brewery33

In my humble opinion…

So I decided to take some of the Masters in online this weekend. While I was watching I tooled around on their site. Upon landing on the site I was not surprised by the quality of the site, I mean this is the Masters and most people at Augusta don’t even realize that money is hard to come by these days. While I began to dig deeper into the site I began to find some of the cool tools present. I decided to do a quick hit post about my experience. Let me preface that before you go any further and read my bullet points, I am not a golfer, don’t know anything about golf other than that you hit a ball into a hole, but yes I own a set of golf clubs that Mom bought me at Big 5. So here we go.

1. Pretty heavy site, loads slow.

I did a little research (I viewed the source), and found that the site is built Adobe Flash heavy. While this seems to be the standard for most sites that carry, pardon the pun, flashy animations, it is a resource hog. Plus the iPad owners might have a problem with the viewing, and in my opinion, a perfect use for the iPad. I am not rich so I don’t have an iPad, so my iPad problem is based solely on speculation.

2. Great easy to find statistics

Since the sole reason that I even tuned into the Masters was to see how Stockton’s own Ricky Barnes was faring against the best in world, the ability to easily search the players was much appreciated. I enjoyed that it was kind of real time stats as the current hole was displayed in the player profile along with position and total score (Masters site calls it status).

3. Why only video on two holes

In this day and age and the fact that the members of the Augusta National Country Club have the ability to pay off the national debt and still have money left over, why in hell didn’t they mic and camera every hole. Why be so presumptuous that I would only like to watch holes 15 and 16? Why not give me the option to follow my favorite player? Not only would this be a quantifiable way for the PGA to measure the popularity of the players American Idol style, but it would provide a viewing experience that is individual to each person. The possibility in this notion alone stands to change the sports viewing game. Maybe some big wig will read my stupid writing and bitch slap some of the board members at Augusta, telling them to loosen their grip on the money they love so much and create a user experience that they can sell to every other sport on the planet. You heard it here first, so I am officially taking credit for this idea, because trust me it will happen.

4. All the tools in the Watch Live video server did not work

When I landed on the Watch Live video player and noticed some tools present to customize my experience, I got excited. Then I tried to use them. Yea, they didn’t work. First, I already mentioned the video fascism of only allowing me view holes 15 and 16, but the Hole and Player button didn’t even work. It brought down a container that housed some information about 15 and 16, but I could only view whatever hole Firethorn is. I would have liked to be able to view any hole. That alone would have allowed me follow my favorite golfer through the entire course. The leaderboard button didn’t even work. I liked the picture in picture, but again the elitism of Augusta National permeated the tool as it only allowed for you see what they wanted you to see (Featured Group, Interview(which never worked for me), Holes 15 and 16, and the Amen Corner(Some sort of church reference? WTF)

5. The Masters web coverage is the evolutionary equivalent of Homo Habilis’ use of tools

This is the most diverse sports, if you consider golf a sport, coverage yet. What do I mean? The customization of the viewers experience is driving the broadcasting industry to toy with new technology. Apply this technology to another sport. Could you imagine watching a baseball game and being able to watch inside the dugout, or maybe go to the bullpen cam? What about a penalty box cam in a hockey game to see how bad a dude got messed up during a fight? This is a perfect fit for NASCAR, as the fan could follow the transmissions of their favorite driver. Too bad NASCAR fans think computers are some government conspiracy to become a socialist nation. The work the Masters started during this year’s telecast is only the beginning. I predict that as time goes on, the experience is going to distill into a personalized viewing event for all sports.

I will end with a standing ovation for the Masters. I applaud the innovation, but will nudge my neighbor and say that we still have a long way to go. With the introduction of personal web surfing devices that are pleasurable to look at (iPad reference), the game is changing. I can’t wait to see what MLB will do with the World Series, the NFL with the Super Bowl, the NCAA with March Madness (which by the way killed with this year’s March Madness web coverage), NASCAR with whatever they do with their car races, and the NBA with the Finals.

Mom always said to be nice to the smart kids. Now I know why. Nerds are slowly taking over the way we watch sports.

With a little help from my friends

I have been at an odds with the @recordnet’s decision to paywall their content. My initial reaction was that they were basically slitting their throat. As the notion of charging for content has fermented in my mind a while, I think that the decision is not far from the solution. Definitely not anywhere close, but closer to solution than to total and utter failure.

Being in business myself, I respect the ideal that a business must make money. Profits are not the only reason a business must produce a black bottom line. For instance if an organization plans any sort of future, innovation and pushing limits is essential. In order to innovate and push limits the organization must employ some pretty talented staff. Talented staff costs money. I get it.

Rather than outline the history of the newspapers presence on the web, we will just assume that if you have made it this far in the essay that you understand the newspapers are charging for previously free content. If you are not aware of that, let me Google that for you.

Enter the paywall. A blogging colleague by geographic area, stated some pretty good criticism of the new fangled business plan that the Record was embarking upon. @slickDiaz noted that if we are supposed to pay for this content, make it worth our while by offering some dynamic content such as podcasts, video, and supporting documents, just to name a few. I have a whole long winded opinion that addresses this approach, but since people like to read 500ish words, I will practice brevity and speak on it another day.

