[geller]

Right now, the situation, as I understand it, is that the WBF operations directorate decides which matches will be on VuGraph, and then it's up to Roland to find the volunteer commentators. Right now though due to BBO suporting a large number of languages, many more countries are doing broadcasts in their own languages. We've started doing this in Japan (one table in English, one in Japanese) and it's been quite successful.

If the WBF really wants to help promote bridge as many matches as possible should be on VuGraph (all you need on site is an operator and a PC). Each country could be asked to supply a volunteer operator for each match played by their team, or else to hire one locally, if they want to broadcast to their country. Due to the time differences though (the last match each day in Estoril starts at 1:30am, Tokyo time) some time slots are unappealing to certain countries.

If the (hypothetical) BBO on-site coordinator was just going to arrange commentators for the matches the WBF decided to put on VuGraph, there's not necessarily a need for BBO to have an on-site person. But if the WBF was going to have a really ambitious program, then it's another story.

I can see several levels of possible technical improvement, like being able to have an arbitrary number of commentary streams, with the user picking his/her own language. That way, the final could be broadcast in every language, just like the World Cup of football (soccer). But if the WBF wants to do this, someone would have to pay BBO for the software upgrade. Or, even more ambitiously, comment could be streamed in audio, not as chat. That would also cost $$ of course.

The point is, this is a really great way to popularize bridge. If every federation could broadcast audio (or chat) in their own language, then that would greatly increase support from federations, as opposed to all English (or almost all English).
But someone would have to coordinate all this, and there's a limit to volunteering.

Anyway, before getting hung up on one details (should there be a BBO coordinator in Estoril) let's think about how Vugraphs can be encouraged and be used as a tool for popularizing and promoting bridge all over the world (including especially the non-English speaking part of it).

[Walddk]

If anyone thinks that this is going to be 2 weeks of holiday for me, it's about time that he/she is brought back to reality. It's 2 weeks of hard work I can assure you, and a few people (Bo, Fred and Marek Wojciechowski of Poland among others) are in a position to verify that.

In Malmö, Sweden, during the European Championships in 2004, it was nothing but work from 8 in the morning until 8 in the evening for 14 days on the trot. Ask Bo how many times I got a chance to leave the press room. Right, I did sleep occasionally, and I did get my 2 Big Mac's at 9 pm.

In Tenerife, during the European Open Championships, I even withdrew from the mixed pairs and open pairs in order to service the BBO members once it became possible for us to broadcast from some of the events there.

I was not present in Istanbul for the Olympics last autumn, and allow me to state that the quality of our broadcasts suffered as a result.

Reward for my work for BBO for the past 2½ years? I don't see it that way. I have been to more than 60 countries all over the world, and I have been to Estoril before in another capacity (player), so I don't need to be rewarded by playing a tourist wearing sunglasses, and with a camera around my neck. I need to do what I'm best at: working hard for hours to give the BBO members the best service possible.

As Clinch rightly points out, it's first of all a question of being in the heat of battle. Among the players, to get inside information you would otherwise not get, and to pass that information on to the vugraph spectators all over the world. No one can do that if that person is 2,500 km away from the venue.

Secondly, due to the fact that we get our vugraph schedule very late every day throughout the championships (the on site vugraph commentators understandably want to have a look at the standings before they decide which matches to go for), the co-ordinator will have very little time to notify and get the commentators we need for often up to 6 tables simultaneously.

This has special significance regarding languages. We really want to offer as many languages as possible, and if we are to provide English, French, Italian, Spanish, Polish, Japanese, Chinese, Russian, "Indonesian" and "Scandinavian" commentary, it's paramount that the co-ordinator is on site so that he can get in touch with potential commentators all over the world very quickly.

This is a very stressful task I can assure you, and I am not sure everybody would be prepared to carry that burden upon his or her shoulders. I am not complaining, because I enjoy it so much. Maybe I'm a masochist, but my enthusiasm and dedication to do this as perfectly as possible are enormous. Hope it shows.

I am not saying that it's impossible to have broadcasts on BBO if the co-ordinator is not on site; I am merely saying that the quality of those broadcasts will be compromised, and that is what I don't like.

