Its now 12am on Friday the 29th and at 6pm the iPhone will go on sale. I am sure people are sleeping on line on Prince Street in Manhattan.

Now, I don’t wait on line for phones, TV shows or PSP’s, The Allman Brothers well that’s a different story. I am not interested in rate plans or battery life or being the first one in my office to have a phone I can’t use on our corporate network. I have an ipod so I am set for music thank you very much.

So what is important from my perspective with the iPhone? Beyond the hype, beyond the design of an all glass screen is the premise that a phone should be more intuitive (à la an OS) and more fun to use then, well a phone. What interests me is that Apple once again has raised the stakes and challenged the status quo. In an industry, which’s most celebrated and memorable product last year was the Razr; the iphone is a tectonic shift.

Yes, Apple should be on a 3G network for data and video delivery even if that means fewer markets in the short term and perhaps make other design changes thought, I will leave that to others more qualified to address.

I want to see video capture as well as delivery, I want source to point and point-to-point, I want people to be able to upload video files without the restrictions typical with all video capable phones, and I want competition, bring on the blood and carnage it will be good for the consumer.

What it portends for mobile TV, I hope is that Apple’s bold move will forever change the perception of what a mobile device is and can be, so I say bring it on.

Is this bold and ballsy of me, well yes! That is the point, Apple is not only talkin the talk, they are walkin the walk and perhaps if more companies, Yahoo! as example (who lost its way of late) were to be a little ballsier perhaps there would be more innovation in addition to the hype, perhaps.

Steve Solomon is President of SJS Sports, a NY-based sports media-consulting firm. Steve is former COO of the National Hockey League, and a former executive of ABC Sports. Steve and I spoke a number of months ago about issues facing rights holders, user generated content and how to monetize content without diluting a companies brand. Steve's insight into the issues facing rights holders and the on-line space is as relevant and on target today as it was when we spoke...

Old news travels fast on the web and while I could offer yet another perspective on the departure of CEO, Terry Semel, I will leave that to others. Instead, I want to focus on a potential opportunity the company might consider which would draw on its early strengths with innovative video delivery.

If you recall the Vision Platform™ in its first incarnation as Finance Vision and later as an attempt to deliver sports and news on a subscription basis you will remember a flexible and robust platform that was user friendly and held promise for the company to distinguish itself back in the days when Google was but just a search engine.

The reasons for the lack of traction with Finance Vision was a mix of technology and company politics. The failure of the subscription based platform may have been attributed to cost to consumers and timing.

More recently, there was an aborted attempt at original content creation.

Yahoo’s does not have problems with creating innovative technology, its problems are a lack of innovative vision on the part of its management team, it is good that Jerry Yang is stepping up to the CEO role and perhaps time has afforded him an opportunity to decide where he wants to lead the company.

Below are some articles I wrote over the past year.
Do You Remember Finance Vision

Yahoo! scaling back original video production

Contest
I have a nice new Black Yahoo! T-Shirt I'll send to the person who has the most interesting and thoughtful comment to this post.

Levi Shapiro attended the Digital Hollywood 2007 conference this past Tuesday and spoke to a number of key industry heads about the coming trends in media and on-line content.
Digital Hollywood Interviews

Ed Skolarus

Vice President Business and Operations Fox Reality

Lee Hancock

Chief Executive Officer go2.com

Jared Hoffman

Partner Generate

Timothy Hanlon

Senior Vice President Denuo Group

Stephen Condon

Senior Vice President Entriq

Mark Hopper

Vice President & General Manager BitTorrent

Joseph Olin

President Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences

Andrew Jedynak

Chief Marketing Officer WeatherBug

In a ruling by the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in New York, the court rejected the FCC and Bush administration’s interpretation on what constitutes indecent language broadcast over the public airways.

The scope of the ruling did not cover or refer to Internet TV in all its various forms or platforms however; I think this is an important ruling for our community. As OTA content is migrating on-line, content creators from established media outlets as well as Indie producers want to be unencumbered by governmental limitations on their work.

The ruling highlighted the following passage of note.

“Indecent speech is language that describes, in terms patently offensive as measured by contemporary community standards for the broadcast medium, sexual or excretory activities and organs. Such indecent speech is actionable when broadcast at times of the day when there is a reasonable risk that children may be in the audience.”

What is clear from this statement is the current definition as measured by the FCC is wholly out of sync with changes in technology as reflected in Internet TV. Specifically, how can there be” community” standard when content spans the globe? For example, if a show were produced in Seattle under that community standard for OTA air but with the intent of rebroadcast or simulcast over the Internet how would this standard apply, would there have to be two different versions?

In addition, how could a broadcaster or content creator even begin to address the issue of “reasonable risk” that children might be in the audience? Certainly, there is content that is inappropriate for children however, short of parental guidance (where the responsibly should reside) there is no technology or governmental action that could protect children without a total restriction on what speech could appear on-line. For example, YouTube is not even able to control copyright content automatically on their site, how would they control so-called offensive language?

What has become apparent from legal professionals we have spoken to at various industry conferences, be it Streaming Media East or The Virtual Worlds Conference is that as often happens, technology is way ahead of the law. In addition to all the tech conferences, I think it wise to hold a legal summit to outline all the issues and determine future steps so that standards are not imposed on our community.