Can Tivo Sell Our Private Information? (Third reading essay)

The impact of Digital Video Recorders (DVR) such as Tivo has been huge. The use of DVR’s changed the television industry as well as our daily lives. A DVR enables its users to record from thirty to hundreds of hours of television programs in its huge hard disk, and the viewers can then watch any programs stored in it whenever they want. This innovative technology has freed viewers from deciding which program they should watch. In other words, the DVR allows its users to disassemble the original on-air schedule and reprogram it freely. Besides, viewers can stop, forward, rewind or even skip the commercials. This new technology has the potential to end the “flow”, the programmer’s effort to dissuade viewers from changing channels by the thorough consideration of the programming schedule and the timing of the commercial interruptions.

With this new pattern of use, the DVR jeopardizes the old business models that are offered by companies such as the Nielsen Media Research which tries to accurately catalogue what viewers watch.  Tivo has a feature which communicates with a central database through the phone line and sends all the actions the viewer makes, from which channel they recorded to changes they made in the volume. The information sent from each Tivo is compiled in the central database. This function disrupts companies specializing in identifying people’s viewing behaviors by performing an intricate procedure of sampling. Under the diffusion of the DVR, their main business, assessing of the price of commercial segments, will no longer be meaningful.

Uprising of this formidable technology, the television and the media research industries have a couple of options to contend against it. Matt Carlson in his book, Tapping into Tivo, points to two ways to interrupt new technologies that can be a threat to the television industry. One is to draw those companies into law suits with complaints such as the copy right violations. It is not necessary to win the case. With their enormous financial resources, media companies can suffocate those rather small companies monetarily through legal efforts. This tactic was applied to SonicBlue, a company that attempted to sell DVRs with a function to skip commercials. With a series of costly law suits by seven companies that included Disney, NBC, Viacom, SonicBlue filed for bankruptcy before the law suit was settled.

 

Another way to interrupt new technologies is rather more friendly; gaining control of the companies by investing in them. As a matter of fact, a certain amount of Tivo’s shares are owned by NBC, CBS, Discovery and Comcast. Developing strong ties with those media giants, Tivo has chosen the way to cultivate a new market that can be profitable to both sides by collecting accurate information about people’s viewing habits and selling the data to media companies. This new strategy seems to be a very smart move. It solves the conflict between the television industry and the DVR manufacturers, as well as developing a new market of “people’s personal data”.

Many say that DVRs and the threat they bring to the television industry are similar to the Sony Betamax VCR, the first consumer video recorder that turned the television industry upside down thirty years ago. In the VCR case, the television stations and the movie companies backed off fighting with video manufacturers after they found that the profit that the pre-recorded video market created surpassed the loss that VCRs brought to the media industry.

 

Tivo and Betamax cases have one thing in common. Sony and Tivo ended up cooperating with existing media companies, such as the television and the movie industry, as well as the media research companies, and developed new markets with new technologies such as VCRs and DVRs. Carlson wrote, “The development of new media technology is far from independent from existing media structures.” I cannot agree more with him. What the SonicBlue case is telling us is that all the disruptive technologies can not survive without acting in concert with the contents creators, such as the television stations and the movie studios.  No technologies can thrive in markets without the consent of other companies and the consumers. Then one question comes up to me. When did they get the consent of us, the suppliers of their new commodity, people’s viewing behavior?

 

Carlson, Matt. Tapping into Tivo: Digital video recorders and the transition from schedules to surveillance in television, New Media society 2006; 8; 97

 

Week 8 reading reflection

Since 2005, I have tried to switch all of my phone calls to Skype. Now that　I use Skype, it has drastically reduced my phone bill, from hundreds of　dollars a month  to under one hundred.
Also, most of my phone calls are made on my cellular phone. My phone calls　ratio of the 　landline to Skype to my cellular phone, is briefly 1 to 3 to 6. In other words, my usage ratio of voice to data is 1 to 9. I think this ratio almost reflect the future of telecommunication. As Christensen
mentioned, established wired services are expected to face a hard time when competing with data services. I basically agree with Christensen’s conclusion that the telecommunication industry will be shrinking. I think those telecommunication giants such as AT&T and SBC will survive and dominate the industry.

