Here’s what the iTunes music store gets right: they make it faster and easier to get what you want, and they do it at a price point that doesn’t make you feel like you’re being gouged.
That was clear to me last night, when I realized that I wanted to watch the first few episodes of Battlestar Galactica while flying from Seattle to Philly (en route to Durham, for an NSF PI meeting). I had the episodes on NetFlix, but didn’t want to (a) bring the DVDs with me because it’s too easy for them to get broken or lost, or (b) use up precious working battery power on my laptop when I could watch the episodes on my video iPod. So I started to rip the episodes onto my hard drive (and yes, fair use zealots, I had every intention of deleting them after I’d watched them, since they were rentals). An hour later, with only one episode onto my hard drive, with mediocre video quality, I realized this was not time well spent. A quick look at iTMS showed me that I could buy all of season 2 (20 episodes) for about $25—and that I could start the downloading before I went to bed and have all the episodes not just on my computer but automatically transferred to my iPod before I had to leave. It was worth every penny to not have to laboriously go through disc after disc identifying, ripping, and transferring individual episodes.
I watch very little TV these days (with WoW to play, who has time?), and what little I do watch is typically on the video iPod while at the gym. Other than Lost, however, I haven’t had many shows I’ve even wanted to watch there. BSG has changed that. For those of you who haven’t watched the series, it’s spectacular. And it’s nice to find a show that I really like that hasn’t already been cancelled (like Firefly, for instance). The writing, editing, and acting are all superb. Highly recommended.
(Fellow WoW addicts will probably recognize the game reference in the title of this post…it really needs to be said with the right goblin accent for full effect, though.)
Currently playing in iTunes: Tocceilidh from the album “Re: Bach” by Lara St. John
As noted in the earlier entry, I’m on my way to Durham, NC, for an NSF PI meeting. (No, the grant research isn’t done yet. Yes, it was supposed to be done a year ago. No, I don’t really want to talk about it.) I was up painfully early this morning. Note to self: never to book a 6:30am flight on the first day of daylight savings time; the clock woke me up at what it claimed was 4am, but my body believed it was 3, and I’ll end up with an extra hour of jet lag.
I only got back from Rochester on Tuesday night (edging towards Wednesday morning), so it wasn’t much of a respite. Barely time to empty the suitcase, run the clothes through the laundry, and repack. The PI meeting lasts through Tuesday night, but I’m not headed home from there. Instead, I fly from Durham to Boulder (well, to Denver, where I’ll take a shuttle to Boulder), to participate in an NSF site visit of the National Center for Women and Information Technology (NCWIT). I arrive in Boulder Wednesday afternoon, the site visit is Thursday, and then I head back to Seattle that night.
At that point I get to stay home for over a week, after which I take a two-day trip to DC to speak about social information tools at a Knowledge Management conference, the details of which escape me at the moment.
Then I’m home, and in full-on crunch mode preparing for this year’s MSR Social Computing Symposium (more on that in the next post). Yikes!
Two years ago, I was thrilled when I received an invitation to Microsoft Research’s first social computing symposium. I had a wonderful time at the event, and found a lot of kindred spirits in the world of social computing research and development. I also made my first contacts with Lili Cheng and Linda Stone, who’ve gone on to be the best mentors anyone could ask for. Lili, who managed the social computing group at MSR (until she left to direct the user experience team for Windows Vista), was responsible for my sabbatical invitation.
Last year, with my plans to join the group over the summer well underway, I combined attendance at the second symposium with a househunting trip, and once again connected with people who amazed and inspired me.
This year, I find myself not just attending the symposium, but running it. Upon Lili’s departure from MSR, followed quickly by the departure of Shelly Farnham (who’d masterfully managed the event for the past two years), Marc Smith inherited the event and asked me to run it. The event takes place May 7-9 this year, and we’ve narrowed the focus a bit from past years. The two areas of emphasis for this year’s symposium are online “third places” and/or mobile social software. As in past years, we’ve split the group approximately into thirds—Microsoft & MSR, industry experts, and academics. We’ve also made a significant effort to bring in new names and faces; the repeat rate from past symposia is quite low (38/90 who have been to at least one of the events, only 19 who’ve attended both; those numbers are 23 and 9 if you look only at non-Microsoft attendees).
First, the bad news—the symposium is totally full. We keep the event small, both to foster community and to keep the cost manageable. Microsoft covers the entire cost of the event—facilities, meals, and transportation/housing costs for those presenting (and for doctoral students). Now the good news—if you weren’t invited, you’ll still have a chance to participate. We’ll be webcasting the event live (the panels and the closing keynotes, though not the “open space” discussions.) We’ll also have a live backchannel, probably IRC. (I was thinking about trying Campfire, but they’ve got a limit of 60 concurrent users, and with 90 participants onsite and an unknown number of external visitors, that’s probably too low a cap.)
I’m working on getting a public web page up with information about the event, including the schedule and participant list—with any luck, that will be available by the end of this week, at which point I’ll update this post to point to it.
This year’s event wouldn’t be happening if Microsoft Research wasn’t maintaining its commitment to social computing and open dialogs, and if MSN/Windows Live hadn’t stepped in to help support the cost of the event. Also providing some support were Channel 9 (and its new sister, on10), and MSCOM. (So you understand why the number of invitations had to be constrained, the cost of the event will end up being over $60K. Seattle’s not a cheap place to throw a party.)
It’s easy to hate Microsoft—there have been many reasons over the years (from business practices to blue screens of death) to do so. But it’s worth giving them credit for activities like this one, which benefit the community as a whole through fostering community and collaboration. Anyone who’s attended the past events will tell you this is not a marketing ploy, and that they got something of value of out of the experience.
Currently playing in iTunes: Nobody Else from the album “Los Lonely Boys” by Los Lonely Boys
(This one is actually number 1002!)
I don’t know that I’d quite call myself a modern-day Scheherazade, but it is a lovely image.
Schherazade probably didn’t have to deal with hundreds of comment spams on a daily basis, though, which is what I’m encountering these days. It’s likely I’ll be turning on TypeKey authentication this week, much as I hate to do it. The built-in spam filtering capability of MT can’t keep up with the onslaught from the spammers, and I’m tired of what’s starting to feel like an hourly cleanup job.
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