It also strikes me as odd how someone living in New York (no, not you Clinch), and who has not been at the venue during the major championships I mentioned above, can tell how the improvements will be "minor" and the cost "major". I have been there, done that, so I should know what I am talking about. I think it's worth every cent one can provide for this job.

Malmö was perhaps the best we ever did. I think everyone who followed this closely will agree. Bo and I were on site. The same goes for The WYTC in Sydney recently. We had Dave Thompson and Nick Fahrer on site as co-ordinators (and operators too for that matter), and it was a tremendous success.

I don't get a penny for the work I do, and I am fine with that for the time being, but does anyone really expect that I, on top of this, apart from devoting my time, should pay a large amount in order to earn the right to work around the clock for 2 weeks?

If yes, I am sorry to disappoint you. As Fred pointed out in his previous post, I am even prepared to pay one of my assistants at the bridge centre to run my classes while I'm away (around $1,500), but it is hardly fair that I also pay my expenses regarding Estoril (air travel, accomodation and meals).

Hervé Lustman (zmud99), one of our most experienced operators, will be there, as Fred wrote earlier, but don't forget that he is hired and paid by the WBF, so he is their man, not BBO's during the two weeks. His job is very stressful too, so one can't expect him to render as much service to the BBO members as would otherwise have been the case.

I obviously accept that no corporation, person and organization want to pay because they don't think it's worth it. This is not meant to be a sour comment, but, considering that I have a business to attend to when at home, I cannot commit to more than perhaps 25% of my usual effort in this context, and that's what I think is a shame. I am used to giving 100% when I commit to a task, and I do not like to compromise.

I can give 100% if I'm at the venue; I can't when I have 1,000 bridge playing members around me at the centre.

I think it's a shame for bridge in general, and for BBO specifically. However, BBO will survive, and so will I. It's not the end of the world that I'm not going, as I have pointed out before. If there is no money for this purpose, there is no money. It's as simple as that.

Roland

[shoeless]

Walddk, on Sep 29 2005, 02:29 AM, said:

It also strikes me as odd how someone living in New York (no, not you Clinch), and who has not been at the venue during the major championships I mentioned above, can tell how the improvements will be "minor" and the cost "major".

The word 'might', not "will", in the statement you are referring to, seems to imply the author isn't making an assertation to a fact.

[Walddk]

shoeless, on Sep 29 2005, 10:56 AM, said:

Walddk, on Sep 29 2005, 02:29 AM, said:

It also strikes me as odd how someone living in New York (no, not you Clinch), and who has not been at the venue during the major championships I mentioned above, can tell how the improvements will be "minor" and the cost "major".

The word 'might', not "will", in the statement you are referring to, seems to imply the author isn't making an assertation to a fact.

"Might" or "will", not significant in this context. We have evidence, so "might" is not needed. Either it will make a difference, or it will not. Everyone's entitled to his/her opinion of course. I think there is a major difference between having a co-ordinator there or not. You don't have to agree, and if "give him a reward" is your approach, I am really not interested.

Let me add that one of our competitors, Swan Games, has one co-ordinator, one technical supervisor and two operators there. They still don't make a product that is even half as good as ours, but for several reasons I think it's important that we are present too. At least Fred acknowledges that fact.

At the end of the day it doesn't really matter if this "might" or "will" be an improvement, since it's BBO's current policy not to pay for vugraph. In other sports it's perfectly normal to have the co-ordinator on site. They don't let him sit in Copenhagen when there is a football match in Lisbon. Simply because it will never be the same for the viewers.

To suck in the atmosphere at the venue is an important factor of a successful broadcast in my opinion.

Roland

[shoeless]

Sorry Roland think you missed my point. I shall not pursue it. Will say that I believe having you on-site will make a positive difference to the quality of the broadcast. Also hear that BBO's strategic plan doesn't include doing that - I respect that. My earlier comment about sending you as a 'reward' was misplaced - I didn't have enough information. I am outta here.

[Walddk]

Another aspect I forgot to mention is the need to negotiate with the organizers in order to get the matches that will suit the BBO viewers best. For obvious reasons you can't do that from the distance. Only a BBO co-ordinator on site is in a position to handle this on BBO's behalf.

