Berlin Wall:  Looking Back to Find a Way Forward:   

We're coming up on the 25th anniversary of the Berlin Wall coming down.  Its lessons still reverberate today.  For example, we have a template to work from should North Korea suddenly collapse and the Korean peninsula is reunited once again.  Also, consider that Russian President Vladimir Putin was once a Soviet Secret Agent with the KGB who was based in East Berlin.  Tap into this knowledge and you undoubtedly can tap into his thinking.

I took this picture from my perch in West Berlin during the summer of 1981.  It shows the Berlin Wall while looking into East Berlin.  West Berliners could walk right up to The Wall.  Hence, the graffiti.  But those in the east couldn't get close because of that "death strip" you see there.  The white sticks you see lined up in a row in the background are tank traps, anti-tank fortifications set up by the East Germans.

25 years after The Wall was breached and easter european communism collapsed we can still learn a lot from what happened.  I'm convinced the Marshall Plan saved Western Europe World War II and that a lack of such a plan for Iraq has led to what we have there now, a failed state.

This brings up leadership issues and how we will move forward to instill peace and prosperity in the world.  Berlin, from where I reported from up until last year, is now the capital of the most powerful country in the European Union and the seat of government for one of the most vibrant democracies on the planet.

I'll be updating this blog and the Ah! Channel over the coming weeks to show you what it's like in Berlin now and talk about some of the lessons we've learned over the years.  Please be sure to check back.

Drowning Out a National Election:   

Don't let a high-wire act or the roar of crowds in football matches drown out its importance. An entirely new House of Representatives will be chosen on Tuesday along with a third of the U.S. Senate and the governors of 36 states.

Among the distractions on election eve? Saturday, the television networks dumped their national newscasts on the West Coast in favor of college football and other sports programming.

The focus on live sports, even on the eve of an historic election, should not be a surprise.

Sports is the last bastion of live programing for the networks, given the fact it's still impossible to rely on streaming Internet feeds to provide this kind of coverage.

Besides determining who will run the country, this midterm election is also really a gauge of the media. We are now in an era of fragmented, on-demand viewing.

But the irony is that campaign spending on television advertisements has reached historic proportions. The total cost in the midterm races is projected to go past $4 billion nationwide for the first time.

Now to the high-wire act. There's a death defying stunt on Sunday night in which a daredevil will blindfold himself and walk a cable between two Chicago skyscrapers in a promotion for the Discovery Channel.

But the real nail biter, at least for those who care about the direction of the country, will be the election. NBC and the Wall Street Journal are now out with a new poll, showing 46% of those asked wanting a Republican-controlled congress with 45% leaning Democratic.

It going to be clearly up to each of us individually to keep the nation focused on what will be a monumental election, and, more importantly, to get out and vote.

Streaming Video Wars, You and Your Pocketbook:

I feel the quaking from my perch overlooking Hollywood.  

The ground has been moving underneath the television networks for some time.

But now they've all finally taken real, substantive action, driving deep stakes into what is their future:  The Internet.

The impact on you will be monumental, hitting everywhere, including the pocketbook.

Testament to the groundbreaking shift to the net and how people are increasingly turning to online videos can be found in this developing story about a new film festival based solely on footage taken from people's smartphones:

http://www.latimes.com/world/middleeast/la-fg-syria-phone-festival-20141026-story.html

We already know the millennials largely don't view what has been traditional television.  So now the networks are finally being forced to abandon their old business model and offer their content online.

The fortress that is CBS Television City in Los Angeles:

CBS is the last of the major networks to start a paid, streaming service utilizing their branded content.  ABC, NBC and Fox own Hulu Plus, a leader in the service. Amazon and Netflix are clearly in the game to stay.  In just a few weeks, HBO, the giant that got its start with the advent of cable more than 40 years ago, will begin offering its content online.

As a veteran of the broadcasting news business, the shattering of glass can be heard all around me as cable and satellite television operators scurry around in attempt to assess the fallout from this latest battle in the television and movie streaming service wars.

For you as a viewer and consumer, the stakes could not be higher.  For example, Dish Network this last week dropped some Turner Broadcasting cable channels, including CNN, after the two failed to reach agreement on a new contract.  There's also talk Time Warner offering HBO as a stand-alone product.  I could go on with a myriad of dramatic shifts in the landscape.

But to the headline:  Your Pocketbook.  Take the $5.99 monthly charge CBS is proposing for its content.  HBO's content will apparently go for around $15 per month.  I already pay for cable, although I could get satellite.  What would you drop and what service would you take?  The playing field is shifting so fast I wouldn't at all be surprised if you take a deep breath before even venturing a guess.

The discussion gets real dicey when we throw in news and live sports.  The cost of providing coverage here is huge if we think about paying for it on a piecemeal basis.  I think Bloomberg nailed it when raising the prospect that sports fans will be hit hard:

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-10-17/why-sports-fans-won-t-be-cheering-the-rise-of-internet-tv.html

Now to the cost of your Internet connection.  

