Martin-Zimmerman: Not Race and not just Guns

Bill Cosby today said that the Martin-Zimmerman case is not a race issue, it’s a gun issue.  I couldn’t agree more.  It absolutely isn’t a race issue.  However, as a parent of a 17 year old boy, I see this as something beyond a simple gun issue.  It’s a machismo issue.  And when a gun is involved, that never turns out well.

Disclaimer:    I have absolutely no knowledge about this case except from what I’ve read in the press which makes me ill-informed about the details of the case, at best.

This is more than just protecting your neighborhood with a concealed weapon.  This is about letting untrained civilians, declaring themselves “security” without visible identification like a uniform, cap, badge, whatever, packing a concealed weapon (can we tell who’s being machismo now?), and wondering why he got attacked by a 17 year old boy that he was quickly coming up on in the dark, in the middle of the night, while he was on the phone (making him slightly distracted to his surroundings).

It’s like wondering why a lion will turn on you when you sneak up on them.  No duh.

I hope the prosecutors have a clinical psychologist who understands today’s teenage boys, and the psyche of a self-proclaimed, untrained security watchman, incognito and carrying a concealed weapon.  This is exactly why 911 told Zimmerman to back off.  Any trained individual would (a) immediately recognize the danger in what they were doing, and (b) would have followed the very clear instructions of the police.  And Trayvon wouldn’t be dead today.

I repeat:  and he wonders why a lion will turn on him when he sneaks up on one?

I love my son dearly, and he’s a fantastic guy.  Smart, athletic, loving.  But like a lot of 17 year olds, he’s a bit slower (than my daughter) in the emotional department.  He thinks he’s a lot tougher than he is and I’ve heard him say stupid stuff in the heat of the moment of an emotional-charged argument about trivial stuff like having to be home by a certain time.  You know, that kind of stuff that parents think is stupid but he thinks is the-end-of-the-world.  His rational brain just doesn’t work in those moments.  I hope he’s never in a situation like Martin was that night.  And thank heavens that we are not a Stand Your Ground state.

I repeat:  and Zimmerman wonders why a lion will turn on him when he sneaks up on one?

Martin was scared, and being a 17 year old boy, he may have believed that he could turn the tables on his attacker (would-be attacker in reality, but absolutely, positively an attacker in his own mind).  The threatened side of Martin kicked in and he struck.  In that nanosecond, did Martin even consider that FL is a Stand Your Ground state and that the person aggressively approaching him could possibly be carrying a concealed gun?  No.  I guess I should say, “probably not.”  But as a parent, it’s no.

Two people suffering from machismo grandeurs, one with youth and immaturity; the other, an adult with a gun.  The outcome is tragic.  And predictable.

I know nothing about the Stand Your Ground law.  But anyone who acts in a watchman or security role and carries a gun – concealed or otherwise – must be trained, trained, trained.  To allow this same situation to continue going forward should be a prosecutable, criminal offense from now on.  Trayvon Martin’s death must become a catalyst for positive change.  Not to do otherwise would be a crime against the right to justice, the right to due process of the law.  Zimmerman took away those rights from Martin when he acted as judge and jury and just shot him instead.

Breaking News: Eye Capture is Alive!

I know, I know.  We’re a start-up so I’m suppose to say, “Eye Capture is Live!” but in truth, our journey has had so many twists and turns that Eye Capture the company basically has a life of its own.

Eye Capture is a free mobile app that works like QR codes on steroids, only without the QR code, hidden codes, or any codes.  Take one capture of a magazine page, and the app shows you a page with tons of images and magazine-approved links to stuff that is directly related to that page, be they specific ecommerce links, supporting articles, a video or two or three, Facebook pages, anything – all with just one capture of a page (take THAT QR codes!).  You’re looking at a crazy hot new trendy outfit.  You want it!  Now try finding each piece.  Most of us go, “forgetaboutit!” and dream on because it’s so darn frustrating to find stuff in magazines cuz you know that they’re all different brands.  Until today.  Now image going directly to each brand’s website for each item of that great new outfit  – the dress, necklace, earrings, clutch, shoes, coat – all without having to tear out that beautiful page, search the internet or search through confusing websites.  It’s THAT easy.  It’s totally amazing.

