Forget it. Nope! It can’t be done. I for one am unable to fully shake the Interweb.

Mentally prepared to ditch all calls, emails, texts, and social network pings, I was convinced I would be able to enjoy my nine day beach vacation in good old fashioned peace and quiet, exactly for the courage to disconnect myself from constant digital connectivity.

I know, probably no small feat for someone otherwise “always on” (I work in New York, on Wall Street, and for a telco. Oy!), the idea was, just once, no Blackberry voice or office email, no laptop, no iPod or iPad, or whatever else would get me to the Web.

Yet, come Monday (day three), I was back “on the wagon”, scouring for IP access as if I had money riding on it.

Turns out, according to The Economist I do!

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Listen! I know how digitized and rapidly changing our world has become. I live in New York. I am a new media analyst for a major telecommunications company. I co-write a blog.

In other words, I eat and drink the stuff our increasingly digital real-time media reality is made of. But ever so often, I am still amazed if not puzzled about how much the times they are a changin’.

The other day I had to check the Web site of what used to be my local savings bank back when I lived in Germany — a good fifteen years ago, no less.

Turns out, they’re now into Twitter. Yes, Twitter! I was stunned. The old-fashioned local savings bank of my childhood days is now condoning micro-blogging, for that purpose flaunting its very own Twitter account.

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Not that I want to harp much longer on my apparent screaming media fascination but hey, the past week has provided ample sound bites to back up my tongue-in-cheek theory.

You remember? South Carolina Republican House rep Joe Wilson hackles the US president during a major public speech, tennis-great Serena Williams looses it on the court, and rapper-extraordinaire Kanye West opts to rudely interrupt a major video awards show snatching the micro in the middle of a peer’s acceptance speech.

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Come to think of it, here’s a couple additional thoughts on my previous screaming media missive.

Both a recent Variety and Utne Reader article got me thinking again about this post-Walter Conkrite, post-Don Hewitt era of 24-hour noise channels.

In a somewhat tongue-in-cheek way, I believe my screaming media concept is indeed a deserving (albeit absolutely made up) label, as “yell TV” continues to spread far beyond its original cable roots.

First off there’s satellite TV of course, plus, increasingly, telecom-powered “broadband” IPTV. Other ways TV programming is being delivered to you and me these days includes an ever-growing number of mobile video services, media receivers, gaming consoles and Internet-connected TVs.

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Last week Glenn screamed at me again. So did Ed. An hour later Bill yelled at both me and his guests. What could I have possibly done to deserve this kind of treatment?

I know we’ve never really been friends per se, but these guys have been over to my house quite frequently. For years actually. When they are at your house, I suppose they are yelling at you, too?

Cynicism aside, the more television I watch these days the harder it gets to circumvent loud-noise anchors and their talking heads literally screaming out their parts.

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For two reasons, Brian’s recent TV Everywhere post caught my renewed attention.

For one, earlier today, Comcast announced expansion of its online TV video efforts to an impressive 23 networks. From full-length movie channels - think Cinemax, HBO, IFC, an Starz -  to cable TV favorites such as A&E, E!, Food Network, and WE,  Comcast’s 5,000 trial homes are now among the very first to enjoy online video akin to legacy TV.

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This one’s a somewhat lighter post, mainly a few observations about how, of all things, New York City weather, social networking and mobile technology all seem to gel quite effectively these days.

Last week, just back from the ITP Spring Show at Manhattan’s Tisch School of The Arts, I took a quick break strolling across Union Square, on my way to Yaron Samid’s latest NY Video 2.0 meetup event.
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Have you recently taken the New York subway, let’s say, to 23rd, 66th, 86th, or 103rd street?

If you exit at any of these stops you’ll notice some of your favorite entertainment stores vanished. Shut down. Closed for good.

At 23rd and 6th Avenue Barnes&Noble, gone! At Lincoln Center Tower Records‘ flagship store, gone! Over at 86th and 2nd Avenue Circuit City, vanished. And at 102rd and Broadway Blockbuster Video closed its doors, too.

Be it for books, music, movies, or consumer electronics (for anyone 30 years or older), those were among the brands you would likely turn to first - to discover, buy and play your entertainment retail. 

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One of the most daunting technological challenges we face today is scaling up this old internet of ours to meet the burgeoning consumer demand for bandwidth-intensive real-time applications such as telecommuting, cloud computing, and streaming media.

And as internet video continues to trend from short-form/long-tail/low quality content towards long-form/short-tail/high quality (premium) content (i.e. from YouTube to hulu to TV/films on embedded hardware), exploding consumer demand could bring things to a head even more quickly than currently anticipated.
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When you find back-to-back Hulu and Verizon Hub commercials rolling across your TV screen, (as I recently did in New York), you know for traditional media delivery, the times, they are a-changin’.

Turns out, the TV spot for Hulu and Verizon Hub each mark a first for their respective parent company; pitching products previously not marketed on live television.
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