Beyond Glamour

Dinner was great… but who’s going to do the dishes?

Beyond Glamour – Part One:

It’s the unglamorous, but necessary, details that make the world go ’round.

In the Internet video world, there are few things less glamorous than discussions about file formats.

Some unglamorous questions I’ve been entertaining on recently…

1. Is Flash Video *really* the ultimate answer to the question of how to deliver Internet video to the desktop?

If it is, then why is it that so many seriously video-invested media companies fail to feature it, let alone even offer it as a video format option?

What do you think?

2. And what about folks with dial up connections?

Are they forever banned from the Internet video party? If so, there sure are a lot of them outside the gates.

3. If there’s no single Internet video standard, then how do we handle the messy problem of presenting the right file format to the right person at the right time?

Yahoo has a handy if not terribly hip-looking answer called Media Helper which:

1. Shows users what they’ve got on their PCs (players and bandwidth),

2. Lets them choose what format they want to receive audio and video in (and download new players if they want to), and

3. Remembers their preferences and delivers the right file type every time they visit.

Media Helper pops up automatically the first time you ask for a Yahoo!-supplied video clip.

One way to experience it, if you haven’t already, is to go to http://weather.yahoo.com/ and click on one of the weather videos on the lower left hand side of the page.

Note that these weather bulletins are Yahoo content (licensed from Accu-Weather) that come straight from Yahoo’s servers which is why they can deliver the right video. This trick won’t work for our videos.

If we’re going to serve video to our visitors, we can probably all use a tool like Media Helper.

Nothing kills the video viewing mood like asking people to wrestle, unaided, with compatibility problems. And compatibility problems exist. Bandwidth ones too.

If you know anyone who sells at Media Helper-like tool that I can install on my server, let me know.

It can’t be rocket science to make one. Could be good business for someone to create one.

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Beyond Glamour – Part Two

Steve Jobs gives great presentations.

No doubt.

Maybe the best presentations of any CEO on earth.

Maybe the best presentations of any CEO ever.

How does he do it?

Hint:

“The team and I spent hundreds of hours preparing for a segment that lasted about five minutes.”

Just 100 hours has 6,000 minutes in it so we’re talking about a 1,000 to 1 preparation-to-presentation ratio.

That one formula may sum up the *real* secret of show biz.

The unglamorous – but highly instructive – behind-the-scenes details of what makes Steve, Steve (on stage at least):

http://technology.guardian.co.uk/weekly/story/0,16376,1677772,00.html

Enjoy!

– Ken McCarthy

P.S. For over 25 years I’ve been sharing the simple but powerful things that matter in business with my clients.

If you’d like direction for your business that will work today, tomorrow and twenty years from now, visit us at the System Club.

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