Computers, Television, and The WWW
AT&T Interactive TV Research Projects - RCTV/DTD - 1992-1994
- Following completion of my Masters I answered an ad in the Village Voice... "Are you interested in computers and multi-media?"
- Went to work at RCTV, an interactive television research project at AT&T.
- I worked with/for some "heavy hitters" in the emerging interactive industry
Steve Plastrik -- Technical Director, Steve later became VP of Technical Operations for Interactive Services at Viacom, Inc.,
Ed Evans (whom I hired) became Manager VisNetOps (Viacom Interactive Services Operations)
Paul Mackles (programmer at DTD) became Manager of Software Development, Viacom Interactive Services
Justin Herz -- musician, audio engineer -- first to Viacom/MTV, last CEO at Tonos.com
Alex Meghan -- Yahoo - Cast of about 100... programmers, artists, producers, content authors housed at AT&T in Tribeca, NYC
- Custom hardware and software provided by Bell Labs
- OnLine cable Channel to 50 "friendly" families in Chicago
- Sports, Kids Shows (note the kids controller, slide #7 above), News, Entertainment, Consumer news... all updated 3 times a day.
- We had a great apartment on 54th at 10th... top floor of a new building, 2 baths (1 jacuzzi), wood floors, fireplace, $1450 a month -- a STEAL!!
- When the research/testing was completed AT&T shut down the project (for an undetermined period of time) and began the process of evaluating the research results and developing new strategies
- Ann left the Psychological Corporation when offered a research position at Macro International in Atlanta
- We leased the HUGE ground floor apartment of a house in the Virginia Highlands, the inner-city "village" of Atlanta
- I went to work as a consultant at IBM, in their Interactive Design Studio for Peter Blakeney and Jeff Ramminger
- Tested IBM CD based games, including Emergency Room and Quest for Fame
- Late Fall 1995 I joined Terry Kane's (interactive programmer) group that was taking on the task of re-developing and maintaining the National Hockey League website in support of the IBM/NHL joint venture, NHLIce... Charlie Schmitt was the point person on the NHL side, Brock Stanton, the project manager (and BS deflector) for IBM.
- It was a "Trial by Fire" experience... learning totally new web technologies by building 1000's of NHL pages
- Team also included graphic artist Tim Ward (my first PhotoShop exposure)
- Site was brought online in time for 1996 All-Star Game at the Fleet Center in Boston... we covered it for the website "live" -- real-time updating of scores, etc. -- from the "press area" in the top of the arena.
- We went into "maintenance mode" on the website... Terry moved on to other projects... computer programmer/geek Joel Parramore and I updated the site until the Stanley Cup Playoffs... we went to Miami and Denver to cover the Playoffs Finals "live" -- "live" scoring updates and photos from the games -- originating from the "press area" in the arenas. Got a rubber rat in Miami (Remember when the Miami hockey fans were throwing rubber rats onto the ice when they didn't like a call??). Got to know Patrick and Elle from the NHL headquarters...
- Charlie Schmitt offered me the Technical Director position for the website at NHL headquarters in NYC... need I say more???
New York City
- Started at the NHL in July, complete redo of the site in the offing
- My job title was Technical Director - in charge of "all things technical" on the website... HTML/page-building, hosting/server issues, scoring and stats
- The NHL headquarters was located at 1251 Avenue of the Americas (6th Ave) on the 47th floor... across the street from Rockefeller Center and diagonal Radio City Music Hall
- At first I sublet an apartment 3 buildings east of 7th on 47th -- made it (too) "convenient" when I worked well past 9:00 PM most nights -- I eventually moved to Greenpoint in Brooklyn.
- THE NHL.COM WEBSITE TEAM:
- Charlie Schmitt, Executive Director
- Don Pettinato, IBM representative
- Refet Kaplan, Editor-in-Chief
- Patrick McGinn, producer
- Elle Farrell, the publisher among us
- Rob Boggs, artiste in residence
- John Halpin, teams' sites producer
- Michael Wu, great sports writer
- Chris Creed, a hockey player>
- Lisa Anson, another hockey player
- John Lee, attention to detail
- Larry Tobin, a REAL sports guy!
- Mary Trapani, made it all happen
- Jason La Corte, Linux freak!
- THE NHL TECH TEAM:
- Peter Del Giacco
- Patrick Powers
- John Ho
- Continued support from IBM Interactive Media Group including graphics and
Joel Parramore - PERL programming - Contracted Terry Kane to do "Daily Players/Teams Stats" programming
- Real-Time scoring developed using SportsTicker scoring feed
- Event-Centered Focus -- Out on the "bleeding-edge"
We used the resources of our partner IBM (Atlanta's Interactive Media Group) to develop a series of events to demonstrate the technologies provided by IBM (software, hardware, and hosting). For starters we "geared-up" to take the "show on the road". We procured 3 pc/monitors and a set of road trunks for each for travel. We got a set of 5 Shure Broadcast Headphones/microphones for our "on-air" hosts (John Davidson, Greg Millen, Brian Mullen, Steve Larmer, Tom Matte) and their guests to use during our cybercast events. We also got 2 video cameras to use for the cybercasts. We used this gear "on-site" at:- World Cup of Hockey -- Montreal -- September 10-14, 1996 -- audio cybercasts featuring NY Rangers Coach Colin Campbell and Canadian Broadcasting Company's Greg Millen, a veteran of 14 years as a NHL goalie.
- 1997 All-Star Game Party in San Jose - the initial cybercast of both audio and video from the party at the NASA hangar at Moffett Field. It was a "technology shoot-out" involving CUSeeMe, RealTech/EarthCam, and PageActive. IBM provided the video crew and AudioNet provided the web hosting. Check it out!
- 1997 Stanley Cup Finals -- Detroit and Philadelphia -- audio/video cybercasts from the games supported by AudioNet.
- November 1997 COMDEX Las Vegas -- NHL.com featured by "cyber-partner" IBM at their display booth.
- NHL.COM Cybercast Golf Events
Executive Producer Charlie developed a series of golf events that brought together golfing NHL players (active and retired) including John Davidson, Rangers' goaltender, "Voice" of the NY Rangers on MSG Network; Greg Millen, 14 years as NHL goaltenders, CBC Analyst; Brian Mullen, All-Star Forward in NHL; Jeff Beukeboom 15 years as Defenseman (Oilers, Rangers); Ron Greschner All-Star Rangers' Defenseman; Ulf Samuelsson 18 years as Defenseman (Whalers, Penguins, Rangers, Red Wings, Flyers); Steve Larmer 15 years as Right Wing (Blackhawks, Rangers); and PGA TOUR pros including Brandel Chamblee and jay Williamson. - 1998 All-Star Game in Vancouver -- audio/video cybercasts powered by Broadcast.com (AudioNet)
- Leaving the NHL may have been a BIG mistake!!
Ponte Vedra Beach, FL Live@17
- The SportsLine Announcement
- The Microcast Re-Cap
Unbelievable record-breaking traffic for this event!!!