MaxFax…

Commentary By Paul Maxwell Check Out http://www.lightover.com/epic/ … right now. Really. Go watch this provocative, short, online film by Robin Sloan and Matt Thompson. Watch it, then come back … [8-minute break … presuming you’ve got a cable modem connection.] The "movie" – called Epic for Evolving Personalized Information Construct – purports to be a history lesson in the year 2014. Just as The New York Times takes itself offline and sues Googlezon – the merger of Google, Amazon and TiVo – for copyright violations … and loses in the Supreme Court. The history lesson is a production, in 2014, of the Museum of Media History. And, except for the opening narrative (cribbed from A Tale of Two Cities), the history lesson is instructional … and scary. It even tells you how Google beats Microsoft and its http://www.msn-newsbotster. What Googlezon does is pull from every online source and dynamically create a custom news product for each individual. Drawing from everything connected to the World Wide Web, Googlezon’s computers mix and match for each individual subscriber and delivery what it calls the Google Grid … each subscriber’s personal space with some private, some "published" or not-private. While this little fable is more for newspapers than other news sources, the implications are clear … "The times, they are a changin’." Take a short break, go listen to classic Dylan … [3-minute interlude, presuming you’ve converted your old vinyl or cassettes to your iPod … or, you’ve got a turntable that still works.] Think this is just a cautionary fable? Or does it mean something. Well, just last week Google filed for a patent on "ranking" news sources as its computers scan the web’s news sites. The ranking purports to assess the reliability and likelihood of accuracy of each "news" source … mainstream, fringe or individual. And, just in case you don’t think this means anything to cable, satellite, broadcasting, broadband or cell phone video, think again. Video search engines already exist. Random Notes: