Podcasts

Pluggd podcast community launched today

Seattle based start-up Pluggd opened their podcast directory for public use today; the company aims to make podcast listening easier for nontechnical users.

That’s the take from TechCrunch. Interesting how podcasting is getting organised. I’m hoping to launch my own podcast series next week which is part of the reason I’m spending a day in Dublin, sitting in with Microsoft Vista developers and then with podcastingireland.ie sorting out the pod.

As a journalist I never did radio but like everybody else now there’s nothing stopping me.

technorati tags:podcasting

Old Media’s Decline

This is from yesterday's Sunday Times in the UK. Now the Sunday Times is ultimately owned by a competitor of ITV so scepticism is warranted. Still ITV has shipped half its audience over the past twenty years and is now sacking staff.

"Investors switch off from ITV. Falling audiences and ad revenues put channel boss Charles Allen’s future in doubt, write Louise Armitstead and Dominic Rushe."

Investors switch off from ITV – Sunday Times – Times Online

As well as sacking people it's looking at reducing programming budgets. The response is typical across old media companies, reducing capacity in an era of media expansion. In the what we're seeing is companies being allowed toconvey an impression that they are under threat when in reality the are failing to seize opportunity. Who deserves firing?

technorati tags:old, media, new, media

Fluckiest

Flukiest is a fast growing interactive community for sharing and managing digital media by artists, photographers, designers, musicians, writers, directors, producers, and technologists. Flukiest provides a platform for members to share their work and ideas by enabling mobile and web technologies to seamlessly integrate. The Flukiest community combines the best features of an online social network with services such as photo and video sharing, blogging, music listening and reviews, artist interviews, clothing design and print.

Flukiest: Photo Sharing and Video Sharing Interactive Community

Well worth a look!

Blip TV

Mike Hudack, the CEO of Blip.tv, is on a mission to rescue videobloggers from video hosting sites and services that "aren't about individual empowerment." He feels that most of the video sites snag all the digital rights they can and make money on the backs of other people's work. Which sites? You(tube) know which ones.

Blip.tv, the videoblogger's control panel – Alpha Blog – alpha.cnet.com

This is a fascinating development, fascinating because few people have been thinking critically about the You Tube type business model.

Blip.tv is not to be confused with bliptv.com.

Cross Platform

The Standard (the London evening paper) is trialing a broadband TV portal service, which will allow users access to on-demand video footage of news stories and user-generated content, on the Cube TV platform. Video classifieds would be broken down into sections like property and entertainment.

UK: Standard to launch broadband TV portal – Editors Weblog

An interesting one for people who wonder what the growing number of IPTV players are up to and how the IPTV platform providers will ultimately divide the market.

Personally I'd always assumed the multichannel portal would have been a user-generated knowledge base.

Search This

Late last year I served as rapporteur at an EU workshop where Europe's top search experts were looking ahead to the future audio-visual search engine.

Of course Fast company were there and they made the telling point

That Guardian Explanation

Yesterday I blogged on Comment is Free, the Guardian group blog site. Most blogs are open ended, in the sense that if I comment on your blog then my URL is available in the comment header so that future readers can click and follow me out of the page.

The Guardian doesn't seem to do this, unfairly corralling the reader on the Comment is Free site. I wrote to the Guardian yesterday for an explanation but so far no response. Maybe other readers could do the same.  comment.is.free@guardian.co.uk

Let’s Hear it from Brian Storm

 I am an admirer of Brian Storm's new media, online old-fashioned-values-but-highly-innovative publishing business MediaStorm, so

Doing the Small Deals

The future media landscape will be populated by smaller deals. I say this having talked yesterday with Jim Deans who runs GDBTV. Most Telcos gearing up for IPTV, Jim points out, have gone for the big blockbuster packages to tempt in consumers. But there's practically no differentiator in blockbusters. Cable companies use them, broadcasters use them, and now Telcos.

There may be more user-interaction with a Telco IP television offer but content-wise there's not enough focus on local.

GDBTV expects to launch 300 local channels across the UK between now and year's end (there's even two for Brighton). That's at around £20,000 for the year (set up and bandwidth). Jim is competition for the Telcos. A GDB set top box allows niche content to be delivered through the unmanaged Internet to people's TV sets.

Telcos are going to have to go for these sites and for the niche subject programmers but they're not going to be offering a lot back in terms of audience exposure. That's why a lot of small deals need doing.

I can relate to that. I'm currently out persuading media majors to outsource their content production. I'm a small outfit. Doors are opening. Small deals are in.

Long Tail Content

Chris Anderson is doing a great job of raising awareness of co-created content in the Long Tail - that’s the zillion small producers who will pack the IP TV and Internet TV space with great content for smaller audiences.

A couple of days back I made contact with Jenni Moyers of Comcast, the cable operator, trying to tease out where consumer-produced content  is headed. I got the nod on Comcast’s work with next generation media from Jim Sheehan over at SeaChange, so many thanks Jim.

Consumer produced content is now becoming an integral part of COMCAST’s offer to the 10 million American homes that subscribe to its digital services.

Senior Director of Corporate Communications Jenni Moyer says the comany’s Get Local services are turning out to be hugely popular. They range from locally produced video of a High School football game to local on-demand dating services. Comcast’s on-demand services are showcasing at www.selectondemand.com.

