Will MySpace Disrupt Television? 146
newsblaze writes "In the Media space, the internet has been threatening to be a highly disruptive technology for some time now. So far it has done quite a number on newspapers, who still don't understand the internet. There are a lot of people who like to have the paper in their hands, though, so newspapers are holding on. Television has no such ties to a physical medium. When Murdoch bought Myspace, I wondered how long it would be before he either found something to do with it — or gave up. Now it seems Murdoch has found a way to leverage his position, and put a massive squeeze on television. How far can he take this — and what will be the result?"
There's nothing worth watching on TV. (Score:5, Insightful)
Will Myspace Disrupt Television (Score:3, Funny)
So MySpace will disrupt television then.
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TV is killing itself. MySpace has little to do with it, it just happens to be around.
Re:There's nothing worth watching on TV. (Score:5, Funny)
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There just isn't that many good things on and they repeat the hell of what is. Even the news repeats the hell out of things. You find stories on the one interesting item all week if not all m
Re:There's nothing worth watching on TV. (Score:5, Informative)
By and large however, TV is really no longer a way I spend a lot of my time. I really, really enjoy the lack of advertising bombarding me in my life.
Just my 2 cents.
Re:There's nothing worth watching on TV. (Score:5, Insightful)
Or you could just spend all the former TV time playing WoW.
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Now I spend enough money on Magic: The Gathering that I could probably afford cable with a few extra programming packages besides
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Right on. I haven't owned a television in I believe 6.5 years now. I also rarely rent or go to movies.
I usually scan through and watch some of the high rated YouTube videos in the evening. Some of those are short clips from television, yes, but I couldn't imagine watching the entire program just for those few moments of humor; I'll let someone else filter out the cruft for me. And it's always on my schedule. If I can't get it when I want it, not in
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I believe the tv rules were similar to radio. IIRC, years ago at license renenwal time stations would commit to a certain amount of public affairs programming and a maximum hourly number of minutes of advertising.
The advertising cap didn't apply two weeks of the year. Typically stations would run more during the December holiday period, and in election years right before an election.
It didn't really occur to
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The stream is a plain old wmv9 and can be played with MPlayer. And everything that can be played with MPlayer can be *ripped* with MPlayer...
I'd like to see some full-time TV-to-Internet repeaters fire up around the world, it'll be interesting. xD
-uso.
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People giving up TV (or just cable) and deciding they actually like its absence is nothing new and existed well before anyone could claim the Internet was killing it off.
And as for "lack of advertising bombarding" you, I'm guessing thats only because you have a good ad blocked installed in your browser. Well, if you have a PVR, you can skip ads on TV as well. And there are plenty of ads online, and as ad blockers become more and more common, advertisers are going to become more and more creative and ef
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(I only use it to watch C-SPAN!)
Re:Even so... (Score:2)
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You are telling this to the guy who built his considerable empire using computers to rip the guts out of the old fleet street printing industry? The guy who has Bush kissing one cheek of his arse and Blair kissing the other while Clinton gives him a blow job? Rupert only ever buys something if it can serve him financially or politically, if myspace fails to deliver the "next generation" he will kill it.
"Traditional media just can't compete."
I don't think he ca
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I have no interest in MySpace except for the fact it is a very succesfull site, as for YouTube there are only so many ways you can watch someone have mentos coming out of their nose before it becomes as boring as dog-shit, this [youtube.com] is the kind of s
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Maybe not your page, but Kiefer's rocks (Score:2)
Yeah, I think more of THAT could disrupt TV. Not your stinking, Javascript-laden, Flash-blasting, Emo shrine. But Kiefer's rocks!
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That's why I add to it with my daily blogging
And also why I started The Teleban [abandonedstuff.com].
Too much honor for Murderock. (Score:1, Offtopic)
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newsblaze? (Score:1, Informative)
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Please, for the love of $DEITY, don't let people who can't speak English write articles.
