My friend Jay Graves, the CEO of the Nashville-based Hobby-Lobby International (the Radio Control airplane direct marketer, not the retail chain with the same name that sells basket-weaving materials), is all giddy today because Gizmodo has planted a wet-kiss on a new product his company is selling: a wireless video camera unit that attaches to an R/C airplane and streams video to the R/C operator on the ground who wears some funky virtual-reality goggles. In other words, it’s like a first-person pilot simulation game, but instead of “simulation,” you are watching real-time video that allows you to experience the flight as if you are sitting in the cockpit of the model airplane you are operating. Very expensive military drones have been around for a while, but this takes the concept down market with a big-boy toy that costs around $550. (Since becoming Hobby-Lobby’s CEO, Jay has been trying to entice me into getting an R/C airplane, but I told him that all my toys are from the Apple Store or Lowes. I think I’ll take him up on his invitation to join him for a trial flight “in” one of these, however.)
Here’s some video of how the PilotView FPV 2400 works:
During yesterday’s Country Music 1/2 Marathon, I used my little Canon TX1 (the ‘rex-cam’) to shoot some video from a participant’s point of view. The video below is very shaky and raw — no editing except to put all the clips together — but I think it gives a flavor of what the race course and event are like from a first-time, non-competitive participant’s vantage point. Obviously, I am not a distance runner — I was joining in with several members of Team Hammock because I’m easily swayed by peer-pressure. I’m glad I did it.
Sidenotes: This was the 9th Country Music Marathon & 1/2 Marathon and attracted over 30,000 participants. The race start uses a “wave” approach and times are kept using a device one attaches to their shoe. (The operation of a race with 30,000 participants is worthy of an episode of Modern Marvels on the Discovery Channel.) My wave started approximately 37 minutes after the first wave (the one with the Kenyans) and I finished the 13.1 miles in 2:29 which put me in 12,699th place — although it was 404th in my “old guy” division. Most of the participants were from outside of Nashville and I enjoyed playing tour guide for some of my fellow racers. The 1/2 marathon route is a great way to see Nashville, by the way. I was impressed.
The last thing I want to blog about is sales tax, however, there’s a lot of confusion being twittered and blogged around the Nashvilleosphere today about a “technical correction” measure that is working its way through the Tennessee state legislature. According to the Nashville law firm Waller Lansden, the measure would “subject downloaded sales of digital media, including music videos, motion pictures, news and entertainment programs, music, ringtones, electronic books, etc. to the retail sales tax.” In an advisory issued yesterday, the law firm claimed that, “under current law digitally delivered goods are not taxable unless delivered in a tangible form.” (I’m curious about the caveat as I’m perplexed with the “brain-teaser” about how something could be delivered in bits but be received in atoms. But that’s more a physics than a legal question. Perhaps that refers to ordering a print-on-demand book that is printed and then shipped, but that falls outside my understanding of what a “download” is or, for that matter, the meaning of the term “digitally delivered.”)
That “new tax” interpretation was quickly pounced upon by the state GOP’s Bill Hobbs and echo-chambered by Instapundit.
Wait a minute, some bloggers said — we’re already being charged sales tax on iTunes purchases. As tracked by Christian Grantham at Nashville is Talking and by A.C. Kleinheider at NashvillePost.com, sure enough, digital downloads purchased through the iTunes Store are already being treated as if they are subject to the state’s sales tax — thus placing in doubt the claim that the “tax” being legislated is new.
Here’s where I could wear my small business owner hat and launch into some history of my first-hand education on the concept of “nexus” but I’ll skip that one and say, simply, because there’s an Apple Store in Nashville and Memphis, the iTunes Store is collecting sales tax on purchases made through that channel. On the other hand, Amazon.com does not charge for sales tax on physical or digital products purchased via Amazon.com because it doesn’t have any direct operations here. (Yet another reason to purchase MP3 downloads via Amazon.com.)
