Google Plus: Modeling Real Life Social Interactions

While the service may be in its infancy, I think G+ shows some real promise. Of particular interest to me is the ways in which the Circles feature models social interactions from the real world. I believe that in this aspect it is far better than Facebook, though it will take time for these interactions to click with users.

Circles: Just Like Real Social Circles

Quickly, think of one of your real life social circles. For most people, they will think of a group of friends, coworkers, or family that is tight knit and perhaps share some commonality. In many circumstances, these people will show up in multiple circles. G+ models this perfectly. You can easily take a person and put them in as many circles as you'd like.

Again much like real life, that person doesn't know that you consider them part of a particular circle unless they know implicitly or you tell them. That person may be on your "frenemies" list. Perhaps you only consider them to be an acquaintance (we'll get back to this) but you don't want them to get the wrong idea that you're keeping them at arms length.

You may never use this feature to its full potential, but one of the aspects of social software is that it allows you to organize and catalog your life in new and novel ways. The implementation on G+ is both easy and visual. You may learn something about how you think of your friends by attempting to put them into circles.

Sharing Controls Allow More Frank Conversations

When you share something on G+ a key feature is that you can easily limit or expand the scope of sharing. I know some people consider this to be a confusing extra step but it is necessary to model these interactions. It allows people to conveniently have separate social circles that need not often interact.

Think about it, is your mom or boss on Facebook? This answer is increasingly "yes." With Facebook's privacy settings it is complicated to avoid sharing sensitive information with these people. It's likely none of your boss's business that you were out partying all weekend, but it is so easy to inadvertently tell her just that. In order to avoid this you must either not befriend these people on Facebook (smart, but sometimes awkward) or go through a fairly unintuitive procedure to modify who can see a particular post. It's not impossible, in fact I have custom security settings that keep several people who are officially "friends" from seeing the content on my wall, but it is nowhere near as intuitive nor as central as it is on G+.

As an aside, I think that Google is placing their bets that by enabling you to have more control over who sees what info you will in turn feel more comfortable sharing things. If that becomes true then people who share relatively little now could find new life in a product like this. Also, I should note, the addition control is not absolute. Just like in the real world, if you say something to anyone then that person has the ability to share that information. Digital communications are easier to copy and verify, so it's not like this would give you carte blanche to trash talk your employer or openly cheat on your spouse.

Dealing With Acquaintances and Beyond

The way Circles work will allow for far less awkward interactions with people you don't know or don't know well. If a random person adds you to a Circle, you can simply ignore it and they will only see public posts. Any posts they share with you will go to your Incoming page. You simply don't have to see those people, and it requires no action on your part. Sure, you can block them if you really want. A better strategy would be to simply treat public posts as you would any other public speech and not say anything too personal or socially unacceptable and you don't have to do anything about them.

Say that guy you met at the party last weekend adds you, and you might share some stuff with him based on what you know about him but you don't want him to know too much about your personal life, then file him under Acquaintances. When you share personal info don't share it with Acquaintances. Or create another group that's even less intimate. Chances are that most sharing of this sort barely has a real world model because many acquaintances don't have frequent interactions after the fact. So even if you never share anything with these people you shouldn't feel bad about.

A Conversation With a Circle

In the real world it is unlikely you will have a chance to talk to people from all of your social circles at once more than a few times in your life. The one time this is likely to happen, at your wedding, is something that many people only have happen once, and others only a few times. Good luck getting your coworkers to buy you a fourth wedding gift.

Instead, you probably have conversations with a one circle of friends at a time. It's likely that you tell these groups many of the same things, but you probably choose not to tell certain groups certain things, and other times you probably change things slightly to match the group. Each group likely reacts differently, even if similarly, to the same conversation. Sometimes, you would tell two people the same thing, but not when they are in the same room. That's how social dynamics work. It's a dynamic that Facebook breaks and G+ models somewhat correctly.

For some people, Facebook has changed this social dynamic forever. Any public announcement will be just that: public for all and for all to comment on. They probably value the varied interactions of their different circles of friends meshing together. Fortunately for these people, G+ offers the "My Circles" and "My Extended Circles" sharing settings, not to mention "Public".

For everyone else, the genie can be put back in the bottle. If you have a conversation with one group of friends no one else need know. You can have the same conversation multiple times shared with multiple groups and avoid any interaction.

Why would you want to do this? Well, maybe you want to give your close friends a low down on your trip to Cancun, but you want to share photos with your family. You don't want your rowdy friends commenting where Granny can read. Or, maybe you know people from Ohio and Michigan and you want to discuss the fine mess that OSU's football program got itself into but you'd rather it not become a huge flame war.

A Conversation From a Circle

Here's another key difference. Right now G+ does not have a "wall" that anyone can write on. Some people think this is terrible, others love it. I like it because it gives me control over who sees what my friends say to me. However, the real benefit of this is that it models how interactions from a circle of friends to you work in the real world.

If you're hanging out with a circle of friends one of them might say something to you that everyone in the circle can hear. This could strike up a conversation within the circle, and maybe it's a story you would recount later to others but people outside the circle would not likely be involved.

How you model this in G+ is to make a post directed at your circle and tag the person you are speaking to. This will allow your mutual friends to comment on this post. If your friend wants to share it more broadly he can do so by clicking Share and selecting more of his circles. By sharing it with your mutual circle of friends you can have the same sort of intimate, candid conversations you would have in the real world. If it's something you want more people to talk about you retell it by sharing, the same as you would need to otherwise.

This again empowers you to control who sees what information. If you think about Facebook's wall, the idea of allowing someone to write on your wall is like asking for someone to write graffiti on your house or draw a penis on your forehead. Sure, it's also like having them sign a cast, but even then they normally ask permission. Think of resharing as your wall plus asking permission.

Public Speaking

Public speaking is something that Twitter does pretty well. Conversations on Twitter are so disjointed that it is more a broadcast platform than anything else. Of course, conversational discourse is kneecapped on Twitter due to the size limitation. Facebook makes most of the things you say into a semi-public event that is invite only. Unless your profile is open to the public only your friends will see it, but then those people not in your friends list can't interact with it. G+ is modeled a little bit after both services, allowing you to have both private and public conversations. However, G+'s public conversations are far superior to Twitter and more shareable than Facebook.

Anything you post that is aimed at the Public should be considered to be something of a seminar. It's like gathering all of your friends, acquaintances, fans, etc. into a big room and offering for anyone to comment. You can assume that this will be fairly public, as it is tied to Google after all, but the people who will immediately know about it are the ones who have you in their circles. Thus, you practically have an attendance roster right on your Circles page. Unless you disable comments then you can allow public interaction on these items, basically anyone with a G+ account can comment.

Getting Along with G+, Acceptance & Adoption

When we deal with a new service like this one we must be careful. Some people will proclaim it the next big thing, others will call it DOA, and still others will begrudgingly drag themselves along for the ride. We'll recall Google Wave (over and over again) and Orkut. We'll think of MySpace, which is funny because it was a huge success that just didn't have staying power. Maybe we'll think of all the other projects Google has done that no one would give a chance to yet have proven to be popular over time, like GMail, Google Maps, and Android.

Chances are that people like me will be more lenient on the service. I don't mean because of the reasons laid out above, but rather that I tend to love Google interfaces. Even their quirks often agree with me. I try to cheque my fanboyism and be objective. Certainly, as someone who does interface design for a living I can be critical of their choices. Still, it works for me for the most part.

It's also important to remember that this service was launched early in the development stages. It is clear that they intend to follow their pattern of rapid iterations and live testing. Google is capable of developing slick interfaces that work well, but often their first generation is somewhat clunky and pointedly favors geek culture with features like keyboard shortcuts. If you're not so much of a geek (or sometimes if you're just that much of a geek) then you won't appreciate this as much as people like me.

I'm sure there are more ways that this service both mimics and deviates from real life social interactions. After all, it is a piece of software and it does do things that are impossible or difficult to physically accomplish, like bringing together people from geographically divergent places. However, I'm not exactly a social scientist nor will I proclaim myself to be a social media expert. This is all I've thought of up to now and it was inspired by several conversations with various friends. This may not be the last I write on the subject, I only hope that the next thing I write isn't a post-mortem.

