Too small to loose

" lesson is that more is different. The Internet, by giving everybody access to a market of hundreds of millions of people, can work at participation rates that would be a disaster in the traditional world of non-zero marginal costs" - The miraculous power of scale (C. Anderson)

And isn't that the beauty of it all? When everybody can get the same stuff, you can have a core audience spanning the globe, across ages and education backgrounds - and still with something in common that makes it work. Be it Wikipedia or DeviantArt. Combining a sense of community effort, partaking in something bigger - while at the same time using those "spare cycles" to create something more than just filler.

It is actually okay to have a solid share of 'lurkers' - or readers as they are know in the traditional media. Because that 1% (or less) that produce the opinions and content make it worthwhile for the other 99% - and then some. It's all good, as the saying goes...

...and the sun is much missed - 'tis the season to get another pot of tea brewing...

Silver lining?

"in most cases, Flash video streaming is still more expensive for content owners to deliver, especially for those with a lot of traffic" (full post and comments)

Could Silverlight seriously push aside Flash as the main format for more advanced web applications and experiments? With javascript apps eating away at the other end of the market, losing the video/animation focus could seriously dampen the way forward.

Several media companies are already promoting Silverlight as a Mac/Unix option for their exsisting WMV streaming, thereby helping spread the installed base and user awareness. And solutions like the JW makes it even easier to play around.

Short term? No worries... long term? Netscape, Real Networks and Wordperfect anyone?

Customer first

"Similar to Apple’s own ‘Remote’ app for iTunes, Sonos today released a free download that turns an iPhone into a wireless controller for the company’s Multi-Room Music System." - from post over at Last 100 (including a video clip demo)

Wonderful move, making it easier for their customers to both enjoy and show off their cool system to friends and visitors. And giving them serious insight along the way. At almost no cost.

Score another point or five for the Touch - a true multipurpose tool for the digital age.

Engage me

Chevron had some interesting ads in Wired a while back, and after hunting around a bit on their site I found what I was looking for; Energyville. It is a game/simulation developed along with the Economist- where you set up the mix of power supplies for a major city, seeing how it affects economic, environmental and security levels. Then some random events occur to affect your current situation, and you get to refine your choices for the next time period.

Captivating and informative at the same time. Good fun and a great example of using the net to extend information (and in this case a wee bit marketing) by "simply" adding interactivity and a bit of randomness


And on the topic of engagement - apparently Two and a Half Men is "it" right now. NewTeeVee had a piece on comparing viewership with online engagement ( reading, rating, sharing, linking and inviting). The show stacked up an average score of 9.5 interactions per viewer - while House got some 3.3 interactions and the most viewed, Greys A., got a rather modest .74

So does it give any good indications of the loyalty of either group of viewers?
Perhaps not as a one of (single week comparison), but given some time and comparable data it could be a nice addition to the toolbox (and perhaps the option of adjusting the scores for various activities on the fly - reading might be a better goal for a news show, while sharing could be key for a new show getting started - could even predict future viewership potential and be correlated)


...and the sun is long gone - it is getting close to 11, on the 11th day of the 11th month...

Don't play inChrome?

At least not if you intend to do any changes to your blog on Blogger. Because adding in new gadgets to the page, is a one way process in the Google browser. The "remove" button doesn't work. Which is kind of strange, considering how they touted their huge base of test-pages, you would assume they made sure their own actual services worked without major hitches.

Makes me not want to risk posting with Chrome, which was supposed to be on the agenda after doing some layout adjustments. Reminds me of when they added in the first version of the spellchecker - and it didn't include blog or Blogger... the joys of division of labour