Living on the Edge

As an internet TV evangelist and huge fan of Hulu I had to set Mr. Gilbert straight. Yes, as you’ve likely realized I own a 24″ SoYo widescreen monitor that I picked up for less than $300 at Office Max. Since scooping up this relatively decent monitor at bargain basement prices, I’ve tossed my television set and view 95% of my television via my computer. On my couch. With an Apple remote in hand (tied into Sofa Control) for maximum sloth effect.

According to Mr. Gilbert, I’m living on the edge of technology, blazing a path through the streaming TV frontier.

We live in that in-between moment when our TV screens and computer screens are still in separate locations – literally and psychologically. Maybe you, like me, have a tech-savvy friend who has already connected his HDTV to his laptop and streams TV shows from the couch; but most of us still have designated screens. That means the people who are watching TV online are doing so at their desks, or in “desk mode.”

Yes, it is immensely difficult to connect a laptop to an external monitor (HDTV included). Even more difficult, is googling for “hook up laptop to HDTV“. That simple search drained my technological prowess so much I may not be able to finish this post.

The Future is the Now

The crux of Gilbert’s article is that top quality shows deserve to be watched in our living rooms on traditional television sets. Let’s put aside that all of that is already possible via streaming video from the internet. He states that when we watch shows on our television sets we give more of our attention to the show, which the show’s creators deserve. Well, I actually devote more attention to a show when watching the online version.

Here’s why:

• Less commercials.

An obvious but when there’s less commercials the show gets more of my attention span.

• Laptop is devoted to video, can’t browse and watch.

Since my laptop is hooked up to my external monitor, I can’t have it sitting in my lap browsing the web while watching TV (though, there is the iPhone, but it interferes with my computer speakers so no deal).

• Can pause easily.

If the phone rings or I need to go use the bathroom or get the urge for a sandwich, I can easily pause my internet TV, take care of business and come back and hop right back in. Sure there’s DVR but with internet TV this capability is built-in.

• Can share easily.

If I’m watching a great show, I don’t need to call my buddies and tell them that they have got to watch this episode. Instead, I can finish watching and then send them a link afterwards.

• Recommendations.

I don’t waste my time looking for new shows online. Instead I let Hulu’s built in recommendation do the job for me. It’s not perfect but that’s where applications like Glue step in to give me personal recommendations based on my likes from people I share similar interests with (more to come on Glue soon, if you already have Glue my username is AdamP). Easily finding the next show to watch keeps me engaged instead of mindlessly flipping through channels.

When stuck watching traditional TV (mostly for sporting events), I find my mind drifts and wanders and I actually pay a lot less attention to whatever is on. I am relatively tech-savvy and skew pretty high on the geek radar amongst most of my friends, but honestly connecting your laptop to your TV is not that difficult.

The future is now. Internet TV will only continue to increase in viewership. There’s already a large number of baby boomers using Hulu. It’s only a matter of time before we’re all streaming video into our living rooms, iPhones and virtually anywhere via the internet. It’s already possible, today. It’s just a matter of doing a little bit of research and connecting a few wires and devices and you too can be on the bleeding edge of internet TV.

Do you pay more or less attention to shows when viewing them online? Have you hooked up your computer to an external monitor (computer or TV)? What’s your preferred way of viewing the boob tube?

The mayor has little direct control over the situation, but few political leaders in the state have higher visibility, or as much access to the state’s political players.

I tweeted out a link to the article and directed it to Mayor Tom Meninono’s twitter account, @mayortommenino. Though the mayor doesn’t seem to have responded to the Globe or my tweet, I did see that mayoral candidate Sam Yoon was making public statements about the T situation on his twitter account, @samyoonformayor. In particular, I saw him responding to another tweeter, @skowboarder, with this message:

late nite T ridership would have to offset cost – but worth studying – T could use more $ and Boston could use more night life

A major gripe about the MBTA is that trains stop running around 12:30/12:45. It’s way too early, especially considering that many bars in Boston don’t close until 2:00AM. So, what if the MBTA offered a last call train, which would leave Park Street (for the red line and green lines) and Downtown Crossing (for the orange line) and Government Center/State Street (for the blue line) at 2:00 AM, right when Boston bars close for the night. Train service could stop earlier, say at midnight, allowing two hours for the MBTA crew to perform maintenance, and then re-open for one last set of trains at 2:00 AM. Train service would then shut down again until 5:30 AM allowing the T to perform more maintenance on the tracks.

You may remember that the T used to have night owl service that ran until 2:30 AM. Buses would travel along the major subway lines up until 2:30 AM, but the T shut it down due to low use and high cost. If the MBTA ran these last call trains, would you be willing to fork over 2-3 times the regular fare? I know I would.

