Video Killed ....

OK, video isn't killing anything these days, but you'd think we're in for a huge paradigm shift from your TV screen to your computer screen. And, I think you'd be right. You may have already seen the attention network TV has been giving the deal between NBC and YouTube. It's not what you might think .. you won't be able to see full episodes of "The Office," or even the entire "Lazy Sunday" video on YouTube, at least not yet. Mostly promotional considerations passed back and forth between the two entities.

But it's significant for several reasons. Before I go any further, some disclosure: NBC pays my salary. And, they pay me to cover technology companies, like YouTube. In fact, we did a story on how huge YouTube was getting .. one day before the NBC deal was announced. No insider knowledge or anything (they don't tell me these things before they happen, nor do they give me stock), just a lucky coincidence.

But think about it. A giant network, putting down the boxing gloves and shaking hands with a dot-com video startup. It's cool on several levels. If you're one of the thousands of people who put amateur videos up on sites like YouTube (or Google Video, or any of the others), you should be proud. Like the bloggers who came before you, all you vloggers out there deserve a high five. The world is now paying attention.

But here's the big question hanging over the whole internet TV world: how do you make money doing it? YouTube has gotten lots of funding. It goes to figure that at least some of those investors will want to be paid back.

And here's the other question: If the YouTubes of the world start charging for their content, will you still pay to watch someone put their Mentos in Diet Coke? We already have pay TV (cable, Dish, etc), and quality is at a premium. "Entourage" works, and will come back .. dozens of other shows are gone forever.

I'm curious. What would you pay for online? Would you settle for free programming, but with advertising? Let me know at scott.budman@nbc.com

I can't wait to see what happens next. The wheels are already turning, and the mice are clicking like mad.

Youth, Served Again


The Silicon Valley got famous back in the late 1990's for several things: IPO riches, extravagance, silly Christmas parties with huge ice sculptures (wait, that's extravagant), and really, really young people in important roles.

In fact, when the bust came, we heard less about extravagance as a culprit than how young everybody was. As if a 42-year old buying shares of Brocade at 240 made sense, but a 22-year old CEO didn't.

OK, a 22-year old CEO never really made sense, but I think the last couple of years has shown that while greed never really works as an investment plan (the old Wall Street saying goes, "Bears make money, bulls make money, pigs get slaughtered."), young people still have really good ideas. And while Venture Capitalists ran out of patience for awhile after the bust (and who could blame them?), the money is flowing again in the Silicon Valley, and lots of it is flowing towards young people.

Case in point: Plaxo. This is a company you may have heard about, it may even be in your e-mail box now. Essentially, the company helps you organize your contacts. That's helpful. The constant e-mails asking you to sign up and be someone's contact are annoying, but the company says those are mercifully on the way out.

Anyway, Plaxo was started by two 22-year olds, and has since grown to serve more than 10 million customers. You can't argue with that kind of success, even if it did come from such young minds. So Plaxo's latest buy makes sense.

Plaxo just bought a company called HipCal. I use the term "company" loosely .. HipCal was put together by 5 guys living in a fraternity house in Troy, New York. Three of them are all of 21 years old. Giddy with succcess, the five amigos videotaped their entire road trip to the West Coast, documenting their dream come true. As one of them told me, "I was wondering if there was a place like this my whole life, and I'm glad there is."

Their enthusiasm makes you smile. Their engineering prowess made Plaxo's management (made up of older people, really) drool.

That's the nicest thing to me (not owning any Brocade stock) about tech's comeback. Lots of good ideas, no matter how old the people are who come up with them, are getting attention again. They're also getting funding. Which pays for lots of road trips.

High Tech/Low Tech

Technology took another beating during this last election, especially here in the Bay Area. But, while many in the Tech Capitol of the world might be shaking their heads, wondering when we'll catch on, many other Bay Area residents were more than happy to kick technology to the curb when it came to their right to vote.

I'm speaking of Alameda County. This is a democratic stronghold like few others. The politics lean way to the left, and when it comes to trust, the company called Diebold carries about as much weight as the company called Enron carries in the rest of the country.

Now, a quick disclosure. I come from Alameda County. Oakland, to be exact. I was born and raised there, and am happy and proud to know that I'll always think of it as home. Politically, though, I veer a bit - I've been a registered Independent for about 15 years.

All of that said, I was in Alameda County on election night, and unlike my usual beat, I was there to cover the lack of technology. Alameda County voters, for the most part, voted on paper. No voting machines in the precincts, so voters expressed their franchisement on an old-fashioned paper ballot. And, by the way, they loved it.

Maybe not everyone, but in precinct after precinct, we ran into voters proud to cast their paper ballots, and proud to steer clear of the Diebold voting machines. In their view, Diebold represents the Bush Administration, and is a company whose machines are not only hackable, but that somehow favor the right. Dozens of voters told me they were happy to keep Diebold out of Alameda County, as if they were doing their part to keep the election of '06 honest.

One problem. As you might have heard, the counting of Alameda County's ballots went long into the night .. in fact, long into the next day. Paper ballots just take longer. After several hours of waiting for the ballots to come in from the precincts, and several more hours of ballot counting, we were allowed upstairs to observe. The ballots were being counted, one by one, on machines.

The machines were made by Diebold.

Budman's the name, tech is his game. Based in Silicon Valley NBC11's Scott Budman tirelessly roams the Bay Area in search of the latest and greatest technology. Click on for updates from his travels.

LaLa De Da..

When I was growing up in Oakland, a Bay Area radio station had a program called "Desert Island Discs." A local celeb would come on the radio, and talk about 5 CDs he or she would have to have if stranded on a desert island.

Check your current collection: Do you have all 5 of yours? If not, read on.

Two of my favorite things to talk (and write) about are technology and music.
The two have come together like never before recently, and it's a trend that promises to grow exponentially by the year.

If you love music, downloading, uploading, sharing, etc, and want to do it all legally, here's one to try: lala.com. It's a site that understands that after years and years of buying CDs, and then setting them aside to upload music to your MP3 player, you're left with lots of CDs taking up space. I know I am.

So, what to do with them? Share them online, of course. Now, I won't pretend that this doesn't already go on by the ton. But with LaLa, it's done legally (translation: the artists get paid), and the Recording Industry has, so far, given the site its stamp of approval. Karmically speaking, it feels better knowing that a secondary market has actually been created for the artists (who don't get money even when you buy used CDs at the store).

But even better .. a way to find just about everything you could ever want to own. If somebody owns it, and they're dialed in to lala.com, there's no limit to the number of CDs you can find. This is not the case for even the most popular downloading services (and make no mistake, I'm a i-tunes user, too) .. they work fine, but have their limits - as all fellow Radiohead, Beatles, etc, etc, fans know all too well.

Thanks to the lala community, though, you can find whatever anybody has ever owned .. and is willing to share. Snatching up Radiohead rarities is easy .. it also feels good to send off an album like "Kind of Blue," thinking that maybe some young jazz fan is getting his first taste of Miles Davis. Who knows, really, but each of the artists (or, at least their estates) are getting paid for every CD sent.

It's karmic, it creates a new market to keep your favorite artists solvent, and it works. Give it a try, and let me know what you think. I'm at scott.budman@nbc.com

While we're at it .. got any Desert Island Discs? Let me know. I'll leave you with my list of top 5 Radiohead albums...
1. The Bends
2. Pablo Honey
3. OK Computer
4. Hail To The Thief
5. Kid A

-scott