Steps and Missteps to Cord Cutting

After some setbacks to my cable television independence, I've recently climbed back on the horse. This time I have some new weapons and a new strategy: ownership. I'll get to that in the next post but for now I'd like to summarize my attempts to cut the cord.

This all started about 4 years ago. I made a change to our cable plan and I let the nice CSR sign me up for the $100/month "Triple Play" service that includes Internet, phone, and Cablevision's extended "optimum" television line up. She also threw in a second DVR, free for a year and made it so the first DVR was billed as a regular cable box. All told it was about $120/month, but for that money I got a lot of services and perks.

Then the introductory period ran out after 12 months. Those perks that seemed so nice for $120 didn't seem so great when the bill started closing in on $200. I took a step back and questioned how much I actually needed these services and which ones I could afford. I kept the Internet services, as theirs is the best in my area. I returned the both DVR boxes. I cut my cable back to their lowest plan, which isn't much more than a rebroadcast of channels available over the air (OTA). I even tried getting a better antenna to see if I could switch to just OTA, but apparently I can only do that if I speak Spanish. Also, I switched my phone service to Broadvoice.

These changes brought my total back down to a more manageable $80. I didn't sack the extra money away in the bank, though. I knew if I'm to make this work I need to invest in some other forms of entertainment. I do have a child, and I'm a guy who likes to watch TV and movies. So I bumped up my Netflix membership to 4 discs and made it a point to buy my son DVDs every couple weeks. I augmented my viewing with online streaming services like Hulu, and I started watching a lot more fansubbed anime. This worked well.

...For a while. Then my mother moved in for a month or so. She's hopelessly addicted to TV. In her house the TV runs 24/7. Often on one of those blathering, vile, manipulative news channels. I'm sure you know the one. So we had to reinstate a broader cable line-up. We kept our separate cable service, though. No DVR this time. A couple months after she left, we dropped our television service back to previously low levels.

...For a while. Next up came my wife's research project. Her concept was to monitor some of those blathering, vile, manipulative news channels and write about how they influence one's worldview. I'm sure it was interesting, though she never let me read it, and she got a good grade. However, this meant we needed to increase our service level and add a DVR. At the time my son was approaching his third birthday.

Big mistake. Once a habit formed of recording shows on the DVR and watching them later we became stuck. Sure, we can always just get rid of the thing and deal with him when we do. That's annoying, though, and it's a little unfair to him. He's just a kid and he likes some shows that have a limited or non-existent DVD presence. We limit the time he watches TV, but kids seek out new things so the shows he watches will drift over time. Two shows in particular seemed troublesome: Nickelodeon's Bubble Guppies and Disney's Jake and the Neverland Pirates.

That brings us up to a week ago.

Here's a quick rundown of the setup:

Service	Provider	Cost/Month	Notes
Cable	Cablevision	$70	including DVR
Internet	Cablevision	$50
Phone	Broadvoice	$15	No Long Distance
Rentals/Streaming	Netflix	$28	4 disc plan

Since we're all caught up now in my next post I'll go over some changes I've made, others I plan, and what the long term picture looks like.

Michael Vick

The Michael Vick story is a great example of a terrible problem in American society. Just not the one you're thinking of. It's a story of someone who took the punishment for their crime, and yet most of society wants him to fail on the other side. It's the story of how the criminal justice system is failed by society just as much as society is failed by the criminal justice system. It's also an example of how the basic moral of forgiveness escapes both our religious and secular populations.

The Obligatory Non-Defense Paragraph:
I am not defending Michael Vick's past actions, nor am I attempting to trivialize them. Nothing herein should be construed as a defense of such repulsive behavior. I like dogs. I don't understand dog fighting (or the culture around it, which is another under-reported aspect of this). I believe it is possible to defend Michael Vick without condoning these actions, and as such I will try.

So, we all know what Michael Vick did. We should all know that he admitted his guilt and rather than have some prolonged legal battle in which he'd likely have prevailed on some technicality or lawyer wizardry, he admitted his guilt. We should all know that he served time in prison that was not only deemed appropriate by the justice system, but is excessive when compared to others who have committed like crimes.

It isn't so clear why this means that Vick should no longer be a part of this society. The way he's regarded by some is baffling - whether it be various media members questioning the morality of appreciating Vick's football talent or random people on Facebook who must remind us of how horrible Vick is as a person every time he's on TV. I can see why someone would take such a stance against Ben Roethlisberger since he wasn't punished for the highly corroborated allegations of rape, but Vick's life was ruined after his crimes were exposed. He lost essentially everything he had. He lost a year of his life in prison. He's been thoroughly punished by the media, the courts, the NFL, and continues to be punished by society.

That's not enough for everyone, though. Some want to push it further and demonize anyone who would dare to support Vick's attempts to be a productive member of society. If you like how he plays you are a bad person because you've forgotten what he did.

Such a mentality is pervasive everywhere towards ex-cons. Social justice in our society is one that punishes first, but never forgives and rarely forgets. The punishment for a criminal record is to become a second-class citizen. You have to divulge it every time you apply for a job, or they'll likely find out anyway. Good luck getting that job at that point, unless it's something lowly that no one else wanted. Even so, this is occasionally more understandable than not. I understand that you don't want someone whose already committed fraud working in the banking industry. How does having a past involving animal abuse disqualify you from throwing a football? (Save the pigskin puns.)

If Michael Vick cannot contribute to society in the field of sports, for which he has tremendous and unique talent, then we need to throw out the entire justice system. We should switch to a system in which crimes at that level result in a quick death penalty. Why should we let these people out of prison if we've predetermined that they must not be able to positively contribute? If we're not letting them out then we may as well just off them now rather than sheltering them for dozens of years. This is society saying that the justice system is a failure, and it is a failure precisely because society deems it such and refuses to give ex-cons a chance.

That is also society's way of never forgiving. Forgiveness is a basic Christian value. The Koran prescribes swift punishment for certain actions, but forgiveness after. Culturally, it's a principle that has been important for millenia. Here is a case where forgiveness seems not to apply. After all, how can you forgive a man enough to let him throw a football when he's only been to the extent of the law, become a pariah, and lost most of his fortune? He clearly hasn't suffered enough, where "enough" is determined by the harshest sentence any member of the public can imagine for him. No, we can't forgive a man who has admitted he was wrong and paid the price, because such an action in our society has become taboo. Instead, we should forgive those who admit no wrongdoing and are never punished, or at least we should forget and then act enraged when reminded. Vick admitted his guilt and thus he should be dead to all of us, or maybe just dead.

What good is a failure for society? Why should we want someone to slip into destitution and obscurity when they do something wrong, even if they are punished for it? If Michael Vick were left with no football career do you think he is more or less likely to commit further crimes?

Personally, I hope Vick succeeds. I think his can be a success story, someone who made grave mistakes and lost it all but was able to bounce back after atonement. We almost never get to root for the ex-con, this is our chance.

Video Quality, Content, and Cable Replacement

Last week researchers at Rice University released the results of a study on subjective video quality. These largely confirm my opinion on the current best streaming service. It's not the video quality, it's the content.

We don't watch movies and shows in a vacuum. Other factors matter. The most important one is that you actually want to watch the content. This is especially true of any service that you might have to pay for. It's the reason why Netflix doesn't have a streaming only plan, those DVDs help augment their limited but growing library of streaming content. Without the extra DVD many subscribers would have lower satisfaction as the ebb and flow of licensing cause periods where desirable content is lacking.

Of course, that's only part of the story. The importance of these services is that they are likely to displace our current television service in the long run. For that to happen the services need to not only mimic the television experience, but surpass it. Meanwhile, the cable providers won't rest on their laurels and watch themselves be supplanted. The only way to win this battle is to provide the absolute best overall service for the money.

So long as you've tried them all then you already know what the best service is.

The video quality doesn't matter so much. The user interface is something that we can hack at until we've found every flaw and highlight, but after watching two videos you likely know what you like. You intuitively pick the best service. You've probably already done the cost/benefit analysis without even knowing.

