I know I wrote a little about this before, but one of our customers, the Missouri Conference United Methodist Church – hi monica :-) – asked me to summarize who we are and what we do as we are about to embark on a project together.

ScribeStudio is a Software-as-a-Service web application that makes it easy for subject matter experts to create and manage online courses. An expert can log into the ScribeStudio toolkit and create a course (with images, audio, video, tests, assessments and more), publish that course to a password protected learning site, control who can and cannot access the course, communicate with learners online, and charge for access.

The Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) business model has the Software industry buzzing. I should know. The Software and Information Industry Association is one of our customers. I’m not just the hair club president, I’m also a client…

SaaS turns the typical software licensing model on its head. Instead of paying an upfront license for an unknown return on investment, a SaaS customer only pays for what they use, when they use it, like a utility. In months of high usage, the customer pays more. In months of low usage, the customer pays less.

The metrics ScribeStudio uses to charge customers are 1. the number of learners who can log into a password protected learning site each month 2. the amount of storage your course uses and 3. the amount of bandwidth you consume. Use a little more of any one of these three metrics and pay a little more. Use a little less and pay a little less.

The benefits of SaaS from a technology standpoint are

• 1. that there is no hardware to install or servers to maintain (everything is managed by the experts, the vendor) and
• 2. each time the vendor adds new, improved features of fixes a bug, every customer benefits, instantly.

This is because SaaS is defined as a single instance, multi-tenant architecture. Sounds complex, but it really just means that there is only one instance of the software for the vendor to maintain and all customers share that same instance. This means that

• 1. it is easier and less costly for all (vendors and customers) to maintain because there aren’t multiple instances of the application to support and upgrade from (think windows 95, 98, 2000, xp…) and
• 2. vendors typically release updates / improvements every few weeks or months that all customers can immediately take advantage of (even little things like an improved user interface).

Examples you may recognize of “single instance, multi-tenant architecture” are gmail, hotmail, ebay, amazon, etc. Everyone is using the same instance of the application.

SaaS vendors typically try to create a tool that solves a business pain for business customers. Examples of SaaS applications can be found in sales force automation, customer relationship management, human resources, auto dealer management systems and more. In each case, the vendor tries to develop a user friendly, easy to use application that provides customers with immediate benefit as defined by less time to perform a task, increased efficiency, less costly to perform a task, improved sales, etc.

Typically, SaaS applications, in their infancy, target small customers. As their feature sets grow, they move up the corporate chain until eventually, the company that a year ago was only serving small to medium sized businesses is suddenly seeing large companies sign-on as customers. The goal, however, is to not keep adding so many features and trying to be all things to all people that the application, the interface and the customer experience become unsatisfactory. If I log into an application today and it looks simple, I will use it.

However if a year from now I log into that same application and it has buttons everywhere and can do everything from start my car to pay my bills, it is no longer the simple, easy, intuitive application I grew to love. It’s no longer the free love hippie idealist. It’s the adult corporate raider…cold, heartless, and destroying value rather than creating value.

The way we approach ScribeStudio is that it needs to have a certain feature set to satisfy our demanding customers, but beyond that, new feature development should happen outside the boundaries of ScribeStudio. I.e., we will develop other easy to use applications that perform the tasks desired by customers that need more features to solve their more complex business problems. However, if these applications can all work together, and are a joy to use in combination, then you have something special.

ScribeStudio was the first SaaS e-Learning toolkit. The reason we created it in the first place was because we had been developing large scale e-learning solutions for large customers: learning management systems, course authoring tools, testing applications, etc. However, we realized that if we could put all these pieces of the puzzle together, in one easy-to-use web-based solution, we would have a winner. So we took all these parts – the ability to author a course, the ability to create a password protected learning site, the ability to publish a course to that learning site, the ability to control who can and can’t log into the learning site, the ability to charge people to register for an online course, web conferencing, message boards, podcasting, polls and other community features – and created what I always call the Swiss Army knife of e-Learning. You may not always need the corkscrew bottle opener feature of the Swiss Army knife, but when you’re on that date and you can’t find a bottle opener, thank God you do!

