CEDX

From Wallstrip to the Sopranos

Lindsay Campbell from Wallstrip gets a speaking part as AJ's Professor Klein on the Sopranos.  Brava!  My son's former Tae Kwan Do instructor was the girlfriend in "Cleaver" a couple of episodes ago.  Not a speaking part, but nice for her.  Good for Lindsay, and good for web shows like Wallstrip.  That their stars can crossover to mass media validates investment in the shows with substance and good production values, and proves the potential for a larger audience for them.  Lindsay's been in a few commercials and a Law and Order episode, and I'm sure she is destined for a fan base and her own entourage soon.   Take heart waiters and waitresses of New York, the pool of acting gigs is getting a whole lot bigger soon, and consumers, there's going to be a whole lot more channels to choose from over your broadband connection in the next couple of years.

Local Internet TV and LIMBA

One of our newer members, Waldo Cabrera, has created a local internet TV channel, Islip.TV, creating local content and connections between marketers and consumers.  There are several channels of shows, and our fearless leader Ernie Fazio, has appeared on one of them.  Waldo hasn't given out any embed code yet, you still need to go to Islip.tv to see the show, but here's the link to see the show where Ernie so eloquently explains the history and goals of LIMBA

The Long Island Philharmonic at LIMBA

Larry Austin, chairman of Austin Travel and The Long Island Philharmonic Board of Directors, came by to give us an update on the Philharmonic close to the finale of their 28th season.  Larry is a past president of LIMBA, like the Philharmonic, a long running show.  The final two concerts of the season will take place at the Staller Center on Saturday, May 19th, and at the Tilles Center, Sunday, May 20th.  Mr. Austin opened with the story of how he got involved with the Philharmonic, relating stories about its founder, Harry Chapin, and his philosophy of having a base for the classical performing arts on Long Island, consisting of the Eglevsky ballet, the Philharmonic, and the PAF playhouse.  The philharmonic has had its ups and downs, over the years, with the past three being on an uptrend, on the way to erasing what was a $900,000 deficit when Mr. Austin took over as director.  David Wiley is the current music director, producing an eclectic program of classical symphony pieces, pops concerts and children's outreach in the schools.

Jeff says what I've been thinking for a while

Catching up on my blog reading, I noticed that Jeff Pulver, trendsetter/spotter of things that you can packetize and transport, posts in his blog something that I've been thinking for a while and talked about with he and Chris Brogan on their first live show from the Pulver.tv studios a couple weeks ago.  I'm sure somebody's working on a box like Apple TV, but for uncool folks like me that still don't own iPods or Macs.  What I see coming is a device that looks like a linksys router, but has an IR port for a remote, and HDMI out for connecting to your HDTV ( again, I am one of the bereft ).  This box will have an onscreen interface that can add and subtract RSS feeds ( channels ) with that IR remote and perhaps a USB or firewire connection to a honking disk array for storing the shows that it pulls off the web.  When this device comes along, then there will be true TV disruption like there is in the telephony sector.  Perhaps it will be a Control4 module... The distributors that thrive will embrace this trend, and also control access to content that is time-sensitive like sports and news.    In our neck of the woods, Cablevision is the best positioned to survive, owing to their ownership of the Garden, Knicks and Rangers.  Even though I was named for two of the original Mets ( Craig Anderson and Roger Craig ), I don't care much about baseball.  I am, however, a rabid Ranger fan, currently lamenting the end of their season. ( curse you Chris Drury )  These niches will still be able to be controlled, and perhaps when there is true distribution disruption, you will see more niche sports leagues spring up, able to attract and keep a fan base, because distribution of their content will not be bottlenecked anymore.

Making Sewers Sexy - LIMBA

On May 4th, we had the privilege of Suffolk County Legislator Wayne Horsley give us a perspective of how important sewers are to the ecology and economic growth of Long Island.  Wayne apologized for picking such an unsavory topic to be the subject of a breakfast meeting, but as usual, the large crowd of LIMBA faithful ate it up.  With his perspective as a professor of Modern World History at St. John's university, we got some ancient history as well.  The earliest known sewers were found in the Indus valley, around 3300-1700 BC, but Suffolk County still is not widely sewered in this modern age.  To preserve the open space that is left by concentrating development, we need sewers.  The recent development of the Route 110 corridor's new hotel and pharmaceutical plants would not have been possible without connecting them to the Southwest Sewer District.