I’m not a lawyer, and for that I’m quite thankful. However, I think the bloggers who are suggesting this is not a new tax may be confused. I know I am.
Lost photos: I shot this photo from my office window last April. Unfortunately, I can’t locate the photos shot from the same location on April 16, 1998.
My first ever accidental online “citizen journalism” (before the term existed) experience occurred ten years ago, today. Unfortunately, because of the ephemeral nature of the web and certain “wish we knew then what we know now” practices, there is no place for me to point to what I did on that day.
Today, posting “weather photos” is one of those participatory “user-generated-content” activities that even the most up-tight control-freak media company encourages. In the past week or so, I’ve been emailed by at least two big brand online services requesting that I join their network of weather watchers due to my practice of posting photos of weather outside my office window on the 7th floor of a building near Vanderbilt University in Nashville.
Ten years ago today, Will Weaver (then an employee at Hammock, now the big-guy — literally and figuratively — at the e-mail marketing company, emma) and I did a rather remarkably dumb thing. We had an early digital camera and decided to take photos of a tornado that was heading straight towards our building.
All the smart employees (everyone but the two of us) headed to the core of our office building, but we were thinking how great it would be to take some photos and post them on the Hammock.com website. That was a rather out-of-the-box idea as the site was your basic brochure site at the time. Not like today where not only do we have several work-related blogs on the site, but every employee also has a “people page” where they can post information they’d like to share.
Back then, Will and I shot a series of photos (actually, I think Will was “shooting” and I was “photo directing”) of what turned out to be the tornado passing by our office as it touched down in Centennial Park on its way to hitting downtown (including the stadium, then under construction) before doing major widespread damage in East Nashville. (Today, the Nashville Tennessean has a retrospective of the days events.)
After the tornado passed our office building, Will and I and a few other Hammock employees jumped in a car and (I don’t recommend this to anyone — indeed, do not ever do this) drove out to survey the damage in the area immediately surrounding our office. A few blocks from our office, we came-upon what turned out to be one of the most tragic events related to that day. As we watched, a large team of Nashville emergency service and fire department personnel were attempting to save a Vanderbilt student who was pinned beneath a tree in Centennial Park. Unfortunately, the student died later.
When we returned to the office, Will posted the photos at the URL (which no longer works) hammock.com/tornado. Within an hour, CNN.com and other news services were pointing to the photos and the site, which perhaps on a good day got 100 visitors, was (thanks to a robust server) getting tens of thousands of viewers. Sometime during the night, a radio talk show host I had never heard of until then, Art Bell, linked to the photos and started talking about them on his show. (Later I learned that visiting aliens and bad weather were a staple of his show.) The link from Art Bell ended up crashing our servers, as I recall.
Several years ago, we discovered that we had “lost” those photos and any archive of what the site was like on that day. I haven’t actually given up on them turning up somewhere, but searches of the WayBackMachine and other services have not turned up any mirror sites that captured the photos.
One of the reasons I now am obsessed with backing up and organizing digital media — and displaying it on multiple platforms — is my disappointment in having lost that April 16, 1998 moment in time — as experienced by a few of us.
Today, Hammock Inc. would have the photos uploaded to Flickr.com/hammock and YouTube.com/hammockinc instantly and the photos would be backed up on three different servers in our offices and off-site. And, oh yeah, they’d also be posted on that “Out My Office Window” Flickr set. Additionally, we would grant rights to anyone wanting to display the photos for news-coverage purposes.
We’ve come a long way in the past ten years. Today, the city of Nashville has a network of siren alarms that warn people of weather emergencies. Vanderbilt students can be contacted immediately via text message during any type of emergency. And today, the notion of individual witnesses of an event providing personal coverage directly to an audience, and not mediated by a professional news operation, is accepted as a norm — and even “covered” by traditional media.
