As I was watching another TV show on hulu with my TV sitting dark in my living room – I started thinking about how TV has already started this major shift to a new medium.  When a full hour show on normal broadcast TV is cut down to by more than 15 minutes by skipping past all the commercials on my DVR, I started to wonder how will these advertisers let this content shift to a medium where they have less advertising time?

I have been pondering this until just last night.  When watching a episode of Family Guy for a nice laugh – I noticed that I didn’t even care that I was actually watching the small commerical spots inserted several times during the show.  Not only can you not fast forward through them – but hulu is kind enough if you have already watched the ad and you back the video back up before it – it will not play the ad again.

I believe that advertisers will actually pay more for the spot on hulu than on broadcast TV for several reasons:

• The viewer is actually going to watch your ad
• You can target your ads to certain demographics that hulu provides you (ie: they could show different ads depending on who is watching the same show)
• Better tracking of when and where their ads are being shown (today they have to rely on Nielsen to estimate how many viewers are watching.  With hulu – they know how many people have watched their ad)

Bottom line – I don’t think Advertisers or the content creators are going to be the losers of this new medium shift.  The losers are going to be the cable & satellite providers trying to charge $50-75 for something people can get in like quality on demand.  These companies can only make it becoming the best Internet provider offered for the customer.

Brent TechNews Hulu

Wolfram Alpha.  This was a new site that I kept hearing some things about.  Not a lot was said about the new site other than it would be more of a mathematical engine.  The creator of Wolfram Alpha is Stephen Wolfram the creator of Mathematica.  All I could think about is - oh no, another company trying to become Google.  After the recent launch, I went to check it out.  I think they actually might have something here to complement normal web search engines.

Wolfram Alpha does not find keywords in an index to show you results.  Wolfram Alpha first tries to figure out what you are asking, and then instead of showing you where to find the answer – it tries to answer the mathematical question for you.  Like any search engine – you have to get used to the way to ask the question, but it tries to help you along as you learn.  For example – I asked the engine how many houses were being built in California verses Iowa. “average house price Iowa compared average house price California”

Input interpretation:

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Result:

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Housing:

 

Brent TechNews Wolfram Alpha

I like to share all the good things about Apple, so I thought I would share a funny video about the iPhone that isn’t so positive.  My favorite is the “Find an iPhone that Works” app.

Brent Humor iphone

It doesn’t take long for software to appear on the torrents ready for downloading.  As people are ready to move away from Vista to something new and better without going to the Mac side – downloads of Microsoft Windows 7 has skyrocketed.  Although beta version were available to download, when the release candidate was leaked a lot of people jumped on BitTorrent to get themselves a copy.  Altough, the person who leaked this copy to the public had more to share than just the copy of windows 7.

According to a eWeek article the pirate also included their own software with this package:

According to researchers at Damballa, attackers hid a Trojan inside of pirated copies of the operating system and began circulating them on BitTorrent sites. Damballa reported that it shut down the botnet’s command and control server May 10, but by that time infection rates had risen as high as 552 users per hour.

….

In the case of Windows 7 RC, pirated copies were leaked on BitTorrent sites with a Trojan horse that, once downloaded, attempts to install a bundle of other malware on the infected machine. Blocking infections is tricky, as many anti-virus tools do not yet support Windows 7 and the operating system is infected before the tools can even be installed, according to Damballa. 

To have preinfected software in pirated software is not new, but having it on the OS installation is something I haven’t heard of before.  Antivirus is not usually the first thing people install when trying out a new operating system, especially when Windows 7 is not very antivirus software friendly currently.

So, for those that are looking for that cheap (free) software online – remember you get what you pay for.  =)  How about just using the public beta directly from Microsoft?

Brent Microsoft, TechNews Piracy, Spyware, Windows

And we all know who the carrier was!

Brent Humor Swine Flu

I have been a season ticket holder of the Des Moines AHL team for 3 years now.  During that time, we have already have had 2 name changes from the Iowa Stars to the newly created Iowa Chops this year.  After this past year performance and this awful name change, I was leaning toward not renewing my seat this next year.  A name is important – and the Chops name gives us a snickering response.  I don’t know what focus group they depended on or how much money the Iowa Pork Producers gave, but I am looking forward to (another) fresh start.  I didn’t realise I would get my wish so soon.

