

 

However, what I am quite happy to say is that P2P does in fact appear to be indicating what will be number one in advance of the sales on the digital playlist quite nicely.

 

So if I can indicate number ones, why can’t I show what will be number two, or number twenty two next week or in four weeks time.

Well we could except for manpower, programmers time and budgetary constraints.

After all, there are only a few of us Perceptric and the number of P2P daily transactions compared to the source data set (the Top 40/Top 50 ARIA Lists) are humungous.

 

But we are starting to notice other deep catalogue trends.

 

So whilst I would argue vehemently that my conclusion is that P2P illegal downloading of Music files does not harm newly released music sales, I am unable to say the same about deep catalogue downloads.

 

In other words, the industry is right when it says that it MAY be losing from illegal File sharing from amongst the industries deep catalogue collection.

 

However, I would argue that there needs to be additional research carried out on the this thesis before anyone can claim that I said that it is so.  E.g.: I purchased a Hot Chocolate cassette tape in the eighties. The tape is now cactus – do I have a moral concerns about downloading the songs from the eMule network ? None at all. Do I think I am breaking the law ? No, I am just saving time and legal fees.

 

Huh?

 

Well, Trade Practices have a requirement that goods to be sold are fit for the purpose. Nowhere on a cassette tape is the warning that “ Hey – this tape will self destruct after 375 plays……” so my argument is that I am saving the legal system of Australia from having to adjudicate on the matter by taking the matter into my own hands and downloading a copy of content that I already paid for BUT that was not suitable for the purpose.

 

At least with DRM the industry by installing the DRM are saying “We are selling you a LIMITED version of this song.” However – if they installed the DRM without your prior knowledge or consent (i.e.: by labeling the Disc with “Warning – This Recording is not suitable for playing on most CD players as it has DRM installed.”) then you do have a case against the organisation who sold you what you thought was a legitimate copy of a music track.

 

The problem is that even if I were to go the legal route, the reality is that Trade Practices actions must be commenced in Australia within three years of the breach. I didn’t realise my Hot Chocolate Tape was cactus until I took my stuff out of storage (it had been there for nearly fifteen years (six years in Darwin and then eight years in Sydney).

 

Then again, who would take on a 15 year old Trade Practices case on the basis of $2.95 cassette tape?

 

Why are you all looking at me?

In 1994, AS CEO of Australia’s fastest growing ISP, I insisted that we install W3c cache servers at each dial-in pop around Australia.

 

And we cached the “J” server from Palo Alto to our Portland Oregon offices and then replicated that in Sydney.

 

All DNS queries on the Ausnet network stayed in Australia saving overseas bandwidth.

Every morning (2:00 am), we analyzed what overseas content the users read yesterday and cached today’s version of that content to make sure that our users had the maximum possible enjoyable online experience.

We were charging by the minute/hour so in effect we were (apparently) working against our own interests by making sure that users had rapid access to their content. So would argue the Telco’s. Nevertheless, in reality, the word of our “network” speed got out to Australians and we were deluged with daily sign-ups. After all APC magazine voted Ausnet as Australia’s best value and fastest ISP several months running.

For a long time – at least until Skeeve Stevens, Ausnet developed the trust of its users.

 

When I built OGN, the meme continued with the development and construction of the world’s first Terabyte internet cache. We constructed the AUIX and allowed other ISP’s to access the Terabyte cache through the Sydney Internet AUIX facility.

 

However, the Koltai caching concept was only targeted at decreasing internet “lag”, packet loss and increasing the user online experience.

 

I had not considered the concept of Web 2.0 or Google to increase the user experience by scrapping cached content to deliver it in a new format.

 

This idea was the business model of the Newspapers, Television and radio news.

 

i.e.: Grab the content from Reuters/AP – add a couple of opinions apply the current editors’ editorial guidelines and publish – charging for the result.

 

In other words, News organisations were in the aggregation and arbitrage opportunity business.

 

The internet caching “meme” continued to expand through the nineties until a firm called Akamai utilized young Adrian Chadd’s Squid software and rolled out a worldwide implementation.

 

Suddenly all ISP’s had the benefits of Akamai caching. Unfortunately, for Akamai, P2P started to become popular about the time they were rolling out.

 

Akamai’s IPO in November 1999 at $174 per share must have put a smile on quite a few stag investors over the following six months as the share priced grew to nearly $300.00.

 

As P2P utilisation increases Akamai shares decrease in value to where in the last twelve months the Akamai share price has been trading in the $12.29 - $23.58 range.

 

Why is that?