At our core, we are all about curated content discovery with ecommerce capabilities, social, and a great user experience.  It’s all about delivering a fundamentally superior experience than any QR code app could ever do.  We work with magazines to deliver just the right content, and not where Google or Bing say you should be going.  And you can share your discoveries with your friends directly through Facebook, twitter, text messaging, and email.

We’ve launched at SXSW with The Social Media Monthly Magazine, a consumer-friendly review and analysis of the Social Media Evolution.  Please see our website for app links, getting started, and sample pages to test the app.

Eye Capture Website:

www.eyecapture.net

App page:

www.eyecapture.net/apps.html

Direct iTunes page:

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/eye-capture/id449793458?ls=1&mt=8

Try it Here:

www.eyecapture.net/try-it-here.html

Check it out and let us know what you think.  And if you have some favorite magazines that you’d like to have Eye Capturized, let us know!

The democratiziation of video

Ryan Lawler recently wrote an interesting post over on GigaOm Pro on “When video gets democratized, who wins and who loses?“  Citing newspapers as an example of how low production costs and easy distribution have democratized news content creation and distribution, and journalistic blogs have disrupted the newspaper business and most weekly news magazines.  Video production has been going through the same democratiziation with low production costs and easy and eager distribution partners like Youtube.  Video is poised to disrupt TV, especially specific types of web videos like DIYs, lifestyle shows, food and entertaining.

I completely agree with his assessments because change in TV networks will be in genres or steps and not wholesale categoriacal death as proselytized by others. We’ve seen the disruption in the time-sensitive news business (way dead), but TV and many non-news magazines are alive and well, and IMHO are poised to grow.

We’ve seen the DIY genre around for a while (e.g. 5min) without much impact so clearly there needs to be other ingredients in order to propel their audience growth and the subsequent ad or other revenues to continue production.  I believe that it’s content quality and relevance relative to the viewers needs are what’s missing. I watch the Food Network more for entertainment and inspiration, not how to bake cookies.  But if I’m making a souffle for the very first time, I need explicit instructions, visuals, and tips and would need that DIY 5min video because Giada’s highly edited segments just don’t cut it for me.  But I don’t bother to look for those videos because my odds of finding quality and relevant content is still sorely lacking.

But my overarching belief is that for the foreseeable future (5-7 years), we should be striving to increase the overall pie, rather than slice and dice it to nothing.  As mainstream TV and publishing are going digital and creating new markets that didn’t even exist a year ago, the challenge going forward for content creators is to think about how their content will be distributed, and to create the right experience by channel (web video, tablets, smartphones), and how to be discovered amongst all the noise.  I am hopeful that 2012 will be the year of discovery and curation for the overwrought consumer.

Let me know how you find things to watch!

A Winning Team at the MoboTurbo 2011 Game Hack-thon!

On Saturday, I went to my first-ever hackathon, the MoboTurbo 2011 Mobile Game Hack-thon + Conference. There are plenty of hackathons in Silicon Valley but what motivated me to join this one was that it was the first hackathon ever to be organized by two women, whom I happen to know and respect – Shirley Lin and Bess Ho – and staffed with all-women volunteers ( www.moboturbo.com).   It was being held at Color.com’s Palo Alto HQ.  And it was just the one day (hackathons are usually over a weekend), so I figured it wouldn’t be too intimidating.  I’m not a hacker, but an idea person and organizer.

And since this Hack-thon was just the one day, the focus was on existing teams and/or incomplete mobile game apps because at the end of the evening, teams pitch to a great panel of judges.