Our next Producer’s Guild of America Event takes place next week. While this one will not be a live webcast, it will be available, as are all past events, on-demand @ http://producersguild.scribestudio.com

Producers Guild of America New Media Council East

with the

National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences

Presents the 2006-2007 Panel and Salon Series

Viral Video in the Mainstream: Trends in New Original Broadband Programming

Tuesday, October 17, 2006
7pm – 9pm
The New School
Theresa Lang Student Center, 55 w. 13th street, Second Floor
Between 5th and 6th Aves.
New York City

If, in today’s online universe of YouTube, MySpace, and Digg, everyone can be famous for 15 friends, how do marketers corral the every-growing consumer urge to create, deconstruct and disseminate video works? And, most importantly, how will anyone make money from original user-generated content (UGC) on the Web? Will user-producers merely exploit an explosive media trend or point the way to a revolutionary distribution mechanism – one in which cancelled TV pilots; short films, or experimental social dialogues (both personal and professional) can be uploaded, “shared,” and discovered?

At this panel, some of the most successful producers of “viral” video on the Web will describe their approaches to leveraging the phenomenon of Web video and how it relates to mainstream media today and in the future.

Panelists:

Kenyatta Cheese, ROCKETBOOM – www.rocketboom.com Kenyatta produces at Rocketboom, a three-minute daily videoblog based in New York City that was founded in October 2004. Since its launch, the show, which covers a wide range of information and commentary – from top news stories to quirky Internet culture – has become a staple of the online video universe and is widely disseminated via RSS feeds.

Fritz Grobe/Stephen Voltz, ‘Diet Coke and Mentos Experiments’, EEPY BIRD – www.eepybird.com The founders of Eepybird have created an Internet sensation that has landed them on ‘The Late Show with David Letterman’ and on the ‘TODAY’ show. Their famous experiment, in which elaborately choreographed fountains of Diet Coke spurt into the air after Mentos candy is dropped into cans and bottles – a tribute to the water show at the Bellagio hotel and casino in Las Vegas. Has seen them reep more than $28,000 from selling ad spots at the end of the video. Eepybird’s founders share their ad revenue with Revver, the online video site that originally hosted the clip.

Noah Kalina, ‘Noah K. Everyday’ - www.everyday.noahkalina.com For 2,356 days, from January 11, 2000-July 31, 2006, Brooklyn-based professional photographer Noah Kalina photographed himself every day. The resulting video from this epic documentary project, ‘Noah K. Everyday,’ was posted on the sites YouTube and Vimeo and, in just one month, was viewed more than 2.8 million times, on its way to becoming the third-most discussed video in the history of YouTube.

Dina Kaplan, BLIP TV – www.blip.tv Founder and COO of Blip.tv, which launched in May, 2005, Kaplan oversees all business operations for the company, which distributes its user-generated content throughout the blogosphere: to blogs, iTunes, video iPod and aggregator sites. The company offers an opt-in advertising program and splits all revenues with its users 50/50. Blip.tv also brings videos to people’s TV sets through deals with Akimbo and TV Tonic.

Douglas Sarine/Kent Nichols, ASK A NINJA – www.askaninja.com A weekly video podcast that launched in November 2005, ‘ASK A NINJA’ has become an Internet sensation, with more than 20 million viewings. Founded by fellow writers/improve comedians Douglar Sarine and Kent Nichols, ‘ASK A NINJA’ takes in 600 questions a day from viewers around the world and answers a question a week. Its profile on YouTube is in the top ten. It’s been on the iTunes top ten since February of 2006. It’s website receives 30,000-80,000 visitors a day.

Panel moderated by Shelly Palmer, Chairman, The Emmy Awards Advanced Media Committee, National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, – http://www.shellypalmer.com.

Panel followed by networking mixer with wine and refreshments.

Event is free and open to the public but an RSVP is required. Please email: rsvp@pga-ny.org to reserve a seat.

Event hosted by Jeff Dachis and Marc Scarpa, NY Co-Chairs, Producers Guild of America, New Media Council.

The Producers Guild of America (PGA) is the premier industry association for entertainment producing professionals.

For more information about the PGA New Media Council and to access a membership application, please visit: www.pganewmedia.org.

For more information about the PGA and to access a membership application, please visit www.producersguild.org.

Event generously sponsored by The New School Department of Media Studies and Film and Parsons School of Design. For more information about programs, please visit http://mediastudies.newschool.edu and http://www.parsons.edu.

Previous events in our 2005-2006 event series can be accessed in both webcast and podcast format at: http://producersguild.scribestudio.com

For more information about ScribeStudio Productions, please visit: http://www.scribestudio.com.

Searching randomly on Amazon as I sometimes do when various files are rendering and uploading, you can often be surprised by the bizarre and unusual possessions you can acquire as a result of the internet.

Take, for example the JL421 Badonkadonk Land Cruiser/Tank.

