Investing in a Poet

by Alain Bosquet

Disappointed with reality? Rent a poet:
he is cheaper than a driver or a typist.
If he likes, he might work
for nothing.  Don’t hesitate to tell him

your age, your name, your place of birth
and other such data.  Within an hour or so,
he will have you reinvented.  Another life,
new feelings, an unknown self

that stays with you or asks for a divorce,
a virgin soul at last: what can be more refreshing
or rightful?  Of course, you shouldn’t

make ill use of him: an overdose
of poetry can become dangerous.  You should choose
a poet who works under oath.

—from No Matter No Fact, translated by Samuel Beckett.

Assignment: write the contractual oath you wish to use to bind your writer to at least an honest intention of truth. (but don't forget about poetic license.) Unless you are a particular sort of person, here is how the oath probably should not begin:

"Do you solemnly swear ..."

All the fruit trees offered thrive in Southern California’s climate. This year we are offering apple, apricot, nectarine, peach, plum and several species of citrus. The deciduous trees are bare-root (without soil) and must stay cool and damp before planting. All trees must be planted within a day or two of pick up.

I wonder which trees are best for a warming climate, and also which ones are averse to the oncoming greening disease.

Also ominously, the SQLite backend disappeared from the Jython - Django build.

Looks like if you're using Django with Jython, you will be operating with the PostgreSQL connectors, etc.

On the plus side, teh PostgreSQL user conferences are in Italy. Ciao, amici!

'Project Inform' Identifies Most Effective, Audience-Friendly Ad Products for Short-Form Online Video

NEW YORK, July 15 /PRNewswire/ -- A five-second pre-roll combined with a ten-second lower 1/3 ad unit takes top prize as both the most effective and the most audience-friendly ad product for short-form online video, according to "Project Inform," a new study unveiled today by MTV Networks. The first large-scale study to survey real consumers through millions of short-form online video streams, "Project Inform" uniquely measured both the effectiveness and likeability of various ad formats across a range of audience, content and advertiser categories.

The latest finding from the evolving online advertising ecosystem

Intrusion is inevitable, but if not kept minimal, of course we learn to turn away.

Football fans will be able to toy around with several interactive features during the games on NFL.com and NBCSports.com, including four separate camera angles and a video player that offers full DVR functionality. Viewers that access the video streams in the middle of a game will even be able to rewind to plays that occurred before they opened their Web browsers.

One of the biggest additions to the streaming video feed this year is a "scrub bar" that will allow viewers to quickly navigate to the major plays of the game. NBC will integrate a data feed detailing each play into the scroll bar, so a viewer will be able to hover over an area on the scroll bar of the video window, and a marker will detail locations in the video where touchdowns and other major plays occur.

"We're collecting the data feed that comes out of the stadium. We marry it to the video file. We can take a point in time, and create a visual marker for it on the player," Miller explained.

NBC will rely on technical teams in several cities to deliver the interactive football games. In addition to teams that will be stationed in trucks near the stadiums at each Sunday night game, NBC staffers at its digital sports operation in Stamford, Conn., will cull video highlights from the game.

Game highlights through your Silverlight player...

New ad opportunities include:

Choose An Ad - Users will be able to select the ad they view allowing advertisers to create custom ads for the same or separate product lines as well as giving users the opportunity to play one extended ad followed by a commercial free presentation or a traditional ad followed by a limited-interruption presentation.

Pause Unit - When the user pauses their video experience, the sponsor's ad will appear next to the video – again extending the branding experience.

Push Back Unit - A 300x50 ad unit appears under the clip within the inline video – on rollover, the same unit expands to 300x250 ad. User can close the 300x250 and resume viewing the clip.

Rail Ad - Framing the homepage of NBC.com, this unique branding opportunity is impossible to miss, creating a unique opportunity to surround NBC.com's content offering with the advertisers unique look and feel.

Pushdown Ad - This ad will replace the current FSA (full site arrival ad) offering. Using a widely accepted ad spec, this larger premium ad unit allows for more innovative and creative brand messaging in a user-initiated expandable unit.

Pop Out Player - Our new pop-out video player creates a compact viewing screen, allowing users to multi-task while watching their favorite clips and shows.

Photo Interstitial - Our all-new photo slide show allows advertisers to integrate an ad unit into the photo stream.

NBC.com is also preparing to launch a series of comprehensive data-informed targeting solutions, leveraging multiple data sources. Targetable segments will include behavioral, geographical and demographic variations. Once enabled, advertisers on NBC.com will be able to target groups of users using a menu style selection matching their target to NBC audience clusters or custom segments enabling us to locate the advertisers target or in-market audience. These targeting capabilities will begin launching on NBC.com starting in Q2 2009 and fully ready for upfront 2009/10 activity.

Building on the enormous success of the short-clip video widgets, NBC.com is launching an ad-supported Full Episode video widget, allowing users to watch full episodes of their favorite shows on their own websites, blogs and social media sites.

I like the pause unit. Instead of the "pause that refreshes" it's the "pause that sells."

I"d be interested to know how the "data-informed targeting solutions" perform; they could 'go away' under more-stringent 'net privacy policies.

The ad-supported full-episode video widget is dreamy, just dreamy. If I put up an episode on my blog, do I get ad $$? NBC might not do it, but someone will...

1) Provide consumers with HDMI cables to connect their computers to their flat screens as part of an annual subscription commitment.

2) Enable both programmers and operators to sell and insert ad avails into their shows with content enhancements and engaging ad units that add value to viewers, rather than keeping old-fashioned pods. Meaning, enable the revenue value chain to profit and match the capabilities of the platform so we have richer, more meaningful experiences!

3) Develop network DVR technology so that we can bookmark where we're watching and return to the show/frame location even if we switch to another device or platform.

Let me know your thoughts, and I'll see about getting them into the mix.

I like the bookmarking idea in suggestion number 3 but as an individual I wouldn't pay for it. The suggestion in number one would only work if the HDMI-connected screen showed only the video portion of the 'cast. Actually might be a good candidate for the bookmarking in 3 -- except the bookmark action would be invisible to the user.

The only real winner in the bunch, tho, is the second one. Should we begin to lament the looming disappearance of old-fashioned pods?

(Note to self: after reading this entire article, clearly Sun Valley is no longer a good getaway spot. Best stick to the secure and undisclosed location)

Iran also has a peculiarity ...