Stories from the week of Nov. 24

One of the things I’ve always planned on doing with this blog is giving people access to some of the stories I’ve written at the Independent. I’ve finally decided to just plunge in and start doing a weekly round up. Here goes.

• Embracing the Dakota Language
  A story about Upper Sioux Community students at Yellow Medicine East that are embracing their culture and language in a class at school.
• Black Friday: A Shoppers Delight
  I was up at 5 a.m. with all those shoppers looking for good deals. Here’s what they had to say about their experience.
• Fish House Parade is this weekend in Hendricks
  A short preview of Hendrick’s annual winter event.
• Giving Back
  The Clarkfield Area Charter School is giving back to the community as part of its mission statement.
• YM County looks at less expensive option …
  Yellow Medicine County Commissioners talk about a new expansion proposed at the court house.
• RTR wants state out of NCLB
  RTR school administration talks about withdrawing from No Child Left Behind.

I also write blog posts on the Marshall Independent Web site.

• Black Friday
  A short commentary on some of the events of Black Friday.

I am going to try to keep this going each week. I don’t know if I will post every story, there are a few from this week that I have decided not to include. At any rate, you can follow these stories and keep up with my work by following this category.

Dropping Cable Television … Maybe.

I’m currently in the process of thinking about possibly dropping cable television. Sure, that means giving up my beloved TiVo and loosing out on a lot of content from the History Channel, Discovery, National Geographic (man I watch a lot of documentary stuff), but I’m finding Netflix and my vast DVD collection are keeping me entertained.

The things that were keeping me stuck to spending between $60-80 a month for cable television are slowly becoming slimmer and slimmer. In reality the thing I would be giving up is sports — and I realized I can listen to the radio for that.

Hulu.com and Netflix streaming could pretty much serve the need for current television (The Simpsons, the Office, Heroes, Chuck and Numb3rs) and season sets of DVD are filling the rest of the need.

I’m contracted with Tivo until the end of December so I have time to make the decision.

Any thoughts?

Netflix drops its used DVD store

A few days ago a friend called letting me know Netflix was doing away with its used DVD store. As a Netflix member and collector of DVDs, I have used the used section of the Web site a number of times to pick up movies mostly for $5.99.

Netflix started selling used DVDs a few years ago, a side venture to its more traditional rental movies by mail model that made Netflix one of the most successful online businesses around.

The move for Netflix to drop out of the used DVD business isn’t really that surprising to me and I don’t think the reasons for the decision are really being talked about.

Netflix claims the decision was made to allow the company the room to focus on its core business — movie rentals by mail and streaming video. I’m guessing that is true, but there is something in the statement that is missing.

Netflix is working hard on building its streaming service, announcing an upgrade to HD for a number of titles, prepping for a launch on Xbox 360 and TiVo along with Blu-Ray players that support the format.

The company has also made agreements with the movie channel Starz in order to get its hands on new movie releases. I think this agreement is actually the most telling reason for Netflix to pull out of the used store business.

Lets face it, the movie industry hates used stores. A used DVD sold doesn’t count in sales figures for the movie and ultimately means a “loss in sales” for the studio or distributor that doesn’t get a cut of that sale.

The movie industry has been slow to adopt the Netflix streaming service, mostly pushing out “catalog movies” that haven’t spent time on the big screen in a few years.

Closing down its used DVD store is a good will measure for Netflix, letting the movie companies know they are ready to play ball and really push the streaming service even further. Netflix is positioning themselves for the future and they’re doing it now.

I only hope Netflix doesn’t give too much. The entertainment industry is notorious for taking a pound when an ounce was offered.

At any rate, the streaming service is building up and becoming one of the most compelling offerings out there. If that means missing out on a few deals on DVD, that’s fine. After all, I’ll be able to watch it on my Xbox soon enough.