This is a $90 Billion industry. It's an understatement to say that there's a lot at stake. Netflix has become a billion dollar company in roughly a decade. Speculation on a Hulu IPO puts the value at around $2 billion. Online video might be a startup industry, but it's growing fast.

Millions of people have decided that Netflix provides sufficient value and have subscribed. Millions also watch Hulu on a daily basis. Of course, I think Hulu is better. Millions more subscribe to some sort of cable television service and may or may not bother with the other two. There is a lot of strong crossover in these groups. I'm sure most Netflix and Hulu users either still subscribe to cable, or they use other online video services.

All of these services are trying to tip the scales in their favor. Netflix has added thousands of new streaming titles since I last reviewed their streaming library. Hulu adds new content constantly, and they have the advantage of their traditional media ownership. Cable isn't adding new content so quickly, instead they're adding more technology via set top boxes and their own streaming offerings. Of course, the cable companies also get the most money directly from subscribers, their goal is to stop the bleeding.

How does this apply to the customers, though? Well, for one we can't expect a free ride forever. If content shifts online then we'll see more premium services pop up. Netflix is one of them, and increasingly Netflix acts like an old-school premium channel by signing exclusive streaming contracts to lock in content for extended periods of time. Hulu added their Plus service, which is a little different in that it's more akin to a television archive with access to some higher video quality content. It's a very cool take on such a service, but I wonder how broad the appeal will be.

If online video expands and more customers shift away from cable providers we'll also see an increase in broadband prices, especially in monopoly markets. Most markets will continue to have these monopolies, or anti-competitive oligopolies in the short run. Eventually we may see more competition from wireless and wifi providers. During the period where options are limited we're likely to see broadband prices increase as cable subscribers decrease. There will be offset contracts for subscribers to both services, but this will be a big hindrance to those who want to switch away from cable simply to save money.

The point of this exercise is to emphasize that money only matters in the short term. What we need to focus on is value. Money is part of value, so some people may be more inclined to use Hulu and deal with advertising so they won't have another $9+ bill each month. Others hate commercials and love the idea that they can pay a paltry amount to avoid them. Value is very subjective and it requires everyone to evaluate things themselves.

Even video quality is merely part of the value equation and is likely to be a non-issue in a few years. Today's issues include playback smoothness, image quality, and buffering. It is a given at this point that these issues won't exist in another five years. Advances in video encoding, decoding, and hardware will cure the smoothness issue. Competition will cause more providers to offer HD video, and those same advances in delivery will help this video get to you smoothly. Edge networks will help the bigger providers with the buffering, but so will smaller file sizes. These things are problems today, not tomorrow.

The real problem is overall experience. Things like UI design and customer service. Technological and economical challenges are relatively easy to solve. We know where to look, and have a rough idea of what to do. Human interaction is infinitely complex. The larger your user base the harder it is to please everyone. The solutions to these problems don't scale the way others do.

That's why when I review on of these sites I focus so much on getting to the content I want and viewing it. I focus less about what the content is than I do with how it works. The online video services that solve these problems will invariably solve the other problems. So they're the ones worth considering. Beyond that it's all content.

The Best Streaming Service

I've long avoided writing this post. Maybe it's because I was hoping for more progress in the streaming video field. Maybe I was just being lazy. I'm actually leaning towards the thought that I didn't want to admit the truth.

The truth is that there is no best streaming service. However, there are best services in a couple of categories. There's also the highly subjective "best service for Dan." Without delay, that service is:

Hulu.

Sorry Netflix. I've been a loyal customer for so long. In fact, I probably watch more content from Netflix than I do from Hulu, but it's all on DVD. The truth is that due to the implementation and catalog I almost never watch anything via Netflix streaming. Hulu is easy, available, and most of all it has loads of high quality content. In the end, no technical measure can make up for that quality of the catalog. The video quality is better on other services, as is the community. I should also mention that I can tolerate commercials, especially in the low dosage and variety that I see on Hulu.

If you prefer the catalog offered by Netflix, it is the superior service. If you can't stand commercials that may tip it the edge. I consider Netflix the winner overall if we ignore content. The combination of online and offline viewing is great. I appreciate the user reviews and recommendation system, both of which help me make up my mind what's the best use of my entertainment time. The Silverlight based player is also superior to most Flash implementations. It's not perfect by any means, but it delivers solid video quality and UI with much less resource utilization. I can watch Netflix content on my 6-year-old Pentium 4 desktop without noticeable degradation in quality or dropped frames. I can't say the same about Hulu.

I have to also mention Amazon's VOD service. It's Flash based, yet they've worked some magic to deliver a superior video experience to just about anyone else in the streaming sector. It's a winner in that respect, but it loses in almost every other. The UI is terrible and confusing. Most importantly, from a value perspective Amazon ranks up there with a trip to Blockbuster (brick & mortar, that is). Most of the VOD offerings are available as rentals for only a small discount over buying a boxed set or renting a DVD. I'd rather use my money on a Netflix subscription and rent the DVDs. I'd recommend Amazon's service as a way to try one of the few series they have before you buy or rent the set, but otherwise I don't think it's worth it now.

As for other services, I've excluded many based on principle alone.

I don't count YouTube because only a small part of its content is longer than 10 minutes. Most of the shows you can watch there are webisodes, or they're illegally posted and broken into 10 minute chunks. No thanks.

I really like Vimeo's player for its UI and video quality, but beyond that is suffers from the same problem as YouTube. It's all user-generated, independent content. Vimeo has a lot of merit, they're kinda the PBS of the web. They host a lot of great shows, but ultimately the stuff there is just for a quick break from work or its all substance with no entertainment value. I'm also not sure of their website at all, I only seem to view their content via the embedded player. I'll have to do a proper review another time.

There's many, many more. I'm not going to bother to review all the different networks, especially since the biggest players simply signed up with Hulu. Viacom hosts a lot of its stuff, but they use a no-frills Flash player and they seem to focus more on making their content short so it can be embedded. This seems to be the way smaller cable networks have gone. They really want you to watch TV instead. Anime sites like CrunchyRoll have serviceable players but nothing great. Aggregator sites like Joost have largely given up on hosting content (beyond ads) and focused on aggregation, so they're not worth a mention. Beyond that, how much is there? I'm sure I'm missing some service but I doubt it would change the top three that I picked.

Hulu it is. I'll give it another year or so and revisit.

Amazon Video On Demand Trial

I like to shop at Amazon. I'm a big fan of their reviews, and I often consult them even when I won't make the purchase from that site. Still, I've been doing most of my holiday shopping there for the last four or five years. I live in the land of malls otherwise knows as North Jersey, and I know better to go anywhere near a mall at any convenient hour in the month or two approaching Christmas. So, I sit at home or work and I review, compare, and buy my presents online. That's not what this article is about.

When I bought my last salvo of presents recently I purchased an $8 copy of Miracle On 34th Street for my aunt. With this purchase I was given a $5 credit to use on Amazon's Video On Demand service. Not bad. Since I like to review streaming video services, I figured that I am obligated to use this credit for just that.

My first impression was that there was a tiny catalog to choose from. Amazon is great at pushing traffic in profitable directions, as such the landing page after you successfully redeem your credit is a list of television series that are available to watch. There is not a clearly defined navigation off of this - not that the links aren't there, they just blend in too well with Amazon's standard navigation - so I considered this to be the choices I had. I selected Battlestar Galactica from a relatively unimpressive lot.

A quick run down of Battlestar Galactica. I'm unfamiliar with the series but I'd heard good things for quite some time. I decided to start with series, rather than the miniseries, which seems like it was a mistake. Then the two episodes I watched weren't in the proper order [my fault, see below] so I was a bit lost. The series seemed interesting and I was able to figure out the general idea. I'm not sure if I can get past the grating sound of the actors proclaiming "frack" instead of "fuck." It's a perfect example of how TV censorship is dumb. Now that I've got that out of my system, back to Amazon...