Fred will be there, sure, but it's not his job to do a thing like that. He will and should be busy concentrating on playing bridge and get the best result possible for USA2.

Roland

[mrdct]

I've caught this thread a bit late, but having done the on-site coordination for the World Youth this year and also provided remote support/coordination for the PABF championships and some other events - I have a few thoughts:

For the World Youth, the vugraph coordinators were appointed about 12 months before the event and several coverage scenarios were developed based on the extent of operator availabity. Detailed planning and rostering was finalised about 4 months prior to the event. As with many things, if you invest in thorough planning and preparation, good results will follow.

The structure that I like for major events is having an experienced operator with the ability to trouble-shoot technical problems and fairly good IT skills overseeing the coverage and perhaps a few sessions into the event doing some operating also.

We were fortunate in Sydney to have a convenor supportive of vugraph who was willing to provide food and accomodation to operators which was a nice lure to offer out-of-towners (some of whom came from the other side of the planet).

For the PABF championships earlier this year, we had a relatively inexperienced local coordinator onsite (who is now a complete guru) and an experienced operator (me) in another country (but similar timezone) available for telephone support. Around four or five issues arose during the course of the event that were all able to be resolved over the phone.

I'm not sure what the coverage plan is for Estoril, but I know Herve knows his stuff and will put on a good show. Let's just hope we get a more reliable internet connection than what we had in Istanbul!

[Booze]

Hi

I have been at BBO since day one, seen it grow over the years and in my humble opinion BBO have not been what it is today without the excellent Vugraphs we have made.

Both Roland and I have worked volunteerly with this, sometimes not even my expences paid as Vugraph operator and we never count what we could have earned if we had worked instead.


I hope we will someday find a solution for this or do we have to accept Vugraphs of lower quality, maybe its wrong to have this high quality Vugraphs , I don`t know?


PO Sundelin had an idea once, each team should send their own operator to the major events so they could get their matches broadcasted , a good idea if a lot of teams did. But that still doesn`t solve the coordinator problem.

In Malmö we faced a lot of problems, not operator related or technical, it was a reliefe for me having Roland at Venue, taking care of them. I realy appreciated his presence.


Broadcasting from Bermuda is just like showing any other major sportevent, the form is different tho (thru internet), sadly its payed by a few, BBO with their software, operators and coordinators by their hard job and all fantastic commentators from all over the world, but enjoyed by a lot of spectators. As commentator you can sit at home doing it, leave when you have to, not assign to times that doesn`t suit you.

Big winners in this are all users that can enjoy the Vugraphs for free. BBO is a small winner if they sell more software because of this, I realy hope you all buy some of the excellent software!!! Commentators are mostly pros or journalists, its their job watching bridge. And BBO has made life easier for a lot of bridge journalists. All of this is great, I wish BBO could sell more tho.

I know Roland never asks for any compensation for his time spent on BBO, but I dont think it`s fair that he or someone else should pay for doing a voluntarily job.

I started this topic because I think it is a problem , not for BBO Owners they do more than enough to support this, it`s a problem for all of us thats loves bridge and love to watch good bridge.

High quality Vugraphs are realy good entertainment, so let`s find some ideas how to solve this !!


Bo

[hrothgar]

I've been watching this thread with a fair amount of interest.

I'm playing around with a couple idea for start ups. One of the most promising ideas focuses on funding “digital media”. Just so everyone understands, the critical word being used is digital. I'm interested in content that has a high fixed cost to produce, but can be distributed at zero (or near zero) marginal cost. Music, videos, computer programs, and yes - Vugraph broadcasts - all fall into this category.

