I’m going to blog all my deep thoughts as I pass over the country on lovely American Airlines…
1. How can Windows have “Updates Ready to Install” if I’m not online?
2. The couple behind me broke up on the runway. Crying, sobbing. “I need space”. “I can’t give you what you want”. Taking off! It’s a 6-hour flight. Dude, break-up when you land not when you take off. Better yet, at the gate, when only one of you will be traveling.
3. Just finished reading a staggeringly comprehensive analyst report on IPTV from RBS. The telecos are spending serious dollars getting people online, and fiber-to-the-home is coming fast outside the US. Is there an advertising model other than what you get in linear TV? Everyone seems to think so, but evidence is shaky. I have yet to see a single estimate from any analyst on the size of the IPTV or VOD advertising opportunity. Generally not a good sign if the hype machines hasn’t yet started.
4. Related thought: I totally buy the consumer proposition of having a Tivo or Akimno or AppleTV device that I buy streaming video content over my broadband connection. But with the vast majority of broadband being offered by either telecos or cable operators, does anyone think they’re really going to let you bypass their expensive tiers of video service? I don’t think so.
5. Listening to my iPod in alphabetical order. It’s like shuffle, but with a theme. The theme is “music that starts with the letter ‘R'”.
6. “No, No, No” has become the unofficial anthem of the Paparo household thanks to Amy Winehouse.
7. I’m hoping to teach Asa to dance like Justin Timberlake.
8. The NYTimes this weekend was trying to make the point that ad dollars are flowing away from traditional advertising and into areas like word-of-mouth, engagement marketing, etc. They made the unfortunate choice of calling TV and print “measured” advertising and all of the other areas (including online!) “unmeasured.” Can you say no, no, no.
9. Its the 50th anniversary of Atlas Shrugged. A book that everyone hates, yet changes lives daily. I think I’ll wait until Asa’s 10 before I start reading it with him. Could you imagine anything easier to fall asleep to than the John Gault speech?
10. I’m increasingly convinced that the number one factor holding back larger companies from successfully competing with nimble start-ups is the need for every decision to be approved by internal legal departments. I’ve never met a start-up that sweated the legal risks associated with everyday business. The amount of legal scrutiny on everyday business seems to have a 1-1 correlation with organization size. Don’t believe me? How fast do you think you could get a press release approved by a 2-person start-up? A 30 person VC-funded start-up? A 300 person middle-market software company? A publicly-traded 2,000 person business? A 10,000 person market mover? The increase in scrutiny is linear. And except when a business is run by the rare manager who know how to fight the lawyers on their own terms, this legal tax affects the quality and speed of absolutely everything you do.