The phrase “the last mile is the longest” must have come from the publishing industry. The manuscript of my book on the facts and trends in digital media has been there at that 90% complete level for a while, and the last 10% is taking much longer time. The book is titled: “The Death of Mass Media”….describing how mainstream media will morph into a large aggregation of individual media publishers via blogs etc. More about it in the coming days.
I am thankful to all those who have given suggestions and pointed out assumptions which needed some more text behind them. The support from the team at BookSurge has been great.
So in the next few weeks, the book should finally go out for publication, and this the place where the feedback will arrive. I wanted the book to also have a blog along with it, so the discusion of all things – good and bad- will happen here. Lets be ready for many critics who will point out various flaws. But that’s okay and welcome. It gives one more chance to answer their doubts! Continue reading →
March 13, 2007: Viacom serves Google and YouTube with a $1 billion federal lawsuit for disregard of intellectual property laws. Viacom claims that over 150,000 clips of its content are on YouTube and have been watched 1.5 bn times.
What if many of these same people were also Viacom’s customers? Is Viacom also suing its customers for straying away? This debate was expected to happen anyway, and it has started off now.
The stakes are high, and in the ring are two of the top players from old media and new media, both with deep pockets and lots of resources, but only one of them has the support of its users. Google. But does that count at all? Well, it depends on the numbers who come forward to speak and the facts and arguments we present. Continue reading →
Last week presented an opportunity to conduct an career workshop for young professionals just out of university and working for less then 3 years. It has been an interest for me and it feels good to help out some people whenever time permits.
Some of them were not satisfied with their job but could not see any alternatives. And some wanted to know how to discuss with prospective employers. One thing came out clearly again, for the Nth time… those who were enjoying their job were producing the best results, and also winning recognition/awards alongside….and equally capable guys but who were not really motivated by that particular work (and they expressed this clearly)….were ranked average and received. Continue reading →
Michael Dell reclaims Dell CEO throne, Dell 2.0 begins by ZDNet’s Larry Dignan — Michael Dell is CEO again of his namesake company. Kevin Rollins is out. Why? The company is going to have another earnings miss. Dell said it “expects its fourth quarter fiscal year 2007 results to be below the average of First Call estimates for both revenue and earnings per share.” According to Thomson Financial, Dell is projected to report fourth quarter revenue of $15.3 billion and earnings of 32 cents a share. For the year, Dell is expected to report revenue of $58 billion and earnings of $1.17 a share.
Dell’s biggest issue is that its manufacturing prowess isn’t the edge it used to be. And Dell doesn’t spend enough on research and development to truly innovate. As a result, Dell is mired in a commodity hardware game. That game plan was fine when rivals were inefficient, but HP can now squeeze Dell on price. What should Dell do? That’s the topic for a subsequent post on this blog.
As we rapidly consume days of this new year, and the time available reduces for many of the plans made for 2007, here’s a quote from from W.H. Murray:
“Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative and creation, there is one elementary truth the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in ones favor all manner of unforeseen incidents, meetings and material assistance which no man could have dreamed would have come his way. I have learned a deep respect for one of Von Goethe’s couplets: ‘Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it! Boldness has genius, magic, and power in it.'”