Over at ReadWriteWeb, Josh Catone comments that internet fandom is not ready for primetime.  This commentary follows the news that the CBS TV series Jericho was cancelled again.

Josh asks:

What do you think? Are there any other reasons why strong online numbers haven’t translated well to the TV? Do you think Internet fandom will ever be ready for primetime?

In the comments, David Dworsky replies with an excellent statement.  He essentially asks when the differentiation made between TV and the Internet will cease.

I actually wholeheartedly agree with David.  As an example, I barely watch TV shows on my television anymore.  In fact, for the last few years, I’ve not even had a television, preferring to either watch shows with the TV tuner on my computer, or better yet, preferring to download the TV shows so that I could watch them at my leisure.

This is hardly a new concept to this Internet generation, but people are more and more expecting to be able to consume media on the devices of their choosing, at the time of their choosing, and via the medium of their choosing.

I believe this fact has really impressed upon on the TV industry.

Unfortunately, the industry still relies on old-world metrics that appear to have dealt Jericho a fatal blow.  It’s really too bad since the show is genuinely entertaining, and obviously has a large following.

My hope is that Jericho is only the first of such shows, and that eventually shows with large online followings are realized to be as worthy of investment as major network shows like Lost or House.   In fact I’d like to see us more rapidly advance to a point of being medium-agnostic when it comes to content distribution and consumption.

I just read that the first three minutes of I Am Legend are available on Yahoo.

Personally, I am really looking forward to this film. The trailers really piqued my interest. On top of that, I have a lot of respect for Will Smith as an actor and as a person. He’s always willing to challenge himself and expand into new roles and new motifs, so you can bet he chose this role for a reason.

So, do you spoil yourself with the first three minutes, or hold off until you get a chance to go see it?  For those of you that want to spoil yourself, go check out those first three minutes.

Credit:  Cream Filled Blog, via digg.

Since guns are illegal in Japan, how do people defend themselves against knife-wielding hooligans? They use a sasumata, a way of telling the bad guy that you’d only touch them with a 10-foot pole… literally!

Now, Japan is the cheesiest place on Earth, but you have to respect a society with such high rates of social obedience, and such disapproval of public malfeasance. Contrast this to the United States where gun ownership is rampant, and crime rates orders of magnitude more frequent, despite (or because of?) the argument that guns protect people from other people with guns.

It may be unfair to compare the social environment of Japan to that of the United States, but there’s a lot to be said about a society that has matured the point where it can say, we don’t need guns to protect ourselves from each other.

Mad respec’, Japan, mad respec’.

Read all about the sasumata (mirror).

Credit: from digg.

As a follow-up to my previous post on the office of the future, BandwidthBlog has a story (mirror) showcasing the workspaces of some of today’s Internet companies.

Looks like there’s a good mix of both dedicated workstations…

…and wide-open spaces…

…but nary a cubicle in sight!

Read the full article (mirror) at BandwidthBlog.

Credit:  From digg.

Every once in a while you hear about the new office paradigm that is going to replace the dreaded cubicle farm. You hear that the notorious cubicle farms that house engineers and otherwise, all over the world, are finally going away and we’ll be ushered into the bright, open future of glass offices or lounge-style workspaces.

This time, ecommercetimes.com has a piece on the “End of the Cubicle“, reporting that companies like Intel, Cisco and Sun are following the example of industry trend-setters Google and VMWare into the land of the cubicle-less.