Masnick started Techdirt as a simple email newsletter in business school at Cornell in 1997. Today Masnick employs 12 analysts and, using custom-built software, scours over 200,000 newspapers, blogs and other publications daily for news. That news is then analyzed and reported to not only the public, at techdirt.com, but also to a variety of private clients, who pay handsomely for private access to custom-analyzed news.

Earlier this year, Masnick hosted the first Techdirt Greenhouse, a conference and workshop for tech industry compnanies, bloggers and press to discuss current ideas and trends.

The event was so successful, Masnick says, that Techdirt is hosting another one on June 10.

We caught up with Masnick to talk about techdirt, Techdirt Greenhouse, and today's pressing technology issues.

1. This is your second Greenhouse event, yes? How'd the first one go, and can you give us a preview of what's going to happen on Saturday?

Yes, this is the second event, and the fact that we're having a second event (so quickly after the first) hopefully indicates how well the first one went. We really didn't know what to expect with the first one -- as we took a bunch of risks. The format is quite different than almost every other conference-type event. We did a whole day event on a Saturday. We also planned the whole thing in about a month. In every case, we had at least someone tell us that it would be impossible -- and yet, somehow, it worked.

The feedback we got was that what made the conference great was the discussions. This wasn't about sitting back and watching speakers, but in digging in and working on interesting and challenging ideas. The reason we're doing the second one so quickly is that the attendees from the first one demanded it! We decided that doing more of the events more quickly, while still keeping them small, would help keep the event enjoyable.

For the second event, we've got another great group of presentations and attendees lined up that are sure to generate some fascinating discussions. They'll cover topics you typically see on Techdirt concerning things like how innovation is changing, how startups are making business model mistakes and how the traditional broadcast industry should react to changes forced upon them by the internet. We'll also be discussing some different topics, such as how technology is changing corporate philanthropy and how technology is being used in third world countries.

2. Speaking of better, quicker, faster conferences, have you noticed the change in business presentations lately? Sxip's CEO gives lightning-fast powerpoint slides; Larry Lessig has a quick presentation form too; the Web 2.0 conference has 6-minute "launchpad" events. It's as if the entire industry is riddled with ADD. What do you make of that trend, if anything?

Ooh. That's actually a really good question. I do think that there's an element of ADD in the tech/internet space right now, but I don't think it carries over to the conference presentations you're discussing. In the case of both Sxip and Lessig (whose presentations are quite similar), it's finally a recognition of the fact that presenters need to entertain, not just spew out facts and figures and charts. People got locked into the mindset of using their PowerPoint presentation as their *notes*, which means they just end up reading a bunch of words on the screen and that's boring. Dick and Larry have both recognized that to keep people's attention presentations need to entertain.

As for the six-minute thing, that goes back to the DEMO events which have been going on for many years -- and many other events are simply biting offof that format. That's because it works. When you get much longer than 6 minutes, the presentations become sales pitches and they become boring because people have time to go into too many details. There are very few people in this world who can entertain for much more than 6 minutes.

The short form forces people to focus. I think it's less an issue of ADD than a rejection of the idea of coming together to hear yet another hour long "keynote" from a sponsor. Greenhouse tries to build on all those ideas by first banning PowerPoint (another idea from DEMO), having short presentations (5 minutes only) but then focus on building longer discussions around small groups. The presentations kick things off, the discussions are where the value is.

3. Back to the broadcast industry: You say its being forced to change by the Internet. What's the big, underlying issue? What blows your skirt up? And when will we see the networks settle on a revenue model for their new online offerings, if ever?

I think it's the separation of the content and the distribution mechanism for the first time -- and that's causing a ton of anxiety for those used to the status quo. It's the basic loss of "network schedule control" that is the key element. What's great to see is that the TV guys finally realized they need to experiment, and they're throwing a lot of stuff against the wall. Something will work, and everyone will gravitate to it pretty quickly.

Personally, I think the end result will be that TV shows will be available as a free download with some form of advertising included (something better than the 30-second spot), and people will be able to "subscribe" to a show just like they subscribe to a newsfeed or podcast. If the industry is smart (a big if), they'll adopt this model and realize that they need to then encourage people to do the distribution for them, passing the shows on to friends, posting them online, etc. This helps build more fans, while decreasing distribution costs. It'll get there eventually, but it's going to take some time.

4. Yeah, but my biggest fear -- well, besides showing up at school in only my skivvies -- is that every network (and for that matter, music label) will get tired of letting people like Apple control distribution and instead open their own download or subscription stores, mini-iTunes each with their own unique form of DRM. Possible? Probable?

Possible? Sure. Probable? Maybe. Successful? Not likely. It's certainly the type of thing they might try and do, but the consumer backlash will be too much after a while. For all of my complaints about the industry, I'm actually fairly optimistic that this all ends up working out well. Historically, things tend to move towards the best solution over time. It just takes longer than we'd all hope.

5. Congress is set to vote on net neutrality, but you've said before they're missing the real debate, which is about whether there's actually any competition in the broadband access market. Can you unpack that a bit? How do you think this is all going to shake out?

If only there were a way to unpack it neatly. It's an incredibly complex issue that's been reduced to soundbites on both sides, obscuring the real issues. Wired broadband is a natural monopoly, like the highway system. It's inefficient to repeatedly dig up the country and bury wires, which is why the government granted monopoly rights of way to these companies. However, competition is still good, and so part of the requirement in getting those monopoly rights of way was to allow for competition on those wires (paid for, of course). However, lately, the government has backed down on that requirement, allowing the telcos to shut out others. If there were actual competition, it's unlikely that network neutrality would be a debate, because no one would be able to get away with it.

What I hope happens, is that newer technologies come along that make the argument pointless. If we had wireless technologies that could compete for real, then the natural monopoly argument goes away. However, wireless technologies aren't there yet, and there are still questions about spectrum allocation. My guess is that we're at least a decade away from wireless having a real impact on the debate. I hope it's faster, but I doubt it.

I'm hopeful for long term solution, but in the short term, I imagine it's going to be a mess, no matter what happens on the legal side of things.

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