Yes!  Internet is the key to any scenario we're talking about here.  After all, there won't be any streaming service without Internet.  Oh, sure, you can try it through your mobile's LTE connection or whatever cellular service you might have, but good luck there.  Finding an affordable plan that will allow you a reliable a cost-effective way to access the content you want will undoubtedly be prohibitive.

The way forward is clear.  The cost of your Internet connection is going to go up as companies grapple with recovering the revenue lost as more and more people cut the cable cord.  

Next up, I'll explore related issues, including how advertisers are having their own headaches as they work to find their audience.  

______________________________________________

In the interest of full disclosure, Henry has worked directly for both CBS and ABC over his 30+ years in media.  Most recently, Henry worked as a freelance foreign correspondent out of Berlin for the CBS News, Radio network.  He won an Emmy Award for his news writing while with ABC O&O KGO Television in 2009.  He's worked as an Assignment Editor, Writer and Satellite Coordinator for KPIX Television, a CBS O&O and was a KCBS Reporter for six years. 

Being Understood, In Any Language:

Finally, the language barrier appears to be broken thanks to a smartphone App.

The new technology raises the prospect of being able to travel almost anywhere and be understood by almost anyone.  There's also the ability to talk with any foreign visitor who might be having trouble communicating with you on your home turf.

I tested it out this weekend with a number of different people speaking no fewer than five different languages:  German, Chinese, Russian, Japanese and Korean.

The App allows for instant translation, both spoken and written.  For example here in this example, I wish one of my Korean students a nice weekend.  What I say appears on the screen immediately followed by the translation.  It's then voiced through the phone's speaker: 

 

I jumped at the opportunity to test it out since I work with people from all around the world.  In addition to my work as a journalist, I'm also a teacher and I used my students to test out the new App:

Working internationally over the last few years, I've struggled with software that promises instant translation or even transcription.  The results have always either seemed marginal or too difficult to process while on the go on an everyday basis.  For example, Google Translate, while a big help, often leaves me with tons of editing in order to clean up mistakes in grammar or misspelled or misunderstood words.

Don't get me wrong.  This new technology is not without its faults.  One of the Korean linguists I work with, fluent in both languages, pointed out that the word and phrase order is mixed up in this translation.  A native speaker simply wouldn't say it this way.  Nevertheless, the translation is understood.  But then there's the problem of the App just shutting down, refusing to do anything more:

A shut down and a reboot later, I'm back up and running.  

So it's not flawless, but I think it's a huge step in the right direction.  

My interest was particularly piqued because I've struggled all my life as I've learned other languages, only one of them enough to be considered fluent.  Imagine, finally being able to speak and be understood, even if the other person doesn't speak my language.

Here's how a dialog looked on my smartphone screen:

Notice the two buttons on the bottom of the screen.  They allow each speaker to speak in their respective language and then have it immediately translated and then spoken in the other party's language.

I'll let you imagine the various applications for this new technology, but I can tell you that it opens up a whole new world of possibilities.  I immediately think of First Responders in an emergency, being able to quickly ascertain what problems they may be up against by effortlessly being able to overcome a language barrier.

And this new development will undoubtedly cause upheaval in what has become an industry.  Take a look at this article by Deutsche Welle, the German-funded website that offers news from the European perspective.  It notes how changes in technology threaten translators livelihoods as well as possible violations of law:

http://www.dw.de/push-technology-why-online-translation-may-be-googling-interpreters-out-of-a-job/a-17979947

I hope you can try this out and comment on this posting.  I look forward to your feedback in what I think will become an increasingly interesting development in the world of communication.

Please comment and "subscribe" to this blog for updates.

The iPhone & the Viral Video

News reporting appears to have reached a new milestone, made clear by how a few videos posted to YouTube drew enough attention by mainstream media to help drive down the stock price of one of the world's biggest corporations.

The reporting over "bendgate" has cooled off quite a bit thanks to what may be more level-headed analysis, including that from Consumer Reports.  It's analysis shows the bending of phone casings is not unique to the iPhone 6 Plus.

http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/news/2014/09/consumer-reports-tests-iphone-6-bendgate/index.htm

The videos and a flurry of comment in forums and on social media, as well as the release of a flawed update to the phone's operating system, are credited with helping force Apple's stock price down by nearly 4% at one point on Friday.

Forced to Respond to "Extremely Rare" Problem

Apple says the problem is "extremely rare," even going so far as to invite reporters to its testing facility to show off just what the company puts its products through before release.

http://www.latimes.com/business/technology/la-fi-apple-responds-bending-iphones-20140925-story.html 

As of this posting, Apple stock has largely recovered with analysts saying the lower price represented a great opportunity to buy up its shares.  Attention can now turn to this new phenomenon we now know as "viral videos."

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-09-26/apple-s-global-iphone-rollout-back-on-track.html

There's no doubt we're in a new age where anyone can play reporter with a quick post to any one of a dozen social networking sites.  We put the question of just what it takes to make a video go viral to one of these new "stars" of the Internet, Ti Stewart.

