Professional Sports and HDTV Are Dead and Boring

The Internet is Dead and Boring - Blog Maverick Mark Cuban has a post out called the Internet is Dead and Boring.

"A lot of people are all up and upset about my comments that the Internet is dead and boring. Well guess what, it is. Every new technological, mechanical or intellectual breakthrough has its day, days, months and years. But they don't rule forever. That's the reality.

Every generation has its defining breakthrough. Cars, TV, Radio, Planes,highways, the wheel, the printing press, the list goes on forever. I'm sure in each generation to whom the invention was a breakthrough it may have been heretical to consider those inventions "dead and boring". The reality is that at some point they stop changing. They stop evolving. They become utilities or utilitarian and are taken for granted."

Hah, it's funny to hear Cuban talk about the web being boring because to me it's anything but. It's not dead or boring to Fred Wilson either who talks about the vast rich land the internet has become for music lovers like him.

And I'm squarely with Fred in this sense. For me it couldn't be more opposite. For me, I've never spent more of my entertainment time anywhere else.

When I was a kid I used to watch sports. Kind of reluctantly because I never really cared about sports, but I watched it. I went to Dodgers games. I watched Reggie Jackson become a home run hero at some year's World Series. I'd watch football games with my brothers and dad. I used to collect baseball cards in like 1977 through 1979. I had this Rollie Fingers card where I used to laugh at the guy's name.

Even after I grew up I'd still watch some sports on TV. The US Open Tennis show with Pete Sampras, the Superbowl (more for the commercials than anything else), etc.

And when I moved on and out of the house I was one of the first early adopters of HDTV. I bought the very first HDTV TiVo available for market. A DirecTV unit that cost about $1,300 when it launched. I watched a ton of TV back then. All these shows in HDTV.

But.

All that's changed now. Sports? I watch ZERO sports now. Absolutely zero. And HDTV? Actually that's pretty dead for me too. I only watch one single show on TV anymore. HBO's Big Love. One hour of TV a week. I'd cancel my DirecTV except for the fact that my wife and kids are addicted to all that.

I bring up sports and HDTV because these are two places that Cuban tends to spend a lot of time, but I will say that many other things in my life have suffered. I don't read books anymore. I don't buy newspapers or magazines.

What do I do instead? Well I spend a ton of time with my photography on the web. Sure, I'm out there shooting and taking a lot of photos. But I spend sooooo much time on Zooomr every day uploading, commenting, favoriting, organizing. Yesterday I built this cool 100 photo mosaiac with my most awesome 100 photos from the last week as ranked by Zooomr. I keep up socially daily with my photo friends on Zooomr's Zipline.

What else do I do online?

I LOVE music. Love it. Like Fred I hang out over at the Hype Machine. And I LOVE finding new music from my friends over at Pownce! (shhh... don't tell the RIAA). That's Pownce's secret weapon over Twitter as far as I'm concerned. I love music and I can share it with my friends on Pownce whereas I can't do that on Twitter. I spend time researching music on AMG.

I also spend time on Facebook. I used to spend more time over at DMU and really should spend more time there. I spend time blogging. Here, at my own blog. Commenting over at other blogs. I spend time working on Photowalking videos that my friend Robert Scoble posts up over at Podtech. Oh and I check out internet news type stuff a lot. Like on Techmeme where I found this story. On reddit, on digg.

Basically leisure time looks like this. Hang out and play with my kids, exercise, take lots and lots and lots of photos, watch one hour of TV a week (and that will end as soon as Big Love's Season ends tonight I think, until next Season), and spend the rest of the time processing photos and hanging out on the internet.

Rather than get old and tired and boring for me, the web has done the opposite. It has invigorated my photography. Given me an audience for my work. Allowed me to quite literally help build an amazing photo sharing experience with Kristopher on Zooomr. It's allowed me to meet some really super real life people through social networks and blogging -- some really amazing photographers. And unlike Cuban, for me, the web remains, amazing, exciting, vibrant and alive.

All that HDTV and sports stuff? Eh, now that's old and boring.