Today Hulu’s CEO said that they are not a Cable killer, but I’m not so sure. It’s not hard to do the math on watching all of your favorite shows on demand for $10/month vs a ton of channels/content that you don’t watch for $100.
I REALLY wish they had this in Canada. One day?
“For $9.99 per month, subscribers will be able to watch their favorite shows — including those from seasons past — on a multitude of internet-connected devices. Mobile devices are a go, with iOS devices including the iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, iPad, and iPod touch (3rd generation) being the main attraction at this point in time. The best part as far as mobile is concerned is that streaming will work on both Wi-Fi and 3G networks.”
And if you’re interested Hulu has put the official release on their blog.
(via Eddy Chan via Hulu Plus gets official: $9.99 per month, supports iOS, TVs, Blu-ray players, and more « Boy Genius Report)
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Cable as we know will be obsolete in five years and regardless of Hulu’s intention, they are pioneers (alongside platforms like Netflix and Crackle) in the next generation of “television”.
Source: boygeniusreport.com
Does Commodity Status Equal Fast Food Status?
Our attention spans have become hyperactive in recent years and why not? Whatever and whomever has the best headline/pitch/slogan wins our attention -even if it’s just for ten seconds- and we have platforms that encourage this kind of promiscuous social behavior: Twitter, Facebook, Hype Machine, Digg, and everything else. But when does this become too much?
I subscribe to a number of RSS feeds through Google Reader and I’ll admit that sometimes I don’t want to take the time to read every post because 1) I’ve become conditioned to multi-tasking and “productivity”, and 2) There are usually a TON of updates to go through because so many people post little snippets five times a day. I’ve had a couple of days in the last few months where there is so much to read through that I simply hit the “Mark All As Read” button -comparable to committing email bankruptcy. I recently opened up the “Trends” section in my reader and noticed that it tracks not only how often and specifically when the blogs you read update, but it also tracks when, how often, and how much of each blog you actually read. A lot of the low-scoring blogs for me belong to writers that post too much -either too many little snippets on a daily basis or too many epically sized posts in the course of a day or week. Too much and too often = burnout.
This has happened not just with blogs, but also with Twitter, with music, with everything. The TED conference and it’s many, many TEDx spin-offs are a prime example of over-saturation. While I will not disagree that TED has inspired conversation and perhaps a grassroots movement to reconnect for positive change, I wonder about the quality of what we give and get from it now. When something becomes a commodity, does it take on fast food status?
In this age where we have become so focused on the “headline”, the idea of “less is more” has lost its integrity. Yes, we may pack a lot of punch into tiny packages that we deliver, but when we oversaturate with too many of these little anecdotes they lose their frisson.
Next Big Sound: An Interview with founder David Hoffman
Imagine if you knew the first time someone listened to a song..
This was the notion, posited by the guys behind Next Big Sound, which led what was once a seed idea in an entrepreneur class at Chicago’s Northwestern University to TechStars in 2009. After TechStars wrapped last year, the three founders -Alex White, David Hoffman, and Samir Rayani- stayed in Boulder, where they now share space with other Boulder startups like Graphic.ly and Everlater. So what exactly does Next Big Sound do? In its current form, NBS is a client-facing metrics and analytics platform for the music industry that measures activity on sixteen different social media networks for a given singer or band -or as they like to put it, “[provide] actionable intelligence for the music industry.” Last week, Hoffman and I met up in downtown Boulder to talk shop about the company that ultimately took him away from both Chicago and college prematurely.
SAL CHRIST: So, how did you and your partners meet? Did all of you meet at Northwestern or did you know one another beforehand?
DAVID HOFFMAN: The three founders, we all met at Northwestern… through weird ways, too. I’ve been working on this kind of stuff all through college. I worked at a startup my freshman year out in San Francisco over the summer. I was always doing design stuff with web stuff and was obsessed about it. I couldn’t find really good people at Northwestern to work with on this type of stuff, so Alex (White) -one of the other guys- he approached me about Next Big Sound and I was working on other projects and was like, “That’s a horrible idea!” Three or four months later, we were in a class together -an entrepreneur class. I thought it was just going to be an easy, sort of “blow it off” kind of thing. I show up and the teacher goes, “No, you’re going to work on an idea!” Alex and I were in that class together and he called me up over winter break and was like, “Hey, you want to be on my team?” There was this other guy, Samir, that Alex knew through the organization that does programming at Northwestern. Samir was the account executive of the organization. Neither of us knew that he was also a CS (Computer Science) major and the three of us got together and just ended up working really well together. We put together the first version of the site and had a business plan and people were like, “You guys should actually do this!” We decided that we were actually going to do it then.
