In this report, we revisit our "Long Tail" thesis on the entertainment industry. As we wrote last year, digital technology and economics are loosening the barriers to entry in the video production business. In our view, this augurs a significant increase in supply of video content from many sources, which could lead to slowing growth for incumbents and a shift in value from content creators to aggregators/packagers of content in the middle of the supply chain that can best connect users’ individual tastes with theoretically infinite choice. This report delves further into this theme and addresses key questions we have received from investors and industry contacts on this topic.

How do consumers navigate a world of unlimited choice and find what they are looking for?

We think the "Paradox of Choice" will increase the value of "middlemen," or packagers of content that can appropriately filter out the noise and connect users with the content that appeals to their interests. This can be done through strong brands, editorial discretion, technology, and harnessing user recommendations.

Bear Sterns: A Longer Look at the Long Tail in the Entertainment Industry

We're all public figures now.

But this creates opportunities.

Today "what" you make is quickly copied and sold by everyone. But "how" you engage your customers, "how" you keep your promises, and "how" you collaborate with partners – that's not so easy to copy, and that is where companies can now really differentiate themselves.

"When it comes to human conduct there is tremendous variation, and where a broad spectrum of variation exists, opportunity exists," writes Mr. Seidman. "The tapestry of human behavior is so varied, so rich and so global that it presents a rare opportunity, the opportunity to outbehave the competition."

Friedman is plugging a book, "How"; see also the author's web site. Seidman and Friedman chatted recently.

The whole world is watching | Tom Friedman

Russia appears to be a nation off of its crutches and seeking to define its place in the world. Yet Russia has singularly failed to make others see clearly what it wants, or see the world as it does—revealing a dangerous flaw in its foreign policy implementation.

A closer look at Russian foreign policy reveals a lack of strategic priorities and a Russia alone and adrift. Trenin argues that a foreign policy based on openly defying the United States is laced with liabilities and at odds with the central fact that the United States is indispensable to Russia achieving its national objectives of modernization, economic integration, and security.

This post is something of a follow-up to discussion of The Return of Authoritarian Great Powers.

Russia’s Strategic Choices

I take the "flight of a lifetime" on an F-4 Phantom fighter jet and am scared witless. But I'd do it again just to experience six G's.

Ask the Pilot | Salon Technology

Publishers Weekly Starred Review:

If a virulent virus —— or even the Rapture —— depopulated Earth overnight, how long before all trace of humankind vanished?

That's the provocative, and occasionally puckish, question posed by Weisman (An Echo in My Blood) in this imaginative hybrid of solid science reporting and morbid speculation. Days after our disappearance, pumps keeping Manhattan's subways dry would fail, tunnels would flood, soil under streets would sluice away and the foundations of towering skyscrapers built to last for centuries would start to crumble. At the other end of the chronological spectrum, anything made of bronze might survive in recognizable form for millions of years—along with one billion pounds of degraded but almost indestructible plastics manufactured since the mid-20th century. Meanwhile, land freed from mankind's environmentally poisonous footprint would quickly reconstitute itself, as in Chernobyl, where animal life has returned after 1986's deadly radiation leak, and in the demilitarized zone between North and South Korea, a refuge since 1953 for the almost-extinct goral mountain goat and Amur leopard. From a patch of primeval forest in Poland to monumental underground villages in Turkey, Weisman's enthralling tour of the world of tomorrow explores what little will remain of ancient times while anticipating, often poetically, what a planet without us would be like.

Booklist Starred Review:

Given the burgeoning human population and the phenomenal reach of our technologies, humankind has literally become a force of nature. We are inadvertently changing the climate; altering, polluting, and eradicating ecosystems; and driving evolution as other organisms struggle to adapt to a new human-made world.

So what would happen if humankind suddenly vanished?

