Crazy days ahead with a wedding followed by a funeral followed by our long-planned 3-week trip to Africa. I’ll try and post once or twice from the road and will definitely write up the trip when I get back.
Thanks For The Memories, Dave
We miss you.
David Dawes Nee II
>NEE David Dawes II. (1976-2005.) David Nee, a much loved member of the
>class of 2005 from Fordham University School of Law, and a graduate of
>Princeton University (class of 1998) and The Loomis Chaffee School (class
>of 1994), died of his own hand on Wednesday, June 22, in New York City.
>David was born in Hong Kong to his parents, Owen and Amber Nee, on February
>24, 1976, and attended the Hong Kong International School, and the Rye
>Country Day School, before matriculating at Loomis in Windsor, Connecticut.
>Dave went on to Princeton University, where he was a member of the Ivy
>Club, and ``president'' of the Green Room. After graduation, Dave worked as
>an Associate Producer of ``Message in a Bubble,'' a public television
>documentary on the rise and fall of internet entrepreneurs, and he also
>edited an internet magazine called ``The Scrivener,'' which was devoted to
>contemporary comment and
>fiction, for several years. While at Fordham, Dave participated in the
>Jessup International Moot Court Competition both as an advocate and, during
>the past year, as a coach, and led his team to an eighteenth overall
>ranking in the world competition, the highest position ever achieved by the
>school. David leaves his parents, his older sister, Claire Nee Nelson, and
>younger sister, Alexandra. A memorial service will be held at the Rye
>Presbyterian Church, 882 Boston Post Road, Rye, New York, on Monday, June
>27, 2005, at 11:00 AM. In lieu of flowers, the family requests that
>donations be directed to two causes that were very close to David's heart:
>Legal Education Advocacy Program, Fordham University School of Law, 230
>West 55th Street, Apt. 7C, New York, NY 10019; Fordham University School of
>Law, Attn: Moot Court Competition, in honor of David Nee, Office of the
>Dean, 140 West 62nd
>Street, New York, New York 10023.
>Published in the New York Times on 6/26/2005.
MGM – Grokster: The Calm Before the Storm
The SCOTUS decision for MGM-Grokster will soon be handed out. The conventional wisdom holds that the sacred cow of a precedent that the landmark 1984 Betamax decision became for the tech industry may not remain in its existing form. This because the SCOTUS smells a rat in Grokster and any precedent that allow the Groksters of the world to facilitate massive copyright infringement, which they do. They may punt it back to the 9th Circuit. Not many believe that they’ll leave Betamax untouched.
I won’t be so foolish as to predict an outcome. The one prediction I will make is that this will eventually end up in Congress’ court. If the tech industry feels a chilling effect from any new precedent, you can be sure they’ll be having their lobbyists push for Congress to shore things up for them. Vice-versa for the copyright industry should they be the clearcut loser.
Hanover, NH
Just got back from a great weekend visiting the in-laws in Hanover, NH. While my sample size is limited, I think it’s one of the great small towns of America. World-class university as the ‘anchor tenant’. Nice, quaint ‘main street’ town center, with larger shops and amenities a short drive away. Easy access to outdoor activities like kayaking on the river, skiing, etc. 2-2.5 hr to a big city (Boston). Friendly people with New England reserve and sensibility.
The one downside for someone like me are the long and bitterly cold winters they experience — pretty much a dealbreaker.
HD Radio — Too Little, Too Late
I had been meaning to write about HD Radio for a while but Om’s article in B2.0 just reminded me to do so. As the title of this post suggests, my opinion on HD Radio can be summed up in 4 words: Too little, too late. I’m sure it will be able to carve out a niche for itself in radio value chain, but it will not be Radio’s great savior.
Radio is already fragmenting. Tens of millions listen to thousands of streaming internet radio stations, millions listen to hundreds of satellite radio stations, and hundreds of thousands access tens of thousands of podcasts. (I don’t buy Pew’s numbers, though they will be realized after Apple adds native support for podcasting into iTunes). Worse, as the article references, radio is losing relevance to the younger generations as they have many other media options.
HD’s issue is the cost and availability of receivers compounded by an utter lack of excitement or awareness with consumers. It will be a while before HD radio receivers will hit the price points necessary for mass adoption. iBiquity, the main company behind HD Radio in the States, plans on selling a measly 100 K HD Radios this year. By the time they’re at a price point to sell, say, 10 Million units, the other technologies will have had another 1 to 3 generations of innovation on their products. The broadcasters will also need to spend a lot of airtime & money educating the market on the benefits of HD Radio. I believe HD is much more successful in the UK, but that is probably because the cost of the receivers is relatively low.
Jack
You may have heard of "Jack" recently. It’s the new radio format being tried and adopted my many terrestrial radio stations as their answer to the iPod. Designed to emulate the shuffle function on an iPod, the Jack format has playlists of 1,000 songs (many more than that of a much tighter format like AAA), and has little to no DJ chatter. The format, orginated in Canada, has a brother Bob, which introduced more new music than Jack, which has more recognizable tunes.
Expanding playlists and less DJ chatter is good, but I hope they don’t take it to the extreme and get rid of DJs. As I’ve written before, I like the sound of a human voice – as long as it’s someone I trust. In fact, I believe the DJ/personality will become more important over the next few years. Why? Playlist-based listening choices will be widespread and everyone will have the same catalog, so personality/brand will be an important differentiator for stations as will content not available elsewhere.
Goodbye Big Apple, Hello Beantown
Cambridge actually. We just moved into Cambridge last week and are starting to settle in. Lots of little errands to run + no internet access = infrequent postings. I’m able to get onto a neighbor’s wireless connection intermittently (thanks Apple Network 0279f1 whoever you are!), but it will be great once Verizon DSL is turned on. My wife and I are excited to be here though we’ll miss New York. This is what I’ll miss about New York:
-Having world-class restaurants, and great ethnic food in such abundance and proximity especially places like (Kati Roll, Rainbow Falafel, La Pizza Fresca, Casa Mono/Bar Jamon, Artisanal, ‘wichcraft to name a few)
-The 4, 5 & 6 trains
-The people: interesting, cosmpolitan, no-nonsense, driven
-The parks
What I won’t miss:
-The noise (sirens blaring, construction, subway cars screeching…)
-The stifling humidity in the summer