Starting the first episode was fairly easy. I clicked through, purchased the video, and it played. The video quality is pretty good. So good, in fact, that I didn't realize that I'd selected the standard definition version of the episode. No matter, this was entirely passable for a computer screen. I think if I were to watch it on my TV I'd be annoyed by the visible distortion from compression. Gradients seemed to be the worst victims of this, the result is a fairly high contrast picture. The trade off here is that the video runs very smoothly. I didn't notice any dropped frames and panning scenes seemed very smooth.

I was most impressed with the resources this required. Something tells me that Amazon's service would be great for people with slower PCs, at least comparably. Even though it uses a Flash-based player, it didn't tax my system the same way that Hulu and most other Flash video services do. Even when I watched the second video in HD the experience was better than most streaming services I've used. Netflix is the only other service the comes to mind, but they use Silverlight.

The next video I made a point to watch in HD. Their HD videos allow you to choose from 480p and 720p. To get 720p you have to use the pop out interface, but from there I couldn't find a way to make the video full screen. Why didn't the interface on the pop out have a button for full screen? Perhaps if the player detected a faster connection it would allow me to watch 720p without the pop out, but I don't see why because I didn't have any problems watching the 720p version when I did. The picture quality is, of course, even better. For my laptop's screen I didn't think it was so terribly much better that it justified the price difference. The previous problems with noticeable compression disappear. Everything is crisp and the colors are good. The picture quality of 480p is on par with DVD, and 720p lives up to the HD moniker.

Of course, I was again too quick to judge their navigation and I clicked on season two thinking it was episode two. This was quite annoying once I realized what I'd done. As a user, I internalize this and feel dumb. As a UI designer, I realize that this is at least as much of a failing on Amazon's part as it is mine. Their UI works great for other parts of their store, but I think they're both trying too hard to retain consistency between Video On Demand and the rest of Amazon, or they're not trying hard enough. I think a large part of my confusion came from my expectations of how Amazon navigation works, my past experiences with their navigation, and my past experiences with competitor's streaming interfaces. Overall I was very disappointed with this aspect of the service.

Once I took a few seconds to acquaint myself I was able to navigate a bit better. I checked out the rest of their selection. I'm not overly impressed by it. Since this isn't a subscription service that isn't a huge ordeal, though. When I did find something to watch, like Battlestar Galactica, I was impressed with the completeness of the offering. The worst thing about Netflix and Hulu is that they often fail to secure entire series for streaming. If I'm going to watch something via streaming I'd like to be able to finish, and if I'm forced to start with DVDs then I normally finish that way. If I wanted to it seems I could watch all of this series via Video On Demand, which is comforting and I'm sure makes it easier to part with money.

Which brings us to the last issue with Amazon's VOD: money. There's not a lot of free content on this service. Instead you're purchasing videos, either individually or in a bundled package. The SD video I watched was $1.99 and the HD one was $2.99. I could have purchased an entire season in SD for $17.99 or in HD for $44.99. That ads up very quickly. By contrast, a month of Netflix at my current service level is only $24.99. During that time I could surely watch a season of a show if I want, and I've done that a few times. Hulu is even cheaper. I just have to be willing to sit through some commercials. It seems that Amazon is trying to compete against Apple and DVDs. They may have a decent shot at Apple, but I think there's still a lot of value in DVDs that VOD isn't matching. The sense of ownership, portability, and permanence in DVDs is missing and I'm not convinced that they've done anything to top that.

Overall, I think that Amazon's Video On Demand is a competent player, but they're overpriced right now and they still have some navigation issues to deal with. I'd like to see an expanded catalog and perhaps a subscription offering or ad-supported content. Shy of that I'll probably stick with other services.

The Real Reason Behind Capitol v Vimeo

Capitol records is suing the video community site Vimeo. The complaint is over a short they created in which the employees of Vimeo lip sync the Harvey Danger song Flagpole Sitta, a late 90's alt-pop song that enjoyed a brief bit of success. It is a white kid in skinny jeans anthem and they fit that bill.

I don't find the lawsuit itself particularly interesting. From the sound of it, I believe Capitol will win on at least one count of copyright infringement. The video itself obviously infringes, though I don't see how it does any damage to Capitol's property. Still, their hook is compelling from a legal point of view. Check out this excerpt from NewTeeVee:

The difference, according to Capitol, is that not only has Vimeo not tried very hard to protect copyright owners, but it actively encourages infringement. Capitol alleges that Vimeo’s use of copyrighted material is “not an accident,” claiming that the web site contains “a massive amount of content that features, and draws most (if not all) of its appeal from, the use of copyrighted works.” As a result, according to the complaint, Vimeo is not only aware of copyright infringement happening on its system, but “actively promotes and induces that infringement.”

What's interesting about this is that Vimeo's appeal is the high quality of its unique, user generated content. Just like in the video, the compelling element is not the song but they way in which their employees are lip syncing. I would go so far as to say that it's more interesting than the original video, though I haven't seen that in a decade. Vimeo is one of the user generated content sites that is relatively free from blatant copying. Perhaps copyrighted works are used as background music for these videos, but they are rarely, if ever, the central focus.

That's why Vimeo is being sued. Not because their site is rife with copyright infringement. Not because their site encourages infringement over unique content. Specifically because the community at their site has flourished into one that consistently puts out unique user generated content of high quality. Vimeo is like YouTube with the noise turned down. This scares the pants off the content industry.

As the trend towards Internet Television strengthens the monopolies of the content industry weaken. Quality user generated content is a direct competitor to professionally generated content. The content industry has a long history of using the legal system to ensure that they squash the competition. That's what they're doing here.

I feel bad for Vimeo. They made an innocent video to show what a fun-loving bunch of wacky kids they are at their little Web 2.0 start up. They probably thought that like other various mashups and non-malicious infringements that their video would either fly under the radar or become a success such that the content owner would appreciate the attention drawn to their work and see the positive aspects of it. What they didn't realize is that they've become the nemesis of big business. Big business does not treat its adversaries well.

Netflix Streaming: The Holy Grail of Online TV?

I write a lot about online entertainment. I suppose it makes sense, because I'm writing as a hobby and most of my other hobbies somehow involve online entertainment. I also write a lot about Netflix. I really like the company and the service fits me almost perfectly. Are they the best, though?

When I previously wrote about Hulu and ABC I mentioned Netflix. Actually, I tend to use it as the bar with which other streaming sites are measured. It's bothered me since then that I never came back to write a review of Netflix's Watch Instantly.

Netflix was founded with a purpose: Deliver users television and movie content via the Internet. That may go against what you think of the company. Chances are you associate them with mail order rentals. It's true that they shifted to that business model, but only after they realized that the infrastructure for streaming video was not in place in the late 90's. When they finally were able to start offering this service they were neither pioneers nor were they pushing the limits of technology. However, they have a long history of getting things right and they continued that tradition here.

The Watch Instantly service was originally somewhat of a dud. The interface and process was well done, but the content on there was mostly terrible. There were a few exceptions, mostly documentaries, but the majority of that first generation of content was the stuff that doesn't even get late night plays on third rate cable stations. I watched a few movies from that era and I was excited, but I also wasn't worried that I would go over the 17 hours of playback per month they offered.

I think the potential must have been obvious to the studios because Netflix struck several deals and significantly expanded their offerings. Of the 17,000 or so streaming titles in their catalog it's fairly easy to find something you would like to watch. Still, the vast majority is rubbish. That's the way the long tail works. One can hope that as the catalog expands better content will continue to float to the top. Still, this is a stark contrast to Hulu which has a wide variety of first rate content.

When you're looking for that content you can go a few ways about it. What I usually do is browse through the Watch Instantly selection where I can drill down into subcategories, from there I can sort titles alphabetically or by rating. The rating data is useful, but I wish it were more applicable to me - more on that later. This works a little like Hulu's "Channels" and allows me to quickly find new content that I may want to watch. It's not as focused as Hulu is, though, and there's a lot more noise to clutter the decision. The other way is to browse through the catalog as usual but instead of adding a DVD to your queue you either watch the content right then or you add it to a streaming queue. It's kind of nice, you look for something and get a surprise that you don't have to wait.

