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Cross-posted to save some time. Now that X3D is
coming out, the real time 3D graphics folks have
a stake in XML-Dev.
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Not all enterprises are equal and profits are where you
find them. Sometimes it is in the pyramid; sometimes it
is in the barn out back.
Go after the game industry and try to convince them that
they should abandon proprietary machines, proprietary engines
and data formats and get them to adopt open standards.
They'll laugh. Too much money being made. They don't
have lifecycle issues. Games are the
new music industry just as the old music industry is
collapsing on itself because of open standards.
The lesson isn't lost on the G.O.B.s. Don't try to
sell the pig on the market value of pork. It's his
rump that you're talking about converting into currency.
To sell open standards, one should approach an industry
in need of them, preferably one that already understands
that they are in trouble without them. The gaming industry
has no need of standards because only 2.5 platforms count
and they can afford to port. On the other hand, the music
industry is in deep trouble because standards have devastated
their ogilopolies. The music artists in the
lower to middle tiers are abandoning the large labels having
been shown just how much money can be made from $10 CDs that
only cost $1.00 to make (including printing costs) when
one uses a web site and tours. Also, they can put out more
albums at their own pace without the overhead and hassles of
the BigLabelMachine. Why? Standards. MIDI and cheap digital
recording, mastering and copying freed them from Pharoah. They
can still serve BigP for advance money, bigger tours and a bigger name,
or they can take it to the streets and make money the old
fashioned way: print it themselves.
Would you rather make $50,000 with complete control in a year,
or make $3 million of which David Geffen keeps $450,000 in five
years? Big scale for the same money at four times the cycle
is still a loser. Ok, you might make more if you can get three
hit albums and re-negotiate with Geffen, but by then, you are
15 years older than when you started? Do you like those odds
in a business where youth rules the charts and TV dictates the
roster? Music is a gambler's business, but long odds are long odds.
Who do you think would find standards like X3D attractive if:
1. Tools are affordable. The lower tier music industry emerged
when the costs of recording, mastering, and making copies dropped
through the bottom.
2. Format support guarantees behavioral fidelity. The CD-R
has to play on the same machine as the CD. Otherwise, low
cost production bottoms out around $3500 instead of $200.
3. An open source library makes it possible for low cost
investors to create cheap tools out of the same code base,
thus guaranteeing both rendering and behavioral fidelity
in the code base, while the standard on which it is based
makes a no-cost browser plug in ubiquitous.
4. That same standard and open source library gave them
a comprehensive multimedia language, not just text with
clicks and windows, not just wiggling 2D, but full up
interactive if ya want it, real time 3D, able to use the
pictures, mix the audio, animate the band, include the
listener in the experience if they like, or just behave
like a good old fashioned 3D sequencing system.
5. Able to use an efficient encoding for when fast isn't
fast enough, a binary for streaming, and XML for integration
such that other semantic languages can pour form into the
format, and all from the same open sourced, cheap toolkit.
If the CAD/CAM industry and the low-tier music industry converge
on the same format, with web-capable delivery, what happens?
Stock advice: Befriend them when they are friendless.
len
-----Original Message-----
From: Ed Dodds [mailto:dodds@e-dodds.com]
The problem with business is that there is this whole strata
of good ol' boys hangin' on for pensions and/or options who
don't get the idea that there is benefit to normalized data,
standardized business processes or life-long learning. The
reality is that if stockholders don't, in fact, hold them
personally accountable, they will continue to make redundancy
job #1 -- whether at the enterprise or holistic levels. The
fact that good tools aren't used as intended is just a
symptom of this disease.
I was encouraged to learn that NTEN.org is atleast attempting
an industry data standardization for non-profits.
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