Smalltalk Tidbits, Industry Rants

I wondered what YouTube's revenue model was back before they got bought by Google - it's now clear that the revenue model was simple: "get bought by anyone". Slate reports that YouTube is burning through cash at a rate that makes me go "hmmm"

But it might surprise you to learn that one of the largest and most-celebrated new-media ventures is burning through cash at a rate that makes newspapers look like wise investments. It's called YouTube: According a recent report by analysts at the financial-services company Credit Suisse, Google will lose $470 million on the video-sharing site this year alone.

This is why - hearkening back to these two posts from earlier, I really, really wonder about the revenue model for free social media services. Advertising simply won't pay the bills. With YouTube, Google has been willing to eat the loss, but you have to wonder how long that will continue to be the case; eventually, some accountant is going to burst an artery in a management meeting.

Technorati Tags: video, social media, youtube

MediaMemo has the numbers on print ads for the last three months, and they are pretty ugly - these numbers are in comparison to the same time in 2008:

Publishing advertising revenue: Down 34.1% (or down 29.8% if you exclude currency fluctuation).

Classified ad revenue: Down 46.5%.

USA Today ad revenue: Down 33.5%

TV revenue: Down 14.9%.

Now admittedly, a soft economy plays into that some - but I think it's simply accelerating the trend of ads moving online, and for those ads to be both more targeted and lower cost. It's not so much that print is dying, as it is that the broadcast model of advertising it has relied on is dying.

There was a conversation about this on "This Week in Tech" last Sunday that I agreed with. Basically, any company advertising on that show has a very good idea as to who the audience is - so ads for, say, audio books are a pretty good bet. It's much, much harder to come up with useful ads for a more general broadcast audience. There's also the fact that Leop Laporte is using a more conversational and believable model of advertising - he's plugging things he actually uses and likes, which makes them even more credible for his audience.

That's the model of advertising that I think still works - the broadcast model used by traditional media is having serious problems, and any business that relies on that model - like most newspapers - is going to be in a world of hurt.

Technorati Tags: advertising

Today's Smalltalk Daily looks at the support for building up and using script libraries in Cincom Smalltalk. To watch, click on the viewer below:

If you have trouble viewing that directly, you can click here to download the video directly

You can also watch it on Vimeo:

Building a Smalltalk Scripting Library from James Robertson on Vimeo.

Or on YouTube:

Technorati Tags: scripting, smalltalk, command line

Jason Calacanis thinks monetizing Twitter should be easy - from his one of his recent emails, which I got a copy of:

The point is that Twitter has the ability to unleash a direct marketing business the likes of which the world has NEVER seen. I predict they will, and when they do, they will make the Twitter nay-sayers look like the donkeys they really are. (Note: you ever notice the folks who have the most to say about making money are the ones who've never made any? Exactly.)

This all relates to his offer to pay Twitter $250k to be placed into their recommended user list for a period of time. Sounds easy, right? Well, maybe. If it really were that easy, I presume Twitter would have gone that way already. However, a one time payment of $250k for placement into the list doesn't add up to that much money (unless you make the list so large that its value is diluted).

The thing is, his idea is an ok one, but it has limited value. It's great for the people on that list, and it would bring a quick infusion of cash to Twitter. But.... it would be limited. I suppose you could have a rotating list (just as you can pay Google to run ads based on a specified budget) - but it remains to be seen whether that could generate the kind of cash inflow Calacanis is talking about. It's not clear to me that this kind of scheme could raise enough money on its own to pay Twitter's bills.

It might be part of the answer for Twitter, but I seriously doubt that it's the full answer. This relates back to my earlier post on Facebook. Thus far, it seems to be much easier to gather users than it is to monetize them.

Technorati Tags: social media, twitter

Looks like Someone at Sun had another look at the books:

Sun Microsystems Inc would be willing to resume takeover talks with International Business Machines Corp if IBM made a stronger commitment to closing a deal, Bloomberg said, citing two people familiar with the matter.

Translation: "We'd like to talk to IBM again before they can just pick over our carcass during bankruptcy proceedings".

Technorati Tags: sun, ibm

We've become trained to believe that all of our online services should be free - but every so often a reminder comes along that there are problems with that idea. Facebook is trying to raise more capital, ahead of an IPO they hope to have eventually. Mike Arrington reports that they are looking at a new round at a much lower valuation than the last one:

Will Facebook take the expensive new money from General Atlantic? They may be forced to. They're burning as much as $20 million a month in cash and are dealing with ridiculous growth. They likely have less than two years runway left, and possibly significantly less if they continue to add new users by the tens of millions that are currently flocking there every month.