The regular fare for a T pass runs between $1.70 to $2.00, depending on if you use a Charlie Card. I would more than happily pay $6.00 for a late night train from Park Street to JFK/Umass, since I’d pay more than twice that amount for a cab ride home. A train ride usually takes 15-20 minutes, about as long as it takes to flag and ride in a cab. The T could also void the monthly pass for these last call trains, so even if you have a monthly pass you’d have to fork over $4-$6 for a train home at 2AM. It’s still much cheaper than a cab, especially if you’re only riding with one other person.

A late night train or bus service would allow bar patrons and employees a safe way to get home and with an increased fare could potentially bring in additional revenues for the flailing MBTA. The increased fare would likely not meet much resistance since it would be for a service the MBTA does not currently provide. The real question is how many people would ride the late night trains. The last time the MBTA tried late night bus service it was stopped due to high costs and low usage, but in this economy many more people are using public transportation. It’s at least worth a look and might increase business for Boston bars and other nightlife venues.

Would there be enough people riding the last call train to make it worth it for the MBTA? Would you use a late night MBTA service this time around?

Thanks to B Tal for the T sign photo.

Bloggers, reporters and citizens have suggested everything from increasing subscription and per paper prices, removing the Globe from Google, scrapping segments, scrapping the print edition and even buying subscriptions out of charity to boost revenues.

None of those ideas will work. Here are eight ideas that would work and really save The Boston Globe.

No print edition on Tuesdays and Thursdays

Let’s all be honest here, the print edition is not for breaking news. By the time it’s printed half the internet has already mentioned the story and moved on. Cutting these two days out of the schedule will allow for a better product on the days the Globe is printed. Less fluff, more stuff.

Boot the Boss

The people at the top have utterly and completely failed the newspaper. There are no more excuses left for them, they are clearly not so talented that they’re crucial to the future of the Globe. Simply put, the leaders at the Globe have not done their jobs and should not have them anymore. Firing the employees at the top will deliver a significant cost savings and bring new ideas to the table.

The union workers have done their jobs. Papers get written, printed and delivered every day. It is not their failure, but a failure at the top. It’s not harsh, it’s reality. The job of the leaders of the Globe is to ensure it is profitable. It’s not profitable so the leaders should be given the boot.

Side note, due to the ludicrous nature of most contracts for high level employees, it’s likely that the leaders have clauses in their contracts that activate lucrative severance payouts so this move may not be a huge cost savings but fresh leadership will still do the Globe good.

Premium Sports Section

Look, I’m not going to pay the Globe for news. It’s not going to happen. For one, the quality and integrity of their investigative journalism is debatable. Second, the cat is already out of the bag. The Globe and newspapers all around the country already offer their product for free, they will not be successful now taking this free news back and pushing subscriptions on us.

But, sports, especially in the City of Boston, is a whole different animal. We are extreme fanatics in this city and devour sports information like no other. Offer a basic sports section for free but for in-depth sports coverage require a small paid subscription. Sure, lots of people won’t buy it and will simply move on to the Herald or ESPN or WEEI or any number of local and national sports outlets, but a significant amount of people will give in to their sports addiction and sign up for premium sports coverage.

Invest in e-paper

There are lots of people like me who haven’t bought a physical newspaper in years and don’t plan on ever doing so again. The last time I bought a print newspaper was in 2004 to have a memento of the Sox World Series victory. That’s right, I haven’t bought a newspaper in almost five years. And why should I? I can get updated news for free online in a much more convenient format. Let’s all face facts here, printed subscription numbers are going to keep dropping. The Boston Globe should team up with other newspapers and invest in e-paper to drive its cost down.

Another option put forward by Dan Kennedy is to offer all subscribers a Kindle. I’m not opposed to this idea and the Kindle 2 is a great device that is very close to e-paper but perhaps offering Kindles on Boston.com with an Amazon affiliate link is a better way to earn money and convince readers to ditch paper.

Video News Online

Boston.com gets almost 6 million unique visitors every month. Add a video news section, keep those visitors there and appeal to a whole new audience. I haven’t watched TV news in forever but would probably tune in to a Boston.com video newscast. It’s worth a shot and could be done for a minimal cost. Hire some of the existing great videobloggers in Boston and integrate them into your site. Videos keep eyeballs at your site and increase what you can charge for ads.

Don’t blame Google/bloggers/unions

Google is not stealing content from newspapers. They are sharing excerpts of articles with their users, which is legal under the Fair Use Doctrine. If any newspaper truly believes Google is stealing their content go ahead and sue. Do it, it’s your legal right. The lack of legal action combined with the constant whining simply proves our point, you don’t want to accept the blame and instead wish to make wild and false accusations. If you truly think they’re stealing your content, sue them. Or better yet, place this code in your robots.txt file and all will be well with the world:

User-agent: Googlebot
Disallow: /

And if you’re going to go after Google, don’t forget the other news aggregators of the world. Universal Hub has ads on their site and posts excerpts from articles, they must be stealing!