Initially, NBS was pitched as a “build your own record label” venture along the lines of independent A&R, whereby users acted as agents and were awarded points based on who they had “signed” on their virtual label and how popular the band got. “People like to be first and people like getting credit for being first,” Hoffman says. However, as Hoffman explained, NBS ran into the issue of the chicken and the egg, in that you cannot have users without bands to listen to and yet, bands will not sign up without there being a listener/user base. With that conclusion came the serendipitous idea, “Imagine if you knew the first time someone listened to a song.”
SC: What would you say is the focus of NBS?
DH: We’re hoping to bring more clarity to marketing. Quantity of qualitative data.
SC: What’s been the biggest thing you’ve learned since moving away from the original idea?
DH: We’ve learned how to collect and visualize data.
SC: Currently you’re integrated with sixteen different social sites, including Twitter, iLike and SoundCloud. Will there ever be integration of sales tracking in terms of music acquisition?
DH: Not right now. Social data is openly available and accessible, whereas other data -such as sales information- is not.
SC: What was your experience with TechStars, in terms of idea exchange?
DH: Oh, it was great. We applied twice and got in the second time. The company was basically on its last legs. We’ve kept in touch with other TechStars and share offic space with Graphic.ly and Everlater.
SC: Would you do it again?
DH: Definitely.
SC: What do you hope NBS’s place in the music and tech fields will be in the long term?
DH: This may be lofty, but I want anytime anyone makes a decision in the music industry to consult NBS first.
SC: What do you love about startup culture and what do you hate?
DH: The best part? I love to create things… I love that the limits on things we create we don’t know! The worst part is the uncertainty. You have to have a really high tolerance for the uncertainty.
SC: Okay… on a more personal note, in terms of music… What do you miss the most about the music industry from your childhood?
DH: Hmm… It’s the thing that I miss and love about now and then… I miss the singular voice that music has for people. I don’t think music is as unifying for people as it used to be. Everyone collectively recognizing a song all at once.
SC: What was one of the most defining moments in your musical history?
DH: Probably hearing the Pixies for the first time.
SC: What’s on constant replay for you right now?
DH: Charlotte Gainsbourg, The New Pornographers, Surfer Blood, Caribou… Theophilus London.
SC: And last, but not least, what is the most exciting tech trend for you?
DH: Definitely data creation.
As someone coming from the film and performing arts industries, I wonder how NBS will affect music supervisors, producer and ad agencies. How will it impact long term projections for a music industry where more and more musicians are able to take the reins on their own marketing, their own licensing, and their own distribution? Will record labels even be relevant in ten or fifteen years? Perhaps the measuring of social actions in terms of the marketing and monetary potential of a musician will become an art, much like the art of trading in the stock market. NBS will likely remain a mainstay in that arena, as the minds behind it are focused less on their competition and more on innovation, improvement, and ultimately listening to their customers.
HB 1192 Passed - Colorado Software Tax
I have debated a bit about a proper response to Senator Mary Hodge after she replied to my email urging her to vote against HB 1192 -otherwise known as the Colorado software tax bill. The little kid in me wants to respond with very juvenile taunts and thumbing my nose at her whereas the “responsible” adult in me knows that this doesn’t solve anything. HB 1192 is a recent bill that was fast-tracked through the House & the Senate and pertains to the taxation of software and specifically, removing tax exemption status on software -downloaded software in particular. You can find it here.
Colorado is one of the lushest tech hubs in the country, in my opinion, with our darling Boulder being something of the epicenter between all of the many companies that have relocated their HQ’s here over the last decade and the tremendous amount of startup activity. I’ve been fortunate enough to be involved with a small handful of Denver startups over the last five years, including my own financially-unsuccessful production company. Startups -whether they are technology-oriented or otherwise- are insane environments to work in and you have to genuinely believe in your product or service to give so much of yourself to them. Regardless, startups encourage innovation and spark something magical for those involved with them -whether it be the actual builders or the simply the end users. Our global culture is currently in transition -moving from the tangible (e.g. print products) to the intangible (i.e. digital)- and with the digital age comes a phenomenon where we simultaneously decrease our sense of distance between countries, cultures, and civilizations and yet also decrease actual physical, in-person contact. Technology, social media, and all of the drama that is attached to these things is here to stay -these are not fads that will simply go away if we ignore them long enough. Because of this, many heavy hitters in the tech industry hear spoke out about it.