I thought about that in terms of how people use Facebook. There are new photos and videos being uploaded every day, all day. That costs both bandwidth and storage. Right now, they rely on advertising as the sole mode of payment. As long time readers here know, I'm skeptical of the future for pure ad plays anyway, and this one seems to rely on getting TV network style ad buys. I don't know that anyone expects to see that happening for any website.

It costs actual money to run a service like Facebook. At some point, the people behind it (and similar services) will have to find a way to charge for it.

Technorati Tags: advertising, revenue model

Rafe Needleman notes that TwitPub is trying to build a business around gated access to protected twitter accounts. Maybe Twitter considers this (and other things being built around Twitter) as beta tests for potential revenue models :)

Technorati Tags: twitter, social media

Fox has a list of 10 obsolete techs - the story is interesting enough, but this bit on DVD's caught my eye:

What's that, you say? How can DVDs be obsolete? Facts don't lie -- DVD sales fell off the proverbial cliff in the first three months of 2009, with some retailers reporting a 40 percent drop from the same period a year earlier.

I suspect that Blu-Ray will just never catch on big for the same reason given for this: broadband and downloadable movies. You can stream and download easily now, and without having to worry about BitTorrent and legal issues - iTunes, NetFlix (et. al.) are quickly becoming the go to spot for this.

The next wave of problems this will cause will be to cable and phone companies that provide broadband and TV. They want you to buy "On Demand"; you'll want to stream. That's where the current cap argument is based, I think - if they get driven to being nothing more than a pipe, they transform from having huge margins to being a normal business with tight margins.

Technorati Tags: dvd, tv, broadband, streaming

Today's Smalltalk Daily Looks at the interactive Smalltalk shell capabilities of the scripting support To watch, click on the viewer below:

If you have trouble viewing that directly, you can click here to download the video directly

You can also watch it on Vimeo:

Interactive Smalltalk Shell from James Robertson on Vimeo.

Or on YouTube:

Technorati Tags: command line, smalltalk shell

We have a lot of rich media content available at this point - podcasts, videos, daily screencasts. However, it's not easily searchable in the aggregate. I'm putting together an application to make that all easier to find, but there's an initial problem that's slowing it down some: the sorry state of the meta data I need to make it happen :)

Right now that meta data is spread across blog posts, mp3, mp4, and other media files. I have to get all of that into a database before I can actually do the simple part - the application itself. The good news is, I now have the tools to do that. The bad news is, it still involves more manual steps than I'd like. Once I get there, I'll also have to make sure that all the new content gets tagged and archived properly, so that I don't need to do this again :)

So - stay tuned.

Steve Wessels:

Randal Schwartz did a really good job talking about Seaside and generating positive vibes about Smalltalk @ Omaha mtg. tonight.

Technorati Tags: seaside

From the "one more thing to worry about" files:

Cyberthieves have seized on new, sophisticated hacking techniques to bypass the encryption of bank-card Personal Identification Numbers (PINs), a new report says. The revelation could explain the millions of dollars lost in previously mysterious ATM frauds across America.

Read the whole story from Wired. It sounds like pin numbers are more exploitable than we thought...

Devices like this:

Livio Radio is the first and only dedicated device to offer Pandora's signature "thumbs up, thumbs down" controls on both the front panel and a remote, and while we suppose Pandora will be plenty for most of the targeted customers, it can also tune into a comprehensive list of other validated internet radio stations from around the world through Reciva. Outside of that, functionality is indeed limited, but Livio designed this thing to be a simple WiFi mix tape of sorts, not a bona fide home audio player. Naturally, all that's required to get tunes streaming is an AC outlet and an internet connection, so you can feel free to leave your PC / laptop at home. It's shipping now directly from Livio for $150

If you're in the market for Satellite radio, you probably already have a net connection. Why pay a monthly fee for music when you can hook a laptop, phone, or gadget like this to the net?

Technorati Tags: music, internet radio

Parts of our judicial system are just not up to the task of dealing with modern technology. Witness the awesomeness of what Massachusetts police based a search on - from the EFF:

Some of the supposedly suspicious activities listed in support of the search warrant application include: the student being seen with "unknown laptop computers," which he "says" he was fixing for other students; the student uses multiple names to log on to his computer; and the student uses two different operating systems, including one that is not the "regular B.C. operating system" but instead has "a black screen with white font which he uses prompt commands on."

I'm not sure the judge who issued that warrant has made it up to the AOL era, much less this century...

Technorati Tags: law

So I'm looking at a story about a Linux community effort to create some ads responding to the Apple Mac/PC and MS "I'm a PC" ads, and this is what I ran into:

Irony lives :)

Technorati Tags: linux, windows, mac

This is the kind of energy story I've been looking for:

California's biggest energy utility announced a deal Monday to purchase 200 megawatts of electricity from a startup company that plans to beam the power down to Earth from outer space, beginning in 2016.

