Very interesting Jonathan. Additionally, if anyone is interested in seeing where luminaries in the games, media and educational markets believes web based technolgies will lead us, and how they will impact everything from taxation to disabilities to education, I urge you to check out: http://www.metaverseroadmap.org I was invited to participate in this exercise but due to other commitments, I had to bow out of this one. I have read the materials submitted by my colleagues in it's entirety and it is an amazing set of predictions and ideas. To be sure, I will participate in the next meeting :)

Posted by Chris Melissinos on July 11, 2007 at 10:22 AM PDT #

[Trackback] Jonathan Schwartz discusses the issues of social networking and Big Media. He encourages the media to let go, and figure out how to monetize the free media, rather than sue the customer. See video below the fold....

Posted by Musings from the Peanut Gallery on July 11, 2007 at 11:53 AM PDT #

Our deaf community across America fought hard to have closed captioning shown on televisions. Then Internet video came naked of closed captioning and you techies wonder why you are not making money... We do not watch and buy from you.... Dont tell us that you can not put closed captioning in streams. Microsoft Windows already has closed captioning feature embedded and ready to go. So quit acting like high browed idiot-asses!!!

Posted by Gumby on July 11, 2007 at 01:10 PM PDT #

Jonathan, after all you are writing a blog, not a webpage. Please be aware that in a blog reader like SAGE this post makes no sense until one clicks on the post to get to the webpage. The reason is, that the embedded videos are not displayed in the blog. Please use good old links (GOLs, like POJOs :-)) insteads of embedding content that it not portable across different devices. I think it was you who always tries to remind us that a PC based browser won't be the most common way to access the internet in the near future. Cheers, Tobias

Posted by Tobias on July 12, 2007 at 01:27 AM PDT #

Funny you should be admonishing another company's general counsel, Jonathan. Perhaps you should have more conversations with your own. As someone on the wrong end of the negotiating stick with Sun's attorney's I can tell you that VA got screwed when Sun decided to no bid a contract due to an innocuous term that all of your competitor's accepted. Here's some free advice to you. Learn how to accept the risks that your competitors do and you might actually make a lot more money. My guess is that if your lawyers reviewed the risks of leaving their respective homes in the morning they would never leave. However, they seem perfectly fine with going to work and taking Sun's money. They just don't want Sun to take customers money!

Posted by stateofVA on July 12, 2007 at 04:41 AM PDT #

Thank you for posting the videos. It was eye-opening to hear some of the thoughts around the role technology plays in solving the most important issues of our present condition. Many of us in the technology space find ourselves using our analytical and creative energies to solve problems that are often far removed from more worthy causes that we sometimes long to be a part of. I think the views expressed provide some sort of hope that, when an esoteric piece of software is designed or a more efficient network is built, the benfits of technological progress may trickle down and make a difference. Indirectly maybe, but it feels good to know that some of it eventually does.

I look forward to your thoughts on this blog and even though I may not agree with all you have to say I think your thoughts and vision are genuine and not just a way to generate buzz and more eyeballs for Sun. Not that there is anything wrong with marketing but if the intentions are perceived to be disingenuous or calculated that can be more disaffecting not less.

On a final note I thought that there was good, frank exchange between you and your potential customers (I think 'spirited' is how you may have put it). Prannoy Roy for instance is one of the pioneers of modern news reporting in India and has helped introduce transparency into the election process and set new standards in open political debate and dialog there. His question may not have been directed at the right audience but I hope that the exchange was taken in the right spirit and may be the beginning of a fruitful relationship for Sun.

Posted by smathew on July 12, 2007 at 12:18 PM PDT #

Interesting to see the reactions of companies still struggling with their market's version of open source (free media being the case here). When this subject comes up in the music industry, it's always about file sharing and piracy. I wonder when will bands and record companies find their 'OpenMusic' model. It's been done a couple of times, but without knowledge of what was really happening. For instance, when bands made their mixes and recording sessions available for users/fans to remix. They used it from a marketing point of view, instead of calling it something like OpenMusic and making the point of empowering their fan base. Finding a way to monetize on that is the challenge.