Priced at a mear 19,999. It’s suitable for a small land war or navigating the streets of Manhattan during the next transit strike.

Not so sure this tank’s for you? Take a look at the more then convincing description included on Amazon:

The JL421 Badonkadonk is a completely unique, extremely rare land vehicle and battle tank. Designed with versatility in mind, the Donk can transport cargo or a crew of five internally or on the roof, and can be piloted from within the armored shell or from an exposed standing position through the hatch, thanks to special one-way steel mesh armor windows and a control stick that pivots up and down to allow piloting from the standing or seated positions. The interior is fully carpeted and cozy, with accent lighting and room for up to five people. A 400 watt premium sound system with PA is mounted to project sound both into the cabin and outward from behind the windows. The exterior is a steel shell with a rust patina, and features head and tail lights, turn signal lights, trim lighting, underbody lighting, fixed slats protecting the windows, and a unique industrial-strength rubberized flexible skirt that shields and protects the wheels to within an inch of the ground, while still allowing for enough flex to give clearance over bumpy and uneven terrain. Master power, ignition, all lighting, and stereo features are controlled from a single switchboard to the left of the driver, again accessible from either the seated or standing position. Standard drive is an air-cooled, 6hp Tecumseh gasoline (unleaded only) engine, with centrifugal clutch, giving the Donk a top speed of 40 mph. This vehicle is not licensed for use on public roads, and is intended as a recreational vehicle only. Badonkadonks are produced on an order-by-order basis, with each one having it’s own unique set of features. With your order is included unlimited consultations with the designer and manufacturer concerning all relevant options (a representative from NAO will contact you shortly after your order). Price does not include shipping and handling.

Personally, if I’m absolutely sure that I am in need of an insanely oversized vehicle that will be more then worth the fortune spent on gas… This my friends, would be it.

Just some general musings for the day.

last year, a friend of a friend met pat o’brien, former sports commentator turned access hollywood gossiper, in a bar.

pat was with his big-breasted blond girlfriend, and evidently a lot of cocaine in his pocket.

pat took a fancy to this friend of a friend and started leaving her voice mail messages. each message was more explicit and graphic than the last. in the end, pat o’brien left no room for the imagination. it was pretty clear what he wanted.

my friends mike & sujal helped this friend pull the voicemails from her phone. mp3s are pretty easy to email out to the entire world and pretty soon pat’s night out was all over the web.

if you are easily offended by triple x rated content be warned, you probably shouldn’t listen to the following audio file.

otherwise, take off your jacket, take a seat, relax, pour yourself a brandy, perhaps do an extremely large line of cocaine “pat o’brien style”....and have a listen.

a funny thing happened after this audio spread like wildfire over the internet. pat o’brien admitted he had a drinking problem and checked himself into a rehab clinic, as if to say, it wasn’t me talking on those voicemails, it was the alcohol. it was the drugs.

welcome to the pat o’brien school of damage control. funny thing is, it works. if you tune into “The Insider”, there’s pat, gossipping away again about all the personal affairs of the hollywood elite.

note to self. do something crazy. blame alcohol, enter rehab, check out, resume life again without skipping a beat.

so fast forward to today (today being recently, like the past few weeks). enter Florida politician Mark Foley. mark clearly attended the pat o’brien school of damage control. let’s review:

do something crazy. check. blame alcohol. check. enter rehab. pending. resume career. pending.

so i’d like to propose that we add the word pat o’brien to the american lexicon. like google, it could be a verb, like “he pat o’brien’d his way out of it.” the gist is that he did something so insanely stupid, blamed alcohol and got a free pass. or a noun, like don’t be a pat o’brien.

anyway, if anyone is listening, or reading, who is an american lexicon decision maker, please consider my proposal. it would add to the color that makes the american vocabulary so rich and nuanced.

thanks a bunch, peter

we filmed many of the fashion shows at this year’s new york fashion week and are producing some tv shows around fashion week that will air on the beauty and fashion channel.

we’re starting in on post-production to create a few half hour shows based on the many hours of backstage footage, interviews with designers, models and attendees, front of house shots, after party’s, etc.

beauty and fashion is currently in about 20 million households, soon to be close to 40 million with a distribution deal that turner (owner of beauty and fashion) just struck with time warner cable.