Later: Laura Creekmore, who then and now lived in East Nashville, recalls the day’s event (she was one of the smart people who went to our building’s basement). I spoke today also with Will Weaver whose recollection is similar to mine. If Lewis Pennock or others are reading this, please comment to fill-in-the-blanks of any details from that day.
This morning there were some fairly severe storms in the Nashville area. The typically placid Richland Creek in the Nashville community of Belle Meade was cresting its banks when I drove across the Jackson Boulevard bridge around 1 p.m., local time. I thought some video of the creek may make an interesting first experiment with Flickr’s new video-hosting feature. (Note: The 1:14 video was shot with a Canon PowerShot TX1.)
The City Paper, Nashville’s free, five-day-a-week daily newspaper, will focus on building news-gathering capabilities online, including additional video features, and will only publish the print version of the newspaper on Mondays and Fridays, beginning April 28. (SouthComm President) Chris Ferrell said the purchase of The City Paper fits the company’s long-term business strategy…Albie Del Favero will stay on as publisher of The City Paper and veteran journalist Clint Brewer will continue as executive editor.
This announcement involves lots of talented people with great experience — and they’re friends of mine. I hope they can fulfill the promise of the announcement. Nashville needs it.
[See update for link to a post from a former FTC economist who explains the concept of an “illegal tie.”]
I’m just now catching up on the news about Amazon.com forcing print-on-demand publishers to use its printing and distribution service, Book Surge, if the publishers want their books to be sold on Amazon.com. The news was covered on Friday by the Wall Street Journal. Later on Friday, O’Reilly’s Andrew Savikas wrote a detailed post explaining the kinds of lock-in Amazon.com is attempting with this move.
And yes, there is a Nashville angle to this story as one of the on-demand printing services that is being targeted by this move is Ingram Industries subsidiary Lightning Source.
Quote from WSJ.com:
“Amazon’s decision means that any of those publishers who want their books sold on the giant Web site will have to use BookSurge. Not only will that squeeze rivals like Lightning Source, it will reduce publishers’ bargaining power. Publishers will “have to abide by Amazon’s pricing,” said Bob Young, CEO of Lulu Inc, a print-on-demand publisher based in Raleigh, N.C. Mr. Young said he believed BookSurge’s prices to be “slightly higher” than other printers. An Amazon spokesman declined to comment on that issue.”
I guess it’s somewhat ironic that this year marks the 10th anniversary of the attempt by Barnes & Noble to acquire Ingram Industries’ Ingram Book Group, a move that was withdrawn later after the Federal Trade Commission indicated it would contest the transaction. The transaction, which was blasted by independent booksellers because it merged the largest wholesaler with the largest retailer of books, was seen as a bold grab by Barnes & Noble to vertically integrate a competition-stiffling segment of the book distribution channel.
I say ironic, because at the time, Jeff Bezos was one of the most outspoken opponents of the B&N, Ingram deal, issuing a message to Amazon customers in which Bezos said, “To our customers: Worry not … Those who make choices that are genuinely good for customers, authors, and publishers will prevail. Goliath is always in range of a good slingshot … Our long-term strategy has been to diversify our supplier base and to increase our direct purchasing from publishers.”
So, in 1998, the concentration of book distribution and book retailing was opposed by Amazon. In 2008, at least when it comes to the print-on-demand segment of the book industry, Amazon apparently now likes playing Goliath. However, I’m sure Amazon will see it another way — as in, they are still just trying to cut out the middle guy. That spin worked ten years ago. I wonder if it will now. I wonder if it will when all those independent booksellers realize they’ll have to purchase books from Amazon?
Update: Luke Froeb, a former chief economist for the Federal Trade Commssion posted some insight into the legality of what Amazon is doing and asks, “Is it an illegal tie?”
Quote:
“Here the tying good would be on-line sales of books and the tied product would be BookSurge. If the plaintiff could show that Amazon has market power in the sale of on-line books, the plaintiff would have a pretty good chance. (This requires a market definition that excludes brick and mortar stores.) Also, if there is a dangerous probability that competition [is lessened] in the tied product market (”POD books”), the plaintiff could very well make a case that this is a per se violation.