Posted by Rafael Vanoni on July 12, 2007 at 10:18 PM PDT #

Why Ashlee, I'm flattered! Switching gears, I followed the link to your duckrabbit site and am ordering your book. Sounds really interesting and I am looking forward to reading it. I'm also happy to offer comments and feedback, as requested on your site :)

Posted by Chris Melissinos on July 13, 2007 at 10:51 AM PDT #

Hi Jon,
I think your OpenSPARC venture is great. So far, I do not think that any South Asian (from where i am) company has actually used these specs and stuff to produce a full PC/workstation. Clearly, you are once again doing the right thing, but without good marketing. SUN is reinventing itself, seeing clearly that as you say, there is great value in volume. So, when are you announcing the next SUN-[SouthAsiaFabCorp] venture which helps make PCs without the "well-designed" crap that other market loaders(sic) produce?
The problem so far was that the popular OS ran only on the popular hardware. Popular has now become very unpopular and will continue to do so. With GNU/Linux and (Open)Solaris, PPC and Sparc *exist* as options.
The important thing is (examples only, for the sake of illustration ):

$1,000,000 x 100 = $100,000,000 // present, big corp, N.America
$1,000,000 x 100 = $100,000,000 // future, big corp - S.Asia - not stuck in PER*, first time buyer, booming economy
plus
$10,000 x 10,000 = $100,000,000 // future, small corp, S.Asia - not stuck in PER*, first time buyer, booming economy
plus
$1,000 x 100,000 = $100,000,000 // workstations for software dev. - PER*-tortured/harassed, happy to switch
plus
$200 (upto $500) x [see encyclopedia] = $[very big number] // PCs, laptops, smartphones, cameras, gadget-mashups

*PER: I deal directly and daily with the channel here. They hate direct retailers because they see no future for their business if they cannot earn from fixing broken hardware. Any correlation between quality of "popular products" and this?(sic) Which points to a massive, endemic, "perennial extortion racket"(PER).
The numbers are possibly more if South Asians are allowed to earn some more income and allowed some more spending power. You know all those far better than I can elucidate here. South Asia has the numbers. Real big numbers.
A certain famous(sic) dropout realised that much before everyone else.
But these PER pawns aren't monopolists. They have been puppets of the monopolist masters. They can't bite. No teeth. Show them decent cash and they'll switch. Everyone will switch. So, if you work with the channel, your UltraSPARC + h/w kit is new. Which means learning, training, support. All that means daily business and income to the channel. And to FLOSS startups. But everyone should work for it, unlike license sales and commissions which are no-brainers. So, you need to give them training, this, that........ Keep it cheap and they'll all switch.
IMO, the only big danger, which needs to be stated for completeness, is that doing too much of this will make *you* like them. Subject to SUN having that integrity over the next decade, you stand to win or lose in the game of numbers.
To circumvent that danger - a monopolistic SUN Microsystems(!) - a simple solution to that is allow opensource support to grow - GNU/Solaris would be the best. SUN hardware can play a huge part. Most likely, you won't get a local fab company here to trouble your chip market share. But, of course, I can't say a thing about global players. Just make the chips available cheaply. The rest should take care of itself. Or you could.

And Java is not about only desktop/application programming - Jini. Post-opensource, licensing is not a source of revenue. Post-internet, basic services get you little.

The idea is to avoid anyone, including you, from getting into the easy-money PER habit - that's why it is called *earning* an income. Make good money, by all means, travel in limousines, no problem, but let us at least travel in buses and trains.
So, we all have a *huge* task ahead. But, it is better than the PER. To be able to trust the success of all these rosy thoughts, we (and i) need to have OpenSolaris GPLed, v3. OR at least 'v2 or *at your option* any later version'.

v3 obviously, isn't it? Take your time, but do it. It will really be good for everyone.


And let us here, make hey!!! while the SUN shines.
-A

Posted by arvind on July 15, 2007 at 05:32 AM PDT #

Hmm, the videos do not play, seem to load content, but no network traffic. So I tried hitting the Help button on them and was redirected to a not working http://webcast-mpk1.sfbay.sun.com ...

Posted by hajma on July 15, 2007 at 02:27 PM PDT #

A good example of the kind of content you are talking about is the Finnish movie Star Wreck: In the Pirkinning (http://www.starwreck.com/). It's a fan movie and granted, it's not the best movie in the world, but just because of being distributed freely on the Internet it became, only in a few months, the single most viewed Finnish full length feature film of all times. In two months it passed the all time classic "The Unknown Soldier" 2.5 million viewers. Star Wreck was produced in an apartment in Helsinki by a team of literally a handful of enthusiasts. That's new media.

Posted by Thorbiörn Fritzon on July 16, 2007 at 06:49 PM PDT #