here’s a rough cut of a segment we put together for my friend lincoln mayne, an up-and-coming men’s designer who lives in NYC. i went to an art exhibit last night where he sold two paintings (at least by the time i left), for $4,000. a modern day rennaissance man…

i was reading a blog post by Bob Lefsetz, a music industry “insider”, in which he comments on a conference panel discussion in which mark cuban, he of the broadcast.com height of the internet bubble fame, whines about youtube. you can read bob’s comments here

i tried to post a comment on his blog but it told me i had to be logged in. then it provided me no way to register or log in.

so here’s what i had to say…

on the one hand, i’ve been shocked that the networks have not come after youtube for letting people freely pirate their content. what they’re doing is letting youtube grow to become a powerful force instead of putting the video of, say, the colbert report, on their own comedy central site. this is the same way i view iTunes. why let iTunes grow through your content (ABC, CBS, NBC, FOX, etc) instead of building your own network @ ABC.com or CBS.com.

eventually, no one will even know what FOX is. they’ll know the Simpsons or 24 and know where they can find them (on iTunes). but they won’t have any reason to visit the network itself or its website. eventually, iTunes and youtube will become more powerful than the networks. it’s like the networks let themselves be willing hosts to a bad virus.

on the other hand, mark cuban is spewing total bullshit. he mentions youtube videos with 10,000 views as the upside of youtube. try again. there are many many videos with views in the millions. that is more than many of cuban’s HDTV shows probably pull.

take a look at a producer’s guild of america discussion on digital rights management that we recently webcast @ http://producersguild.scribestudio.com

peter

speaking of the producer’s guild of america webcast series, also take a look at shelly palmer’s views on digital rights management. shelly was the host for the event and knows a thing or two about DRM.

As our media exploits continue to increase, I feel its time to publicize our already active Studio Rental Service.

People in the industry that need a clean professional space to work in, will enjoy having our doors open in the center of Manhattan’s Financial District. Our New York Studio can be rented with or without equipment, and rates vary depending on the time needed.

Our complete production studio houses DVX100 cameras, high quality studio fill lights, and a professional environment complete with simple backdrops and modular sets such as couches, chairs, tv anchor desk, etc.

Multicamera shoots will have the option of being mixed live through our multichannel DataVideo Digital Mixer and outputted to your portable storage device.

Our staff of professional media makers is always on hand to assist if needed.

Currently our studio is home to the monthly live broadcast “ “Truth in E-Learning” and the bi-weekly online magazine article “Managing REO”. Our crews have been hired to travel to the recent IQPC tradeshow in Phoenix, Arizona, and just last week we had the honor of filming the very controversial “London Review of Books: The Israeli Lobby” which can be viewed on our blog.

ScribeStudio works diligently to produce interesting, engaging multimedia content for our clients all across the country. We feel it’s time to make our New York production facilities more readily available to the media-makers of New York.

Those interested in studio rentals or national film crews to film everything from concerts to television shows to conferences should contact Jason Kichline at jason AT scribemedia DOT org.

Last March, John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt published an article in the London Review of Books. Entitled “The Israel Lobby: Does it Have too Much Influence on US Foreign Policy,” it drew swift charges of anti-Semitism in the editorial pages of American newspapers.

At root are passages like the following:

...the thrust of US policy in the region derives almost entirely from domestic politics, and especially the activities of the ‘Israel Lobby’. Other special-interest groups have managed to skew foreign policy, but no lobby has managed to divert it as far from what the national interest would suggest, while simultaneously convincing Americans that US interests and those of the other country – in this case, Israel – are essentially identical.

Those attacking Mearsheimer and Walt suggest the duo outline a nefarious Jewish cabal with a stranglehold on American Mideast policy. Think smokey back rooms; think political and media domination; think subtle and sneaky manipulation of the unsuspecting, innocent gentile. Think historical stereotype.

Mearsheimer, Walt and their defenders counter that they neither suggest a cabal nor a monolithic Jewry driving the American body politic. Instead, a close alliance of disparate groups form a capital “L” Israeli Lobby that distorts US interests in the region. While this is lead by the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the Lobby includes Jews and Gentiles alike:

The Lobby also includes prominent Christian evangelicals like Gary Bauer, Jerry Falwell, Ralph Reed and Pat Robertson, as well as Dick Armey and Tom DeLay, former majority leaders in the House of Representatives, all of whom believe Israel’s rebirth is the fulfilment of biblical prophecy and support its expansionist agenda; to do otherwise, they believe, would be contrary to God’s will. Neo-conservative gentiles such as John Bolton; Robert Bartley, the former Wall Street Journal editor; William Bennett, the former secretary of education; Jeane Kirkpatrick, the former UN ambassador; and the influential columnist George Will are also steadfast supporters.