The traditional models that evolved over the last 100 have been based on economies of scale. The “talent” creates a work and hands it over to a publisher. The publisher makes large numbers of copies. In doing so, the publisher creates a cost advantage. The publisher sell copies of the work and remits royalties to the talent. This model is collapsing. New distribution mechanisms like BitTorrent have destroyed publishers cost advantage. Accordingly, piracy runs rampant. (Please note: I'm firmly in favor of piracy)

From my perspective, the most reasonable response is to decouple the creative act from the distribution system. Creativity has not been disrupted, only value chain associated with distribution. I favor a model based on what I call “distributed patronage”. The model is fairly simple:

1. The talent conceives of a work that they wish to create
2. The talent determines their reservation price. What is the minimum amount of money that they need to be paid to undertake the act in question
3. The talent posts a description of their work on a web site, along with their reservation price.
4. Individuals decide whether they are interested in funding the work. Anyone who is interested is able to pledge funds.
5. If/when sufficient funds have been pledged, individuals are billed and the money placed in escrow.
6. The talent creates the work and publishes it under a Creative Commons license that permits free distribution.
7. Funds are released from escrow to the talent

Please note: Once a work has been created ANYONE can consume it, regardless of whether they decided to contribute money to fund it.

To chose a more specific example: Consider Vugraph... I can see two logical models for funding Vugraph.

Treat Vugraphs as a “public good”. National organizations tax their members. A portion of this money is used to sponsoring Vugraph presentation. Some “enlightened” national organizations have already made this decision. Case in point: The reason that BBO had such extensive coverage of the recent World Juniors event was due to the generosity of the Australian Bridge Federation. The ABF provided excellent logistical and financial support.

Use something similar to “Distributed Patronage”. Roland (or some competing VuGraph operator) needs to determine his reservation price; how much money is required to provide food and lodging for the Vugraph operators, rent equipment, provide a reasonable rate of return etc? For the moment, Roland has decided that his reservation price is zero. However, if, at some future point in time people decide that they require compensation than we'll need some mechanism to raise money... In theory, BBO could decide to subsidize the production as a promotional expense. However, if it were my company, I sure wouldn't. Pushing the expenses back on the consumers seems like the right way to go...

[Walddk]

hrothgar, on Sep 29 2005, 03:35 PM, said:

In theory, BBO could decide to subsidize the production as a promotional expense.  However, if it were my company, I sure wouldn't.  Pushing the expenses back on the consumers seems like the right way to go...

I agree with Richard, but it's not the BBO policy. Personally, I can't understand why it is ok to charge money for playing in certain tourneys and with GIBs (being introduced in a few days), whereas it is completely free to:

1. Use the BBO software for vugraph purposes.

2. Watch hundreds of hours of vugraph broadcasts every year as a spectator.

It makes little sense to me. If vugraph really is the success we all believe it is, then surely no one can expect to get this for nothing until the end of time. Just a thought: Vugraph viewers subscribe for a year at say $10. Then one can come and go as much as one wants.

It takes little imagination to comprehend that the revenue for BBO will be enormous. I don't believe that Fred and Uday have never considered the matter. I promise to be the first one to pay the $10, although I will be working with getting the broadcasts together.

I predict that thousands of members will be lining up to pay the $10 for watching just the Bermuda Bowl final!

Roland

[hrothgar]

Walddk, on Sep 29 2005, 04:52 PM, said:

It makes little sense to me. If vugraph really is the success we all believe it is, then surely no one can expect to get this for nothing until the end of time. Just a thought: Vugraph viewers subscribe for a year at say $10. Then one can come and go as much as one wants.

This pricing scheme runs into an all to familar problem: What would stop me (or anyone else) from pirating BBO's Vugraph broadcast and reselling it? In theory, you could try to build in some kind of DRM (Digital Right Management). In practice, its a lot cheaper to crack DRM scheme that build them.

If I wanted to design a business model arround Vugraph broadcasts, I'd base it arround a per event event licensing model with two tiers of service.

Tier 1 = "Vanilla" Vugraph. Vanilla vugraph is a real time broadcast of every bid made and every card played a set of tables

Tier 2 = one or more channels of commentary describe the bidding / play at a table in question

I prefer a per event based funding model because it incents providers to maintain a "reputation" for providing high quality service. I would insist on the tiered service model because I believe that the commentary should provide value separate and distinct from the hand records.

As I've noted many times in the past, migrating the playing environments from pasteboard to computers would improve Vugraphs by an order of magnitude...

[card_judge]

What a novel idea moving from pasteboard to computers!!

That would also solve Luis' problem of pulling a stack or single bidding cards, no revokes, no playing out of turn. What will they think of next?

[uday]

It is good for the game that vugraphs are plentiful and accessible to everyone. This means everyone, regardless of their ability to pay.