There are just so many difficulties with huge arrays on earth: darkness, the need to keep them clean, the sheer size of the arrays (and the consequent NIMBY and environmental impact battles the size causes). Arrays in space just avoids all of that. Sure, there are costs (lifting them into space), but it just seems like a more workable idea.

Not to mention that it seems very Jetsons-y to me :)

Technorati Tags: energy, power

Today's Smalltalk Daily looks at using Smalltalk as part of the standard Unix/Linux command line. To watch, click on the viewer below:

If you have trouble viewing that directly, you can click here to download the video directly

You can also watch it on Vimeo:

Using Smalltalk on the Command Line from James Robertson on Vimeo.

Or on YouTube:

Technorati Tags: smalltalk, command line

Spotted in SCI FI Wire

Last week, Tor publishers announced that Robert Jordan's epic fantasy series The Wheel of Time will conclude with a trilogy authored by Brandon Sanderson, based on Jordan's notes. The first volume, number 12 in the series as a whole, is titled The Gathering Storm and will be published this November.

This was just a snippet in an article about ending SciFi stories - but seriously, three more books? I like the series, but good gosh, there's enough fluff in most of the books that Jordan could have whittled the first 11 down to about 3. I bet these final three could fit in one book, properly condensed....

Technorati Tags: wheel of time

Last night, I saw a few posts from people wondering why Amazon had started removing the sales ranking information for a specific category of books. Today we learn that there was nothing malicious going on; rather, it was your run of the mill error that managed to surface in a fairly embarrassing fashion. TechFlash has the rundown - it seems that Amazon managed to screw up their catalogue pretty thoroughly :)

I've got the podcast pages reorganized - instead of a bare set of links, there's a set meta information for each podcast, along with an embedded player and a link to the audio for downloading. I think it all looks cleaner, but feedback is welcome. The pages:

• 2006 Archives
• 2007 Archives
• 2008 Archives
• Current Podcasts

Technorati Tags: podcasts

Today's Smalltalk Daily covers command line scripting using the image itself as if it were an executable. To watch, click on the viewer below:

If you have trouble viewing that directly, you can click here to download the video directly

You can also watch it on Vimeo:

Command Line Smalltalk from James Robertson on Vimeo.

Or on YouTube:

Technorati Tags: smalltalk, command line

We have our first Smalltalk Seminar for 2009 scheduled for April 29, in Minneapolis, Minnesota. I don't have the full agenda firmed up yet, but here's an outline:

• Breakfast and Registration
• Welcome and Introductions
• Keynote address from Randal Schwartz
• Introduction to Smalltalk
• Details about our Products: ObjectStudio 8, VisualWorks, and Web Velocity

There's no charge for this seminar - you can register here to get complete details on the venue (and agenda when that firms up more). Register now - it'll be a lot of fun, and a great chance to meet with key members of the Cincom Smalltalk team.

Technorati Tags: seaside, web velocity, objectstudio, visualworks, cincom, minneapolis

This week we spoke to three of the members of the newly elected Squeak Board: Randal Schwartz, Jecel Assumpcao Jr, and Craig Latta. We talked about the election, what the board does, and where Squeak is headed. To listen now, click here.

If you have feedback, send it to smalltalkpodcasts@cincom.com - or visit us on Facebook or Ning - you can vote for the Podcast Alley, and subscribe on iTunes. If you enjoy the podcast, pass the word - we would love to have more people hear about Smalltalk!

Technorati Tags: smalltalk, squeak, squeak board

The podcast will be out this evening - I'm waiting for one bit of audio, and, seeing as how it's Easter Sunday, I don't think I need to rush :)

Via Charles Miller, I came across some real dislike of the new Diggbar thing from Digg. I had kind of mentally classified this like Joy Of Tech did, but there's some real movement against Digg on it

Technorati Tags: diggbar, digg, frames

It was inevitable, I suppose: there's a paid service for tweeting out there called Magpie.

As if the "I got my free laptop, lol" posts weren't annoying enough :)

Technorati Tags: twitter, social media

I see that the AP is boldly running into the same wall that kicked the RIAA upside the head: policing copyrights the hard way. Take a look at their explanation of what they're doing to guard their rights - I particularly like number 6:

What do you mean by "search pages"?
When consumers look for news today on search engines, they often get directed in a random fashion to a wide variety of news sources, blogs and other Web pages. Searches on breaking news topics such as floods, earthquakes and shootings don't dependably produce results from authoritative local news sources, and often not even to those media responsible for producing the news stories. AP will work with its member newspapers, broadcasters and other media to create a set of search-optimized pages that will guide users to the most timely, authoritative coverage related to their searches

So the problem is that in searches, I may not get directed straight to the wire story - I may get someone's commentary on the wire story, or - heaven forbid - someone who isn't an AP stringer reporting on the story themselves.