A message from Iowa Chops President Steve Nitzel:

I would like to let our fans… make that our best fans, our Season Ticket Holders, feel at ease about the recent news regarding our affiliation situation.  I believe it’s the fans who take the biggest blow and that hurts me personally as I consider myself one of the biggest fans on the planet.  In a move to show our commitment to customer service, the Iowa Chops have put a 30-day hold on the season ticket renewal deadline (was June 15th, now July 15th). I want to assure all of our fans that we are working feverishly to solve our current situation as quickly as possible.

The reason that the Anaheim Ducks General Manager Murray gave to leaving Des Moines was:

“They (Iowa Chops) owe us a significant amount of money. We did not feel there was any chance for this situation to improve. This has nothing to do with the City of Des Moines or the support the people gave our players. They enjoyed the city immensely,” Murray said.

Although attendance had increased almost 550 per game, it came at some cost.  With ticket price reductions and promotions, prices were slashed almost 39% from the 2007-2008 season as stated in the Des Moines Register Article.  78% of the revenue for the Iowa Chops come from ticket sales.  They only make about 18% of the total concessions including the $7 beers and $4 sodas!

For those that are thinking that the owners (the Schlegel family) should just give up in Des Moines, they cannot.  They have 6 years left on their 10 year agreement to Des Moines for providing a hockey team.  It has been reported that they are looking to sell the team, however.

I am a huge fan of local hockey, and I still think that two teams (AHL Iowa Chops & IHL Des Moines Buccaneers) can make it, but the AHL team has to bring the right formula of great hockey, great name, and great fans.  (Hint for owners: fun promotions and cheaper beer does help in this economy!)

Brent Sports AHL, Hockey, Iowa Chops

I would not want to be the bank that this guy brings his coins in to cash.  Now, don’t get me wrong – I love the government cutting costs, but a little $100M is just a good start.

Brent Politics Federal Budget, Obama

You can’t be in the stock world or turn on CNBC without hearing the words “Warren Buffet”.  Ever since I’ve been seriously watching stocks, I’ve have been putting an attentive eye on my close neighbor – the Chairman of Birkshire Hathaway.  Last year, I was in Omaha visiting a friend and heard that the annual shareholders meeting was going on and I kicked myself for not getting a share to attend this event.  Well, another year passes and I almost made the same mistake until an email came from my friend Ann Anhalt asking if I would be interested in going since she had some extra tickets.  I couldn’t have typed yes any faster.

It was amazing.  I had never seen so many people in one place from so many different parts of the world to hear two people answer questions.  The two to speak being Warren Buffet and Charlie Munger (VP). 

I was going to give you a full description of the days events, but Ann did such a great job on her blog post “Omaha Is Buffett Country“ you should just visit her site for our trip info.

Instead I will give you some of the quotes and bits I gathered during the Q & A sections of the day:

• Berkshire Hathaway parent company has plenty of cash
• When speaking about Gambling “If you decide to do activities where the yield are mathematically negative, then there is a world of opportunity for you”
• 35,000 in attendence was recorded
• Buffett: “Wells Fargo is a very large and great bank.  They have some advantages that others do not”
• Buffett: “I don’t need large complicated spreadsheets to find a deal.  The investment should be obvious without doing a lot of  fact checking.  A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush”
• Buffett: “Credit agencies are not the only onesthat were wrong about housing prices”
• Buffett: “You should not buy a company hoping to change it”
• Buffett: “Authority goes with the person not the position”
• Buffett: “1/3 of U.S. houses do not have a mortgage”
• Buffett: “I could have my replacement follow me around and I could say everything I am thinking – but their time is better used where they are”
• Buffett: “I wouldn’t buy a newspaper business at any price.  They havethe potential of undending losses.  The day of one main source of information is gone”
• Buffett: “I feel very good about our GE and GS deals.  I didn’t find anything better at that time”
• Charlie: “When we disagree (with Buffett), I know he will see my way, because he is smart and I am right”

It was great to see products of the Berkshire Hathaway companies.  Here are a couple pictures from that day:

Keep your health and energy Warren – I will see you next year!

Brent TickerNews, Travel Berkshire Hathaway, BRK