New York City, known to be a media, publishing and advertising capital is also a harsh environment for young technology startups. For the most part, New York's established computing community's attention is focused away from new media in the direction of lucrative business in the financial district. Technology startups that have put down roots have done so mostly without the help of local government or large corporate sponsors. However, it is certain that new media will impact every large city on the globe and in a city that has a grittier business culture than California's very supportive 'Valley,' changes are slowly taking hold that will make New York a unique new media hub. This article compares aspects of the new media market in the "Alley" and the "Valley," explores an emerging new technology infrastructure in New York's Silicon Alley and takes a close-up look at a few of the City's brightest technical superstars.

The 1997 Coopers & Lybrand New York Media Industry Survey gave high scores to New York's editorial and artistic talent but a low/marginal score to the city's software talent and technology infrastructure. When comparing New York Silicon Alley startups to Valley startups, Business Week's 1997 New York's Silicon Alley: A Steep Road Ahead article called New York technology-related companies "less geeky."

New York's "Silicon Alley" is New York's new media hub that once spanned 3 blocks East and West of Broadway from 28th Street to Spring Street. The Alley is now a much bigger sprawl that includes all of Manhattan, South of 41st Street. The new media wave that includes the Internet and anything digital took root quicker in California's established, 30-year-old computing community. Many feel this is due to the differences in how the California computing industry nurtures its young. On both coasts, the new media "bug" has infected mostly young talent who behave differently on both coasts. Digerati on the West coast show signs of environmental benefits that have molded their behavior, their view of risk-taking and their approach to business deal-making.

Growing Up Digital in California
California's "venture game" or "venture capital dance" as it has been called, refers to the flow of venture capital money that constantly funds new business in Silicon Valley. Many young "techies" learn the "venture capital dance" in their early twenties. They know how to write business plans, talk equity deals and start new businesses. They also collaborate, help each other and when startups fail, they move on. In California, failure is considered helpful for learning.

In 1968, when Robert Noyce and Gordon Moore were ready to form Intel, it was East coast investment banker Arthur Rock who raised over 2 million for the Intel Corporation in an afternoon. It was Rock who coined the phrase "venture capital." To this day, there is more venture capital interest in California's startups than there is in other newly formed digital hubs such as New York, Austin, Boston and Cambridge. Jerry Colonna a partner in New York's venture capital firm, Flatiron Partners, explains, "there are cultural differences that explain why there is more venture capital interest in California startups. One huge difference is the way California firms share equity. In New York, companies reward employees with cash. In California, equity is perceived as "current compensation for deferred compensation."" At a deal-making session, venture capitalists like to see equity 'all around the table.' As Jerry Colonna explains, "shared equity makes miracles happen." If sharing equity challenges New York thinking, taking risks and viewing failure as a positive is an even bigger challenge. Equally foreign are fast-moving companies that emphasize teamwork and coordination instead of a management hierarchy. Trying new ideas, embracing change and tolerating failure are all firmly embedded in California's computer culture.

Mark Friedler is President of VCast, a New York-based digital startup that has recently opened an office in San Francisco. Mark describes a West Coast support "infrastructure" that's missing in New York. Incubator firms are an example. Incubators are large sponsors who rent inexpensive cubicles to young startups and also staff the same premises with business experts to assist young entrepreneurs with things such as legal, tax and business consulting. At present, there are no incubators in New York.

New York Is Known For New Media Creative Talent But Not Advanced Programming
New York's large, existing "technical base" serves New York's financial community. Technical base refers to programmers and many of New York's programmers have comfortable careers providing mostly database-enabled "enterprise" and "middleware" solutions to Wall Street giants.

In 1998, Silicon Alley learned a technical expertise factor attracts venture capital. As Anna Wheatley, publisher of New York's Alley Cat News explains, "New York City has been called a creative capital and there's a lot of creative talent in New York. However, creative projects are hard to fund. It's easier to raise money for pipes than it is for creative content." Anna cites the MTV story as a classic example. "MTV was a money pit for seven years before it became a global brand. Content represents the highest form of risk. Hollywood is used to funding risky ventures, Wall Street is not."

New York's Growing New Media Infrastructure
A new media infrastructure is thought to be a multi-faceted support system that provides a strong foundation for emerging new businesses. In the Silicon Valley model, an infrastructure includes a university with ties to the business community (Stanford and/or Berkeley), corporate support in the form of incubators, venture capital money and collaboration among startups for information and resource sharing. Of these, all but the incubators have appeared in New York. NYU's revered Media Research Lab is a four-year-old component of the University's Computer Science Department positioned to become a significant resource for New York new media firms. The Media Lab staffs full-time research scientists and a "technology transfer officer" who is a liaison between NYU's scientists and industry. The outcome is patent development, resource sharing and on-going relationships.

New York University's Stern Business School has also created a program to help startups. Professor Dan Nathanson understands the kind of business assistance startups need and has formed a BusinessLink program. Dan explains that many startups "don't know what they need." Dan's program enlists first and second year Stern Business School graduate students who all have approximately 4 years of work experience. He matches them with New York City startups that require business assistance. Because startups may not know what they need, the graduate students often begin by explaining market research or strategic planning. The graduate students are billed out to startups at $25/hour. In contrast to the $200/hour fees charged by large consulting firms, BusinessLink is an economical solution for young companies. Dan has also organized an internship program and an Entrepreneurial Consulting Practicum for startups to be held in the Spring of 1999. Privately, apart from his work at the Stern Business School, Dan has also set up an Angel Fund called the Washington Square Capital Fund, LLC. Washington Square Capital provides $100,000-500,000 in startup capital to promising New York City startups.

Education in the form of business advice for new media startups is so hard to find in New York, the New York's New Media Association ran a Fall, 1998 Building A Successful New Media Business seminar and had to turn away applicants. NYNMA will hold a similar seminar event in 1999.

According to Charles Millard, President of New York's Economic Development Corporation, venture capital in New York has quadrupled in the last few years. A survey conducted by Price Waterhouse found that New York City companies attracted more than $1 billion from investors in 1997 and Charles Millard reports there are thirty firms that have gone public indicating a "strong interest in New York new media." City government is seeking to develop a "New York package" attractive to both startups and investors including a Discovery Fund, a public-private equity investment fund that makes investments of $1 - 9 million in New York City-based businesses, a Venture Capital Conference designed to introduce New York City startups to many of the country's leading investors, the Alley-to-the-Valley Conference, a New York City road show co-sponsored by Alley Cat News and Plug-n-Go space coordinated by the Alliance for Downtown New York.

The Alley-to-the-Valley Conference, now in its second year, is organized around a "Call for Entrants" or startups interested in traveling West to make 30-minute presentations to California venture capital firms. The companies selected pay their own travel expenses and a $250 fee to a business coach selected by Alley Cat News. Plug-n-Go space is a program designed to help startups find inexpensive ($15/square foot) space in Manhattan. Spaces are small footprints (1,000-5,000 square feet) with short or long-term leases.

When New York City-based VCast opened an office in San Francisco this year, CEO Mark Friedler discovered a very social "Valley" culture consisting of hangouts where people meet to exchange information or make deals. Legend has it that the 1968 Silicon Valley Intel deal was sealed at what is now Buck's in Woodside, a café Silicon Valley's Geek Week magazine called a popular spot for "power breakfasts." C/NET's Dan Shafer, who created a Web site for Buck's, explains that the restaurant was once known as the Stagecoach Inn at the time Intel was formed. Although there are no similar "hangouts" for New York's new media computing community, there are socials over beer at NYNMA's Cybersuds and Super Cybersuds gatherings. The New York VRMLSIG also meets for late night dinners at Mustang Sally's after monthly meetings and a newly formed group of new media CEOs meets at restaurants all over New York. Although there's no name for the CEO dinners, Mark Friedler of VCast has said the dinners originated at the conclusion of the 1998 "Alley to the Valley Conference" sponsored by Alley Cat News and the Economic Development Corporation.