The infrastructure telecommunication possesses is a huge resource such as the existing infrastructure that mobile technology largely relies on.  As long as this extensive infrastructure stretches across the whole country and is under the possession of telecommunication companies, mobile companies must stay dependent on telecommunications companies..

1,Why hasn’t VoIP been very successful yet?

2,What do telecom companies need to do in order to compete with entrants in
the Voip technologies?

Group discussion 11/13

[Group discussion note]

Question: What Internet -related “rights” and “freedoms” should be guaranteed by government action? Since the internet is an international
medium (infrastructure), who is ultimately responsible for online justice?

In the discussion, we concluded that the freedom of the internet should be preserved. We do not think that there should be established a specific cyberspace authority to regulate it..The internet’s use is a global issue and there are so many variables. Each country has different ethics and social norms, so it is not only unfair, but also impossible to establish a global standard. However, the human rights issues, such as privacy and security, should be protected. The best government role to accomplish this is to provide basic information about the human rights issue and make it accessible as much as possible.  Everyone should have free access to information on cyberspace.Everyone has a right to be educated and to know about human rights issues without controlling measures.

All the people taking part in cyberspace should be aware of the basic ethics and share the responsibility for the virtual society. Government should guarantee people the right to access all the information. It is the people’s role to enlighten themselves and others in order to keep cyberspace a fair and productive space.   

Week 6 reading reflection

“. . .each pursuing his own best interest in a society . . .  believes in the freedom of the commons. Freedom in a commons brings ruin to all.” Should we simply apply Harding’s rather pessimistic claim about the idea that we are all selfish beings, to the internet world?  The internet exists as a free virtual world so far in that there is no unified authority to control and enforce people’s behavior. In my point of view, freedom is the driving force that has propelled the internet to its present state. I think freedom is the core philosophy of the internet and that each person using the internet should be able to pursue his own best interest in society. We should preserve the freedom and self-government of the internet world.Looking into today’s cyberspace, it seems to be more and more chaotic than in its initial days. Fraud, using false identities, and providing false information are some of  the negative result of having the least amount of control in cyberspace. However, if a governing body existed and controlled cyberspace, the internet would not have developed at this amazing pace. Cyberspace was built and developed by creative , inventive, forward looking people.One good example of a great idea on the web is Wikipedia. It established an ideal self-organized structure. People bring their knowledge to the site, differing points of view exist so arguments occur, people dispute the issues, and a standard definition is determined. The governing body offers the basic frame work for the flow of information, but they never complete the argument. I think this is one of the ideal solutions for organization in cyberspace.

Of course, most of the situations never proceed like this. In many BBS or Social networking sites, people lie, argue, and slander.  Freedom is a double-edged sword. It always attracts certain evil. However, I assume that the beneficial voices will also disappear if we try to control the cyberspace to expel fictitious or negative ones. Freedom is a precious right for cyberspace where people can work to improve the community voluntarily.

Questions

1, Cyberspace is virtually infinite. Can we consider Harding’s opinion as a
concern in the Internet?

2, Should we try to govern the cyberspace more strictly to improve it? Or
should we leave it as is?

A tool for democracy, a reading reflection of Communities in Cyberspace

I was so impressed by the story about the city of Wilmington, North Carolina.The residents of the area were supposed to work with the housing authority to develop a plan for the downtown redevelopment.  However, they were not satisfied with the information the housing authority provided, so they asked for relief on the Internet. Many experts such as architects and lawyers in cyberspace provided them with the knowledge of how to deal with the authority and led them to successful negotiations. This story suggests the ideal state and uses of cyberspace.As the authors mentioned in the article, cyberspace offers a kind of parallel society to the real world. In that, people in different races, social status, and occupations anonymously interplay and create cyber communities. Everyone who has access to the internet can ask help with solutions from any region of the world. In the last six years since this article was written, we have witnessed many cases where people in cyber space have united, and by sharing critical information, have successfully
stopped the excessive behavior of some large corporations.such as the Nike, sweat shop incident. Many examples are found in Gilmore’s article, “The Gates Come Down”, that we read last week.Kollock and Smith wrote, “The Internet is used as a tool for change in a disadvantaged community, demonstrating a way to route around unhelpful government agencies to find people with information and expertise that they are willing to share.” The Wilmington case, or Senator Strom Thurmond case
that was introduced in the article shows that the cyberspace we live in as well as our real life, is heading in a more democratic, healthy direction.  It is about time for us to spread the access to the cyber community to the third world where people suffer from poverty, disease, and inhumane acts. We should establish a direct hot line to the world for those who can not rely on their governments, by expanding cyberspace access to those countries.Questions