Here, I summarized the article (Score:2)
Hope that helps.
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'The Bigger Picture' (Score:5, Funny)
I'd say myspace has already disrupted television and will continue to do so, since a large portion of hours of television watched are these kids who are now using myspace.
Comparing the two, it's hard to say which is worse. Customizing your myspace and/or writing in a blog can help one practice essential computer savvy and writing skills, whereas TV has the benefit of not being plagued with emos.
It also could be argued that myspace 'comments'--which take up most of the average myspace user's time--actually diminish writing skills and intelligence (seriously, read somebody's comments; anybody).
Now if you'll excuse me, I have to comb my hair over my forehead at an angle and take subtly sad photos of myself from a downward angle and blog about how 'indy rock' (emo) is 'the only joy in my desilate, sole-crushing, nitemarish, interminible, bleak, black, life.' [sic.]
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"Indy Rock" technically means ANY music from the 'Rock' super-genre that is signed to a label not directly owned by the handful of big record companies.
I know a great assortment of emos, and trust me, they all call their 'screamo' and slow, sensitive cry-baby emo rock 'indie' (indy). This is sometimes even contrary to the publisher of the music; somet
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Indie Rock (Score:2, Informative)
While I agree the term 'indie' started from there, it's evolved to something different, and is closer to the term 'underground' than anything else. In musical terms (as opposed to film, in which the term indie has also changed over time) 'Indie Rock' is really an umbrella term (comparable to 'Electronica') that encompasses a variety of sub-genres such as l
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Fixed that for you (Score:5, Funny)
I'd say Slashdot has already disrupted television and will continue to do so, since a large portion of hours of television watched are these dorks who are now using Slashdot.
Comparing the two, it's hard to say which is worse. Customizing your Slashdot homepage and/or writing in a blog can help one practice essential computer savvy and writing skills, whereas TV has the benefit of not being plagued with nerds.
It also could be argued that Slashdot 'comments'--which take up most of the average Slashdot user's time--actually diminish writing skills and intelligence (seriously, read somebody's comments; anybody).
Now if you'll excuse me, I have to comb my hair over my forehead at an angle and take subtly sad photos of myself from a downward angle and blog about how 'Linux' (gnu) is 'the only joy in my desilate, sole-crushing, nitemarish, interminible, bleak, black, life.' [sic.]
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It also could be argued that Slashdot 'comments'--which take up most of the average Slashdot user's time--actually diminish writing skills and intelligence (seriously, read somebody's comments; anybody).
Could be worse. The comments on Digg are so moronic, other peoples' stupidity can cause passive damage to your own brain cells.
This has been proven in "OMG!!!! The coolest article EVER! You must see this!!!!!1111" [digg.com]
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Recently, they've been trying to figure out how to survey other entertainment forms as well due to the fact that they chip away at TV's expense.
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I would think that polling digital cable/satellite boxe
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Customizing your myspace and/or writing in a blog can help one practice essential computer savvy and writing skills
Customizing your myspace makes you computer savvy? Dude, if you have a myspace account that you're serious about, you're probably not computer savvy at all. Or something. And here I was, thinking that finding heap overflows in OS libraries and rooting the occasional federal government web-server was a good way to stay "computer savvy".
*sits on bed and cries*
I never thought I'd say this, but... (Score:4, Funny)
The linked article actually has worse editing than the slashdot summary. What is the world coming to?
I suppose asking the slashdot editors to link to high quality writeups is a little far-fetched, so I won't even bother.
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So what was wrong it then?
The last paragraphs. Entirely composed of sentence fragments. Random words. Sucked.
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What's really funny is that I read the article for the bad spelling and poor grammar and I was surprised to see none. Article's writing was stuccato. It lacked articles. So what was wrong it then? The last paragraphs. Entirely composed of sentence fragments. Random words. Sucked.
In other words, it was alot like a James Ellroy novel!