Once you've decided on a program to watch you get to experience the real gem: the player. Netflix play is great in that it gauges your computer and connection in order to deliver the best possible quality of video with the least interruptions. At first I found this annoying, I wanted to be able to get the highest quality of picture and I was willing to let it cache for longer in order to get that. Now I'm convinced that this is a good way to go.

Why? It seems that Netflix has more shades of gray in their quality settings than Hulu does. With Hulu it's high or low quality (and their standalone player has a medium setting). The difference between the two is stark, the low quality is often unacceptably bad and the high can burn out all the fans in your system in a single viewing. Netflix dynamically pics the right quality setting and only occasionally have I been let down by this. Unlike Hulu, I can watch a show with acceptable video quality without noticeable dropped frames or having to crank the volume because my computer is doing double duty as a furnace.

The down side to this is that every time you skip back and forth the stream is interrupted and the player goes through the negotiation process again. If you're watching a series and you want skip the opening and ending sequence you have to renegotiate. If you missed something and you want to go back 30 seconds you have to renegotiate. Also, sometimes if your connection has a hiccup you'll find it switching to the lower quality setting. A refresh normally fixes this, but that's annoying.

Still, it's a bonus that once you start watching you aren't constantly reminded that streaming content is still playing catch-up to traditional TV. If I were watching this over my TV I'd probably not think about the source at all.

Other notes about the player: I like the interface for skipping around. When the movie loads it loads a series of still frames taken at 10 second intervals. When you skip it gives you a timeline of these and you select one to skip to. It's very fast, but you lose precision. You cannot skip to 3:16, you have to go to 3:10. The other controls are fairly standard. I'd like to see integration with media buttons for the in-browser player, as it's the only thing available for Mac.

It uses Silverlight. I'm not a huge fan of Silverlight, and Flash made some big strides shortly after Netflix committed to the change. Still, I think that Flash is a resource hog and Silverlight may be slightly better.

Of course, Netflix also has the widest variety of available players. They don't have a standalone player for Mac that I know of, but they do have integration in Windows Media Center and that works very well. You can also access this content on a few gaming systems. Plus there is the Roku player and a whole host of other devices that are ready to stream from Netflix. For the sake of this review I'm focusing on the in-browser player. I'd like to do a head to head comparison of Windows Media Center Netflix vs. Hulu standalone. I'll save that for another day. I probably won't be comparing any of the other devices anytime soon. I don't feel particularly compelled to buy any of these TVs or Blu-Ray players that only work with Netflix, being a two trick pony isn't that much better than being a one-trick pony. I think I'd rather buy the Roku player since that company seems to be expanding its offerings all the time.

The elephant in the room: subscription fees. I'm going to ignore this elephant, sort of. If you're not a Netflix subscriber then I don't think you should become one just for streaming. You should become one because the DVD-by-mail rental model is superior to other rental models and the streaming is a bonus. That's my take on it. I've had Netflix since 2002, long before they offered streaming content. When they offered it I considered it a perk, and they didn't charge me any extra. For me this service is essentially free. I'd pay for Netflix even if they took it away. Some may not agree with that, and certainly if you're one of the people who dislikes the DVD rental model they use then you would value it differently.

My biggest gripe: no streaming for additional profiles. As I've said before I'm very particular about the way I rate movies and I have very different tastes from my wife. This really hurts Watch Instantly because I can only access it via my wife's account. Netflix doesn't even have a way to migrate accounts, so if I were to offer to pay them more and have separate accounts. I would have to go back and re-rate all of the movies I've seen, 1400 and counting. When I go into my wife's account I find that many movies I enjoy or I may enjoy are rated poorly. This is because Netflix displays ratings based on what you've rated in the past and how you've rated different types of movies. It doesn't completely kill the value of the ratings shown, but it comes close.

The verdict: Netflix is king of the browser. For all its faults, Netflix still reigns supreme if you want to watch content from your browser. It isn't perfect, but neither is the competition, so I say that it wins. That's just for the browser. On the desktop the showdown has only recently begun. Next up: Netflix Media Center plug-in vs. Hulu Desktop. Stay tuned.

PS3 or XBox 360 for Netflix?

Mike over at Hacking Netflix has a brief comparison of the two gaming consoles that can stream Watch Instantly content.

Reliability: The Xbox 360 suffers from the infamous "red ring of death" and is the console with the lowest reliability (23.7% system failure rate), according to Square Trade. Winner: PS3.

User Interface: The Xbox has had almost a year lead on the PS3, so it has a unique party mode feature and Xbox-style UI while the PS3 is slower and has the "generic" Netflix streaming UI. Winner: Xbox 360.

Of course, I have neither of these. I have an old PS2 that is never used. My wife keeps telling me that she wants a Wii, but it seems like a big expenditure for a platform that was aged the day it arrived. I also have my reservations about whether a Wii would be used after the first two months until my son is older.

Of the three companies, I would definitely prefer to support Nintendo. Sony and Microsoft are bullies and I strongly object to their business practices. That would make my decision quite tough. The XBox seems to have more ways to interact with your media while the PS3 opens the door to Blu-Ray. If I were to make a snap decision today I'd probably buy a PS3, at least I'd get a Blu-Ray player out of the deal if we stopped playing games on it, and it doesn't require expensive secondary purchases and online subscriptions to use it for Netflix.

Favorite Websites

This is the first post in a series of reprints from my classes. Once the class is over, I will lose these if I don't save them elsewhere. I've decided to post them here as they may be of some interest. This is from my Introduction to Information Systems class, which I was too lazy to test out of.

Like the vast majority of Internet users, I get my search results from Google. I avoid Live.com like the plague. Interestingly, I recently took a blind comparison between the three major English language search engines and found that I preferred Yahoo! slightly over Google. That is not enough for me to change the default search on my phone and many computers.

I use GMail for almost all of my email needs. When I was given I GMail invite long ago I admit that I was skeptical. Ultimately, I think that GMail’s concepts of email conversations and labels were revolutionary. I know they invented neither but their implementation is top notch. I can hardly wait for Google Wave.

Facebook is the unquestionable king of social networking. No site on the Internet is better at helping you find and stay loosely connected to a group of people. Their suggestion data mining is so good it’s a little scary.

Netflix is my favorite site, and my top pick for entertainment. I've been using Netflix for seven years. In that time I've seen the site grow from a simple rental-by-mail service to a community of movie fans. This site has the best selection of streaming content on the Internet, though Hulu is closing fast. I'm also a fan of Bill Scott, the director of UI engineering for the company. I've rated over 1400 movies, according to my Netflix profile, and roughly 500 of them were rented or streamed from the company.

Honorable mentions include: SlickDeals.Net for bargain hunting; Lifehacker for, well... "lifehacking;" and Wondermark.com for humor.

Cablevision

I'm a fan of Cablevision. As an addendum to my recent decision to cancel cable again, I want to clarify that it is not the fault of my cable company. I may not like giving them too much of my money, but I'll likely remain a customer of theirs as long as feasible.

Their services are great. I realize that they're a little pricey, but you get top notch service for the added cost. My Optimum Online connection is reliably fast, and I certainly could not do better for the price. At the very least, not without signing a prolonged contract that would surely balloon in cost after some period of time. Their cable packaging is a bit more expensive than Time Warner at the top tiers, but they offer lower tiers that are cheaper than what you can get elsewhere. I'm a little less bullish on their phone offerings, but I think they're good for a cable company. I truly believe that the totality of their services provides great value compared to others in the industry.

The customer service at Cablevision has consistently been top notch. The only unpleasant experiences I can recall involve installation. Like the time that we had to have the installer dispatch four times because they kept installing at a business with a similar address down the street. That happens so rarely that it's pretty much a non-issue. Every time I've called customer service or visited one of their locations the people have been helpful and friendly.

The impetus for this post was a reflection on their customer service during my cancellations. I was never treated poorly. I was never deferred to a retention specialist. There was no push back, no fight, no pleading for me to stay. Each time I was treated with respect and a friendly person helped me accomplish my goal.

These things matter. Service and value are the sign of a good business. More importantly, I can't think of the last time I thought of these things as the strength of a cable or phone provider. Typically, this industry thrives on anti-competitive practices, coercion and cost-cutting measures. I honestly believe that Cablevision has better values than most of its competitors. It isn't their fault my values have changed such that I no longer need as much of their services.