The problem here is in perceived authority. The AP thinks they have it, and that no one else deserves it. Authority is earned though, on a case by case basis. People reading the new get to make up their own minds about this, rather than having "our betters" decide for us.

Ultimately, this goes back to the AP mentally living in a scarcity based news model - after scarcity has been replaced by abundance. They can't just assume they're the most authoritative news source any longer; they have to earn that designation on a market by market and topic by topic (and even location by location) basis. I'm sure that drives them nuts, but that's reality now.

Technorati Tags: news, media, AP

Tomorrow's podcast will feature our recent interview with some of the Squeak Board members: Randal Schwartz, Jecel Mattos de Assumpcao, and Craig Latta. We had a couple of skype dropouts and add backs during the call, but I think it went pretty well.

Technorati Tags: squeak, smalltalk

Wow - the season finale of "Terminator, the Sara Connor Chronicles" just tossed things upside down. I have no idea how they'll get things hooked back up for another season (if they get another one), or how they'll synch things up with the upcoming movie. But wow - they really threw a monkey wrench into the timeline.

Technorati Tags: terminator

Now Dave Arneson has passed on - the two founders of D&D, Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson, are both gone:

David Lance Arneson, who helped trigger the global phenomenon of role-playing games as co-inventor of "Dungeons & Dragons," has died at the age of 61.

I liked this tribute.

Technorati Tags: dungeon dragons

PCWorld has a post up about Google's attempt at location based searching - they've rolled it out for everything, not just for devices that broadcast your location. Its based on your IP address, which can lead to some funny results. Here's what I got for "Coffee Shop" on my first pass:

To be fair, my IP is allocated by Verizon, so their guess is based on wherever Verizon's decision is made. I was able to hand it a zip code, after which it gave me a reasonable set of results. It was funny to be presented with "coffee shop near Maryland" though :)

Technorati Tags: location services

Today's Smalltalk Daily looks at how to find documentation on the icons used in the code browser. To watch, click on the viewer below:

If you have trouble viewing that directly, you can click here to download the video directly

You can also watch it on Vimeo:

Browser Icons from James Robertson on Vimeo.

Or on YouTube:

Technorati Tags: smalltalk, code browser

I guess someone bought the brand name during the bankruptcy proceedings - there are stores opening again:

Yes, CompUSA. The once-bankrupt electronics retailer is making a comeback, with about 30 new CompUSA stores nationwide and a new strategy that includes aggressive prices, remodeled stores, improved lighting and in-store web access for comparison shopping.

The interesting thing to me is that the new oweners recognize the impact of the web and mobile access. Rather than try to restrict access to comparison shopping, they are encouraging it:

The in-store web access may be the biggest gamble, since it raises the possibility that you might use a CompUSA floor model to find a better deal on Amazon.com for the very computer you're using to get that information.

I don't think it's as much of a risk as Wired seems to think. The shoppers coming to a CompUSA store likely have devices like iPhones, BlackBerries, or GPhones - so immediate price checking is something they'll be doing anyway. If you can't beat 'em, join 'em...

Technorati Tags: retail

The AP seems to be starting down a path that the RIAA tried a few years ago, oblivious to how well that worked out. I think the best summary I've seen thus far of the AP's silliness is this:

We have a pretty good sense of where that anger, and the lawsuits its spawned, have landed the music industry -- and they started out in good financial shape. Schmidt may not be offering them a viable alternative, but attacking Google is missing the point, and attacking sites that send traffic their way is certainly not a solution.

What I can't figure out is this - how does the AP think their content will be found if Google (et. al.) don't include them in search results and news summaries? Are they working under some delusion that people will wander over there independently?

Today's Smalltalk Daily picks up with our simple Notes example, and covers loading and publishing the code. To watch, click on the viewer below:

If you have trouble viewing that directly, you can click here to download the video directly

You can also watch it on Vimeo:

Load and Publish in Web Velocity from James Robertson on Vimeo.

Or on YouTube:

While this particular story focuses on the Zune Marketplace, it's really about DRM, and about how it rubs music buyers the wrong way. There's a reason the online stores have gone DRM-Free; I doubt this guy is the only one who swore off the store that he felt screwed him.

Technorati Tags: music

Apparently, everything does happen at the same time. I have a dinner to attend this evening around 5, and I've scheduled two podcasts for the afternoon. Not sure what I was thinking...