Online Rights?

PACT have Responded to Ofcom's Review of the Television Production Sector [Link] PDF

Much of the banter is focused on the Online rights, where Broadcasters want to use TV media across new platforms (Web and Mobile). Nowt is mentioned on alternative business models that could disolve the stand-off between broadcasters and producers.

Whilst this is played out, the BBC seduce the audience with IMP [Link].

Ben Metcalfe is blogging the development of the IMP. [Link]

Here comes the Blu-Rays

After noting the Enhance TimeWarner faux showdown, I just have to highlight the smartness of Sony during the troubled management times at TW.

Sony swooped into pick up the majority of US movie assets after TW continually bungled the deal. Sony now seems own the relationship of movie studios ensuring content goes to BluRay formats and not the competition Toshiba HD format.

The BluRay disc system which will be included in the PlayStation 3.

I'll post more how I see this panning out later, but I suspect, if Sony sort out the house, they'll be delivering more media faster and cheaper than internet video providers. A HD disc with 9 movies at broadcast quality with next day delivery in a tidy box is sweeter than 5 days of downloading and storing for domestic technology users…

BluRay hype from Sony [link]

Enhance TimeWarner

Bit of backtrack, but noteworthy.

Carl Icahn and his suited army at Lazard published a Bohemia of criticism against TW in Feb 2006. As I remember, they used Word-Press to publish the site and document; Alas the site is no more [Link] but you can still get the beautiful report here [Link].

In short, Icahn owns a tidy share in the under-performing Publisher and understandably wants to see some profit. His suggestion was to bust up the TW/AOL publisher into 4 smaller companies. Nothing short of liquidating the entire firm would mean dispersing the media rights of a massive amount of content. Just the kind of thing the web communities need to expand services to users. Nothing's happen since the publishing of the report – but I watch with interest..

Some commentary on the matter from paidcontent.org [Link]

Ontologists

Following on from my last post on Fano, Ontology needs a mention – if anything to get the damn 'idea' out of my head.

At the time I was working on how to formulate the predicates of the human desire to rework media, so I could devise procesess and systems in software that facilitated that effort from the core of the application, not as an ancillary function to an established publishing mechanism (which falls on the sword of media or code licence control everytime you try and bootstrap User Generated mechanisms).

After hours of UML modeling I knew I had to seek advice on how to show an ideas State change when under the pressure from a Collective Ideology (Community of User) that has to clearly present the continuing mutation for all users. RM suggested visting the realm of Ontology.

Unfortunaely Ontology is seen as a beast to most philosophers; I was being a tad optimistic about absorbing these inquires in a week!

But, I had a go with The Ontology of Mind : Events, Processes, and States.

I'm still reading it at a snails pace.. but leats I can understand why you dont hear many people describing themselves as Ontologists.
Kind of glad to see I wasn't the only one stuggling..

A Defeasible Ontology Language [link]PDF

Reasoning with Inconsistent Ontologies:Framework and Prototype [link]PDF

Fano Plane

I stumbled across the curious Fano Plane last year after working with Cellular Automa to find business models & processes for media generation. I'll post the result of the investigation sometime later when I recall where I stored the notes (Heh, I still remember the sound of the tumbleweed when I presented them, thus the loose filing system!)

Here's a few links:-

WikiPedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fano_plane

From Wolfram's Site
http://mathworld.wolfram.com/FanoPlane.html

And as known as The Eightfold Cube
http://log24.com/theory/plane.html

And.. Klein's Quartic Curve (ooh, the animations..!)
http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/klein.html

Sync

Strogratz's book Sync on Emergence Theory, simply rocks. I'm not a scientist by trade and finding a way to really feel for the subject of emergence is hard when you're faced with either the massively complicated Mathematica or giddy Malcolm Gladwell.

He illustrates examples better than Pixar and weaves in interviews from the peer network of academic characters as if it was the missing episode of Twin Peaks. Simple and wonderful, not just simply wonderful.

Steve Johnson

One of the biggest 'job' challenges I face daily is explaining benefits of 'sharing' to colleagues. Reading the works of Johnson helps me find analogies that my peers may find useful in understanding that media has never been about sending information one way. It's a dialogue (people spend money on your products, dude.) Moving that towards a relationship of co-authorship still scares the vowels and invoices out of commercial folk. Johnson works the concepts of natural systems and turns them into coffee-point narratives – saves me a least a dozen emails of explanation to colleagues.

Emergence (very good) and Mind Wide Open (hmm, not as good) are top reads for applying the lab coat science to proactive practitioning creatives.

Best Selling

Scorn if you must but the list of books here seem to follow the trail of popular science writing. They're easy to digest and knowledge is best served by an honest chef not a Michelin Star fanatic when you really need regular feeding. I've never been a big fiction fan, but open to suggestions.

Allen has the right approach me thinks..

"I took a speed reading course and read War and Peace in twenty minutes. It involves Russia."

Second Chance for Character Assimalation?

Using Second Life as the test bed for creative development is a win-win solution. Design, build unleash your art within the VR and listen to the community feedback. Tweek & release until you're happy with the volume of applause. You save the R&D cash, the audience gets the prize.

So, will Marvin mingle well in SL? Misery aside, maybe. Could be become a family droid and spawn the Sons of Marvin? Only his owners can chose the bride. His presence is a highly controlled slap of IP to be looked at – the character's identity is locked down as part of the Disney portfolio.

Any variants of character and design are unlikely to merged with (un)branded avatars – which makes this a win-lose solution. The SL project has the content protection invarients in it's Terms of Service, but resticting creativity through encouraging non-sharing may lead to a huge pile of content stagnation which is Game Over for any MUD; as their Terms states: "You are prohibited from taking any action that imposes an unreasonable or disproportionately large load on Linden's infrastructure."

As Douglas Adams wrote in HHGTTG "In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move."

But the idea of a Disney parent (arranging marriages) is, erm, interesting..

The Language Instinct

Steven Pinker cuts in well with this book, covering the life of language from the Biological to the Cultural. Written back in 1995, it's amazing that his accounts havn't filtered into the architecture of User Generated projects such as Flickr. Listen up, language and media need to mutate freely if it's to survive, else we'll end up with pools of dumb ass imbred creations that are the only things worth of a zoo.

Hello world – you belong to me

First post and a mental note.

It's nobody's fault.

I suspect the predicament of zero influence is one of language, may this be biological or cultural; we are supposed to be in this mess now.

It's that we didn't expect it earlier in history which makes it feel like a tragedy. Kicking the backside of culture is perhaps how we turn it into a comedy!