I’ve had this idea for a spelling game for the last 2 years and the time had finally come to do something about it, at the very least, to get a demo done and see it in action. Think Tap Tap meets Scrabble.  But remember, I’m the idea person, not a
coder.  Big problem.  Going into the event, Shirley (who is also a co-founder of the APWT -Asian Professional Women in Tech) told me that team formation was not the priority and to just come and check out the action and listen to some great speakers.  So I thought, ”What the heck, sounds like fun!”

MoboTurbo Hackathon 2011

The morning got off a little slowly (started at 9 am in Palo Alto, 1.5 hours from my house btw) so I introduced myself to everyone I could and pitched my idea for a mobile game.  I knew I needed a front end developer.  And at that time of the morning, there just weren’t a lot of developers, and the ones I met already had projects to work on.  I met two graphic artists and one UX expert (all females) who agreed to join my team, and we took turns peeling off to find developers.  We found two guys who were interested in the concept, but as back end developers, they had come to learn more about games and mobile apps.  Not perfect but an excellent start.  We had me, Nina-team leader; Terry-UX; Sue and Melody-graphics; Syed and Ryan-engineers.

Terry jumped right in and started with a paper prototype to test out the concept and basic game mechanics – was the idea something that could be interesting and how would it really work.  In the meantime, we moved to a bigger table and started talking as a team to figure out what we needed and who can do what.  We focused on the developers and based on the basic idea, they both dived right in to start researching turnkey programs and talking to other developers.  Sue and Melody got to work on graphic design and creating screen theme and elements.  Terry was a roving UX expert and went off to help other teams; I went off to find the roving iOS or Android experts.

Billl Nguyen

Sponsor presentations followed by a fantastic iPad app demo to teach kids how to play the guitar.  Raffle, food, coffee, coffee, coffee, donuts and soda.

Bill Nguyen, co-founder of Color.com gave his keynote speech – totally cool, followed by Gus Tai, General Partner from Trinity Ventures with how he looks at startups.  Did I mention coffee?

Gus Tai

As the hours moved on, more people were joining the event.  There must have been 14+ teams working on projects.  But we were still struggling with producing a demo.  Co-organizer, fabulous iOS coder and teacher, Bess Ho, recommended trying Garden Salad, a turn-key game dev platform since Albert Chen, Game Design & Dev college professor and Game Salad expert was coming to speak and help out.  Other developers came by to offer suggestions.  We started preparing for alternate demo methods like posterboards, flipcharts, and powerpoint.  We settled on powerpoint since we needed a pitch overview anyway.  I was worried that Syed and Ryan weren’t getting what they wanted to learn from the day but they said they were good.

3.5 hours before demo deadline, Sue brings over Rolandas, an iOS developer from Lithuania, part of a delegation who all exhibited at CTIA in San Diego.  He didn’t want to head straight back to Lithuania and came up north to experience a bit of Silicon Valley.  He definitely hit the jackpot, apparently going to a party the night before (which was why he was so late in arriving to the hackathon – as I suspect all the late comers must have been doing) and met Shirley who urged him to come on Saturday.  We meet, I explain the project, he says yes, and we’re off.  Serendipity is a wonderful thing.

We’re all watching the app development progress and giving various feedback to Rolandas, Melody is feeding graphic updates, and Terry and I are writing out the presentation points.  I can’t tell you how exciting it was for me to see this idea that I had in my head actually come alive in a live app.  Well, artificially alive since in one day, we didn’t have time to actually create the game, only to create the demo.

I messed up signing up for the pitches and we were slotted to go 7th.  It turned out that that was all that signed up so that meant we were last.  Which was probably a good thing because we were still working, including what to name this game.  Raining ABCs.  Then it was “pens down” time.