We have no intention of "charging for vugraphs". This is not on our radar screen as a revenue source.

Maybe we'll someday allow some commentators to charge for their chat as we allow pay tourneys to charge for their services. If we go down this road, I'm sure we'll have free equivalents to these "channels". Tourneys have taught us that there will be more than enough people who will offer free commentary to compete w/the superstars and entertainers who will choose to charge for their services.

[roghog]

[quote name='FrancesHinden' date='Sep 28 2005, 01:07 PM'] [/QUOTE]
I give up some of my time to commentate on vugraph because I think the BBO vugraph is generally a good thing and should be encouraged. If I thought other people were being paid to do vugraph jobs, or that people were paying to watch, I might not be so keen. I imagine other commentators & operators feel similarly.[/QUOTE]
Au contraire. I certainly haven't been paid for the organising and operating that I've done. But it wouldn't worry me at all if someone like Roland was paid.
I'm glad there's no plan to charge spectators, though. Vugraph is a wonderful advertisement for the game. Shame to do anything that would reduce its compass.

[fred]

Charging the audience an admission fee for vugraph is not going to happen. There are 3 reasons:

1) Several times during the past 4 years I have publicly promised that certain aspects of BBO (including vugraph) will remain free. Not only do I try to keep the promises I make, but I think it would result in a lot of bad publicity for BBO (and for me personally) if I broke this particular promise.

2) I think that free vugraph (and free online bridge in general) is important to the future of bridge. Yes, we are a business, but if bridge was not our primary interest in all of this, BELIEVE ME - Uday and I find could much easier ways to make a lot more money than we are making from BBO.

3) In my opinion it is a near certainly that other ways will be found to fund these things. This might take time and some of our broadcasts may suffer in terms of quality in the mean time, but it will happen. Here are some positive trends:

- More and more tournament organizers are seeing the value in these broadcasts are have been willing to spend what it takes (which is not very much in the grand scheme of things) to ensure a professional vugraph presentation of the events they run.

- We are starting to receive money from advertisers and in all cases so far it has been the advertisers who have approached us. This suggests to me that there is true value in vugraph advertising for corporations. If we ever get our act together and proactively go after potential corporate sponsors, I suspect that will be "real money" in this.

- Corporate sponsorship is also important for major tournaments and one of the most valuable things that tournament organizers can promise potential sponsors is publicity on BBO. This means more money for both the tournaments themselves and for our company is available to spend on vugraph.

- I am hopeful that BBO will become a very profitable business one day. If we start making millions of dollars every year, it is a near certainty that our policy of not spending money on vugraph will change.

- There are a lot of very wealthy individuals who play bridge and it is not rare for us to receive offers from these people to fund our vugraph broadcasts. In the past I have been reluctant to accept money from these people (and unwilling to actively ask these people for money). In the future I might feel differently about this.

As Roland correctly pointed out, the Malmo broadcasts were fantastic. This was one of the few vugraph productions that BBO did pay for. The bill was $7000 and this was despite the fact that our staff at the playing site was trying to spend as little money as possible. This came at a time when BBO was generating little if any revenue.

I am not complaining about spending this money. We knew what we were getting into and, at the time, we saw this expenditure more as a "personal donation in the interest of promoting bridge" (from Uday, Sheri, and myself) than an intelligent way for our business to spend money that we didn't have.

The Malmo broadcast was great and, in the end, we were happy that we decided to spend this money. Unfortunately, we came very close to setting a bad precident. Malmo was 2 years ago, but to this day when I discuss vugraph funding with tournament organizers I still get comments like "you paid for Malmo - why won't you pay for this tournament too?". The people who own BBO are all fortunate to be fairly comfortable from a financial point of view, but making a habit of writing $7000 checks is currently not within our means.

