illin like a villain

Please excuse the hack nature of my posting. I’m quite ill.

Not so personal notes:

The blogosphere sure loves to see somebody tell the big networks to “f” off. I’m not allowed to swear on my blog now. Some important readers have said they don’t like my use of the bad words! I knew this would happen.

Some people are saying that the now infamous crossfire clip has been viewed more times online then during the airing of the show on CNN. I’m not sure if that’s true but its quite interesting to think about. More people watched a CNN segment on the internet then actually watched it live on CNN. Jeff Jarvis’ is pickin up what I’m puttin down. Smokin what I’m rollin or any there clever saying courtesy of my brother. Jarvis suggests CNN (and everyone else) make all of their news/content available for download after it airs. Then monitor what is being downloaded the most and offer some sort of “metadata” based system of what is most watched etc… Just like yahoo and Google’s algorithms do for online news. Tap into the “edgy”/”extreme” pulse of the “internet” and recycle the zeitgeist.*

My problem with this whole idea is that what people want to see and what is newsworthy are very different. The most downloaded segments would be the trashiest lowest-common-denominator-ish clips. Not that CNN is a highbrow news outlet but if they started taking queues from their most downloaded clip of the moment they’d be Jerry Springer in no time. They’d never do this but nevertheless the idea is very interesting to me. You could have your pvr hooked into the cnn/whatever channel’s most downloaded segments. Then you could pick and choose what infotainment, I mean news, you’d like to see.

I’d like to think the future of television is akin to TIVO style viewing with RSS feeds to the choice content with some sort of torrent like distribution system. Put all that stuff under some clean/easy to use interface and lean-back media meets lean-forward media. Once this occurs you’ll be situated firmly in “the future”.

The pvr that I’m currently building has the ability to read rss feeds from the internet. Next step torrentocracy.

Personal notes:

I was thinking about how my head feels like its being stomped on. How does one know what a boot to face feels like? Just try playing rugby! Where am I going with this? This feeling reminded me of a George Orwell quote:

“If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face – forever.”

What if?

“If Bush steals the election again, imagine a boot stamping on a human face – for four more years.”

Link of note:

Make your thoughts on Sinclair known.

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*Yes I just wanted to use the word zeitgeist.