As the designated presenter, I immediately went up to the floor for a technical test of the projector.  That ruled out my PC and most everyone’s iPhone.  Our deck got loaded onto Terry’s iPad, and the demo onto Rolandas’ iPad.  That meant we’d have to switch devices in the middle of a 2 min presentation.  After watching all the other presenters, I decided to scrap the powerpoint presentation altogether.  So there was a benefit to going later.  The drawback about going last was that after 14+ hours straight, I was pretty beat.  As I sat down at the start of the pitches, I wasn’t so sure that I could stand up again, much less remember what I was suppose to say.  Oh, and the event was being streamed live on Justin.TV and there were 3,000 viewers.  No pressure.

Really great apps by either existing teams, unpublished but existing apps, two too cute 10 year old boys learning to code HTML5 and java script (they definitely won the cuteness factor), cool 3D technology with shark graphics, and maybe one other team of two people meeting up for the first time that day like us.  Oh, and all guys.

We had 7 new people meeting up that day (4 women & 3 guys), and when I thought about it, it went swimmingly well.  We all were able to come to consensus, each had important contributions, no arguments, no rudeness, people worked hard but also were able to float in and out, meet other people, chat, listen to presenters, and became really close by the end of the evening.  And that was an amazing feeling.  So it really didn’t matter to me whether we won or not because I felt we all had experienced something pretty big that day.  Besides, all the apps looked great so it’d be hard to feel badly about any of it.

Good thing I skipped the powerpoint presentation because it took some juggling to get the demo iPad showing through the projector so I started talking through the commotion.  Then the screen suddenly lit up, I shut up, Rolandas demo’d the app, and my eyes just lit up.  I looked over to the judges table and their eyes lit up as well because, well frankly, a picture may be worth a thousand words but a working demo is priceless.  A few questions and we’re off the floor.

Judges disappear, people start talking about what a great day it was – and I heard someone say, “….and there was that lady who came in with just an idea this morning, formed a team and produced a demo!”  I just had to smile a big smile.

Drum roll please.  3rd place, the 3D Shark game (cool!), in second place…. US!  OMG!!  First place, an interactive Novel created during the day using their publishing platform and pictures taken that day to create a graphic novel with a branching storyline (like the one from the movie Big starring Tom Hanks).

We’re all so excited and tired.  And 1.5 hours from home.  It’d been a great day.

Thank you team!  Thank you judges!  Thank you Color!  And BIG thank you’s to Shirley and Bess for organizing such a successful event!

Netflix’s status with users

Been several posts about Netflix’s status with Wall Street and while the stock has taken a dive, the fact that Reed Hastings was able to quickly step up and admit to a strategic mistake earned him some good will – as one journalist said, he’s still has Teflon so his mojo’s still on.

Talk about Teflon – or maybe the halo effect, SAI’s Jay Yarrow quickly dismissed that Netflix didn’t botch the rate increase communication to subscribers – everyone will complain no matter what in this down economy.  Sorry Jay, yes, there are definitely ways Netflix could have handled that announcment better.  First of all, as I said before, even though Netflix is out to trounch cable providers, be respectful of your competition; else you may become one yourself.  Over the years cable companies have taken similar beating for the way they’ve raised their rates so they plan, spin, and offer consessions to work around that rate increase, and they do it ahead of of time.

What could Netflix have done?

• be transparent with subscibers
• offer migration plans to move people over slowly to the new rates like all new customers get new rates and loyal existing customers get stepped up plans
• The point being, at least make an attempt to pretend to understand the impact this will have on your loyal customers

“Netflix Pays $1 Billion To Get Gossip Girl, And Other CW Shows For The Next 4 Years” -Oct 13.  C’mon.  With deals like these, Netflix will clearly be in the hole more quickly than they will ever admit.  When you start off being a cheap service, and move to the big tent with the big players, you’ll never be able to eek out enough blood from the proverbial turnips who are your subscribers.

On the other hand, like Steve Jobs never asked customers what they want, HBO always said that they’re a pay service, and that quality programming doesn’t come cheaply.  When HBO launched 30+ years ago, everyone balked and proclaimed that no one would pay for TV shows, but they did, and still do.  Quality original programming.  Not sure how much people will actually pay for The Gossip Girls.

