I know it's kind of annoying/cheap sometimes when a camera zooms in on the Bud Light logo in a fridge, or when Don Draper says that he loves Smirnoff (lawl), but its the only choice that the studios have. They must turn to product placement as their primary source of advertising revenue.
Because if they just release it, realistically, somebody will just download the file, remove the ads, and reupload it so the net effect will largely stay the same. One huge difference is that people who normally dont torrent and stream (like my girlfriend and mom) would probably do this. Granted for every episode they download, I download 10, but its an improvement.
If they would offer torrents with ads, available IMMEDIATELY upon airing it (say the torrent is available the second the show airs or 20 minutes before or next week or whatever) and I could get it at a comparable speed (or faster) than TPB, then that would change things. Product placement is still much cleaner and more sustainable.
Hmm, interesting post, but I tried it out and didnt have anything happen. All i got was the regular message. Here's a screenshot: http://i52.tinypic.com/x54iys.png
Excellent article. Jon Evans laid it out the way its suppossed to be. Salsforce is an incredible company with a huge future, but saying that CEOs will suffer the same fate as violent, tyrannical dictators is ridiculous.
For one thing, these large firms have a natural system of checks and balances (see relation between CEO, board of directors, and shareholders). In almost all cases (assuming the proper precautions have been taken), a CEO can't just run amok being wild against the wishes of everybody else involved. These issues are typically resolved at the early, early stages with mild disagreements and a back and forth. More often than not, a CEO will step down due to this (let's see this happen in Syria or Libya..)
Secondly, these CEOs have and maintain power because people have given them power. People enjoy the products/services that their firms produce and continue to purchase them. Nobody is coercing users to hand over their money to these firms. This is a fundamental, excruciatingly important difference between the state and the firm.
I could go on for days, but I'll wait for somebody else to chime in.
Interesting post. It's really impressive how smoothly everything ended up going in Israel, especially since the government got out of the way
Now, here is the issue. I worked in public policy formation in Toronto - specifically working with developing the startup environment in Canada. Based on my experience, way too many of these programs in Canada focus on minority groups. In fact, the majority of them do.
We analyzed literally hundreds of programs created to encourage entrepreneurship in Canada and approx 75%+ of them were exclusively for natives, africans, minority females, the disabled, people in ultra rural areas, or people who plan on hiring a considerable number of these groups.
This is not to say that all programs are like this, but in my professional experience, I haven't seen a program come out that rivals what happened in Israel. The incubators that are made here are ultra conservative, typically investing only in entrepreneurs that have considerable work experience (10-15+ years) and are running a biz post revenue (most times in the 7 figures..).
In terms of making these programs, the bureaucracy is just so overwhelming (which is part of the reason that I left). It is incredibly difficult to set something up that could be acquired by private VCs with all the red tape.
or they could just mess it up terribly and ruin television forever.