They include the apparently absurd Pets on Demand which is in fact a service for animal welfare organisations to publicise the animals they care for that could become pets for viewers, Karaoke on Demand (explanation enough I think), Guitar lessons, and even movie intermission ads.

“Since early 2004 we’ve had about 2 billion on-demand views,” says Jenni, adding: That’s from a base of 10 million homes who have digital access”.

Like Josh Goldman (see interview), Jenni sees evidence of a sizeable shift and it’s not so much in the way people behave but in their fundamental attitudes. The figures, she says are “a big endorsement of people consuming TV on their own terms.”

It’s also giving Comcast scope to experiment with advertising. Comcast Spotlight, the group’s ad sales division, is experimenting with long form ads, as well as classifieds on demand. The momentum towards an I, Creative community is hotting up.

From Streaming Media East

ROO, one of the world’s largest online broadcast networks and a global leader in online video solutions, and Citadel Broadcasting Corporation, a leading radio broadcasting company in the United States, today entered into an agreement for ROO to become the online video partner for the Citadel Broadcasting Company (NYSE: CDL).

Under the agreement ROO will provide Citadel with a turn key video solution including online video content across a number of genres including news, music, business and fashion and the tools to sell online advertising targeted by demographic and location, for the Citadel Interactive network. Citadel will, in turn, significantly increase the reach of the ROO network and supply a variety of exclusive specialized content and events to run across the ROO network.

Citadel Broadcasting currently owns and operates 222 radio stations and their associated websites in 49 markets located in 24 states across the United States.

Citadel will work with ROO to expand its online presence to include broadband video offerings to its audience. In particular, Citadel will engage ROO to develop a compelling online video experience for its RightNowRadio.com internet radio initiative, which is to launch in the summer of 2006.

News from Streaming Media East

Internet TV pioneer Brightcove and Limelight Networks, the world's leading Internet content delivery network for digital media, today announced a strategic partnership to bring advanced services and next-generation business models to the growing Internet TV industry. Read about it here.

This is the nub of it:

"Brightcove's vision for the future of TV–where consumers can watch and interact with millions of on-demand broadband channels delivered through the Internet and content creators can reach global audiences with a truly open distribution platform–is driving innovation across the media industry," said Bill Rinehart, chief executive officer at Limelight Networks. "To make their vision a reality, we are working together to give media companies access to our content delivery platform, which provides the flexibility and scalability necessary to distribute massively large video and music files across multiple platforms to audiences of any size."

Cube Gets It Only Half Right

I came to CUBE TV with the same expectations I've brought to all the IP TV channels and services I've looked at. Sad to say this was a let down. I registered, pressed the Channel buttons, spent some time waiting around for content to appear, watched the digital clock count down. Nothing.

CUBE has a small number of channels up there (two ITV locals, HYP, Fine Wine, Information, Music and Real Estate) but only the last of these worked for me. What use a channel you can't see?

It was only when I went to the Electronic Programme Guide that I found out all the CUBE channels were off-air (though Real Estate worked). But none of this makes sense. It should be a 24/7 experience; if there's maintenance going on we should be told. The interface shouldn't leave us staring at a blank box.

This is the first time I've felt negative about an IP TV initiative. Hope CUBE can explain.

ROO

What is it about corporate statements that don't share the dream? I don't connect with this kind of stuff: 

ROO is an online broadcast network and a leading global provider of digital media solutions and technology that enable the activation, marketing and distribution of video content over the Internet and emerging broadcast platforms such as wireless mobile devices and set-top boxes.

A bit more of the character of the service becomes visible over on ROOTV.com. You land at rootv, you hear the rappers, you see George Bush, it's so MTV and CNN. But get up to the top of the page and the navigation bar will take you to hundreds of VOD short films on health, science, business, fashion, comedy, even vegetables.

Looks promising but the snag for me is when I start watching I don't know who has made these films. I wrote to Roo's press agent today and hopefully will be able to update you soon. There's great potential here. There is a lack of interaction on the site and the provenance problem needs to be sorted out. Hope to hear from Roo soon.

Akimbo Opens Up

I promised yesterday to write about Akimbo, as one of a number of profiles upcoming. Curious, just thinking back to those comments about journalists and PR, when I e-mail people using my journalist hat I get ready responses. When I e-mail saying I want info for the blog there’s a tendency to ignore me. That takes some getting used to.

Akimbo though have been great so hat’s off (which one?) to them. Akimbo was one of the first into the IP TV space and these are their current fame claims:

• 10,000 titles on the Akimbo Service and over 100 more added each week
• Available on Microsoft Media Center PCs as part of Microsoft Media Center’s “Online Spotlight” offerings
• Media Center subscribers can also use an XBox game player as a media extender to show Akimbo programming on TV
• Available on AT&T’s Homezone
• First exclusive footage last December from Expedition 360, about a group English explorers who are attempting to circumnavigate the world only by human-powered means

This information came courtesy of Blaise Simpson who works for ar partners, Akimbo’s PR people, who’s also offered an interview with Akimbo personnel. I’ll be taking Blaise up on that in the next few days.