Bonus link: Rafat Ali posts a follow-up piece regarding Amazon’s damage control on this issue that includes some great comments by some Amazon and book-publishing insiders.
In his statement, John Ingram said that while “the questions that are being raised about Amazon.com and its Booksurge division don’t directly relate to Ingram - either Lightning Source Inc. or Ingram Book Group - it clearly is alarming many of our publisher partners.” According to John Ingram, “publishers are telling us they feel Amazon.com’s actions are not appropriate.” John Ingram’s statement adds that the company has been unable to get a direct response from Amazon about its pod shift. “We all live in a world where decisions are made about insourcing and outsourcing, and free choice is important,” the statement continues. “At Ingram Book and Lightning Source, we are going to work really hard to continue to be the compelling choice as publishers make their outsourcing decisions. Our breadth of distribution channels including the online retailers remains the same, and Ingram still provides one day turnaround in the fulfillment of orders for books including print on demand titles.”
(Thanks, Lewis Pennock, for several heads-up related to this post.)
I’m pleased to note that the really smart guy in this interview at WSJ.com is my friend and Congressman, Jim Cooper. I wish the WSJ.com did a better job at time-stamping their video as I don’t know when they posted this interview regarding the potential next steps that should (or should not) take place with regards to a “housing bailout.”
And speaking of smart politicians from Tennessee, the state’s governor, Phil Bredesen, is omnipresent in the national media these days for his suggestion that the Democratic Party hold a mini-primary/caucus/convention for Super Delegates in June. Sidenote: Both Cooper and Bredesen are Super Delegates. Cooper is an Obama supporter and Bredesen has not committed to a candidate yet.
It took them awhile, but the “Street View” gang at Google Maps finally drove around Nashville and, gee, you can now do stuff like embed this panoramic view of the intersection outside my office window. That’s me up in the seventh floor of the building that looks super-thin in this photo (like, say, a MacBuilding Air). While I won’t get too privacy-invasive by displaying or linking to it, I’m happy to note that the Street View vehicle apparently drove by my home (not the location on the embedded shot, but another one) on a beautiful fall afternoon right after the lawn had been cut.
As Google Maps fans know, there are individuals who enjoy going through Street View photos looking for weird happenings that got snapped during the drive-bys. No doubt, there is a strong possibility of some weird sightings among the Nashville shots.
Bonus: Link to Nashville “Street View” Map: After clicking through to this link, click on the camera icon, then click on “zoom in” and then move the little “lego-man-ish” icon to a location to view the panorama from that spot.
Sometimes, great things are going on in your own backyard and you don’t even know about it. Except now I do know about it. For the next couple of days, college student journalists, advisers and faculty members from around the country will be in Nashville to participate in a workshop on using new media tools: audio, video, advanced multimedia, advanced online storytelling. It is being hosted by the Center for Innovation in College Media that is headquartered on the campus of Vanderbilt.
I am very glad such a program has been created to support university journalism programs that are encouraging their students to view themselves as reporters, story-tellers, truth-sharers, analysts — who do not have to limit themselves to words and photos on paper and traditional broadcasting.
A bonus for me: The program is headquartered a few blocks from my office.
I’ll be dropping in and out of today and tomorrow’s workshops and will be posting notes, photos — perhaps some innovative new media — later today.
Later: First, let me send out some major props to Paul Conley, my friend and fellow business media blogger who has been hammering on the topic of j-schools and new media for years. Paul wasn’t actually here at the workshop, but I thought about him so much during the time I was there, that I felt the need to give him a shout-out — Paul, you would have been happy.
