
Ever concern yourself with such trivial things as how the media/content industry is changing to adapt to the digital age and fit around what end users really want? Comcast apparently gives two sh*ts about you and what you want. I’ll let the man, Comcast COO Steve Burk, dig his own grave:
An entire generation is growing up, if we don’t figure out how to change that behavior so it respects copyright and subscription revenue on the part of distributors, we’re going to wake up and see cord cutting.
Change the consumers behavior…? What. The. Hell. You need to adapt for us. We’re doing you a favor — keeping you in business. If all the Comcast subscribers suddenly decided to up and cancel their service, Comcast would be out of luck and out of business. His remarks are quite insulting really and further inspire me to never give them a dime of my money.
Even more telling of how “forward thinking” and modern Comcast is, Mr “Out of Touch Burk even goes as far to criticize companies and business models that are embracing technology, namely starting off with negative comments aimed at News Corp, Disney and NBC Universal whom all collectively run Hulu. I completely respect our free market, capitalist economy, but bashing your rivals who are actually several steps ahead of you isn’t very smart…
“Some people’s business models are going in the wrong direction”
The wrong direction? Please tell me this guy is on his way out and isn’t actually responsible for any “mission critical” decisions. If you want to abstain from anything that has “Free” in the title and push the internet away like it’s some sort of ugly orphan child that showed up at your house then so be it. But actively and blatantly criticizing those companies who actually have a little intuition as to their customers wants and the market as a whole are going to fair fare better than you and your company Mr. Burk. I long for the day when greedy, narrow-minded, ass holes like you who are completely focused on deepening their own pockets lose their jobs — unable to drag the market with them. To companies in support of Hulu and other Hulu-esque models, I applaud thee for taking a daring step into the next generation.
Furthermore, any company that has to force their customer base to stay confined within said companies rigid business models does not have a business model to begin with. As soon as people are fed up with being jerked around, you’re “business model” and everything contained within will collapse.
If Comcast really wants to whither away, that’s perfectly fine with me. There are many more start-ups and companies that will be created eager to fill the void. Look back in history and it’s easy to see that any company who was reluctant or unwilling to adapt to emerging technologies eventually whithered, became irrelevant, and died. Comcast, see ya later. You’re dead to me…
TechDirt > Broadcasting Cable
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The social networking bans making there way across various professional level sports is not only stupid, but extremely ignorant and short sighted on the leagues’ parts. First, by protecting old archaic business models and not embracing a new, modern technology, they are pushing themselves and their message further into irrelevance. Thankfully for us techies, Bengals player, Chad Ochocinco, isn’t taking this affront to modern news reporting or fan interacting lightly. Mr. Ochocinco is starting his own news network to “cut out the middleman”. Not just any news network mind you, but a Twitter-based reporting operation including many different individuals.
He seems to know what he’s doing too. With over 300,000 Twitter followers and a pretty big backing, I can’t deny that I’m rooting for him. You see, the problem is that old news and news organizations think they “own” the news when in fact they can’t and never will. News is not something you own. Any person can recycle the news to anyone they please. The fact that so many organizations and leagues think they have a right to deny a simple human being the right to tell another human an interesting story means that these oppressive organizations and leages have no right to be in business. Period.
The news, and the world on a larger level is moving online, going digital. Holding yourself back while at the same time trying to hold others back will only harm you and your colleagues. While such people and companies continue to struggle to make a buck, the intelligent and technologically competent will easily pass these old timers and introduce new, innovative and more consumer friendly services.
+1 Chad Ochocinco — Power to the people!
ESPN
- September 9, 2009 9:58 am

According to Sascha Lobo, co-initiator of the Internet Manifesto, Journalism has to adapt to today’s as well as the futures emerging technologies. Photo: Reto Klar
Bloggers as of late have been getting a fair deal of flack from more “reputable” news sources with fat checkbooks and more legal resources than most of us would know what to do with. Time and time again we have seen bigger news publications attack smaller blogs for piracy, siphoning content, and all out theft on the digital front. Though, this borrowing and sharing of ideas (*clears throat*…the whole purpose of the internet) and the so called “rules” that apply, only go one way. Whenever big publications are threatened, legal hounds are released. But when bloggers and smaller blogs across the internet are pillaged, well, that’s a different story. This double standard and utter nonsense has infuriated many. Myself included. Thankfully, the little guys aren’t taking it lightly.
15 of Germany’s most popular blogs and bloggers came together to create the “Internet Manifesto”. It is a document informing telling everyone, big publications included, how the internet works no matter the attempts to force it into nice little pay containers and walled gardens. The Internet Manifesto has garnered a great deal of attraction already as the site it is hosted on has been up and down due to traffic. The Manifesto highlights how this growing feeling of entitlement is a disease and that the internet is a new business model — applying old business models and failing to innovate to the changing markets and times will only cast those involved further into irrelevance.
The Internet Manifesto in it’s entirety just inside for those of you wanting some enlightenment, knowledge, and more importantly, a good read.