Fred Gitelman
Bridge Base Inc.
www.bridgebase.com

[nikos59]

I am afraid Roland's suggestion to ask for people to pay 10€ per year
for Vugraph will open a huge can of worms. For instance,
* are we sure that commentators (most of them accomplished bridge
experts) will still be willing to offer their time for free when Vugraph
will not be free? Obviously, the income from Vugraph is not sufficient
to even start thinking paying for commentators.
* are we sure the sponsoring organizations
will not start asking for money to let BBO broadcast if BBO
makes "all this money" from Vugraph?
* can we guarantee a minimum level of coverage in quantity and
quality? If I pay you and you fail to broadcast the Greek Teams
Trials, do I get my money back? Or, this year's coverage
of USBC was deficient. In a paying scheme, would users be
entitled to ask for a refund?
* if BBO asks for money for Vugraph, will non-paying members
have access to the lin files afterwards? If yes, then this is
a dis-incentive against paying. If no, it is a huge dis-service
against bridge.
* I have a website with Vugraph data. Will I be allowed to publish
those data?
* the website is costing me a little money to maintain and a lot of
time; should I start asking my visitors (dozens or hundreds per
day) for a (much smaller) fee?
* there are a few Vugraph fans who are sending me lin files
to post at my site; should they start asking me a (yet smaller) fee?

and so on...

[Brandal]

nikos59, on Sep 29 2005, 10:49 AM, said:

I am afraid Roland's suggestion to ask for people to pay 10€ per year
for Vugraph will open a huge can of worms. For instance,
* are we sure that commentators (most of them accomplished bridge
experts) will still be willing to offer their time for free when Vugraph
will not be free? Obviously, the income from Vugraph is not sufficient
to even start thinking paying for commentators.
* are we sure the sponsoring organizations
will not start asking for money to let BBO broadcast if BBO
makes "all this money" from Vugraph?
* can we guarantee a minimum level of coverage in quantity and
quality? If I pay you and you fail to broadcast the Greek Teams
Trials, do I get my money back? Or, this year's coverage
of USBC was deficient. In a paying scheme, would users be
entitled to ask for a refund?
* if BBO asks for money for Vugraph, will non-paying members
have access to the lin files afterwards? If yes, then this is
a dis-incentive against paying. If no, it is a huge dis-service
against bridge.
* I have a website with Vugraph data. Will I be allowed to publish
those data?
* the website is costing me a little money to maintain and a lot of
time; should I start asking my visitors (dozens or hundreds per
day) for a (much smaller) fee?
* there are a few Vugraph fans who are sending me lin files
to post at my site; should they start asking me a (yet smaller) fee?

and so on...

Very good post,you sure you're a creme brulee?

[cherdano]

Walddk, on Sep 29 2005, 03:52 PM, said:

Personally, I can't understand why it is ok to charge money for playing in certain tourneys and with GIBs (being introduced in a few days), whereas it is completely free to:

1. Use the BBO software for vugraph purposes.

2. Watch hundreds of hours of vugraph broadcasts every year as aspectator.

It makes little sense to me. If vugraph really is the success we all believe it is, then surely no one can expect to get this for nothing until the end of time. Just a thought: Vugraph viewers subscribe for a year at say $10. Then one can come and go as much as one wants.

Roland, I strongly agree, and I strongly disagree. Of course I would pay $10 or $20 per year for the BBO vuegraph broadcasts, they are worth way more than that. So I agree. But I disagree, because I think free vuegraphs are the most fantastic thing that has happened to bridge in recent years. Would I pay for vuegraphs now? Yes, of course. Would I have started watching vuegraphs in the first place if I had to pay $10 for subscribing beforehand? Most likely not.

While the money would certainly be useful for vuegraph organization, I think charging money from vuegraph spectators would do a disservice to the great work by all the volunteers involved (operators, commentators, and of course yourself) in promoting bridge.

Arend

[Walddk]

cherdano, on Sep 29 2005, 07:14 PM, said:

While the money would certainly be useful for vuegraph organization, I think charging money from vuegraph spectators would do a disservice to the great work by all the volunteers involved (operators, commentators, and of course yourself) in promoting bridge.

Arend

Point taken Arend, but how much longer will the commentators we have now donate all their time for free? I can't answer that question myself, but I can tell you and others that several have already aired the view that it's about time that they get a little something for all the hard work.

Next question is: Would it be unreasonable if they did? And if they did, should we then just discard them as commentators we don't want and perhaps lose some of the very best?

If we do, it will be another example of compromising with quality, would it not?

Roland