Akamai was the big white hope only a few years ago. It would “decongest” the internet – particularly in a country like Australia where the lag time of the pacific fibre transit added an inordinately unacceptable delay to the delivery of each packet of content.

 

But the Akamai model is based on the concept of server client distribution.

 

If that model is nullified by:

a)       every ISP installing their own CDN for content distribution (e.g.: TPG Internet – IPTV, Internode TIVO content)

b)       P2P illegal file sharing.

 

What then is the winning combination?

 

Well, one winning combination is the concept of the content cache as the delivery model – whoever owns Akamai also owns the world largest Internet Filter and automatically the largest amount of content. (No, I don’t  own any Akamai shares.)

 

Is uncle Rupert looking at a triple play with Yahoo and Akamai with a couple of ISP’s in every country thrown in for good measure?

 

Well possibly not, but if I were he – then that is what I would be looking it.

 

But, like always, I left out the best part.

 

The above triple play would only come into it’s own as a Goggle killer with the inclusion of P2P.

 

After all, today the media lacks consumer trust.

P2P has consumer trust plus it’s edgy, a little bit naughty and currently free.

 

Gee if you added ubiquitous caching (with appropriate editorial control), added the worlds dominant financial services search engine to the front end and delivered it via P2P, who wouldn’t love it?

 

Ummmm Google?

I spent part of my day yesterday with an industrial behavioral Psychologist. Nope, he was not psyching me, but he was making interesting observational commentary.

 

“It amazes me that when I take the train, walk through the station, or even around the streets of Sydney, everyone appears to be totally immersed in their [phone] screens.”

 

He had identified a meme that has been with us since time immemorial. The need to insulate oneself from the outside world with a distraction that is a personal activity.

The telephone now allows for a personal socially shielding consumption of movies, news and other content that extends past the iPod era music only “Don’t talk to me I’m listening to some cool music”.

 

This insulation insurance of personal space is once again changing how the community interacts with each other. Strangers, who before the iPod, before the video enabled phone could hide behind their morning newspaper on the train, now just look downwards and are engrossed in their personal content sphere.

 

FTA television may have a new delivery model.  RSS video feed of the Morning show direct to Telephones.

 

Of course this will require the assistance of the Telephone companies and I cant see that assistance readily provided without a cut of the advertising revenue.

 

After all, Foxtel and Telstra have tied up this little niche with their $12 per month Foxtel delivery model. Gee, $12 per month for re-runs of Greenacres in black and white on my $900 phone. That sounds like a great deal.

 

So come on Channels 0-10 Get some deals going.

Government mandate (or provide alternatively – via wifi) some bandwidth of current content delivery. After all there are all these commuters who no longer hide behind their papers every morning.

 

(The Newspaper Barons might not agree with me, and the pulp and paper mills certainly wont, but think of all the trees that we are saving from being cut down.

Think of all the carbon sequestration that all those trees will continue to undertake. )

 

Unfortunately in Australia the concept of delivering streaming video in real time at $25 per megabyte (payable to the Mobile phone carriers) seems to be an impossible dream.

 

Yet another example of how monopoly telecommunications are preventing Australia’s economic expansion.

 

The problem for Government is one of keeping the population informed.

The consumer no longer wishes to consume free to air – too many bloody adverts.

 

The mobile phone appears to provide an opportunistic alternative method for economical news delivery.

 

In February this year we talked about Daknet. A primitive adoption of the next meme.

 

The meme is already on the planes [with the skynet news clip videos] that many use to commute every morning between Melbourne and Sydney, Sydney and Canberra.

 

So will NSW rail install 802.11 wifi in every rail car for the use of the 900,000 morning and afternoon commuters?

 

Well I predict that if they do, the railways will be running in the black from advertising revenue before you can blink.

 

After all, not everyone can claim to have 900,000 pairs of corralled potential customers twice a day. Certainly not the TV Networks anymore.

And - it isnt exactly a brand new idea.......

"Were not doing this for money"..... How prophetic was that.

You have to smile. The Newspapers knew they werent going to make money out of Internet Newspapers in 1981.

How come they're now complaining about it......

Maps have always been important.
Since the era of the great adventurer explorers, Vasco de Gama, Captain James Cook, the map was the crews only link to home.
The maps were the basis of explaining to the royalty what new discoveries had been made.
The maps became the expansion of the empire.

Google made a decision last week to start listing Real Estate via their Google Earth property.
Many would say it was a natural extension of the “Today ve kontrol ze maps, tomorrow, ve control ze vorld!”

Media companies should be used to this mindset, after all, for years they have controlled what we eat, drink, drive, where we live, what we wear, who we should vote for and what we should think.