Okay, seriously now, the excitement and exaggerated claims on that article combined with the lack of focus and structure lead me to believe that the article was written by a high school student. Well that's the wonderful nature of the net. Everyone has their voice and we have to filter out these type of stories from interesting and well written stories. oh wait I thought that was what Slashdot was for...
Onward into the Past! (Score:5, Insightful)
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Jackie Gleason broke his leg just moments into his show, doing a little jig across the stage. It was live. He fell, just laid there, then a hand reached under the curtain from backstage, and dragged him under the curtain and out of sight of the audience. He was injured, but they did not say much about it. The rest of the show was pretty much a blank, no commercials to run, and we had to wait until the next show came on, in about 20 minutes or so. The next week, when his show returned, the
Will MySpace Disrupt Television? (Score:2, Insightful)
MySpace? Not really. (Score:4, Insightful)
If there's any real competitor to television, it's two-fold because it's on two levels: television networks (who buy/make shows) and show creators themselves (professional vs amateur).
1. It's the beginning of the end for "networks". The iTunes Store has the possibility of becoming a direct distributor between content creators and viewers/listeners. No need to pay for all those crappy "channels packages". I'll even mention the stupid fact that you're forced to get the "basic package" just so you can pay for the "extra packages" from which you only want two or three channels out of eight. It would also prevent networks from killing shows. The best example is the near-death of Family Guy, which Fox had neglected so much at the beginning that it's almost a miracle it survived. It would also prevent networks from continuing to poor cash into long-dead series like The Simpsons. Yes, Homer is funny, but let's get real, they're nearly two decades old now. We get a good episode for every ten crappy ones.
2. YouTube. Given that Google now control YouTube, and via such partnerships such as putting YouTube on the iPhone and the AppleTV, allows regular people to reach other people quite easily and (more importantly) beyond computer-only access. And now that YouTube is switching to H.264, the only thing preventing others to do the same thing as Apple is access rights to YouTube's servers.
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sorry.
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I don't think of MySpace has a competitor to anything. Of course, all I know about MySpace is that's it's for personal blogs and such. It's only used by people who want to put their lives on the web, and mostly teens. Then again I've never even visited myspace.com, so what do I know.
You really ought to learn about something before pontificating in public about it.
Just myself, I've found 3 new-to-me musicians and downloaded their music from myspace.
While myspace has all those boring blogs on it, it has also managed to become a central location for all kinds of artists. Musicians, painters, even music/movie/book/etc publishers who aren't otherwise part of the murdoch empire, have made myspace pages central to their online presence.
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That's why I said "I don't think", "all I know" and especially "then again I've never even visited myspace.com, so what do I know."
And your comment only re-enforces what I thought: MySpace is only blogs and stuff. It doesn't matter if there's talented people putting their work online, it's still only blogs. I'm not gonna watch their stuff sitting in front of a fucking computer screen.
Sorry about the "fucking computer screen",
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I have a few friends who use MySpace because they think it is or makes them cool or something. These are people who
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There may be a lot of artists or whatever on there, but there certainly aren't many goddamn web designers. At least none that I'd ever hired for anything.
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That's why I said "I don't think", "all I know" and especially "then again I've never even visited myspace.com, so what do I know."
Which was precisely my point - if you know enough to say that you don't know WTF you are talking about, why are you talking in the first place?
And your comment only re-enforces what I thought: MySpace is only blogs and stuff. It doesn't matter if there's talented people putting their work online, it's still only blogs.
You only hear what you want to. If these are [myspace.com] just [myspace.com] blogs [myspace.com] then so are http://www.mgm.com/ [mgm.com] and http://www.fox.com/ [fox.com] and most other 'corporate' media sites.
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As for MGM and Fox, it's called websites, not blogs.
Geeze.
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Having an opinion requires you at least know something about the subject.
neither are the myspace pages for Film Movement, M.I.A., nor Twisted Records.
