connecting*the*dots

I Want Change, originally uploaded by davidcharding.

The man seems to have the golden touch on draft night; first with Michael Jordan, then working a deal to land Richard Jefferson and most recently finding Nenad Kristic on the other side of the planet.

Rod wouldn’t select a Yinka Dare or Rex Walters with a first-round pick.

I have to be honest, I missed out on much of the college basketball season last year, so while I’m familiar with Williams and Boone to a degree — I’ve caught them here and there while following my Syracuse squad — I don’t have too much to go on regarding the particulars of their games over a long stretch of time.

Not that such details would stop me from giving my opinion:

Marcus Williams is the real-deal point guard — a court visionary (not many college PG’s average better than 8 dimes per) and steps-up big time in clutch situations. Unfortunately, he’s also (reportedly) out-of-shape, under-motivated and (legitimately) guilty of participating in the theft and sale of four laptops on the UConn campus his junior year.

His own mother had to move across country to live with him to get his shit straight.

If he can get his head out of his ass, and take his career responsibilities seriously, he’s projected as a top-notch guard in the NBA. With JKidd as a mentor, well, he’s in a perfect position to succeed, as he has the opportunity for big-time minutes next year. I’m betting he’s worth the gamble.

Josh Boone was probably the best PF available at #23, and the Nets are desperate for size and shot-blocking, so he’ll get some run as a rookie.

I’m just hoping he doesn’t turn out to be another Jason Collins.

It’s reported that he has decent hands, can finish around the basket, rebounds well and is a shot blocker, but he also has a reputation for being soft, a poor free throw shooter and has no offensive game — very much like Collins. Thankfully he’ll have Kidd and Williams getting him the ball in a position to finish, so as long as his hands are good and he can finish over another big, his limited offensive skills shouldn’t be too much of a burden.

IMHO, Hassan Adams is a great pick for a late second round selection. He’s an energy guy, can score in bunches, rebounds well for his size; he actually reminds me of Stevie Thompson, the 6 foot 2 inch G/F from Syracuse back in the late eighties. He may not have a specific position on the floor, but he can ball and Lawrence Frank likes to go to a small line-up from time to time. Between him and Antoine Wright, the Nets look to have a nice, athletic 2nd team rotation (later, Zoran). Hopefully he can bring an on-court attitude the Nets have missed since the departure of Kenyon Martin.

Man, we’re only a week beyond the end of the NBA season, and I’m already jonesin’ for the start of next year.

Back in February, NBC made a completely bonehead business move by making YouTube take down the hugely popular video short Lazy Sunday. My instant response was to fire off a salvo at NBC for being old media ogres (NBC: We Get Web 2.0… Sike!) and not working within the limitless parameters of the web to strike a business deal that suits their needs to protect their copyright, while allowing us to continue to enjoy their content when we want and how we want.

Well, today NBC announced that it’s embracing a few of the ideas I previously lobbed into play:

[…]

“Under the deal, YouTube will create a separate channel for NBC video, so that visitors can easily pull up the half-dozen or more items that NBC plans to offer at any given time. It will be similar to channels that other companies, filmmakers and everyday users create.

[…]

NBC and YouTube officials acknowledged the possibility that fans will reject the clips if they appear simply as promotions, but YouTube co-founder Chad Hurley said fans would likely embrace the video if it is compelling and not available anywhere else.”

[…]

Promotional video is somewhat of a start — I suppose you can’t expect major change from a major television network without them testing the water first. Give the experiment a few months; if uptake begins across numerous types of unbundled content, I’m sure they’ll be banging on YouTube’s door, attempting more creative ways to “let” people upload their content.

Affecting The Interface

In terms of the user experience, I only ask one thing of YouTube: please refrain from creating a pulldown of “channels” on your interface.

Asking people to assign ripped video to a “media channel” in the upload process makes sense:

• It alerts you (YouTube) to content that needs to be assigned a “shared monetization flag” and
• It automatically assigns network metadata to the video object to help people finding content they desire

Balancing the two-way participation of a user base with the business opportunities of old media is a difficult conversation to manage and execute, for if you transform your main interface too far towards the navigation of paid-for, primary channels, the entire participatory, community vibe will begin to deteriorate.

Remember, your brand is YouTube.

With all of the unconferences popping up on the geek landscape, one has to assume that conference formats outside the technology community will slowly but steadily begin to loosen up a bit.

Thankfully, my favorite conference (TED) is making a move in that direction with TEDTalks.

TED is now releasing their talks, one per-week, under a Creative Commons license, allowing anyone to digest the talks and republish them for non-commercial purposes. I’ve just subscribed to their RSS feed (you can choose between the post, video, audio and email newsletter).

You still have to be invited to attend TED, the price tag remains +$4,000 and the format of the conference itself hasn’t changed, but it’s a great move for them to remove the walls and let us common folk listen in on the happenings.

Thank you.