In a story entitled “Google sparks real estate listings brawl”

Julian Lee, Staff reporter for the Herald, stated that :
Domain, which is owned by Fairfax, and Realestate.com.au, which is controlled by News, dominate the market for properties being searched for on the internet and the $144 million of classified advertising revenue that goes with it.

Advertising revenue is what this all about. As reported in Murdoch says papers should charge on Web by saying that “search engines like Google Inc and Yahoo Inc help users to find stories by aggregating links to newspapers websites and blogs -- but then wrest ad dollars from them that they think should be theirs.”

The SMH story continued:

“Fairfax Media and News Limited are independently weighing up whether to pull the millions of dollars they collectively spend on buying key search terms on Google following the latter's decision to list properties for sale on Google Maps.”

Are weighing up ? As if they have a choice?
Googles response is obviously to take back what after all is theirs… the maps.
The Copyrighted Maps. (Interesting, nes pas?)

If you have every country of the world mapped, satellite photographed and horizontally photographed, it’s only logical that the product of that intellectual property could be used to find and sell real estate……

According to the article, Google were making conciliatory noises:

A spokeswoman for Google, Lucinda Barlow, said it had received "great feedback" about its site to date and would like to work more closely with Fairfax and REA to take its listings - which both groups are refusing to do.
"We are partners and we would like to discuss this [issue]," she said.

For years the News Media owned every soul on planet earth. Now it would seem that a couple of college kids devised a system that will either break the media’s backs or force the media to take Google out.

Back in 2006 in an article entitled "The Pacesetters Dilemma; Google" we said:

This is the first time a company is able to lead, dominate and create a totally new area of business (monetizing information) as it leads dominates and creates the very idea (finding information) that is the business.

Why did all this happen?

Well possibly the "deal" that Rupert and Google cut a few years ago soured. Why? Well just maybe Fox couldnt deliver the traffic it contracted and suddenly Google realised that it had more of the market than the Media Giant.

If I was a Google Exec and wanted to retire early to grow bonsai plants, I guess I would start disrupting the business model of the folks that needed to buy me to survive.
And of course, every-time I did so, my share price would go up.

If all the media baron’s and governments got together now, they could almost afford to take out the Internet 600lb Gorilla.

Anyone shorting Google against a long on News Limited? I’ll take that action……. Put me down for 20 billion long on Google.

Although, the last few Internet acquisitions by the Australia entrepreneur, all seem to be heading south. Maybe News Limited needs some new thinking advising the direction towards safe waters.

Safe waters? Well that would be P2P of course.

Is Rupert scuppered? We dont think so and there are other ideas out there. The News community seem to like this one..... adshare from Internet start-up company "Attributor" where the adverts on the pages  of Web 2.0 "scraped robot news services are shared with the original content creators thereby creating automatic syndication rather than consumer killing litigation although with only one advert player signed up to date, it may only be a marginal solution to what for the News Media services is growing into a huge a problem.
 
In How to Defend Your Empire, or Not   we said:

Well, the popular alternative [think P2P and the RIAA] to politics is litigation.

During one’s lifetime, one learns a few tricks. Like which lawyers will take something to the wire and use every means to win.

 

Rupert is now blaming Google for offering him a zero sum choice. Either convince the Yahoo Board of Directors to give me their shares or I will board your ship with every lawyer I can find.

Unfortunately Rupert, as proven in the Telephone Directory model - that stable and long lasting Advertising model so loved by the Telcos, nothing lasts for ever. And the days of $10,000 for a little wee corner on the bottom of page three are probably gone for good.  We think that's a good thing. The fact that Google have over 50% of the search business and the subsequent click through business, well we think that could be a bad thing, if Google abuse their market domination, like the media companies used to abuse theirs.

At the moment, the bottle is pointing to Google, tommorrow, it might point somewhere else, although we think that the "Let your Mouse do the Clicking" might last longer than "Let your fingers do the walking".

Besides - think of all the trees we are saving without those big thick ugly Yellow Directories that these days appear to be left abandoned
in front of apartment buildings. 
The same ecological thought applies to Newspapers.

Although that might not be good for the paper mills.

Johnny Consumer doesnt really care. Gimme my "relevent" content, give it to me now. 

The scoreboard says 15 all with Murdoch to serve.

The winner in this cat and mouse posturing game will be the company that can serve the most relevent content to the individual consumer with the least fuss in the fastest time.

P2P would actually seem to have the Trust equation nailed down there.

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Hat-tip to "Aussie in NY"  Dean Collins for the NYTimes story on Atrributor.