Canceled Cable... Again

After a few fairly successful months of having limited cable service, I reinstated most of what I had canceled. Now that the summer is done, I've gone back to the previous system. Why did I reinstate and subsequently cancel? Read on...

Why I Reinstated Cable

I had to do it for my mother. My wife was to take some summer classes that would involve her presence on campus four days a week for a couple hours each day. In order to accommodate this we would either have to put my son in day care four days a week or have a babysitter. We decided that my mother could watch him for a few hours at a time, so we asked her to come out from Ohio. My mother watches a lot of TV, and many of "her" shows are on cable-only networks.

My mother is also tracking the latest release cycle for many of these shows. That means that DVDs can't fill the void. I still don't have my computer hooked up to the TV, nor do I have the remote working with it, so she couldn't use that. Besides, we're lucky if she can use a DVD player, I'm sure most Internet TV interfaces would be beyond frightening to her.

I wanted my mother to be able to spend time with her grandchild. I wanted her to be at least reasonably comfortable here as well. Lastly, I wanted an unlimited calling plan again since she would want to call friends and family who are out of state. It was clear that I would have to pay more to the cable company to achieve this.

On the plus side, since I spent those months at the lower service plan I was eligible for their big discount offer that allows you to get most of their available services for about $100 per month. That's roughly $40 more than I was paying them.

One last, selfish reason: Sports. I was able to reinstate ahead of my mother's arrival during the height of the NBA and NHL playoffs. Many of these games are only carried on cable. I have to admit that I also had a hard time with canceling because of the football that is only on cable.

Then I Canceled

In the end my mother only stayed for three weeks. I had cable for roughly five months. It was enticing to stay because of the discount offer. In the back of my mind I knew it was a trap, yet I was falling into it.

My son was able to watch Nick Jr (formerly Noggin) again, which is more a benefit for us than for him. Even if the Nick Jr channel mostly shows a limited set of reruns its still more diversity than our DVD collection has. After a while of watching the same four episodes on a DVD you start reciting lines in your sleep. We let him watch shows only at certain times, so it's not life altering for him to lose the channel, he's fine with the DVDs.

The sports were compelling for me, but it's not worth almost $500 per year. I'm not that crazy about college football, and that's the biggest loss here. I will miss Monday Night Football games, but if I really want to see them then I can go to a sports bar. Beyond that, there are very few times when I want to watch a sporting event that is only on a cable station. Generally, these are the earlier rounds of the playoffs. Even if I limited myself to half of the money saved by canceling this service I'd still have $8 for every sporting event I care to watch that's only on cable. I can use that money to get out of the house instead.

There's nothing more that's compelling to me. That's it. Those were the two things that I will legitimately miss about having that cable service. I did watch a bit more TV since I had it, but I can do other things instead. Most of the shows I would watch were out of boredom, not a strong desire to watch them. There's a ton of content online now. I have no reason to pay the extra money to the cable company.

Lastly, it really is a trap. They offer the first year of this deal at a discounted price. It's about $50 more per month after the discount expires. It may be possible to negotiate to keep the discount, but I hardly see why that's a worthwhile endeavor year after year. Ultimately, I'm back to saving $85 per month over what I was paying at the beginning of the year.

Viral Gaming

Listen to the criticism of social network site, especially Facebook, and you'll hear complaints about people wasting time playing games. This was something I never noticed when my only social networking experience was on MySpace. Once I joined Facebook it seemed that every other contact was playing some game or another.

It wasn't long before I was sucked into the fray. I noticed a few of my friends were playing Mafia Wars, which appeared to be an HTML-based RPG. I figured that I could probably handle something like that, click on it a time or two a day, do a few tasks, and that would be it. Of course it never works out that way.

The problem is that these games are designed to take advantage our competitive nature. I started out doing exactly as I planned, or maybe less. Then I kept losing fights, getting robbed, and was killed repeatedly. Each time something like that would happen a notification in the Facebook interface would show.

My choices were to give up or dedicate a little more effort. Not to be outdone by a little game, I decided to give it a real try. First I simply increased my efforts to improve my character. I did more tasks to gain experience and reach higher levels. I bought more property so I could have income to buy more weapons. Then I bought weapons and defensive items.

None of it worked. My character was still losing fights and getting robbed and killed.

Back to square one, I wondered what the heck I was doing wrong. There is a link in the application to a user forum. Taking a peek, I found that there were a few guides to help pick weapons and upgrade your character. Those led nowhere. Then I realized the undercurrent of the discussion: everything focused on having a huge "mafia." [read: guild, team, group, etc.]

There was my problem. Not only did I have a small mafia consisting of whichever friends were playing the game, but I had made little to no effort to expand it. When the game posted notices on my profile I quickly deleted them. I changed permissions to disallow such postings because I didn't want to advertise my involvement. This meant that I wasn't spreading the game to those around me, so I wasn't connected to as many players.

That's when it hit me: To be successful at this game you have to spread it like a virus.

That's what all those alerts are intended to do. Create more players that need more players, spreading virally by spamming via the players profile. I was a failure because, even though I was infected, I was washing my hands after each use so it wouldn't spread further.

The game seems somewhat self-aware about this. By default it posts an entry about almost everything you do, with certain achievements being highlighted by larger posts that have accompanying images. In order to "ask for help" to get your other mafia members to contribute on a task you have to post an alert to your profile. You can invite your contacts to play the game, and this is considered more important than reviewing your existing mafia to the point that you have to access your mafia via the invite screen. If you run out of invitations - I suppose their somehow arbitrarily limited - then you have to post an alert on your profile to all your contacts asking them to join. Occasionally the game asks you to send game items to your friends, and of course the entire contact list is the default option.

There are more games like this. In fact, my wife was playing another game by the same company. This one, FarmVille, uses cute images and sappy statements to garner attention. It spreads the same way. It also has limitations that impair your ability to play unless you manage to convince others to play as well. The kicker here: When my wife let the app spam her profile a few times and not enough people bit she actually asked me to start playing as a favor. I complied and a similar cycle ensued, except I had enough "neighbors" to be somewhat successful at this.

I took a different approach. I found that the forum had an "Add Me" thread for Facebook. If you post a link to your profile you'll get dozens of friend requests. This all but ruins Facebook for other uses but what the hell am I doing there anyway? I did spend some time setting permissions so that I could add all of these total-stranger-friends to a group that wouldn't be able to dig into my personal life. It's the other part of the site that's ruined, the one where I can see the broadcast messages of my real friends. C'est la vie.

What do I get from all of this? I suppose the reward for me is a few mindless, distracting clicks a day. Things that I can do to give my brain a rest from the tribulations of working in a cubicle farm. I'm not winning anything, though. More realistically, I've lost by playing.

Hulu: The Best Streaming Video Site?

Hulu is the undisputed champion of free streaming music video sites. What if we remove the word 'free'? Is it still the best?

I watch a couple shows a week on it. I watched even more before but I eventually ran through the interesting parts of their anime library. I've also tried to limit the time I spend watching TV, even if the computer is functioning as my TV.

Hulu has a great selection of content. Their strength is the same sort of content you would find on both major and cable networks. The television-sourced content is top notch, but their movie selection is mostly tired and old. As I mentioned, they have a respectable selection of anime, mostly series but a few movies as well.

The video quality is pretty great, if you have the hardware for it. Much of the content is available in two quality settings, 360p and 480p. Some is only available in the lower quality 360p. If the original was wide screen then so is the Hulu version. [At least as far as I can tell.] The 360p version is watchable and most likely to run smoothly, the high resolution content is better than standard definition television but not as good as 720p HDTV. [The numbers really give it away.]

The bigger difference between the two formats is in the audio quality. The low resolution audio is terrible, it sounds flat and tinny. It's compressed so badly that quieter sounds are sometimes lost entirely. The high resolution sound is good, if not great. The story is all about the low resolution sound which is unlistenable.

