The Great Seduction

Why a Squirrel Dying on Your Front Lawn Isn’t More Important Than Somebody Starving in Africa

The Filter Bubble: What the Internet Is Hiding from You, Eli Pariser’s New York Times best-selling new book, has been applauded by net skeptics like Jaron Lanier and Evgeny Morozov as well as digital optimists like Clay Shirky and Craig Newmark. It’s an important book which argues that leading websites like Google and Facebook are delivering personalized information to us, thereby shielding Internet users from the broad news and ideas that traditional newspapers delivered to us.

Pariser, who is the President of the Board of MoveOn.org is concerned that the Internet isn’t living up to its original promise. And the Filter Bubble is a passionate polemic against Facebook and Google algorithms that simply serves up information that it believes the user wants to see. For Pariser, this is creating a less and less well informed public and compounding the ghettoization of contemporary intellectual and political life.

This is the first part of a two part interview with Pariser. Check in tomorrow to hear whether Pariser believes that progressives have lost faith in the Internet.

 

 

 

 

TechCrunch.Tv

Peter Stern: How Cable TV Can Win Back Our Trust

As the Chief Strategy Officer at Time Warner Cable, Peter Stern is responsible for planning the long term future of America’s second largest cable company. Much of his job involves rebuilding both the appearance and reality of the cable industry in a 21st century world of ubiquitous online video and revolutionary consumption devices like the iPad.

Stern is at his most provocative in his acknowledgement that cable needs to rebuild trust with its customers. In our interview last week, he spoke about Time Warner Cable’s commitment to providing their customers with what he calls the “4 anys”: being able to watch any video content, anytime, on any device, anywhere. Most importantly, he stressed that a traditional cable provider like Time Warner Cable needed to change from selling products to providing their customers with great experiences such as his company’s new personal solutions agents.

This is the second part of a two part interview with Peter Stern. Check out yesterday’s interview, in which Stern explains why cable has a future and why it is the least expensive form of legal entertainment.

 

 

 

 

 

TechCrunch.tv

Peter Stern: Does Cable TV Have a Future?

Peter Stern is not only the Chief Strategy Officer at Time Warner Cable, but he’s also one of the smartest analysts of today’s complex media landscape. So it was a real honor to interview Stern last week in our New York City studio about why cable has a future, why the wired network is critical for wireless to succeed and why he believes that cable at, he says, an average price of 30 cents per hour, is the least expensive form of (legal) entertainment around.

Stern doesn’t pull his punches. He is brutally honest about how the illegal consumption of music has killed the music industry, why content on cable networks is ten times better than that on Netflix, why cable companies generally avoid a la carte pricing and why Network Neutrality legislation is a bad idea. This is essential viewing for anyone who loathes their cable company. It might even persuade you that cable companies like Time Warner Cable aren’t quite the evil empire that many of us love to hate.

This is a two part interview with Peter Stern. Check back tomorrow for his thoughts on the pricing of broadband, on Time Warner Cable’s iPad controversy and what cable companies need to do to regain the trust of their users.

 

 

 

 

 

TechCrunch.tv