MySpace? Ya really. (Score:2)
Of course, all I know about MySpace is that's it's for personal blogs and such. It's only used by people who want to put their lives on the web, and mostly teens. Then again I've never even visited myspace.com, so what do I know.
I go to mySpace for bands: They put samples and tour dates.
Here, do you like horror punk and/or psychobilly? Then enjoy Zombina and the Skeletones! [myspace.com]
And I found these guys through Guitar Hero: Freezepop [myspace.com] (stream only, no sample free MP3s).
MTV is dead, long live MySpace!
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Check out the DownloadHelper extension for firefox.
I use it on myspace, youtube, etc. Very easy to use.
The other band, who has a wider distribution channel, doesn't offer them to non-hackers.
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Interesting take... (Score:4, Insightful)
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Question: Which of the following are properly formed sentences?
"Unlike traditional stations on air, this time jumping right to online shows."
"Of course provided the shows are any goo
What else does he bring? (Score:2)
The current state of Myspace doe
Remember Steve Case? (Score:2)
Nah. The same organization owning a big Internet site and a big content source isn't new. That's what the famous AOL/TimeWarner merger was all about ten or so years ago. Remember how well that worked out?
I question what he'll really be able to do with it.
Yeah, I would too. This sounds more like dangerous overreach than the Rly Kewl Synergy the breathless teenybopper article suggests
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Wrong question... (Score:2)
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The distribution folks get your money either way. (Score:2)
Well, you're either downloading that over cable modem, or you're downloading it over DSL. You're watching TV over the airwaves, over cable, or (increasingly) over DSL. You're paying for it either way... and they will without question adjust the relative costs of data and video over broadband to match demand and usage.
All they need to do is to get the advertising back in, by
Re:The distribution folks get your money either wa (Score:2)
Thanks a lot. Now I'm all depressed again.
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Huh? (Score:3, Funny)
What? I thought this was the ultimate spot for 14 year olds to put up useless crap on the net.
And great, "my so called life" and something else is going to be played via myspace. Wow, taking over the world 10 years behind at a time.
Television? What's that? (Score:4, Insightful)
My Space (Score:2, Interesting)
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Only one thing will disrupt television (in the US) (Score:5, Insightful)
Right now, we have cable and satellite for TV, and for Internet, for am majority of households and businesses. Both solutions are antiquated, and ready to be replaced. WiFi routers have proven that small-band radio hardware can be shared in relatively small spaces. All of my neighbors have routers, and we all work well together without major issues. In large urban areas, there are more problems with routers, yes, but this is the FCC's fault for not opening up the spectrum. Imagine how well broadcast technology would work if most of the currently used broadcast spectrum was unlicensed.
The major television and radio networks are scared to death of what would happen if gigabit wireless because available in an unlicensed manner. "On-demand" would take on new meaning. Nielsen would be replaced with real-time, and accurate, statistics sold by Google Analytics or a variety of actual competitors (unlike Nielsen, who has no real competitors). Shows would make it, or break it, not just on mega-advertiser income, but also the chance to make an income based on direct viewer sponsorship (subscription), or a myriad of other income streams (AdSense, or who knows what else?).
It is the regulation of the spectrum that is killing television and radio, as free market capitalists look for new ways to get information to those who want it. PeerCasting is amazing technology, which I already use to broadcast live church sermons to communities. It works well, so much better than public "Channel 19" a week or two later. When you can PeerCast straight to your car or your portable radio, the commercial radio stations will be dead. When you can watch one of a thousand TV shows, and become a hub for 5 or 10 others to watch it, the need for huge servers and huge pipes out of a studio will be ended. But that day won't happen with the FCC mandating frequency use to what worked 20 years ago.
MySpace isn't the killer -- MySpace is just finding a way to be relevant using the tiny bit of wired connectivity they have available. Imagine a peercasted or torrented YouTube, shared by millions, anonymous, and unable to be regulated by the State. That's a future I'm ready for.
