I had never heard of Chatroulette prior to February, 2010.  I saw some tech blogs pick up a story in the New York Times that the mysterious creator of this service was a 17 year old kid in Russia.  Added to that, New York-based venture capitalist Fred Wilson offered to fly this kid to New York to meet him. There you go, like many of you, I got the back story of Chatroulette before actually using [...]

Intellectual property has been a tricky issue with the move from old media to new media.  Fan-made items, whether sci-fi fiction, t-shirts or films have existed long before the internet.  However, it has long been a sticky issue, since the copyrights and intellectual property are owned by someone other than the fan. George Lucas has long allowed fans to make their own Star Wars fan films, as can [...]

In the 1980s, the US government broke up AT&T, insisting there was a monopoly over phone services.  The big gigantic company was split into “baby bells” all over the country, mixed in with competing long distance companies like Sprint, MCI and AT&T. As we hit a new decade, those companies have merged and merged, leaving us with 2 powerhouses: Verizon and AT&T.  Only one thing [...]

As a fan, I am upset that NBC’s changes to The Tonight Show ended with Conan O’Brien leaving the network, and Jay Leno returning.  I replaced my personal Facebook photo with the “Team Coco” picture. That being said, NBC made the right move this time, with Jay Leno. As I previously mentioned in my post about the success of CBS, television is a legacy business.  In the world [...]

Welcome. You’ve got mail. Goodbye. Today, AOL officially spins off from TimeWarner as an independent company, the last remnant of a merger originally announced in 2000, where the company was briefly known as AOL Time Warner.  AOL had 30 million subscribers at its peek, when they were the leader in online access. Here is a brief history of AOL, known at its peak as America Online. 1980s: Control [...]

One of my dreams growing up was to buy a TV station.  One of the over the air variety.  The power for a select few to reach and connect with millions was something I desired.  And I’m sure I was not alone. Now, comes news that Comcast, one of the largest and richest cable television and broadband providers in the US is a player to purchase and contol NBC Universal.  This is quite disturbing [...]

Many complain that the auto industry is being unethical keeping their business model alive. They keep on making and selling vehicles which rely on petroleum-based gasoline, even though cleaner, more efficient options do exist including electric-powered cars. Why am I discussing this in a blog about the creation, distribution and interaction of content? There is one large, major media company which [...]

Last month, Chris Brogan and Julien Smith published a book called Trust Agents. Being a fan of Brogan, one of my social media heroes, I bought the book the day it came out, and was amazed by it. The book outlines a personality called a “trust agent”, a person that influences many, although you may have never met them personally. Social media gives anyone with computer access to thousands of people [...]

There is one man who seems to be invisible from any controversy, or at least when you search for his name on Google.  His name?  Gary Vaynerchuk, social media icon and the star of Wine Library TV. Gary’s success is completely deserved.  An immigrant from the former U.S.S.R. republic now known as Belarus, he uses social media, centered around a daily video show, to transform his family’s wine [...]

On Monday in Washington, The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) unveiled some details into the definition and enforcement of Net Neutrality.  Net Neutrality, as famously mentioned in Amanda Congdon’s final episode of Rocketboom, is the idea that an internet provider cannot block certain websites, but allow others.  This model is the opposite of how the cable industry works, with priority placement [...]