The Smooth DJ

Jack Ganssle over at the EE Times has penned an excellent history of the Transistor. Nothing has had a bigger impact on human knowledge and accomplishment. You probably have over 500,000 in your pocket right now.

What is a transistor? It's just a switch, as in on and off. These two states are where binary logic comes from (1s and 0s). But there's more! It also amplifies signals like music from your radio or iPod.

Marc Andreessen has a thought provoking post about Hollywood's latest power struggle and the potentially drastic changes it could lead to. As you've probably heard by now, the writer's guild is on strike, bringing with it the scourge of re-runs and even more reality TV. Andreessen theorizes about the effects of a long strike: an Industry wide shake-up, where fed-up consumers are driven to other forms of entertainment. Made-for-YouTube webisodes like Chad Vader will increase in popularity, as will video games, and online forms of socializing. This shift in taste will kick-start an entrepreneurial push into independent comedy and drama for new media. The creators (artists, actors) will become the content owners for a change. In other words, they have more control and an equity stake. This is not unlike Silicon Valley, Andreessen argues, where programmers develop IP, take ownership, and reap the high rewards upon success.

Patrick Ftizgerald at the LA Times picks up on this theme and challenges the writers to become hyphenated writer-entrepreneurs. Private equity in Hollywood is not a new thing, however. Entrepreneurial filmmakers exist: Lucas; Peter Jackson; actors with stakes in their own production companies like George Clooney and Brad Pitt . Tony Gilroy wrote and directed Michael Clayton after being bankrolled by a real estate developer. But all these examples are movie based, where more freedom exists with respect to owning your own content. Television has a very different framework. It's monopolized by the big networks who act as gatekeepers of the airwaves. If you are a production house, you work on contract, taking orders for a sitcom or drama. You don't necessarily own the copyright of your production, they buy the rights. The royalty and residual system may pay the bills for some of the creatives, but in general, it's not lucrative. This, and the exclusiveness of the TV "biz", are barriers to entry for entrepreneurs. The internet, however, represents a more level playing ground.

The internet has its disadvantages. First and foremost, watching TV in your living room is a very different experience than watching YouTube clips. The living room experience is hi-def, hi-fidelity, easily enjoyed with friends and a cultural tradition. Web-TV, by contrast, is low-res and low-fi. It's usually enjoyed alone on small screens. Bridging that divide between the web and the living room experience is a big deal, and the race for a dominant solution is well under way. But as we've seen with AppleTV, nothing has really caught on yet. And while I think Andreessen is certainly right about entertainment-entrepreneurship, until the web-TV experience can equal that of our living room experience, old Hollywood models of production will hang around, for better or worse. It'll be interesting to see it play out.

So what are the economics of episodic TV? I was curious and did a little digging.

Last week, United Online canceled it's IPO of Classmates.com. Apparently, I wasn't the only one who questioned the logic and growth prospects of their subscriber model. Investor skepticism seems to have doomed United's intentions for good.

I wrote back in October that Classmates was headed toward oblivion - out of touch with the young social networkers of today, and competing with free.

I guess United Online deserves some credit for doing the right thing. The IPO would have been so much more embarrassing for them had it been carried out.

Pete Rock & C.L. Smooth - They Reminisce Over You (T.R.O.Y.) 1992.

Oscar Peterson: jazz legend and Canadian hero, RIP 1925 - 2007. I've been listening to Oscar since I was born. This is a sad day for Jazz; a sad day for Canada.

From the CBC:

"He broke out of Canada. He's one of the first people. We talk of Céline Dion, and Shania Twain, and Alanis Morissette and Bryan Adams. Oscar Peterson did what they did years ago as a black person. So what he's done is incredible." —Tracy Biddle, daughter of Montreal jazz pillar Charlie Biddle

In concert with Joe Pass below:

The best hip-hop album of 2007 is Median's Relief, the debut album by Median. The true gem here isn't just the A-game production by 9th Wonder, Krysis, and Nicolay, but the rap skills of Median, who makes a serious challenge to Phonte as best Justus League Lyricist.

Median can flow like a natural on the mic. His clever diction and introspective lyrics will satisfy any hip-hop head longing for the days of "real" MCs. The underlying mood of the album is a positive one. Light on braggadocio, heavy on metaphors, Median raps to inspire.

I'd be remiss not to mention Kanye West's Graduation album as a close runner up for best of 2007. Graduation is by far Kanye's best to date. He continues to take his sample-based production mainstream, and hip-hop is better for it.