But seriously, work with Google, bloggers and news aggregators to deliver more and more traffic to your site. Don’t place your blame externally, look internally to find the true source of your issues.

Embrace the internet

Sure, newspapers offer free news online but that’s not enough. Stop blaming google and bloggers for your drop in numbers and instead embrace them. Bloggers are often some of the best news consumers, but mainstream newspapers are trashing us and placing the blame for their failures on us.

Check out the website for a local newspaper, The Dorchester Reporter, to see how it’s done correctly. The Dot Reporter recently redesigned their entire website with a huge focus on interactivity and local bloggers. They have open comments on every single article on the site and list the latest five posts from area bloggers right on their homepage, with a permanent link back to the blogger.

Permanent links to bloggers on the the homepage

The Globe on the other hand offers comments on some articles and lists less than a handful of local bloggers on their homepage. And after you move off the homepage your link back to your article disappears forever. I know because I’ve been featured on Boston.com a few times now, and while the temporary traffic is nice the next day the link and the traffic disappears. Worse than the loss of traffic is the disappearance of the link back, which is commonly accepted on the web as a form of attribution. It’s a shady, shady move.

Stop “stealing”

Large newspapers constantly complain about bloggers “stealing” their content, but then they go right ahead and use an excerpt from my blog (which is what many large newspapers refer to as “stealing) and then don’t provide a permanent link back to my post. In essence, they take my content, use it temporarily, and then ditch the author attribution. So when I use an excerpt from a mainstream newspaper article and link back to it permanently, it’s called stealing. But when they post my excerpt and don’t link back to it permanently it’s called promotion/helping the little guy out. Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate the traffic boost from Boston.com linking to my blog, but I’d appreciate it even more if they provided a permanent link instead of a temporary one. It’s simply good practice and common courtesy on the web.

Allow comments on all articles, allow commenters to place an no-followed URL to their site (e.g. like my comment system below and nearly ever other comment system on the web), and for the sake of consistency and clarity provide permanent links to any bloggers you feature or excerpt. It’s the right thing to do and will encourage us to visit your site more often. Plus, your readers can then continue to find my content and aren’t left to wonder who wrote that great post about living car-free for a year.

Report the news

Simple step. Stop promoting gossip, rumors and other non-news. Report just the news and do it well. The real reason your newspaper readership is dropping is because you’re more concerned with stirring the pot or appeasing the elite than reporting the truth. Honestly, mainstream newspapers have taken a stumble down in terms of quality from their glory years. We don’t need the latest celebrity gossip, we do need an authoritative source to find and tell us the truth, not blindly repackage a press release, push it out and call it news.

When you need to explicitly describe to your readers what newspapers do instead of showing them, you’re doing something wrong.

Thanks to Tony the Misfit for the excellent photo of the Boston Globe headquarters in Dorchester, MA.

Disclosure: I occasionally write freelance articles for The Dorchester Reporter. I am not an employee of the paper and all of the views expressed above and anywhere else on this blog are mine and mine only. The Dorchester Reporter does not in anyway sponsor, authorize, or have any other relation to this blog or its contents.

The Boston Channel.com reports:

“Supposedly 3 students believe that they are vampires and today when a student was bitten the police were informed,” wrote one student in a message to TheBostonChannel.com. “I heard that one girl was arrested another suspended.”

End Edit.

The headmaster at the Boston Latin School recently sent out a notice to students and parents alerting them that there are no vampires at Boston Latin after a rumor spread through the school of vampires roaming the halls. The Boston Globe reports:

A school administrator wants to set the record straight: There are no vampires at Boston Latin.

The headmaster of the prestigious exam school took the unusual step today of sending a notice to faculty, students, and parents saying that “rumors involving ‘vampires’” had begun spreading through the building Wednesday, causing disruption and anxiety for a number of students.

Lynne Mooney Teta asked everyone’s help in calming the school community down.

I am a graduate of BLS, and honestly it sounds like the students are pulling a great prank on the administration. We’re known for pulling pranks on incoming underclassmen, like selling them passes to the fourth floor pool (which of course does not exist). I’m betting there’s a few very smart kids having a well deserved chuckle somewhere right now.

A few choice comments from the article:

“Complete denial… exactly what a vampire would say!” – elyse

“This story bites.” – joemac22

“Hmmm, BLS students are notorious for being up till all hours of the night, emailing and IM-ing each other in the wee hours of the morning . . . mere coincidence?” – Catrin Thorp

The best part though is how The Boston Globe ended this article:

The prestigious Boston public school was founded in 1635, and its students have included Ben Franklin, Sam Adams, John Hancock, Louis Farrakhan, Sumner Redstone, and Nat Hentoff.

They were all vampires!

Disclaimer, I am a BLS alum and the head Latin School vampire.