The problem with Periscope. For sports.

Major League Baseball is not a fan of Periscope-like services where fans live-stream the video of a game in real time.  I get that.  Fans are ripping off the rights-holders.   This was a big deal for the Mayweather-Pacquiao fight as the audience was streaming the fight on Periscope and people at home were tuning it.  In effect, Periscope enabled pirating of the fight.  If only there were a tool that let people add their own perspective to events.  Maybe facilitate the creation of some second screen content as well.  If only.

Words not said

One of the problems that we want to address with YourCall is the artificial nature of live television broadcasts.  I am specifically thinking of the narration provided by the announcers.  A couple of news items that illustrate the point.  The first is the extensive notes used by WWF to shape what their broadcasters say.  Actually, if you are an aspiring broadcasters, I would give the notes a read.  The WWF has been in business for a good long time and they have learned some things.  Regardless, if you were a broadcaster for WWF, the notes would certainly constrain what you are going to say.  Similarly, here is an article discussing restrictions on announcers at the Masters.  Patron, not fan.  Bunker, not Sand Trap.

Cord Cutting Complete

It took like two months and Comcast charging me for an additional month as I dropped them as our phone carrier and they automatically moved us to a la carte pricing, but we are done.  The final system includes AT&T for broadband (18Mb), Slack.tv for our main cable channels and HBO, Roku players for every room (standard interface for each room), two Logitech Harmony Ultimate Universal Remotes (gets rid of a bunch of device remotes), and Plex.tv as a media server (available on Roku as a client and for our Mac Mini at home as the server).  And we are done.

Update: Just bought and Amazon Basics HD antenna.  We have an occasional desire to watch sports, real-time.  

Payroll

One of the big hassles of starting up a company is the whole payroll thing.  Getting paid is good.  Getting people paid is not as good.  Tons of various agencies you have to register with.  My sense of it is that if the government wanted to encourage new company formation, they would drastically simply the process for new companies.  Of course, that complexity has led to an eco-system that handles payroll and the various forms.  We use Paychex.  They have made things much easier.