Re:Only one thing will disrupt television (in the (Score:5, Insightful)
Other regulation, like the ones of the FCC, help distribute limited resources. In the case of broadcast radio and television, the monopoly covers a section and locality of the public airwaves.In exchange for the monopoly, the business agrees to some limite. Complaining about it is like public companies complaining about the regulation of the stock market. Companies that do not want such regulation, and want to treat the companies cash like thier own private liquid accounts, can choose to be private. There is no law forcing a company public.
The boradcasters have been given a monopoly over the airwaves. They have given enough leeway in what to transmit. The only thing that has changed is that others have come in, and with much less public financing, created a competing system of content delivery. The broadcasters, coddled by years of monopoly status, are apparently unable to work in a free market. Sure they are less free than the paid station, but then they also have the only non subscription fee product. If they can't survive with the huge public subsidy of free bandwidth, then I can only assume that they are truly incompetent. No myspace isn't the killer. Softness from monopoly status is. Braodcast content is an extremely inefficient use of the bandwidth, and cannot support the bloated structure that seems to define most broadcast companies.
And who really cares if broadcaster go off the air. That should be seen as a success. Privately funded enterprises killing government subsidized monopoly. Who can be against that? With the broadcasters gone, the bandwidth can be used for something else, by entrepenuers who are willing to rent the space at auction determined market value. I must say that I do not look forward to paying for radio and television, but I also realize that it might be better that continuously hearing people bitch about how unfair the rules are. Give the airwaves back to the public. Let the market decide how to use them best in the post analog world. Even the threat of such a thing will have the whiny wussy broadcast executives going to the hill and saying how absolutely happy they are with regulation.
Demographics, Si Vous Plais? (Score:1)
TV is dead (Score:2)
Re:TV is dead (Score:4, Interesting)
Hasn't Been Anything worthwhile on TV (Score:1)
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plus it uses no power.
Aside from the solar power soaked up by the trees, the chainsaws of the loggers, the log trucks, power at the paper mill, the ink factory, the publisher, the trucks that delivered the books to the store...
As though this were the first innovation in TVLand (Score:2, Insightful)
Meaning, of course, that TV will still be around long after MySpace goes the way of Geocities and Tripod.
Murdoch Disrupts Everything (Score:3, Interesting)
Using the UK Freedom of Information act, it has recently emerged that Tony Blair had 3 telephone conversations with Rupert Murdoch in the 10 days leading up to the invasion of Iraq. No doubt he wanted to know how much support he would get. War sells papers and increases viewing figures, so it would not have been a good business decision for Murdoch to oppose the war. Do you really want to sit there passively consuming Rupert Murdoch's political views, channelled though different newsreaders and outlets? We should be avoiding Murdoch's empire as much as possible. It's not healthy for so much of the media to be owned by so few people. Fortunately the net makes it easy to hunt around and find more independent outlets.
If anyone is interested, the FOI request was made by Lord Avebury and it took him a long time to get the information released.
What it has done to the news. (Score:2)
Now with many many outlets to get your news from news providers have become tabloids.
Controversy sells. Of course with all the news services available you can find one that EXACTLY fits your world view. So the news will reinforce everything you believe and challenge nothing. That also means that it will reinforce your fears.
T
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That great unbiased news service you have found on line isn't unbiased. It just shares your bias.
Bias can be a strange and nebulous thing though. For example, the practical definition of impartiality in the media seems to be relying on official sources for everything. Questioning and challenging official sources is often taken to be left-wing and biased. In fact pretty much any challenge to authority seems to be regarded that way.
Hand in hand with bias comes the artificial notion of "balance". The problem is, things very often aren't balanced in reality, so balancing them in a report becomes qui
Re:Murdoch Disrupts Everything (Score:4, Insightful)
Is there anything to actually disrupt ? (Score:2)
Doesn't make sense (Score:2)