DISQUS

LOL. C'mon! You say it doesn't make any sense for HBO to make more money charging for their content than it would by giving it away? *THAT* doesn't make any sense.

there is a difference between information and news. Which is more important to anyone personally depends on a few factors, including what your job is and what your interests are.

There is no service that combines news and information gracefully or perfectly. FriendFeed or some other service may get there someday. I'm glad both news and information are available. I agree with both Scoble and Gabe here. Scoble should do what he wants, Gabe should find the happy intersection of doing what he wants and what gets the most viewers and I think he probably already has.

I agree with Gabe about FriendFeed and Twitter. If you polled the CIOs/CTOs at all the Fortune 500 companies it would not surprise me if less than 10% had ever used FriendFeed or Twitter.

Robert, sadly none of that actually is a defense of Gabe/TechMeme, it's more of a primer on why Techmeme is not as good as it could/should be. It's easy to automate to make sure a one word post doesn't get on TechMeme, I suspect he'll add some algorithms around post length as Google News did long ago.

Scoble -- Mars isn't in the purview of TechMeme, so I won't slam Gabe for that unless you, Louis Gray or Vint Cerf write a post about how the images are coming back to us via TCP/IP (and I'm not even sure they are!). I will slam Gabe for the pathetic nature of Techmeme that allows for one word posts to show up. Not having Mars is not Gabe's shame, but including one word posts by his favorite site automatically is.

First, I think this is wonderful press for Seesmic. That said, this isn't like MySpace where the celebs actually used the service. This was a promotion where these guys were on video for the Seesmic audience. But if Spielberg and Lucas start dropping Seesmic comments on Louis Gray's blog, TechCrunch or anywhere else, that would indeed be huge.

Mr. Scoble, I admire and appreciate you more or less posting your iterative thinking in real-time. I think this iteration is correct! :-)

@rosiewosie: in the end it seems that people do generally (not necessarily you!) trade off issues of trust/privacy for high utility or need. If there is no utility and you don't need to use the service the trust issues loom large, but if there's i no utility and you don't need to use the service, trust is probably not the biggest issue.

Night Nymph, I agree 100% with you in terms of preferring more LOST, but, if I was a real TV BigShot at ABC, I'd definitely prefer to try and squeeze in an extra commercial pod during my most expensive show advertising wise. LOST is one of ABC's better performers, but Grey's draws a higher premium on advertising, I believe because of its concentration of 18-34 year old women.

When it comes to making the most money possible, I'd say they're doing the right thing when it comes to Grey's overrun.

No matter how big I make the:

UPDATE: Friday Night Lights is returning first on DirecTV in October, 2008 and later on NBC
at the top of the page -- people don't see it. i guess it needs to be...bigger.

Dave, fair point though I doubt that people flock to the bars for the Derby as they do for Football or NCAA games. Still, it's well documented that they don't count those viewers, however they ARE testing out of home viewing for live events. they did some tests during the NCAA BBall tourney and it added about 1 ratings point.

Zach a couple of week's ago was the ideal situation -- it was up against repeats on ABC and CBS. The last 2 weeks both Grey's and CSI were back and new. I'm sure the Office will pick many of the dropped viewers back up via DVR viewing.

Spechelle, unless the shows from BET place in the top 40, we don't see the individual shows and it isn't typically among the weekly top 30 cable networks we have access to:

http://tvbythenumbers.com/category/ratings/top-...

Angie/Polly -- there are stories floating around how scripted dramas have been hit hardest by the strike. Both Bill and I have linked to them but one one of the stories is at top of Bill's link list (under "Gorman Reading" on the right hand side).

Tom, I didn't get the sense that Rob was a LOST hater. He's right, it's not as popular as it was 2 years ago, but name a "hit" show that is!?

I'm Lost lover, btw. Loved the episode from a week ago more than last night's, but looking forward to all the remaining episodes!

Rob, I think with cumulative viewers by the time you add DVDs in,it's possible. But season 4 DVDs won't be out for a while, we can't track "legal" downloads let alone the more uh, questionable ones. We can't track web streaming or on-demand (LOST is available in HD via Comcast on-demand, it's how I typically watch, but it's not counted anywhere).

I think it's possible its reach could be that great, but not in any way it could be regularly counted and measured so it's purely in the realm of speculation.

Dave, great points.

I think for now you'll see it via press releases. It's not as meaningful because it doesn't track demographics or average viewers. A lot of people stream shows, less people stream the whole thing, etc. I think we're still a ways a way where all the tv nets report internet viewing regularly and in a similar fashion. I hope I'm wrong.

Tom, they are invisible in terms of being measured or counted.

Rob, your DVR estimates for Grey's are low..it will pick up more than half a million extra in the LIVE+7 viewing. That said, it still won't get them back to last year's levels. Ooops...I see you said 1.5 million, not .5. My bad. I think your estimate is probably good.

Tom/Polly -- clearly over the last 25 years the attrition of network viewers bailing to cable is well documented. As I understand the numbers the total number of people with their tvs turned on and watching last night (broadcast or cable) was lower versus last week. I'm not posting those numbers for a variety of factors including that I doubt I'll see them regularly.

I just report the numbers. I *watched* LOST live. And I think picking up Scrubs is a good move. Yep, so anti-mouse!

Daniel, fewer people were watching TV *period* actually if i read the hut/put #s right. I wonder if there was some Grand Theft Auto IV effect...

Polly, both Grey's and CSI picked up viewers in the second half hour. Sadly we won't see the full DVR effect for a while.

Larry, c'mon! Actually all April 30 says is that Hillary Clinton is the best thing ever to happen to Bill O'Reilly's ratings this year. Best #s of 2008 for BO!

I had my first modem in 1982 (300bps for the Commodore 64!). I'm guessing this gives me some early adopter status. I was using Usenet discussion groups in the 1980s and had my first IP connection to the Internet in 1993. Scoble is right, early adopters DO matter. Louis Gray is wrong: a lot of these products will not be home runs. Very few will even be singles or doubles. The path of the early adopter involves trying out a lot of stuff that doesn't last. Ah, the OS/2 days ;)

Will Twitter functionality be available 10 years from now? Absolutely. But all the Twitter clients? No. But who cares -- the early adopter moves on to the "next thing", right Mr. Scoble?

I also think it's important to separate technologies from products. RSS for example is a home run, even if from an end user perspective most of the time people ("the masses") interact with it they have no idea it's RSS. While I don't think a lot of the RSS products and services around will last, RSS will.

Speaking of cut off...

P.S. Ive loved my naked head since I was 25. :D

Tom: as you can see, bitter and rude people can be found everywhere. I agree with you that the timeslot juggling has not proved a positive for ABC.

Truth: L&O;'s demo numbers are not as good as L&O;:SVU's, but that's neither here nor there. You're right about NBC taking the 3.0, no question. I'm not trying to point out the numbers for every show in the text. That's what the data table is for.

I gave BL more focus because it is on the bubble. L&O; and CSI: NY are not.