Joho the Blog
An Entry from the Archives

Hank Barry (former CEO of Napster) moderates. He cites a Pew study that says 44% of Net users say they've contributed something to the Net. 140M camera phones in 2004. 115 photo-sharing services. DeviantArt has 4M works of art posted. And there's growing resistance to ISP offerings that restrict uploading.

Shane Robison (HP [Home of computers armed with DRM to lock you out]) says that his customers want to produce their own content.

Rob Glaser (RealNetworks [Talk about your bad defaults! Real is close to deceptive when it walks you through its install program]) points out that not everyone wants to create their own music, although they do want to post their photos. And they want to package up playlists, etc.

Lisa Gansky (Kodak's O-Photo) says 0-Photo has a billion images, a third of which are printed. [Yikes!] The demographic skews to women. George Eastman realized that he had to market to women. When digital cameras first came in, the men bought them and downloaded the image, holding them hostage on their hard disks. O-Photo eases the sharing. The "soccer moms" tend to print more than the younger demographic. Kodak Mobile is a subscription service for cellphone cameras. That gives us a sort of "streaming intimacy."

Q: Why can't I get my IPaq and IPod to work together?

A: (Rob) Because Steve Jobs, for reasons known only to him, won't license the FairPlay DRM manager that IPod uses. Either of two things will happen: Apple will return to its historic single-digit share, or the market will be slowed because they'll say, "What, I bought an IPod and I can only shop in one store?? What is this, the Soviet Union?" (Applause.)

Shane: We're working with Apple on this. It'll get straightened out.

Q: [Steven Levy] Now we have tools that give people quasi-professional ways to create media. Are we going to make media for one another, or is it more of an American Idol sort of thing where people make media in order to filter up?

(Rob): Those aren't mutually exclusive.

Q: This revolution has been around the corner for years. But there's a way to push it forward. There will be an explosion in grassroots video when people can be seen by others on the TVs in living rooms.

Shane: When everyone has access to broadband, the TV can become an interface.

Rob: It has to do with the shortage of narrative-form story-telling skills. There's a dearth of creative talent. [How do we know that?]

Shane: We have to make big content owners comfortable with using our environment. We're making progress. There's a fine line between giving them the kind of protection they need to distribute their property and giving consumers they need. You'll see some announcements soon showing we're making progress with the content companies. [Be afraid.]