Craving Convenience, Online TV Viewership Doubles

The internet and high-definition television has changed the way a lot of people watch television. It’s possible now to hook your PC up to your HDTV and watch TV shows and YouTube videos on your big-screen flat-panel TV. Other people simply watch their TV on the go, at work, while in bed, with the laptop on the counter in the kitchen, etc.

The number of people watching television online has doubled over the last two years, and the bulk of that traffic is going to the broadcast networks’ sites and to YouTube.

The migration from broadcast television to online TV has primarily been driven by convenience, according to the Conference Board, the research group that conducted the study.

“Most consumers are pressed for time and require flexibility in their daily schedules and TV viewing habits,” said Lynn Franco, a director of the Conference Board Consumer Research Center. “Being able to watch broadcasts on their own time and at their convenience are clearly reasons why we are seeing a greater number turning to the Internet. And, it is the reason why we would expect to see this trend continue.”

Of those surveyed, about 6 percent said they watch TV at work; and the vast majority said they used free streaming sites (such as official network sites and YouTube) to watch TV. “Few” said they were willing to pay for subscription-based services.

So, how do you commonly watch TV shows and do you use these online services to catch the shows you might have missed?

Self-Correcting Problem?

I don’t mean to get too political with the energy crisis, but this article offers an interesting premise. Remember when venture capitalists fueled the dot-com boom of the late ’90s? Part of it was the explosion of the internet and part of it was Y2K paranoia. Well, Scott Adams, the cartoonist of Dilbert, tells us there is no reason to fear and that there is already venture capital funding going on to solve the crisis (well, as long as they’re not speculating in the oil markets).

High oil prices have unleashed a flood of venture capital and creative genius on the problems of energy and global warming. Hardly a day goes by without another credible breakthrough in turning sun, wind, waves, water and who-knows-what into useful energy. Even if the vast majority of those ideas don’t pan out, the surviving ideas will probably be enough to make oil obsolete. That’s my guess anyway. And I think it will happen at Internet speed when it finally ramps up, not the usual fifty year horizons you always hear about.

The thing I wonder is whether the government has any useful role in fostering these advances, other than staying out of the way. You hear the candidates for president talking about encouraging this, or incenting that, or catalyzing whatever. But when billions of dollars of profit are on the line, does anyone need any extra incentive? I doubt it. The market should be taking care of that stuff, and seems to be moving in the right direction.

Farmers See ‘Mark of the Beast’ in RFID Livestock Tags

Are we getting close to the end times? The Amish may have a point:

A group of community farmers, some of them Amish, are challenging rules requiring the tagging of livestock with RFID chips, saying the devices are a “mark of the beast.” Michigan and federal authorities say the radio frequency identification devices (RFID) will help monitor the travels of bovine and other livestock diseases.

“Use of a numbering system for their premises and/or electronic numbering system for their animals constitutes some form of a ‘mark of the beast’ and/or represents an infringement of their ‘dominion over cattle and all living things’ in violation of their fundamental religious beliefs,” according to the farmers’ lawsuit filed Monday in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.

As radio frequency identification devices become a daily part of the electronic age, RFID technology is increasingly coming under fire for allegedly being the mark of Satan. The suit mentions various verses from the Book of Revelation. “He causes all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on their right hand or on their foreheads, and that no one may buy or sell except one who has the mark or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.” Revelation 13:16-17

The farmers’ lawsuit, brought by the Virginia-based Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund and some of its 1,400 members, seeks to block enforcement of the National Animal Identification System. Some of the group’s members so staunchly oppose the program that “they may have to quit farming,” according to the lawsuit.

So, which is greater: national security or the rights of the Amish to their religious beliefs free from government oppression?

And, not to sound like the crazy tin-foil hat guy, but are things getting better? We just had the Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae bailouts, word is that Detroit’s automakers want a bailout to build hybrids that the Japanese got a jump on ahead of time, Bear Stearns got a bailout and this morning it was mentioned that Lehman Brothers might get one too, maybe also the airlines… this country is becoming more and more socialist with all these takeovers. One wonders at what point is the threshold between moving to a mixed economy to one that is nearly or basically socialist.

Six-Year-Old News Story Causes United Airlines Stock to Plummet

You might have heard about this story yesterday, but it’s a testimony to how effectively news travels on the internet, how such internet-distributed news affects decision making, and how far-reaching internet archives are.

A worker at a Miami investment advisory firm called Income Securities Advisors, which publishes news alerts that get distributed through the Bloomberg News Service, did a Google search on bankruptcies this morning and got back search results that included a six-year-old story published in the South Florida Sun Sentinel about the 2002 bankruptcy filing by United Airlines.

The employee mistook the news for a current story — despite the date clearly marked on it (see update below) and other information in the article “that would clearly lead a reader to the conclusion that it was related to events in 2002″ — and included it in a subscription newsletter that was distributed through Bloomberg.

Panic ensued, as they say, and United Airlines stock price plummeted 75 percent (down from $12.30 to $3 a share) before someone realized it was an old news story and things righted themselves. The stock rebounded to $10.92 a share by Monday’s closing. But not before United Airlines contacted the Sun Sentinel and demanded the newspaper retract its (6-year-old) story.

It’s said that the internet is here to document our mistakes forever. While I doubt the length of time that the intenet is able to do so, it’s a valid point that sensitive news stories ought to be housed somewhere that is date-stamped properly and where aggregators and the like have no access to them.

An Open Letter to Old Friends

This is a letter I’d like to write to a lot of people who knew me before I made the decision to follow Christ and also who I turned off to Him shortly after my decision. An excerpt:

I wish I had been quicker to listen and slower to say more than I knew. Along the way I’ve seen enough in myself and in others to know now how foolish I must have sounded to you. Somewhere along the line I started asking questions like: If believing in Christ changes people’s hearts, why do so many of His followers turn out to be moralistic, self-righteous, angry people? Why does faith in Christ too often produce visible changes that are more like the honeymoon phase of a marriage than a lasting change in life?

…

I can see now is that accepting his offer of forgiveness and everlasting life didn’t automatically assure that I would be good or wise in what followed.

…

I now believe that church people, in our best moments, have a lot in common with members of a 12-step recovery group. We attend meetings and work the program, not because we are better than others but because we know we need our God and one another to overcome the problems that are stacked against us.

Not only does this letter quote Scripture in a way that doesn’t seem like it’s Bible-beating, but it also acknowledges a humility that most non-Christians don’t see from Christians. Christians so often don’t want to share their brokenness with others, because of pride maybe or just not wanting to look like we’re not following Jesus. However, as He said Himself, it is not those who are well who need the doctor, but it is the sick. What good does it do to scream at people for being sinners and find faults with them unless you simply want them to be cowered into submission? If the Holy Spirit is not involved in such an endeavor, there can be no true admission of faith.

We can more easily relate to non-Christians when we show them that we have our struggles too, but then to point to Jesus as the one who is refining us and helping us get through those struggles by His strength. I know personally that if I had not been “holier-than-thou” after I was saved, then there wouldn’t be so many people in my life that think my wife brainwashed me so we could get married. And truly, that kind of a “legacy” to leave with people will take a supernatural miracle to overcome.