Journalist Weisman, author of Echo in My Blood (1999), traveled the world to consult with experts and visit key sites, and his findings are arresting to say the least. He learned that without constant vigilance, New York's subways would immediately flood, and Houston's complex "petroscape" would spectacularly self-destruct. Weisman visits an abandoned resort on the coast of Cyprus and marvels over nature's ready reclamation. Marine biologists share sobering information about the staggering amount of plastic particles in ocean waters as well as vast floating islands of trash.

Weisman is a thoroughly engaging and clarion writer fueled by curiosity and determined to cast light rather than spread despair. His superbly well researched and skillfully crafted stop-you-in-your-tracks report stresses the underappreciated fact that humankind's actions create a ripple effect across the web of life.

The World Without Us

Herb Lin's latest report.

In the past several years, cybersecurity has been transformed from a concern chiefly of computer scientists and information system managers to an issue of pressing national importance.

Today, there is an inadequate understanding of what makes IT systems vulnerable to attack, how best to reduce these vulnerabilities, and how to transfer cybersecurity knowledge to actual practice. For these reasons, and in response to both legislative and executive branch interest, the National Research Council (NRC) established the Committee on Improving Cybersecurity Research in the United States. The committee was charged with developing a strategy for cybersecurity research in the 21st century.

... The committee identified several principles that should shape the cybersecurity research agenda:

Conduct cybersecurity research as though its application will be important.
Hedge against uncertainty in the nature and severity of the future cybersecurity
Ensure programmatic continuity.
Respect the need for breadth in the research agenda.
Disseminate new knowledge and artifacts (e.g., software and hardware prototypes) to the research community.

...

Toward a Safer and More Secure Cyberspace

WSJ puts the nail ...

Maybe I should have gone to law school. But only if God promised I would grow up to be a justice on the Supreme Court.

... Justice Clarence Thomas, in a concurring opinion, took about half a line to say, "I agree," and proceeded to write one of the most compelling essays I've seen on the decline and fall of American public education. I would happily hand out Justice Thomas's opinion on street corners ...

Here's a final quotation from Monday's "Bong" decision to pass out on street corners: "Students will test the limits of acceptable behavior in myriad ways better known to schoolteachers than to judges; school officials need a degree of flexible authority to respond to disciplinary challenges; and the law has always considered the relationship between teachers and students special. Under these circumstances, the more detailed the Court's supervision becomes, the more likely its law will engender further disputes among teachers and students. Consequently, larger numbers of those disputes will likely make their way from the schoolhouse to the courthouse. Yet no one wishes to substitute courts for school boards, or to turn the judge's chambers into the principal's office." More right-wing rant from Clarence Thomas? Nope, that's liberal Justice Stephen Breyer's concurrence.

Bong Hits 4 Jesus--Final Episode

DAFT PUNK is obsessed with robots. Not just any old heaps of metal that will vacuum floors but high-fashion, house-music-loving robots who move with silky, metronomic timing in mod helmets, black leather pants and jackets with "Daft Punk" emblazoned on the back in rhinestones.

(IMDB)

DAFT PUNK'S ELECTROMA

Attention Virginians: The cost of bad driving is about to go up. Way up.

"My job as a delegate is to make people slow down and build some roads. This bill does both."

Hefty Fees In Store for Misbehaving Va. Drivers

Full Committee Hearing on "Assessing the Impact of the Copyright Royalty Board Decision to Increase Royalty Rates on Recording Artists and Webcasters.

Yesterday the House held a hearing in response to the Day of Silence. But BusinessWeek says:

Small Webcasters intent on keeping Internet radio stations from going out of business best not look to Congress for help. That's the message from a June 28 House of Representatives hearing aimed at resolving a dispute over efforts to increase the royalties paid by Web radio stations to musicians and record labels for spinning their songs.

House Small Business Committee Chairwoman Nydia Velazquez said she'd prefer Webcasters and the music industry come up with their own compromise. "I really don't think Congress would be the best type of vehicle to resolve this type of issue," she said after the testimony of seven witnesses, including independent record-label owners, musicians, and Webcasters. "July 15 is just around the corner, and I hope the two parties can come together and resolve this issue."

Impact of Royalty Increases on Internet Radio