New York's Big Fish
Although New York's new media technology pool in is not as dense as California's, there are remarkable local technology superstars who would be equally impressive anywhere on the globe. Here are a few of New York's most talented technologists:

IMPROV

"Sid and the Penguins"  is an interactive animation developed with the IMPROV animation engine. The engine uses artificial intelligence that allows a choreographer or director to write "rules" making each scene unique. This image shows Sid stepping outside his igloo just as the penguins finish a humorous choreographed dance number. Sid and the Penguins is a little hefty for most PCs. Although the animation is a small file, the animation includes a 26Mb sound file recording of Smash Mouth's "Walking on the Sun."

 



NYU's Ken Perlin (web) is a brilliant inventor who won an Academy Award in 1997 for his Perlin Noise, a technique widely used in Hollywood to produce natural appearing textures on computer generated surfaces. Ken is Director of NYU's Media Research Lab within the University's Computer Science Department and he's also the Director of the Center for Advanced Technology at NYU. CAT is one of 13 centers set up by the New York State Science Foundation to promote the New York State as a technology center. There's enough advanced technology in Ken's biography to make 1000 of California's "tech elite" feel shy about their accomplishments. Ken has an undergraduate degree in Theoretical Mathematics from Harvard and a Masters Degree in Computer Science from the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences at NYU where he also received his Ph.D.

In 1998, Ken presented Sid and the Penguins at SIGGRAPH's national conference in Orlando, Florida. The interactive animation is one of several dozen advanced technical projects Ken has initiated in the past two decades. Based on an IMPROV animation engine that's been in development at NYU's Media Research Lab for four years, Sid and the Penguins demonstrates a "distributed responsive virtual environment in which human-directed avatars and computer-controlled agents interact with each other in real time." Procedural animation and behavioral scripting bring Sid, and penguins Sexy, Seventies, Shy, Spastic and the Chorus penguins to life through the IMPROV authoring environment. The API allows authors to communicate with 2D and 3D environments over a distributed network including the Web. IMPROV's unique tools provide motion blending that automatically generates smooth transitions between isolated animations and a facility for creating layers of animation. Layers may be combined and composited on-the-fly to extend believability during user interaction. Additive and multiplicative compositing of animations make actions such as head and body movements appear natural and realistic.

In 1994, Ken hired research scientists Athomas Goldberg to work on the IMPROV engine full-time. Ken had built IMPROV using KPL; a little-known computing language that's been nicknamed "Ken's Computing Language." The more features that were added to IMPROV, the more it became apparent that the engine needed to be re-built. For example, in 1996, when Ken and Athomas presented their "Botannica Virtual" at SIGGRAPH's Digital Bayou in New Orleans, a million-dollar Onyx running sixteen processors couldn't keep IMPROV running fast enough. Athomas, who has an MFA in Film from NYU's Tisch School of the Arts, learned Java to rebuild IMPROV. His re-design pushes animation beyond the boundaries of traditional character animation and adds behavioral characteristics to other elements in a scene such as the camera, lights and even the credits.

IMPROV's most powerful but least understood feature is an artificial intelligence layer created in Java. Although Java is not a fifth generation "natural language," there's a scene description layer that allows an author to define any number of criteria that effect decisions in a scene. In Sid and the Penguins, examples of such criteria include what a penguin likes, how far they like to move, their mood, the last time they ate, etc. Rule-driven criteria set up a context that drives decisions and because any action may be triggered randomly or semi-randomly, every performance is different.

Early in 1998, Ken Perlin, who teaches computer programming and Peter Weisner who teaches animation, team taught a class that put the Sid and the Penguins project into the hands of students who had no programming or animation background. The resulting class project from that semester is the Sid and the Penguins animation in its present form. The project became proof that authors do not need to be animators or programmers. It's also proof that random or semi-random context-driven criteria make characters behave unpredictably-- adding an interesting new dimension to story telling.

According to Ken, IMPROV represents a new way of interacting with characters in real time that the school hopes will be used in New York. The goal for NYU's CAT is to become what Stanford University is to San Francisco and develop on-going relationships with the new media business community. NYU's Jimm Burris has been hired to work with the professors within the CAT organization and develop strategies to form licensing agreements with existing corporations or new startups. CAT has produced thirty-three patents in one year and fifteen of the technologies are already through a licensing process that takes two years. Both Ken and Jim see a larger vision for CAT as an organization that synthesizes technology and content. As Ken explains, "Silicon Valley is not about content but enabling technology. Although it's still 'up-for-grabs' where creative content for the Internet will originate, New York has a firm grasp on story-telling."

