Salad Days

The IPTV Futures conference today in Munich was certainly a who's who of the internet tv world and the guys at thebrainbehind need to be congratulated for bringing together such an exulted list of speakers and attendees.

I'm afraid that my contribution was curtailed by my travel plans, but, personally, it was, nevertheless, an edifying experience.

The keynote in my session was from Rocketboom's Andy Barron and - ironies of ironies, he covered Guttenberg (see my speech at NAB three years ago), the long tail and other cliches that we've heard endlessly about.... I don't wish to be inconsiderate, but the whole session, including my contribution was weak. I do hope the panel discussion afterwards was better, as I sat in an airport loading area...

I must confess to becoming jaded with this industry. In one form or another, I've been doing this stuff since graduating from high school and I'm becoming cynical as I watch people pile in. But I remember feeling the same in 1999 about the internet world.

So, these are our salad days. But the industry is young and the second wave is arriving fast. Just as Bebo and Facebook are challenging My Space, so there will be challengers to YouTube, Truveo and Joost.

What a way to make a living...