Cable Is Still King, Says Netflix CEO (The Atlantic Wire)

Netflix may be winning the Internet, but it's still not loosening the stranglehold of cable TV giants on American consumers, said Netflix CEO Reed Hastings at All Things D's D9 conference. Hastings was asked by journalist Kara Swisher if he was "encouraging cord-cutting," which he denied, adding that the cable TV industry is as strong as ever. "Statistically, no one is dropping cable," he said, noting that cable subscriptions increased this year. He said Comcast, the country's largest cable company, was Netflix's greatest competitor and that he was concerned about its new Xfinity app for the iPad. "We have to continue to push the edge on Internet television, because we're a national, and trying to be a global, company." During the Q&A session, a voice in the crowd pushed back saying "I don't care what the stats say, I see kids cutting cable, not getting cable." Reed reiterated that cable subscriptions were not shrinking, "It's not happening... Maybe with some kids, but once kids get a job, they hook up. Maybe in 50, 100 years it's an issue."

The remarks deflate the enthusiasm from tech pundits last month that Netflix is gaining on Comcast, an idea proffered after Netflix announced it doubled its subscribers to 23.6 million while Comcast has 22.8 million customers.

In other moments of the interview, Hastings weighed in on his Netflix wish list (an HBO urban drama that's been getting quite a few shoutouts lately)

Q: What’s the show you really, really want to offer?

A: The Wire. (Right!) But’s it’s an HBO show. Won't get it without a big, big check.

He also spoke about his relationship with content providers and efforts to combat piracy.

Q: You used to be the scourge of Hollywood. Now they like you. Is that just about money?

Hastings: Yes. “The whole relationship thing is overstated.” Pay them and they like you.

Q: Licensing content kills most tech companies. You made it work.”What would you do if you were god” to change rules on content licensing?

A: Well, its worked well for us so far. Content companies want to make money. If you can help them, it works out. We’ve very proud that were outcompeting piracy in the US. Love to see if we can do it in Korea.

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Tumblr Can Now Fight Crime (The Atlantic Wire)

Just when you thought that every hipster's favorite website could do it all, a Tumblr blog launched a worldwide manhunt for a laptop thief less than 24 hours ago. Police recovered the laptop and arrested the suspected thief earlier this afternoon. This, on top of that Urban-Outfitters-rips-off-artists scandal last week? Social media's power has become utterly unstoppable in the face of villains everywhere!

Yesterday, Joshua Kaufman started a new Tumblr blog with a helpful URL (thisguyhasmymacbook.tumblr.com) and asked the world to help him recover his stolen computer. Using an anti-theft program called Hidden, Kaufman had photographed the thief using the MacBook's webcam and throughout the day uploaded photos of a shady-looking man, just like the one above. The link to Kaufman's blog went viral yesterday--perhaps in part due to Kaufman's nearly 6,000 followers on Twitter and connections with the San Francisco tech community. (He's an interaction designer for an email marketing firm.)

This was not, however, Kaufman's first attempt at using the Internet to get his laptop back. Evidently the machine had been stolen back in April, and using Flickr and the tracking software caught the attention of the Oakland Police Department. The Tumblr flare-up yesterday was just the latest in a Kaufman's much-tweeted-about saga to recover his lost property.

Which leads us to a hypothesis put forth almost immediately after the Tumblr went up. Could this whole fiasco and its breakaway success be another ingenius viral marketing ploy? One of the top comments on Kaufman's first Tumblr post makes this suggestion and a few minutes of Googling reveals that Kaufman earned his degree in London, where Hidden is based. Could he be helping out a friend's start-up with a lot of free internet chatter about their product? It certainly can't be bad press for Kaufman's current employer who offer "one-to-one marketing solutions." But maybe the world--laptop-thieving villains, superhero blog technology, creepy spying computer software and all, plus don't forget the precedent-setting Times Square fake hack for publicity--has just made us cynical.

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