What if we allowed people that are paying customers, to share the article with their friends by providing a link to the paying customer. This special link would end with a number that a script on the referenced page recognizes and allows the person who followed the link access. Influence by creating a social following. I am sure through scripting this could all be possible and traceable to analyze what type of content is popular, by digital word of mouth. Yes there will probably be some sort of hack that will generate scripts to allow common journalism thieves to view the documents without receiving a link from a subscriber, but I don’t think that I would worry so much about people pirating my writing, because at least they are receiving my news and have worked hard to get the news from my source. It is actually kind of flattering.

The notion of allowing people to share is not so crazy. Liken the concept to making a copy of an article to share with a group that you are working with, or to post on the bulletin board at work. Copyright laws are probably broken when people share writing this way, but you just reached an audience that would have otherwise never read your offering. It creates a sort of affiliance program that might encourage people that do not subscribe to the online version of the paper to realize the value of the product through a little taste, from a person that they trust. You could even leverage the power of suggestion by offering local influential bloggers a free account to offer to their readers a peek behind the paywall at the green pastures of dynamic content.

People such as myself and the rest of my generation, digest news a touch different than say our parents and grandparents. Through a completely un-scientific poll I conducted, found that the only people that have agreed to the new paywall model the Record has offered us, are the old people who probably use an aol email start their web surfing by reading the news at Yahoo!, and think that an email client is someone that I sell things to. In my opinion it is time to upgrade your news criers from the kid on the corner and the creepy guy that hangs out in front of the grocery store to the revolutionary idea of social sales.

If anything, the managing staff at the Record could allow this notion access onto the agenda of whatever meeting that whatever board of executives deal with the online subscription department. At that point they can realize that I don’t know what I am talking about and continue down the path of alienating their audience.

Where is the conversation?

First and foremost, a shout to my fellow blogging gang homey, @slickdiaz, who shouted out the brewery33 voice over on his turf. He fights the good fight of intellectualism while staying fresh with brevity. If I am giving props to one of the Stockton peeps then I can’t leave out the one and only @podcaststockton. Matt puts an actual voice to the plight of “most miserable” City in the United States and shows you that you can’t believe everything you read (especially anything here). If you are interested in either one of these guys I have placed some links over on the right hand side of the blog for you enlighten your Stockton mind. .

And now the news………..

Amongst all of the hubbub surrounding the latest uprising of the 6 people in Stockton that use social media, I have tried to find clarity within the questions of new media tactics implemented by our public sector. Of course, me being the geek that I am, I would love to see them make use of this brand new and shiny technology that currently is the object of my desire, besides my wife and daughter naturally. Just look at the success that I have realized within the space, I can now “talk” to 6 other techno-weenies just like myself and we can go on and on about the latest client application’s strengths and weaknesses.

I hope that my sarcasm present in the above text has jumped off the page and punched you out. I have been told to successfully use sarcasm in text form is the mark of a master. Since I am only a hack blogger, I must make you aware of my futile attempts at using the advanced literary tool.

I think that it is in the best interest of the establishment to at least attempt to create a conversation regarding the new media issue. That is all this whole thing we call the social web, or web 2.0, or new media, is, a conversation. We have evolved from the static web of the ‘90’s to the interactive web of today. Our browsing habits are changing as information is aggregated. Gone are the days of copy and pasting links to yourself in emails to read it later, now we can bookmark. Remember when you used to have check in on a site every day to see if your favorite portal posted any new nugget of information that you could then ravenously consume? Yep that is gone too with the advent of RSS.

The means of communication are in the midst of an awkward growth spurt that is akin the adolescent male battle with puberty. The change is discomfited. We are uneasy. We don’t understand why we are growing hair in strange spots. OK, except for that last descriptor, the similarities are uncanny. But think of this, the State of California thinks that the pubescent changes that your body experiences are so confusing that curriculum has been conceived to educate our grammar and middle school brood. So why do we shy away from the use or implementation of the uncomfortable yet inevitable change in transmission of information.

The implementation of this new dimension of discourse that is available to our communities can only heighten the awareness of our issues. This use of the shiny new technological toy can only be useful upon educating ourselves about the capabilities and limitations of the medium. In order to educate a community of people regarding the power of new conversation, is to do just that converse. Along with that conversation we should do a little experimentation.

I don’t claim to have the answer to the quandary, but I will say that I have at least recognized that there is opportunity to be realized. Another thing, if I decided that my way was right, wouldn’t that be the antithesis of my concern? I invite the critics. I want to hear the concerns surrounding this nary talked about issue.

So I invite all the Stockton Tweeps to blog, tweet, hell if you want to get out from in front that 22” widescreen monitor and talk to some actual people then have at it. Stockton has the potential to lead a informational revolution, as we are one of the most diverse cities in the good old US of A. What if we had an actual intelligent conversation regarding the use of new media?

Excuse the curt ending to this post, as my mind was just blown.