What it Takes to Make a "Viral Video"

Stewart is one of a new breed of performers who says she makes several thousand dollars a month just by regularly posting commentary to her YouTube channel.  With some 90,000 subscribers, she's had her share of videos that have gone viral.  It's anybody's guess, she says, as to what drives tens of thousands of people to watch and then share a video:

http://youtu.be/UqPaDeJ1_sg

There's no doubt that the intense interest surrounding the highly anticipated release of the new iPhones along with news of the Apple Watch helped feed the desire on the part of people to search out independent news about the products.  The question becomes just how much you want to trust what you're actually watching on the Internet.

We should note here that consumers started getting the majority of their information on major news stories from the Internet back in 2009.  Pop Star Michael Jackson's death prompted so many people to search his name that Google thought it to be a bot attack.  It was only a day later that we learned more people searched the web for news of his death than those who got it from mainstream media, a first for a major news story.

New Technology, New Era

I draw some parallels from this era of information technology to the introduction of the printing press in the mid-1800's.  It wasn't long afterward that the term "yellow journalism" was coined, a reference to how cheap paper turned yellow after a few days.  Some, like William Randolph Hearst, became rich with sensational coverage of stories which contained little fact.

It might be worth pointing out here that YouTube is owned by Google, one of Apple's most fierce competitors and the originator of the Android mobile operating system.

Google's Great Search!

Another one of Google's secret projects is being scrapped. This time it's those barges the company built, one on each coast:

USA Today on Google's Barges

Nationally, USA Today apparently was only able to pick up the story after good old-fashioned journalism from the Portland Press Herald in Maine:

Press Herald Coverage on Google's Barge

I say "good, old-fashioned journalism" because this is the way stories should be covered. That's with community members alerting beat reporters to new developments and then the media outlet putting resources on the story and revealing the details.

From my experience covering Silicon Valley, Google can be less than forthcoming.

But my concern is not just over some empty shipping containers floating in our bays and harbors.

This time it involves health issues. Mine, yours and possibly everybody else's.

You see, Google, with the help of some major University researchers, is getting ready to track the human genome.

This will be the company's third foray into the medical field. Don't expect an announcement from Google on this until the chiefs in Mountain View can spin it into whatever kind of story they want.

This time the details come from the researchers:

Google's Next Great Adventure

Did you see there about hundreds of volunteers willing to offer themselves up as guinea pigs?

True, the project undoubtedly offers the prospect of tremendous advances in healthcare. Bravo! But what can we say about a company that appears ready to delve into anything without fear of oversight?

My experience is one in which people are eager to give things a try in the hopes of catching the next big wave.

Take my colleague here, enamored with Google Glass, even though we hardly know how it is really playing out in the marketplace right now:

Google Glass Demo

But in all seriousness, one has to be impressed by Google's unflinching quest for that next big thing.

I'm submersed, for example, in the company's YouTube crusade. I've got my own "channel." That last link I included is from my company's channel, courtesy of YouTube, a Google subsidiary. I've also got a personal "channel."

"Subscribe" and Google AdSense can populate my videos with their commercials, and I might get a few dollars if I play my cards right.

But to be fair, here is my Google promotion, courtesy of one of my favorite news sites:

Google+ and Google Photo

Good work Google! I'm on the edge of my seat, waiting for more developments out of Mountain View.

I love how your tentacles seem to break off and form ever more divisions, although I cringe at the thought of how things can get messy when you've got your fingers in so many places.

Truth: The First Casualty

As the heat gets turned up on Moscow in its latest military foray into another neighboring country, I'm reminded of the first casualty of war:  The truth.

An American friend of mine who is married to a Russian and used to do business in Moscow and in Eastern Europe laid it on the line with me this morning.  I'd been sparring with him about independent polling that's reported to show Russians supporting Putin's assertions with regards to Ukraine.

"All Russians have been trained that when somebody you don't know asks questions, it's a KGB plant.  I lived there and I knew that.  Everybody knows its a police state.  Why pretend otherwise?"

The comment came in response to me pointing out that "new research by the independent Levada Centre polling group shows 64 percent of Russians blame the West for the Ukrainian conflict, 61 percent are not worried by sanctions and 63 percent think Russian media coverage of the crisis is objective.:

Putin & the Point of No Return

I mention this on hearing that the new European Union sanctions against Russia may actually, in some cases, go farther than those imposed by the U.S.  This is a big about-face, especially by the Germans who get around a third of their energy from Russia.

German public opinion shifted after the shooting-down of the plane over Ukraine, with 52 percent now in favor of tougher measures toward Russia, up from 25 percent in March, according to a TNS-Infratest poll commissioned by Spiegel magazine.

Today’s EU move was “inevitable,” and “additional steps are possible,” German Chancellor Angela Merkel said in a statement. “It’s now up to the Russian leadership to decide if it wants to follow the path of de-escalation and cooperation.”

It's important to point out that Germany's "Iron Lady" undoubtedly has a greater understanding of what's going on in Moscow under Putin.  She grew up in the former Soviet satellite state of East Germany and speaks Russian, just as Vladimir Putin speaks German following his stationing in Berlin during the cold war while working for the Soviet secret police, the KGB.