Moving day for the ink-blog/Tattletech

Read on at www.tattletech.net - our new blog/media corner. 

All posts from this blog is also found there.

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Cisco uses cool words like “web 2.0″

Image by World Economic Forum via Flickr

I just like this article in IT World on so many levels — the fact that Mr. Chambers wants to talk about Web 2.0 is probably better than him talking about the “you tubes” and such — but I think that when you see Cisco next to Web 2.0 it just doesn’t look right. You know, it’s like the really nerdy kid that wants to sit next to the cool kids in school, and I mean cool like old school high tops and jeans with black t-shirts cool.

And in my second favorite quote by a big wig today that makes them look like they really really want to be friends with the cool kids – here is John Chambers on why they are doing this: “Video is changing work and life while also driving sales of Cisco’s infrastructure” Well at least he put that last statement in there – he is afterall a very rational person, cool no, but rational and square, yes.

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Amazon into VOD?

Today, Forbes ran an article about Amazon getting into the VOD business by letting customers watch shows and find cast interviews for about 500 TV shows. And, in my all time favorite obvious quote – the VP of TV for Amazon, Peter Faricy ( I didn’t realize that Amazon had a VP of TV or a TV department) said, “The way people watch TV has changed dramatically in recent years.” Wow! Really? Amazing statements from a company that sells stuff.

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The Top 10 Hot men of IBC 2008

Well, we picked them – it’s final. And  this year they were voted on by a secret panel of women – some of those women didn’t even attend the show we just showed them the photos and they picked them. We have photos to add – but you will have to wait til Monday to see the list… so stay tuned. But, to keep you guessing, here are a few hints:

- One of the winners is from Finland – first time ever on the list. His company has a name that is tied to a myth

- Swedish fish, Volvo’s and pickled fish are a good thing

- If you are from Liverpool, you can have a really thick accent

- Even PR people can make the list if they work hard

- The industry’s youngest CTO

- Small insects and indigenous peoples from Arctic regions

- It’s hot there but he moved to a rainy climate

Down the Rabbit Hole Party – IBC 2008 Part 2

Mattias, Bjorn (world's youngest CTO) Henrik - Dreampark Dudes

Sharona, (BitBand), Ben Lawrence (ANT) Ofer (Vermatrix)

The crowd, with Norbert (TV1.EU)

Down the Rabbit Hole party at IBC

Alex Crab (ink), Adir Hadid (Harmonic), Ofer (Verimatrix)

JoeOHalloran, (Content2Mobile), Stuart Thomson (Editor, CabSat Europe), Katrina Coyne (CabSat Europe)

Alex Crabb, Ben Lawerence (ANT), Christian (Dreampark)

IBC Day 5

Image via Wikipedia

Happily, I steered clear of too much controversy at IBC – you know that is hard for me, but in general kept the ear to the ground about the “general atmosphere” of the show in general. Our opinion? Was that this year’s IBC was much calmer, much more positive and there seemed to be a a brisk flow of operators throughout the show asking finally the right questions about deployments and what they need to keep their subscribers happy. The bottom line? TattleTech thinks its because last year was filled with bumps – acquisitions, mergers and just a general worry about what would even work – this year, people seem more confident about what they need to reach subscribers in order to capture them in the IPTV web — there finally seems to be an understanding of the multiple screen concept and the user preference for ease of use and a similiarity to how they interact with applications on the web and mobile – iPhone, Facebook, Flickr, etc. Finally. We think that that mood was much more forward thinking.

IBC Day 4

Image byNoovovia CrunchBase

We skipped Day 3 – it was too easy – actually Day 3 was the ink party and that means Top 10 Hot Men list – which is now down to 15  -so we are still reducing that list… stay tuned. But Day 4 – well Day 4 took us away from IBC and over to London where I was at Seedcamp which starts tomorrow and one of my favorite entrepreneurs on the planet. I had the good fortune to spend an evening with Andrej Nabergoj, founder of Noovo and got a first hand tutorial over mojitos on Noovo. Now, before you say to me that you can’t take another social networking site I say to you – I agree. But how about a gathering place where you can in a true sense gather, post and share content from the Web that actually grows a new pool of content. It is so cool i can’t contain myself… that combined with the innovation from Zemanta which you all know is my ALL TIME FAVORITE bloggers tool  – apparently they have a big announcement coming out on Thursday — I heard about it at the bar, but promised not to say anything….