1, What are the downsides and upsides for anonymity of cyber community?

 2, Would an attempt to control on cyber community to expel fake information not discourage people from stating their opinions or sharing their information?

Bloggers, modern partisan in capitalism

The thriving of Weblogs is rattling conventional media. Media giants such as the three major networks and newspapers have many downsides due to their enormity. The episode concerning Trent Lott is a symbolic example. Bloggers all over the nation exposed Thurmond’s racist past which major media was reluctant to reveal. In a sense, existing media is a part of authority in society. It is inevitable for media giants to be influenced by the government to some degree. New trends of the Internet, including weblogs a variety of people, penetrate the rigid media structure. Bloggers today are, shall we say, a partisan of media world.

Gillmore introduced several interesting cases where bloggers drag up the facts, something that would not have happened before the Internet. The story about the bogus advertisement by Microsoft is a typical one. Staged advertisements like this must were probably very common in the past and went unnoticed. This is because the people who could have exposed sneaky marketing schemes like these simply had no place to make their findings public. Nowadays, corporations committing delusive acts is easily spread through weblogs and BBS.  It is truly a beauty of the Internet era.

Gillmore also points out the drawbacks of this new citizen power. The liberty that allows everyone speaks up, of course, brings up turmoil too. Libel, fake information and fraud will occur some of the time when no one is accountable.  Especially, Gilmore points out, attacks on journalists. As he describes, arguments among people on the Internet are not always productive. Sometimes dialogue exists as only paranoid persoanl hysteria. Gillmore admits that this is a necessary evil in order to retain a healthy Internet democracy. Questions

What will journalist’s roll be when so many insiders are providing valuable information?

To protect people from privacy invasion and libel, do we have to revise the current laws?

There is so much false information on the internet that is created only to make people disconcerted.  Should we or the authorities do something to control them?  Or, should we just overlook them to retain liberty in this new medium?

Draft proposal

New Technologies such as Tivo, and Apple TV, have changed television viewer’s  habits. The viewers no longer have to sit in front of the television set, or to set a timer to record a program on their VCR. Now, viewers can watch any program at anytime. Ten years ago, people had to schedule their time in front of the television if they wanted to watch a popular television series that everyone was talking about because there is no way to watch episodes viewers missed until they came out on DVD after the season was completed. Today, people have many options. For instance, they can watch the first episode of  “Heroes” on NBC’s home page. They can tune into their favorite show at their convenience.   This has changed people’s viewing habits. Kids today can watch television on their PC screen in their bedrooms. There will be no need to zap the remote to search for something interesting. On the other hand, the use of these new devises could be crucial to the future of the traditional television industry.  

Past

:In the 90’s, before the internet and Tivo came into existence, television stations enjoyed a striking level of prosperity because of healthy revenue from the ads. Present:

Present 

Television viewership is at a record low. In April, 2007, NBC set a record for the lowest viewer rating in the past twenty years. This is the least popular season for CBS’s　“Survivor”. The live audience of ABC’s “Lost” has become nearly half. This dramatic decline is attributed to “the habit of watching television”. According to Nielsen research, 17% of homes now use digital video recorders. In the Nielson rating system, they only count live viewer and those 17% with recorders are ignored. The more popular a show is, the higher the advertising fee can be.  