Netflix is no HBO.  Netflix started from a different place and just may have a huge base of the wrong kind of subscribers to get it to long-term success.  As I’ve been saying ad nausem, the TV/Video content production/distribution ecosystem is a hecka more complex than the majority understand, and I think Reed is starting to grab a clue and panicked.

The TV-video discovery conundrum

Over the past year or so as my two kids became teenagers, two trends have been taking place in our household.  First, we have even less time to watch TV than ever before.  And secondly, I don’t have time to chat with folks about what they’re watching these days.  Offices have closed and the water cooler has been replaced with social networks.  It’s just not the same.

I started watching Wilfred because I read a great review of it in a trade journal so I trusted the source.  I’ve written before that recommendation sites based on popularity votes lose me instantly.  StumbleUpon Video does a great job of identifying my tastes to the point where I was watching every video they threw my way.  But still, I wanted to find programs that my family and I can all watch together at the regular, first-run appointed time (and Wilfred didn’t make that cut).

So far, cross promotions by networks that I tend to watch more frequently has been the only way I’ve been noticing new shows.  Although I did just walk by a bus shelter ad for Starz’ new program called The Boss with Kelsey Grammer.  I’ll probably check it out just to see what Chris Albrecht has been up to, especially after the Camelot disappointment.

Reaching out to my friends to find out how they find out about new shows turned up to be pretty much the same way:  word of mouth from people whose opinions they trust, and entertainment review magazines, meaning professional opinions.  No one had heard of the other recommendation engines like Clickr or Stumbleupon Video.

Btw, I can’t stand not being able to fast forward through commericals on long run-time programs like the X-Factor on On Demand (I’m Comcast but I would assume the network would make that demand of any cable provider).  I only want to see the highlights and forcing me to sit through long run-time pods of commercials is annoying.  So I go online to see the people I want to see and the On Demand opportunity is lost for good for all future episodes.

How do you find new stuff to watch on TV?  And are you still watching TV shows on TV or online?

Netflix’s price hike and the power of the bundle: Gigaom

Ryan’s posts here and here are great overviews of the impact of Netflix’s recent guidance changes on their stock.

All-in-all, Netflix did a really good job with their migration estimates; models only can go so far and are based on assumptions, some of which can be more gut than anything else. 200-800M out of 25mm is a drop in the bucket in comparision. And it’s understandable they may overestimate the DVD-only side since that’s their business’ legacy. But as we all know, the net revenue from a streaming-only HH is much higher than a DVD-only customer so they are still in a good position.

On the other hand, given the feeble way they executed the rate increase, Netflix did some damage to their good will value. Frankly, since cable’s been doing rate increases for a while, they do a better job of informing their customers. Lesson learned. But repairing good will takes a lot more effort than simply dropping another new customer acquisition campaign into the market.

As someone who’s been in the subscription biz a while, I am always dismayed when Wall Street continues to harp on pure sub numbers when in fact that in today’s world with a multitude of consumer pricing options, volatile licensing agreements, and escalating costs of DVD shipping, it’s the margin that counts, not Just subs.  20 million subs at $2 is better than 25 million subs at $1 (not real numbers but  you get the picture).  Comparing sub numbers from Netflix to video subs from TWC or Comcast or DirecTV is meaningless because the revenues from each are vastly different.

This is the same flawed reasoning that’s driving the TV/video business out-of-wack from the networks perspective because the revenue from high-volume/low-margin sources like online will not make up for the lost revenue from more traditional sources for the near-term (5-7 years).  And the networks need that revenue to continue producing the great shows that people want to stream for cheap.  Overtime, the quality of content will degrade and the only choices we’ll have will be which cheap-to-produce reality show to watch.

The ecosystem of networks-producers-distributors-consumers is so entrenched, that it will take an industry-wide and illegal (anti-trust) type of cooperation to steer this industry away from the same whirlpool drain that the news business has already gone down.  But that’s for another post!