The above debate centers around these two perspectives as the panelists move among issues such as US-Israeli relations, the Middle East peace process, the origins of the Iraq War and Israeli settlement policy to name a few.

Panelists:

• John Mearsheimer is the R. Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service Professor of Political Science and the co-director of the Program on International Security Policy at the University of Chicago.
• Shlomo Ben-Ami is a former Israeli foreign and security minister and the author of Scars of War, Wounds of Peace: The Israeli-Arab Tragedy.
• Martin Indyk is Director of the Saban Center for Middle East Policy and Senior Fellow in Foreign Policy Studies at the Brookings Institution.
• Tony Judt is Erich Maria Remarque Professor in European Studies and Director of the Remarque Institute at New York University.
• Rashid Khalidi is Edward Said Professor of Arab Studies and Director of the Middle East Institute at Columbia University.
• Dennis Ross is Counsellor and Ziegler Distinguished Fellow of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and the author of The Missing Peace: The Inside Story of the Fight for Middle East Peace.

Moderator:

• Anne-Marie Slaughter is Dean of the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs and the Bert G. Kerstetter ‘66 University Professor of Politics and International Affairs at Princeton University.

---

The above debate took place at Cooper Union in New York City and was captured by ScribeMedia on behalf of the London Review of Books. A transcript of the event will be available shortly.

About the London Review of Books Founded in 1979, The London Review of Books is dedicated to carrying on the tradition of the English essay – giving contributors the space and freedom to develop their ideas at length and in depth.

To subscribe please visit the London Review of Books Web site.

Inquiries about this video, DVDs and the debate can be made to michael [at] scribemedia [dot] org.

this is something i had to write for someone, but it’s a good description of DLI, the software-as-a-service development side of our company:

DLI is a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) development company that partners with domain experts to develop web-based applications that solve identified business pains for business users. DLI brings expertise in both web-based application development and Software-as-a-Service sales, marketing and customer support.

The software industry is changing. More business applications are being developed or redeveloped as online, on-demand services. Customers pay as they go, instead of upfront for an unknown ROI. Vendors reduce support and service costs due to the single-instance, multi-tenant nature of SaaS applications. All customers share the same underlying application code, so any time an update is made to the application, all customers immediately benefit. Customers always have the latest version of the application. Update cycles are also decreased. Instead of one update per year, customers can expect monthly incremental updates to their SaaS applications.

Typically, SaaS applications can be deployed on behalf of a customer in hours, days or weeks, which is a change from the typical six month to one year deployment cycles of traditional software applications. Customers can immediately benefit from SaaS applications and only pay based on success. The vendors interests are tightly aligned with the success of their customers.

we webcast an event for the london review of books called THE ISRAEL LOBBY: Does it have too much influence on US foreign policy?

the event was a healthy debate / panel discussion that was a follow-up to John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt’s controversial March 26th article The Israel Lobby in which they argue that the Israel Lobby within the US has too much influence on US foreign policy.

panelists included israeli, palestinian, and american academics and political figures.

over 900 people were in attendance and we expect over 100,000 people to watch online when we upload the on-demand version of the event.

THE ISRAEL LOBBY: Does it have too much influence on US foreign policy?

On 28 September 2006, at 7 p.m., the London Review of Books will host a public debate in the Great Hall, Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art, Cooper Square, New York, on the subject:

Panellists: Shlomo Ben-Ami, Martin Indyk, Tony Judt, Rashid Khalidi, John Mearsheimer, Dennis Ross

Moderator: Anne-Marie Slaughter

Notes on Participants

Shlomo Ben-Ami is a former Israeli foreign and security minister and the author of Scars of War, Wounds of Peace: The Israeli-Arab Tragedy

Martin Indyk is Director of the Saban Center for Middle East Policy and Senior Fellow in Foreign Policy Studies at the Brookings Institution

Tony Judt is Erich Maria Remarque Professor in European Studies and Director of the Remarque Institute at New York University

Rashid Khalidi is Edward Said Professor of Arab Studies and Director of the Middle East Institute at Columbia University

John Mearsheimer is the R. Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service Professor of Political Science and the co-director of the Program on International Security Policy at the University of Chicago

Dennis Ross is Counsellor and Ziegler Distinguished Fellow of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and the author of The Missing Peace: The Inside Story of the Fight for Middle East Peace

Anne-Marie Slaughter is Dean of the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs and the Bert G. Kerstetter ‘66 University Professor of Politics and International Affairs at Princeton University.