My own schtick? You want to remove tax exemptions to balance the budget? Fine. Find someone that knows how to write bill properly. Why not be specific instead of leaving the bill as vague as possible so that you can exploit the loopholes in the future? While I don’t think the prospect of taxing software is earth-shattering, I have no tolerance for intentional generalization within legal actions that will affect so many. Everyone uses software. You use it to type up your documents, to make presentations, to post your what you’re eating for breakfast on your Twitter feed. Below I have posted Senator Hodge’s personal email back to me from two days ago. Even in the email, she is not specific. She has found a way to appear specific without going into many details. My biggest problem with this? Neither the bill nor Senator Hodge state how much this tax percentage will be -not to mention the addition of tax percentages of cities & counties leveled on top of it. (CSIA touches upon this briefly, but has not posted sources for any of their information.
Thank you for taking the time to write me.
I appreciate your interest in balancing Colorado’s budget. The current
recession has created a shortfall of $1.5 billion in the state’s
roughly $8 billion budget. As you may know, in our efforts to balance
the budget over the last 12 months more than 75% of the savings has
come from cuts to existing services including the Departments of
Education, Higher Education, Corrections, Health and Human Services.
We have had to close schools, release prisoners early, and close some
of the state’s only remaining mental health facilities. Even after
all these cuts we have still not done enough to fill the hole in the
budget.
We must have a fair and evenhanded approach to keeping the budget
balanced. As one step toward this goal, we passed 9 bills that will
end or suspend some tax exemptions and save the state $130 million.
House Bill 1192, which eliminates certain software exemptions, is one
of those bills.
HB 1192 removed a tax exemption on the sale of certain software. Some
confusion existed around the kinds of software this would affect. To
clarify, there are four major categories of software:
1. Off-the-shelf software that you buy in a store: Customers currently
pay sales tax on those items (such as Microsoft windows) and will
continue to pay sales tax under this bill.
2. Purely customized software: If a software company such as Oracle
designs a software program uniquely for a business, the purchase of
that software does not currently include sales tax and will not
include sales tax under this bill.
3. Software built by a business for internal use: For example, if a
law firm’s IT department wants to build software for its own employees
to monitor billable hours, that software is not taxable now and will
not be taxable under this bill.
4. Modified off-the-shelf software (MOTS): This type of software is a
combination of off-the-shelf and modified software. In other sectors
of our tax code, an item that is partially taxable and partially tax
exempt is assumed to be wholly taxable, but previous to this
legislation, MOTS was entirely exempt. (This exemption was never
passed by the state legislature; it was put in place by an 11th hour
executive order by Governor Owens before he left office.) Under the
new bill only the part of the software that is off-the-shelf will be
taxable; the value of the modifications done to this software or the
ongoing support provided for the use of this software will not be
taxed. Finally, software that is purchased off the shelf but is
delivered to you in the form of a download rather than a store
purchase was not previously taxed. This bill creates a consistent
standard for all purchases of the off-the-shelf software so that they
are eligible for sales tax regardless of how they are delivered.
Currently, 11 other states have similar taxes on software sales, and
many, like Texas and Massachusetts, are viewed as the nation’s leading
centers for software development. Moreover, Colorado is ranked as the
4th best state in the country to do business based on its very
favorable tax climate. We know some of the reasons we have been able
to attract and grow so many software companies in Colorado include the
fact that we have a wonderful quality of life, we offer outstanding
research institutions as partners, and we provide strong public
services to make this state so livable. In order to preserve the
climate that has attracted and grown these businesses, we must make
sure we can provide the core public services of education, health
care, and corrections – the major reasons people move and stay in
Colorado. We are confident that our pro-business tax climate combined
with a very strong culture of software and technology industries in
Colorado will continue to keep us a national leader in the software
industry.
As you know, the state has already made dramatic cuts to public
services, including a proposed 260 million dollar cut to K-12
education, an 18% cut to agriculture and a 12% cut from health care.
As one step toward balancing our budget, we decided to look at the
more than 2 billion dollars of tax exemptions that the state of
Colorado currently gives to businesses. The bills we passed today
will remove around 4% of the total amount of tax exemptions that
businesses currently enjoy in Colorado, a smaller percentage than
almost all of the public sector cuts. We believe this package of
bills is part of a fiscally responsible approach that will share the
burden, protect public safety, and prevent us from making still deeper
cuts to public services that would force us to fire public school
teachers, pull funding for college students or stop payments to
Medicaid patients.
Thank you for input. Please let me know if there is anything more I can do.
Sincerely,
Mary Hodge