Future:

Television has made profit based on how many people watch a program at its regular time.  That idea is becoming obsolete. What is going to happen? How will the broadcast companies survive with dwindling resources?   What is the point of programming, if people can access any program at anytime? I will research what strategies the three major networks have developed and try to envision the future of the industry. 

* To my peer, I am going to explain to Kathy that I did not post this on time. So do not worry if you did not comment on Tue.  

Reading Reflection 4

Victorian Internet  Victorian Internet is surely a fascinating, thrilling book, about the telegraph that is full of anecdotes that inspired me. It is natural to overlap the turmoil the introduction of telegraph created and that of the dawn of the Internet. Standage says that the telegraph is the origin of the internet. This is a very persuasive conclusion. However, I have to say that he overlooked an important aspect of the Internet. The Internet is a huge memory storage of the intelligence of human beings, while the telegraph was just a way of communication. As Bush insisted, we were in need of organizing and sorting out the vast amount of information accumulated since the beginning of the civilization. In a sense, the internet accomplished this necessity. We already witnessed firsthand the world Bush predicted, when we tried to search citations for this class.  We can access an enormous quantity of data on hand. The internet is an infinite extension of human brain.    
Moore’s law
Christensen insists that the semi-conductor market overshooting started when the Pentium 4 was put on the market. I am still satisfied with the performance of Pentium-4 for net-surfing and Emailing even.though Intel developed Pentium D. The driving force of today’s technology is rather a result of aimless, self-directive research and engineers’ egos to accomplish the advancing technology, rather than a reflection of the people’s demand. Questions: 1,   Which version of CPU made you think it is an overshoot?
2,   How much of Bush’s vision has been accomplished today?
3,  Is there anything you are dissatisfied with today’s internet? Do you think technology    

advancement will solve it?

Reading reflection for week 3

I think that Rheingold’s 10 points are, in a sense, an interpretation of Christensen’s theory. Rheingold insists that the advantages and
disadvantages of new technologies are never distributed evenly among the population. Christensen explains this in more detailed way. 

Let’s take the early stage of the cellular phone market for example. When the “new market disruptive innovations” were introduced, those who were not satisfied with then popular car phones, high-end business people, jumped at using the cellular phone. In Christensen’s terminology, high-end businessmen are categorized as “undershot consumers”. They were those involved in business where quick communication is critical, such as media and financial businesses. Also, those high end businessmen mostly benefited by utilizing the mobile technology in the early stage, by making an immediate contact to stock brokers, or by sending a report from the scene.

Then, mobile phones spread to the “overshot customers”. Their motivation to acquire Cellular phones was rather more passive than that of people who adopted them in the initial stage. The overshot customer’s motive was mainly to catch up with the recent business or their social environment. Possessing the mobile phones was no longer a great advantage at this point in terms of business. I guess most of us, including myself, bought one at this phase.

There are still a large number of “non consumers” out there. So far, they have not been in need of the mobile environment.  They are mostly elders and impoverished people. For some of them, the propagation of mobile oriented services makes them lag behind in some aspects, such as doing business and subscribing to social services. Rheingold’s first point can be applied to this situation. “All technological change is a Faustian bargain.”

What types of non-market factors block innovation in today’s digital media environment?  The government is the biggest factor that can be a block of the market. Industry standard might come second. A couple of years ago, when I interviewed an executive of Fujitsu, he said the company was going to abandon the proprietary projects and focus on the world standard. I guess this is a right decision in terms of managing a company, but it hinders advancements of the products.
My questions are:

1, If Rheingold’s point number 1 is true, who will suffer most from today’s mobile technology? and how?

2, Who are Undershot customers in today’s mobile scene? And what function,
spec, or mobile environment are they looking for?

3, Through the U&G research, what is the most important factor for a site to
attract audiences? I made audience to plural. Is it correct? 

Term paper citation

Rappaport S(2007). Lessons from Online Practice: New advertising Models

Journal of Advertising Research. New York, 47(2) P138

Retrieved October 10,2007 from ABI/INFORM Database.

(Document ID 1288640541)

This article examines the latest situation of Tivo and its advertisement strategy. This will help me provide the basic idea of Tivo business model.