[nailer]

I'd class myself as a early adopter and I've been using the internet for a really long time.

I've never heard of broadcast.com.

Mark Cuban might have made a lot of money, but did he create something good that people know, love, and use?

Because I want to do the latter.

[fallentimes]

Broadcast.com, Dallas Mavericks, HD Net, MicroSolutions, a hedge fund, a movie distributor, a movie production business, angel investments...and they all weren't done after Broadcast.com either.

[nailer]

Never heard of HD Net or Microsolutions either (and I'm fairly sure Cuban didn't create the Dallas Mavericks). I'd rather be the guy/gal who created one well loved household name - say lastminute.com - than who made a mint on a lot of not well known known companies.

[fallentimes]

HD Net was the first all high definition television network, and is what helped spur all the mainstream networks (due to competition and audience response) to go HD. Cuban was on the HD bandwagon when it was empty. Haha he certainly didn't invent the Mavericks, but he completely transformed them & more importantly, made them a contender - much to the admiration of hundreds of thousands of Dallas Mavericks fans.

MicroSolutions was bought by CompuServe who you may or may not be familiar with. Have you heard the movies titled: The Smartest Guys in The Room or Good Night, and Good Luck? He was behind them.

I certainly get what you're saying, it's just that sometimes Cuban is wrongly portrayed as a one-trick pony. Also of note, I had never heard of lastminute.com until today. And even if i had, I doubt I'd know the person behind it.

[nailer]

Aren't they shutting down the analog TV network in the US and re-using the spectrum elsewhere, per the rest of the world? And aren't most networks happy with more channels and more chances to grab ad-revenue? Surely that would spurn the adoption of HD more than a particular competitor being first of the boat.

But I have heard of Good Night, and Good Luck, and perhaps the other film, if you mean the Enron documentary (The Smartest Guys in the Room). Those, and reinventing a sports team would be achievements of which I would be very proud.

[Raphael]

Digital broadcast has a shorter range and is more finicky. If an analog signal is not the clearest, you just see or hear a slight interference, but you can still follow the program continuously. I watch the digital broadcast now, and it is common for it to drop out when I move around the room. The digital mandate was a ploy for the cable providers to grab more market share.

But I'll be glad when the freed up bandwidth can be used for internet.

[fallentimes]

The move to shut down analog TV was made well after the networks had already began deploying it. Initially, there was actually a big opposition to HD TV (very costly, have to using separate cables, etc) that many people forget. And yes I meant the Enron documentary; I added an "s".