The problem here is that the only way to get the high quality sound is with the high quality video. If your hardware, particularly your processor, isn't up to the task then you're stuck either watching a smooth, full screen 360p video with atrocious sound, a choppy, full screen 480p video with great sound, or a smooth, windowed 480p video with great sound. I'll return to this, but needless to say it's not the best list of options to choose from.

Moving on to the interface, Hulu's site is fairly easy to use. I don't find their search particularly useful but most of the categories are organized well enough that it doesn't matter. The default sort of each category is popularity of video. You can also sort by air date, date added, and user rating. The same sorting options exist for shows instead of videos. I prefer to view by show, as I'm normally seeking a particular series or episode of a series. Each show has a page that lists all of the videos, with indications of when they were added and whether it's a clip or an entire episode. For my purposes most clips are rubbish, though The Office often has good clips of original "webisode" content.

The player interface is the best among the free sites. This is especially true if you make an account, where you can set your preferences to default to the higher quality video. If you don't have an account or change this setting then you will always have to click the 480p button to get to the higher quality stream. You cannot make this change while a commercial is playing.

When the player is not in full screen mode there are a few other interesting buttons on the right side of the video. If you're happy to watch the video in place you can click the "lower lights" button that overlays a translucent black layer on top of the page, but does nothing to dim the rest of your screen. If you can't watch in full screen but you want to resize the video you can click "pop out" which will put a very similar interface on screen in a window with no other content in it. Lastly, there's the full screen button.

The full screen mode is decent, but conspicuously missing is the quality setting. If you enter full screen only to realize that you forgot to go to the higher quality video you must exit full screen to change quality. The same is true if you enter full screen but find the video to be choppy and want to watch at 360p. I'm not sure why this is so but it proves to be an annoyance. You can stop and start the video with the space bar, and escape will exit full screen. I don't know if there are any other keyboard controls, but it's better than nothing.

Playback is fairly simple and intuitive. There is a progress bar at the bottom of the video that disappears after a few seconds, except in the pop out window where a small progress bar is shown the entire time. It has dots on it that show when the commercials are. You can skip ahead or go back. There's some algorithm that tries to force a commercial if you skip past one, and you only have to sit through one even if you skip past two. In the lower left is a play/pause button. That's it.

Of course, this is an ad supported service. With a few exceptions every video you watch will have commercial breaks. You can pause the commercials but you cannot fast forward. Even if the commercial doesn't load it will make you sit through a 15 second notice that you're being a bad citizen. Occasionally you will be offered an alternative commercial scheme where you can watch a two minute ad then the entire video will be commercial free. Normally I take that offer, especially if it's the cool Honda ad. I'm not a Honda guy, nor a big Danica Patrick fan, but that ad is good. In general I find the ads on Hulu to be far more tolerable than the ones on television. The breaks are shorter and the mixing isn't so ridiculously loud. They're also often real ads, not the self-serving drivel like on ABC.com. Lastly, the ads played in line with the rest of the stream, so you don't have to click to continue. Overall it's a very television-like experience, but more pleasant because the ads are fewer and higher quality.

That brings me back to the original question: Is Hulu the best? My verdict is no. Hulu's service is limited to only a few devices and their media center capabilities are wanting. The well-documented fight they've had with Boxee hasn't helped. On my Macbook running a 480p video at full screen pushes the 2GHz Core 2 Duo processor to its limits, and at that it drops frames. Flash video doesn't seem to offload much if any of the rendering to the GPU, keeping it all on the processor. This is unacceptable when you pair it with the poor audio in the lower quality stream. The commercials are tolerable, if that were the only fault I might declare Hulu the winner on the strength of their catalog.

There is a respite for Hulu, though. They recently released a media-center friendly desktop application. The content navigation in this app mirrors the website -- though it's a little clunky, especially so with a remote. The playback is better, adding some fast forwarding capabilities and showing a scene preview if you use the progress bar to skip around. The scene preview is a little slow. The real killer feature is the "medium" video quality setting. It seems to play a little smoother than the 480p stream from in-browser and the sound quality seems better than 360p.

The short take is that Hulu is a great DVR alternative with a good selection, but they take second place in the online streaming contest.

New Rules for Netflix Ratings

I am a big fan of Netflix. I put some thought into how I use the service in order to get the most for my money. I'm fairly happy with the results I get, but sometimes I have to tweak my usage to serve myself better. How I rate movies helps me remember how I felt about a movie and it helps the system suggest more movies, or predict how much I'll like a movie. After a few years of rating movies one way I have decided to change.

The Old Way
My old system for rating a movie was to try to rate it as objectively as possible. I focussed heavily on the merit of the movie, acting, script, and direction. I would then combine that with my preferences and come up with a rating. This introduced some personal bias, but I think most of the ratings were pretty fair. The exceptions were a few movies that I either loved greatly or hated completely, at which point I would typically let my emotions get the better of my objectivity and rate generally loved movies poorly or generally disliked movies highly.

The problem with this is that I was trying to be objective and not allow my bias to influence the ratings too greatly. This would be great if I were the only one reviewing these movies, or if the rating data wasn't being used for other purposes. Neither of those conditions are true, though. In short, I was being unfair to myself out of some sort of misguided attempt at journalistic integrity, even though I'm no journalist.

Other oddities happened because of this as well. I stopped trusting my own ratings. When someone asks me what I thought of a movie I will look that movie up on Netflix and use that rating to stir up the long term memories associated with that movie. It works great because I have the movie box, description, and my rating all there on one screen. I found that, increasingly as of late, I was having to mentally adjust my ratings based on whether I thought they were skewed for objectivity when I made them.

The New Rules
With my new system I will not change my baseline ratings. Instead, I will allow my bias to more significantly influence my ratings. After I have my final number doing this I will review it to make sure it accurately reflects how I interpret and feel about a movie. Then I'll click the little star that matches.

Basically, everything starts out the same as above. I get a rating number by thinking about how well made the movie was and whether it's worth watching. Then I allow myself to modify that rating by zero or more stars depending on how I felt about the movie and how strongly I felt it. If I have no strong emotions either way then a three star movie will remain at that rating. If I enjoyed that movie a good bit, I will probably add a star. I may add two stars in some circumstances. I doubt I would ever feel the need to add three. The opposite is true if I genuinely disliked a movie.

A few examples:
I recently rented The Prestige. It was a decent movie that mixes science, fake magic, and real magic. I thought it was beautifully shot and decently acted. It was an okay script. Objectively, I think I would give it four out of five stars. Once I added more of my personal bias into it I reduced it to three stars because I didn't like some of the treatment it gives to science, it was a little over-the-top, and it has an fairly obvious plot twist that seems to be there only for plot-twist addicts.

I also recently saw the import So Close. This is something like a Charlie's Angels flick set in Hong Kong starring the locals. It wreaks of bad acting, it's completely over the top, and it's cheesy as anything. The action scenes are top notch, though. If you enjoyed the Charlie's Angels series and like Jackie Chan movies then you may enjoy this. I objectively gave it two stars out of five. I think in the grand scheme of things that movies like this are largely trash. They are, however, trash I tend to enjoy. I liked the car chases and the Asian culture infused in this. So I bumped the rating up to three stars.

As you can see, two movies on the opposite ends of the quality spectrum now have the same rating. I'm able to be both intellectually and emotionally honest.

Other Rules
I did pluralize the word 'rule' for a reason. I have changed the way I think of a few things related to rating movies. I will no longer rate movies 'Not Interested' unless I have a very good reason. I have re-assessed my category ratings using the new Taste Preferences with a particular focus on emotional honesty.

For 'Not Interested', right now I'm reserving it for series items where I've seen parts of the series, but not all, and I am completely uninterested in watching any more. This means there are only 3 items with this rating so far: Dragon Ball Z, Home Movies, and Survivor Season 1. The first two are cartoons that I don't like, yet they are suggested because I apparently differ from the normal person who watches anime and adult oriented cartoons. The last is just weird. I don't know if the system suggested this for me or not, but I'll leave it there so that it won't suggest any "reality" shows.

I didn't like the effect that too many 'Not Interested' selections had on my suggestions and other ratings. I also don't like that it inflated some of my ratings counts. I've seen enough movies without the ones I haven't seen being counted.

