# National Streaming Day - how did I miss this?



## phrelin (Jan 18, 2007)

Golly, Friday 5/20 was *National Streaming Day* and it wasn't on my calendar! :sure:


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## Nick (Apr 23, 2002)

I've asked Alexa to give me a heads-up for National Streaming Day 2017. She,
who knows all, sees all and tells all, asked me what is National Streaming Day?


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## phrelin (Jan 18, 2007)

Nick said:


> I've asked Alexa to give me a heads-up for National Streaming Day 2017. She,
> who knows all, sees all and tells all, asked me what is National Streaming Day?


Not surprising.

What I found easily is a May 20 article: "In honor of its sixth anniversary, Saratoga, California Mayor Emily Lo declared today "National Streaming Day" outside streaming-TV innovator Roku's California headquarters."

So I searched the Silicon Valley Mercury News site and came up with *Saratoga: Streaming dream comes true for Roku, Inc.* which tells us:



> *Mayor Emily Lo proclaimed May 20 as Video Streaming Day in Saratoga*
> *with Roku CEO and Founder Anthony Wood during a celebration of Roku's*
> *sixth year anniversary of shipping its first streaming device.*
> *- Photograph by George Sakkestad*
> ...


Now I am embarrassed not because I didn't know about Saratoga's Video Streaming Day but because I knew nothing about Anthony Wood. Anthony Wood is the inventor of the DVR and has an iinteresting life story in tech. From _It Is Innovation_ *here is his biography* which includes:



> After two years, inspired by Star Trek: The Next Generation, he got the idea to use a hard drive to record shows instead of VHS tapes. He founded ReplayTV in Mountain View, Calif., and invented the first digital video recorder (DVR), launched at the 1999 International CES. The company was later bought by DirecTV. Ten years ago, in 2002, he started Roku, which means six in Japanese, a nod to his six companies. As head of Roku, he is now working toward replacing the DVD.


Maybe I just wasn't paying attention in 1999 and 2002.


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## Nick (Apr 23, 2002)

Phrelin, you are an absolute fountain of interesting _and_ useless information! Your
relentless quest for knowledge almost but not quite exceeds my ability to absorb it.

Thanks for the enlightenment. :up:


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## phrelin (Jan 18, 2007)

Nick said:


> Phrelin, you are an absolute fountain of interesting _and_ useless information! Your
> relentless quest for knowledge almost but not quite exceeds my ability to absorb it.
> 
> Thanks for the enlightenment. :up:


Sharing interesting and not very interesting _useless_ information is what I've always done well. Unfortunately nobody will pay much for useless information which clearly is why I'm not rich.


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## Steve (Aug 22, 2006)

Besides arguably inventing the DVR, Wood was also the guy who oversaw Netflix streaming. Along with Roku, not a bad life's work!


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