MEXICO

Mexico is Cicada Interactive's 3D production tool for creating long-form 3D character animation for distribution over Web, video and convergent solutions. This image shows a character rendered in a non-photorealistic style suggesting comic-book style pen and ink.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dan and Matt O'Donnell are two of New York's most interesting "tech" celebrities who are widely admired on both coasts. They're identical twins who studied at Cooper Union's engineering school but their range of art and creative skills are so vast, they seem to also possess advanced degrees in computer graphics. After graduating from Cooper Union, they earned electrical engineering masters degrees at Brooklyn's Polytechnic University. This year and last year, they've applied all their skills, including programming and 3D animation, to the development of Mexico, a 3D production tool that makes traditional keyframe animation seem archaic. Mexico is a Java-based animation tool that uses a natural language parsing technology called Pidgin English to animate scenes for the Web or for video.

Re-usable modular components and scripted behaviors are just two of several dozen features Mexico brings to the electronic entertainment market. Mexico ships with dozens of built-in behaviors and the resulting library may be expanded using the software's Behavior Editor. Custom parameters and arbitrary functionality may be added to Behaviors through an integrated programming environment which permits unrestricted access to the Mexico API as far down as the underlying operating system. Characters may be modeled directly in Mexico or imported and edited with up to three orthographic viewpoints and one fully-rendered "player" viewport. Mexico's rendering technology makes every animation a morph allowing "continuous mesh" characters whose clothing stretches and wrinkles as joints bend.

The O'Donnells have positioned Mexico as a tool that is well suited for "cartoonified animation" for broadcast television or high-bandwidth Web entertainment. Scenes are composed along a timeline similar to those used in video-editing tools. Complicated single and multi-path narratives are driven using modular timelines composed along a 'Master Timeline." Completed scenes are exported to a variety of Web-streaming formats and the resulting animation may be viewed through a Mexico Player window that supports real-time streaming using RealAudio, Microsoft NetShow streaming servers or straight http. The Mexico Behavior Animation Studio software and the Mexico Player for viewing real-time Mexico movies will be available in late 1998 from Cicada Interactive, the O'Donnell's New York-based software and animation studio.

COSPACE

Cospace is a new 3D chat technology developed at AT & T Labs. This image shows a 3D multi-user Cospace environment with 3D portals connecting to other virtual worlds. Portals are a distinguishing feature of the Cospace system that automatically generates 3D multi-user spaces in concert with Web browsing.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Live 3D interaction is cyberspace is one of the most fascinating and addicting of the new media technologies. Admittedly, much of the world's addiction to chat is based on an attraction between the sexes in AOL's chat rooms, but a very large population of chat participants enjoy "virtual role playing" in worlds all over the Internet. Virtual world chat got its start in text-based "MOOs" on college campuses in 1989 and evolved into graphical 2D and 3D chat in the mid-90s. For Internet 3D veterans familiar with chat, Worlds Inc, VChat, Pueblo, VNet and Blaxxun are all 3D clients that have been built with a similar theme -- a 3D world for meeting and greeting fellow-avatars and a text window to enable chat.

In 1996, Thomas Kirk, a technical staff member at AT & T Labs, began creating 3D spaces using hand-written VRML and authoring tools. After concluding both methods are difficult and time consuming, he hit upon an alternative idea: why not create a system that generates 3D multi-user spaces automatically in concert with Web browsing? At that moment Cospace was born!

Thomas's invention allows cospaced-enabled users (a fairly simple process) to visit Web pages where multi-user 3D spaces appear in an extra window on the desktop. This extra room contains avatars of other Cospace-enabled visitors who are also simultaneously visiting a Web site. Visitors can chat with other visitors and interact with the 3D environment that may contain sounds and interactive objects of many kinds. Travel to another "Cospaced" Web site creates a portal that connects virtual worlds. 3D Web portals are Cospace's most distinguished feature. Private portals that are created as a result of Web browsing are only visible to the Web visitor who created them. Other, public portals, visible to all who share Cospaces, can also be created.