My category ratings were a mixed bag of intellectual ratings, emotional ratings, and shame. Some categories I rated higher not because I like watching those movies, but because the movies themselves tend to be well made. That's great, until you realize that you aren't interested 15 minutes in but watch the whole thing anyway. The emotional ratings are probably the right ones, at least that's my take. Some of the ratings were born of shame, though. I was ashamed that I like anime, seeing that as the last step into hopeless geekdom. Finally, I realized that these ratings were entirely for me to help Netflix know what kind of movies I might enjoy. I'll eventually betray the same information by what I rent and how I rate it, so I should be honest to myself and rate categories as I think I would actually want to watch the movies in them. The good thing about Taste Preferences is that it presents the data in a way that makes this easier to swallow by asking you how often you want to watch such movies instead of forcing you to rate them on a five star scale. My only gripe is that I wish the ratings were more granular instead of never, sometimes, often.

That's a lot of thought put into rating movies. The good news is that I mull over these decisions for so long each time I rent. Rating a movie takes a second or two. I'm just trying to maximize my results.

Netflix Suggestions Know Me Better Than I Know Myself

I really like anime. There, I said it. Happy now, Netflix?

You've been telling me that I'd like all sorts of anime series for years now. I kept hitting the "Not Interested" rating. I kept watching all sorts of anime on Adult Swim and occasionally on DVDs from your service. Still, I rated the Anime & Animation category low and refused many of your suggestions.

I was kidding myself. I'm hopeless. Anime is a guilty pleasure, and I am guilty.

I know how terrible it can be. It tends to be weird and even annoying. I just can't help but like it, though. I finally gave in when I realized that I'd watched an entire 26 episode series on Hulu over the weekend.

So, tonight I cleared all of my Not Interested ratings and even added a few series to my queue. I just don't want to argue anymore. You obviously know better.

More Stretch TV

The other day my wife sent me a link to a video of Campbell Brown ripping into Wells Fargo. What I instantly realized, aside from my disagreement with Ms. Brown, is that they stretched her. This is really weird stuff for an online video.

CNN has both HD and SD feeds, so one would think that they could take either the original recording or the SD feed to make the video for their site. Oddly, when I had cable throughout the election I would watch CNN in HD and I rarely, if ever, noticed any stretching. I would imagine that the network has their equipment in order to broadcast a proper 16:9 picture. Why did they choose to stretch this video then? Did they use the SD broadcast but stretch it for their wide screen player? We may never know.

Campbell, if you ever see this, ask them to stop! All the evidence you need is in this story: When I mentioned that the video was stretched my wife reacted that she noticed something was off. She wasn't sure if the video was out of proportion or if you had gained a lot of weight.

Finally, I'd like to note that my previous HD stretch piece is probably the most viewed one on this blog. It seems that it is high in the results on Google when you search for... "HD stretch," go figure. Well, if you've reached this site looking for advice I apologize. You may feel heartened that I feel the same way about picture stretching that you probably do. Until the time that I take a deeper look into how to fix the issue, may I suggest the following:

1. Try a more specific search, such as "brand [and model] hd stretch."
2. Check your user manual or check http://safemanuals.com/ if you lost your copy.
3. Go to the AVS Forums and look around. If you need, ask about your problem there.

I'm sorry I can't be of more help. I hope you find a solution somewhere. If you do, post a comment telling others how. Maybe the next person to stumble by won't have to search as much.

ABC.com Streaming Video Review

I have officially given up my DVR. This helps my pocket book, but I still want to watch certain shows without being tied to a set schedule. One of those shows is Scrubs, which I love despite it's reputation (and maybe because of it). Without a DVR I must either program myself to follow a TV schedule again, dust off the archaic VCR, or find it online. I found it online at ABC.com. This is my experience...

As you may know, I am a Mac owner and a Firefox user. So I was dismayed initially when ABC.com content would not play in my browser of choice. I was unsure whether it was the browser or the operating system, because some sites only work with Microsoft products. Fortunately everything worked when I tried later in Safari. I'm not sure what the difference is but my main concern is that it works.

Once that was sorted I was able to watch my show. To watch you select "free episodes" from the site's main menu. This displays a list of shows with streaming episodes available online. Click on the one you want and it will launch a new window. In that window you can select which episode of which season you want to watch. Tonight I watched episodes five and six of season eight.

The video quality is reasonable. It's about the same as Hulu's standard definition content. I don't think the experience is as polished as Hulu's though. Like Hulu you can pause, seek, and play the video full screen. There are advertisements, too. It's fairly run of the mill for streaming sites, but at least they didn't miss anything.

Something I noticed is that the player will begin displaying the show while it is buffering, opting for severely degraded video quality instead of a pause while it downloads. This is annoying. My knee jerk reaction to it was that the content must be unwatchable and I would have to look elsehwere. It's good that I stayed because it soon cleared up, but it still happens at the start of every episode.

The ads aren't too bad. In fact, they have a great feature about them: you don't have to sit throught the whole thing. When the player switches to the advertisment, "ad mode," it reverts from full screen, showing the browser window with a graphic ad that has an embedded video in the top right corner. You have to watch the first 15 or 30 seconds, after which most of the ads keep playing but you can choose to go back to your video. The biggest problem is that your show won't automatically continue after the ad is done. You have to click to continue which is quite annoying if you don't have your pointer at your fiingertips. Most of the ads are for other ABC shows, but they have a few for other things.

Overall I was satisfied, if not impressed. I will definitely hit up this site for my Scrubs fix, and I might check out some of the other shows if I get bored. Since I will now get the bulk of my entertainment from online sources, I plan to do more of these reviews. Watch for them.

Cutting the Cable

Enough talk. This weekend I took action. I cut my cable service back to basic cable. This means my cable bill will be roughly $13 per month for television. I still have to return the DVR/cable boxes, though, so currently the television part of my bill is around $40.

The number porting process seems to have canceled the VOIP service for me. That part of the bill has already gone away. I am not going to cancel Internet service, so that will represent $50 of my bill. The final cable bill should be ~$63, the actual number depends on what taxes apply.

Here's the breakdown of the old bills:

Cable television, Internet, and phone: $164
Netflix: $15
Total: $179

The new bills:
Cable television, Internet: $63
Netflix: $18
Phone: $15
Total: $96

Savings: $85

After a few months of savings in the entertainment budget I will probably buy another antenna to see if I can get a good enough signal. If I can make that happen then I can save almost $100 per month over the old plan. We already used the first month's entertainment budget to buy Kevin some DVDs. I hope he won't miss Moose, but at least he can still watch a show or two.

One last note: Cablevision's customer service was top notch during my interactions with them. I'm unhappy that they misled me when I switched to their service but at least they were pleasant about everything. Most importantly, I never once had to speak to a customer retention specialist. No one tried to talk me out of my decision. No offers with strings attached. They just did what I asked while treating me politely.

Cancelling Cable Update

Last time I wrote about canceling my cable service. Since then, I tried an antenna and I received my new VOIP package. I also investigated a little bit and found that I may be able to significantly save on my cable bill without completely canceling television service.

First, the VOIP. I haven't tried the new service, but I am impressed that it arrived so quickly. They are already processing the number port and they say it should happen this Friday.

Next is my disappointment with the first antenna experiment. I walked into the local Circuit City and bought an RCA ANT146. I was able to pick up two PBS channels in English, one of them HD, and around nine foreign language channels in standard and high definition. The major networks from New York were mostly static, and high def. was out of the question. I'm thinking of buying a Winegard SS-3000, which is highly rated on Amazon and seems to be made for the sort of situation I have. (My windows face away from the direction of the signal origin.)

Finally, I learned that the cable company still has a basic cable package for a mere $12 per month. That's $12 more than I want to give to the cable company, but it may be worth it to cover sports, news, and prime time. According to the cable company I need a cable box to receive the HD version of the broadcast networks, but I was able to pick up those channels without the box on my HDTV when I tested last night. If I have to settle for this package then I will be eating a quarter of my entertainment budget, but it may be better than antenna frustration and it's still almost $90 cheaper than the package I have now.