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IBC – Day 2

SVG. That is all we are hearing. Scalable Vector Graphics. So whose got it and who doesn’t? The four vendors we saw, Quative, Espial, Industria and Dreampark all were showing on the Motorola stand. Browsers seem have dropped from the heirarchy of importance even though we know they are stil there – but the issue is where is the browser for SVG? We met one last night at the ink party – Ekioh – but not much was said, very tight lipped yet but we hear that this company is in stealth mode publically but in private they are in bed with a few heavy hitters.

Now, we won’t get technical, but out of the four, Dreampark and Quative looked the best – meaning that they looked like the way that a consumer would want to manipulate or use his EPG. I mean the way that they are using applications on their computer — and to take that one step further, we mean in the way that htey are manipulating content via social networking applications and that fabulous iPhone layout. Consumers are moving around at light speed today on their mobile devices and computers and to us, the sooner that IPTV adopts a similiar interface that faster the adoption will be and then we can really get that nifty stuff they all have been promising.

Motorola told us that Espial was using a propriatary technology like SVG, but the three others were showing pure SVG and illustrating the graphic difference between what SVG an do versus HTML. It’s quite dramatic. Go by and see it. Check out the transparency feature of Dreampark – really, check it out!

How our world turns

Sometimes when we look back on history, we can’t understand how some events actually occurred. How entire populations let tragedy, war, hatred happen. We just think – who couldn’t see that coming? But living day to day, we as humans often don’t see that train coming. We feel it, but in the end, it is often just easier to go along with what is tradition, or what has been done in the past — we just accept what is handed to us either in work or by nature because it is easier to go along to get along.

Humans are pack animals. A few years ago, some social scientists and anthropologists  did two experiments with social behavior in both NYC and London. They took a well dressed man and had him lay down on the sidewalk in a busy square as if he was injured and then put a camera on him — and waited to see how long it would take before  one person stopped to help him. In London, it took 28 minutes, in NYC it took 19 minutes — and even then, several people passed by several times lurking about — afraid to stop UNTIL that one person who didn’t care what it looked like, stopped to help and then they swooped in to join him. Then they took the same man, and dressed him in raggedy jeans and a t shirt and did the same thing – it took 47 minutes in London and 38 minutes in NYC for someone to stop and help and even then the gawkers who watched and lurked didn’t step in. The conclusion was that we as pack animals do not want to stand out in a crowd and be either called out for doing something that the pack did not authorize or that would draw un necessary attention to their action. Oddly enough, this translates into behavior that exits even today – at a trade show.

The issue of being different gets harder and harder and questioning the system or what is considered the norm is still out of vogue – despite the free for all on the internet and the social networking that allows people to speak their mind, the old order still wants you to follow their lead. If you  threaten their income or the order that has been built, they will band together against you – tell you that is not how it is done, but they won’t tell you this – they will use the best weapon they have – other people. They build fear into everything they do – calling others and stating with suggestion that isn’t it much better when the order is preserved. It sticks on most of what we do has humans, but at a trade show, it permeates everything that people do.

The company that put up ads in the bathroom stalls at IBC that has a big pot leaf as the center of their ad which suggests that their graphics will “blow your mind” stepped out of the box. Today I heard  just about everyone talking about it – smiling and at the same time as if they were being watched by the thought police, derogatory saying out loud how in appropriate it was. Because they didn’t’ have the nerve to run the ad.

I saw people that I have known for years stepping away from things that threatened the sanctity of the system. I talked to one of Europe’s leading VC’s tonight about this and he said to me that in the end, if you want to push forward and affect a change, you can’t stand in the pack – you have to push outward and have your own voice knowing what those consequences will bring. In the end he says, the first will be the hardest hit –but also the one that will be revered the most. Because its hard to stand out and speak one’s mind in business. Many of  good man and woman have paid the price for that. But I assume that at the end of the day, they sleep the best.

Another great read on humans forming groups