It was no coincidence that Thomas hit on a creative new "3D chat idea." His talents as a software developer showed up early when he joined AT & T. Kirk was hired as a developer in Bell Labs Federal Systems Division, designing and building a programming environment and tools for a dataflow signal processor that Bell Labs was building. His talents with software were so apparent; he was soon transferred to the research division to develop a variety of experimental systems using knowledge representation technology. Experience with a variety of computer languages and an interest in exploring whatever is new and exciting led him to 3D on the Web.

Kirk refers to two close colleagues at AT & T as "Cospace enablers." Gregg Vesonder, Thomas Kirk's boss, is a William Gibson fan who saw the Cospace vision from the beginning and Peter Selfridge, a fellow-researcher, helped move the project along until it became a reality. After working on Cospace for several months, Kirk went camping with Selfridge and during their 3-days away from phones, faxes and computers, they substantially refined the Cospace idea and a partnership was formed. When they returned to what is now AT & T Labs, Cospace was no longer an idea -- it was a project.

During 1997, Thomas and Peter applied for a comprehensive patent, they developed a prototype using Gamma technology from Worlds, Inc., created an AT & T demo space, started business and marketing activities and created a multi-user server from scratch. In February 1998, an official presentation was made to management at AT & T's Information Services Research Center in Florham Park, NJ (close enough to New York to be considered part of New York's digital hub). Funding was obtained, energies are now focused on how to create a revenue-producing Internet service for AT &T and Thomas Kirk has the potential to experience the most rewarding feeling of all for an inventor: the feeling of satisfaction when your idea becomes a product.

COSMO

CosmoPlayer 2.1 is a VRML plug-in that's used to view 3D spaces on the Web. This neurosurgery simulator created at the University of Manchester and Leeds General Infirmary, illustrates a highly interactive 3D environment used to train neurosurgeons how to do a complex procedure without putting patients at risk.

 

 

 

 

 

Advanced technical skill as a programmer combined with artistic talent cultivated in an art school is an unusual and scarce mix of talent that new media software companies search for in all large cities of the world. The largest companies have been successful with such searches -- Murat Aktihanoglu, a Turkish programmer who studied computer animation and rendering in a computer graphics graduate program found himself hired by Cosmo Software in 1996 to work on the Cosmo browser. Known more as a browser than a plug-in, Cosmo became the most popular window to view and navigate VRML worlds on the Web.

By 1996, VRML had already been a reality for two years. By the time Murat joined Cosmo, the language that describes 3D on the Internet had evolved into version 2.0 and the Cosmo browser enabled Java in 3D worlds through an external authoring interface (EAI).

With his background in computer graphics and programming, Murat epitomizes the artist/programmer who build areas of the Internet that are more dynamic than static. For example, in January 1998, Murat designed and implemented the COM/ActiveX External Authoring Interface for the Cosmo browser. His repertoire of skills include C++, Java, COM, ActiveX, MFC, ATL, Windows, CORBA, JavaBeans, 3D graphics, DHTML, HTML 4.0, XML, DOM, XSL, XLink, Perl, UML, Object Oriented Analysis, BHTML and MPEG.

When SGI folded Cosmo Software in June 1998, Murat moved to New York and found work as an Internet consultant in New York's financial district. Within weeks, and much to the delight of the VRML community in New York, Murat was hired by Platinum technology, inc. to resume work on the Cosmo browser purchased by Platinum in August.

Murat loves New York and he's a New York new media telecommuter as his "Platinum lab" is located in California. In a relatively small VRML community where just about everyone knows everyone else, Murat is well known for what he contributes to the next wave in the development of VRML.

 

   About the Author



Mary Jo Fahey is author of computer books including Web Advertising and Marketing By Design by Microsoft Press. Her acticles have appeared in HOW Magazine, PC Computing, HomePC, Web Techniques, Marketing Tools and Marketing News. She can be reached by email here and found on her web site here.