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Google’s Plan B with YouTube...
Posted in IPTV, News on March 27th, 2007. By Eduard F. Vinyamata.
Last week News Corp and NBC Universal announced a joint venture to create a YouTube competitor. This article from Tech Crunch is a summary of what’s known so far about the yet to be named (at least from it’s creators) competitor.
Meanwhile, as we reported a week ago, YouTube is being sued by Viacom for 1 billion dollars. Many couldn’t understand the logic behind buying a company that sooner or later would be underwelmed by lawsuits. This article presents a plausible scenario. here’s a summary by a Digg commenter:
Google’s future lies in crawling and caching video/books/images/web pages. If Youtube got sued and lost, the legal precedent would hurt Google. Therefore, Google buys Youtube and lends it a helping hand with its copyright lawyers and massive amounts of resources.
For newspapers to survive...
Posted in Publishing, News on March 27th, 2007. By Eduard F. Vinyamata.
With the announcement of InfoWorld’s print edition closing down the idea that newspapers and magazines are dying was once again the topic of discussion in many blogs last week. We highlight however Doc Searls and Dave Winer’s ideas (Via Digg) on how can newspapers better adapt to the challenges the Internet is pressing on them. To summarize the most important points: reform journalism school, embrace the best bloggers, look for citizen reporters and use links, especially outside the paper for example to local bloggers or even competing papers.
Apple TV Shipping...
Posted in IPTV, News on March 27th, 2007. By Eduard F. Vinyamata.
The Apple TV started shipping last week, and the first positive reviews (Via TUAW) came shortly afterwards. Right away bloggers and journalists started listing reasons why, despite the general positive reviews, you should wait before buying an Apple TV: high price, not too much hard disk space, lack of DVD or DVR support, limited compatible video formats, etc.
Not even 48 hours after it’s launch the first hacks on the device, like upgrading the drive or adding XviD support where posted on the net. It would seem Apple didn’t make it hard for hackers to transform the Apple TV into the device Apple itself couldn’t ship (if they expected to keep their current iTunes content providers).
As Carl Howe points out, the Apple TV is a “game changer”, challenging many of the decades old business models of TV networks and has the potential to blur the line between TV and the Internet (Via Digg).
Links for 2007/03/19-26...
Posted in Television, Mobile, Advertising, News on March 27th, 2007. By Eduard F. Vinyamata.
Top 5 Trends to Expect at CTIA
Article from Giga Om previewing the expected top 5 trends to be found at the mobile industry conference CTIA.
ABC considers TV ads similiar to pop ups - Lost Remote TV Blog
An idea from ABC to integrate commercials into programming, so that DVR users don’t skip them: make them appear as part of the story in TV’s, mobile phones, computer screens and magazines and pop them “full screen”, much like pop up ads or actual product placements work today.
Nikki McClure (Paper-Cut Artist)...
Posted in Visual, Art on March 26th, 2007. By Ona Vinyamata.
Armed with an X-acto knife, Nikki McClure cuts out emotional landscapes from a single sheet of paper. Her cut-out images talk about patience, community, the importance of simple things in a bold language (more…)
Thoughts on Internet video consumtion...
Posted in IPTV, News on March 20th, 2007. By Eduard F. Vinyamata.
Mark Cuban was curious to find out when people watch online video. Taking data for January of 2007, he came to several conclusions in this post at his personal blog. Here’s an excerpt:
When do more people watch online video than any other time ? From 10am to 5pm, mon to fri. Thats when 30pct of all online video viewing takes place. If you want to go a little earlier, for those that get to work early, add another 7pct. So that 37pct of all online viewing activity takes place from 7am to 5pm.
Mark Cuban goes on to point out how TV networks know this information and that’s why they stream their whole shows online without worrying this will affect their viewership and ad sales…
Many Internet video producers have also detected that short length contents work best on the Internet, and are building their offerings around this idea, disregarding longer contents as “analog, traditional TV thinking”.
While it’s clear short length, long tail contents are what Internet video is all about today, this trend may evolve this very same year 2007. It’s in the hands of companies such as Apple, Microsoft or Amazon and their solutions to make it easy to watch Internet video downloads to TV. Actually, something as important as legal and “pirated” downloads has been ignored in Cuban’s consumption habits study.
Cuban points out: “the more things change, the more they stay the same”. Well, Internet video audience is the same audience that watches “Heroes” or “American Idol”. If they watch Internet video at the office and not at home maybe it’s not so much because longer than 5 minutes formats are passé but because it’s not simple, it’s not easy to watch longer video on the home TV. Yet, it’s very convenient and easy to consume short length video while at work.
Assigment Zero to test Pro-Am Journalism...
Posted in Citizen Journalism, News on March 20th, 2007. By Eduard F. Vinyamata.
Last wednesday Wired News launched Assignment Zero an open-platform reporting project that will test a Pro-Am approach to journalism:
a mix of professional and amateur talent. Some formatting, some freestyling. Some things decided by editors, others left to participants. We don’t know what the optimal mix is yet.
Here’s wired article about it, and here’s some highlights of what people are saying about Assignment Zero so far.
Suit & Award Announcements...
Posted in Television, Internet, News on March 20th, 2007. By Eduard F. Vinyamata.
Viacom, owner among other things of MTV and Nickelodeon, announced last week that it will sue YouTube for $1 billion. According to Viacom, YouTube has been avoiding taking steps to filter out copyrighted content, as they filter for example adult content. YouTube, in the other hand, is acting under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), that protects online service providers if they remove copyright contents when asked to do so. The problem for companies like Viacom is that YouTube users upload copyrighted contents as fast and as soon as YouTube takes them down. As Lost Remote points out, this suit could become a major test for the DMCA, affecting many user video sites, in part responsible for the current explosion in developments and notoriety of online video.
While YouTube is not fighting with everyone, they are certainly aligning themselves with indie content creators: YouTube announced it will host a virtual awards show to reward it most popular video contributors.
Links for 2007/03/12-19...
Posted in Internet, Reports, News on March 20th, 2007. By Eduard F. Vinyamata.
Guy Kawasaki links to a 2007 Digital Outlook Report in his personal blog:
This report examines trends in the way consumers, publishers, and advertisers employ digital media to have a conversation with each other.
National Geographic presents the Camera Phone Book
… The book aims to guide users on how to choose the best equipment as well as take better pictures, print, store and send images.
Lara Cameron (Graphic Designer)...
Posted in Visual, Design on March 19th, 2007. By Ona Vinyamata.
Based in Melbourne, Australia. Specially interesting her recent approach towards pattern design: how she handles repetition in a tiny world of colors and shapes that get along very well. A good pattern designer (more…)