The best way I can describe what this workshop is — and a way some of you can replicate it regionally or locally — is to describe it as a Podcamp specifically for college journalists. However, it was highly structured and organized and a little more “officially run” than a true podcamp, the essence of what was covered and how the information flowed was podcamp-like. This workshop — and the incredible new facilities at Vanderbilt where it is being held — may be a little bit more formal than a podcamp, but the idea of using a college facility for a weekend podcamp for student journalists, is an idea that I’m sure someone else must be already doing — if not, why not?
While I’ve met lots of professors and educators through this blog and get a steady stream of email from college students, I haven’t really been on top of this specific topic — college journalism and new media. However, last fall I visiting the City University of New York’s journalism facilities in mid-town where Jeff Jarvis’ interactive journalism program is, and then, today sitting in a half-day with the students and faculty from 40 or so colleges attending this workshop, I can affirm that the evangelism of people like Jeff and Paul and several people I’m now learning about like Bryan Murley at Eastern Illinois University and Ralph Raseth at Ole Miss and an entire community of educators who are very aware of what is taking place — and are now wanting to lead, rather than follow (or worse, merely watch) the parade. I’ll be blogging on this topic more, I’m sure.
“Officials from the National Weather Service issued a severe weather alert for all basements in Tennessee Tuesday after a deadly new weather phenomenon ravaged scores of residential downstairs areas, leaving every other part of the houses completely untouched. The recently discovered targeted cyclones, known as basement tornadoes, tore through cellars all over the state, killing dozens and injuring hundreds.”
This explains a lot.
(Later: I agree with some Nashville readers who suggest this may not be funny in light of the killer storms that hit our area on Feb. 5. However, I also think if we can’t make fun of them, the tornadoes have won.)
Over the years, I’ve heard lots of stories about couples meeting online. And I know that an online industry has grown up around helping people connect with others who are of the same mind — or heart — or both.
Yet when I started blogging, the last thing (but definitely the best thing) I ever expected to post one day was a photo of a happy couple who are getting married this weekend who first met because of this blog. I feel like Michael from The Office when I interject myself into this couple’s “how we met” story, but they’ve told me they first became aware of one-another through comments on this blog and the first time they actually met was at a blogger event I co-hosted with the guy on the left, a Nashville lawyer who was a legendary early “persona” blogger who went my the name Mr. Roboto. Yes, that’s Mr. Roboto.
Anyway, I’ll skip the rest of the story and merely say congratulations and best wishes and I hope the weather is swell in Hawaii where you are arriving and preparing for your wedding — however, I know that first, Mr. Roboto will be watching a little basketball game.
Hammock is happy to be one of the sponsors of Podcamp Nashville tomorrow at the Cannery Ballroom. It’s a free community “unconference” about new media — especially the kind of new media that I like to call mediacasting.
You can find more information about who’s attending, schedules and other activities at the Podcamp Nashville blog. It’s free to attend, but you are encouraged to register — and to volunteer to help. Look for me: I’ll be there.
Nashville is Talking’s Christian Grantham has a collection of links to posts by area bloggers regarding the tornados that passed through the area last night. Also, as I typically read his posts via an RSS newsreader and not on the site, this is the first time I’ve noticed the site’s “Nashville Tweets” feature that aggregates Twitter posts from area users of the service. Looks like something fun, but last night, it also served as very helpful service in aggregating messages posted on Twitter (tweets) directly related to a breaking disaster story, something I’ve written about before and that others with the resources and know-how to make it happen are doing.
Remember: Seeing the opportunity of repurposing toys into something that can save lives starts with playing with toys.
Sidenote: Thanks to those who have emailed and “messaged” me regarding the bad weather here. Those of us at Hammock were fortunate to miss any direct damage from the storms.
Bonus link: On his Hammock “People Page,” Bill Hudgins writes about the tornado that touched down in his hometown of Gallatin last night — and recalls a similar experience two years ago that he wrote about on this weblog.
Observations, opinions,
and occasionally news on
magazines, new media,
marketing and life from Rex Hammock, founder & CEO of the custom media firm, Hammock Inc.
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