Tuesday, March 1, 2005

Free TV on Mediaburn RSS Keep TV Free - a historic TV advertisement. Right on, I love historic clips... oh the design, the illustration, the orwellian concepts, but especially when they are so right on topic. This is hysterical, though I must admit that perhaps it's because I'm a such a big democratized / decentralized media geek. Anyway, it is my pleasure to bring you "Keep TV Free" a commercial from 1967. Watch it: keep-tv-free.mov (3.6mb video/quicktime Object) Reblogged from: Stay Free! Daily: Keep TV Free? Gee, who would have thought that some of the same suits who are now trying to dictate what you can watch and record on television once urged Americans to "Keep TV Free"? Well, here's a PSA from the late 1960s Hollywood that does just that. In 1967, when one of the first pay TV services was preparing to launch in California, Hollywood and the networks helped defeat the service because they didn't want the competition. Theater owners organized a KEEP TV FREE campaign, with PSAs like this one running in movie houses before feature films. Though this particular campaign was limited to California, the advertising industry and television networks have long argued a similar case. When Vance Packard, Ralph Nader, Peggy Charren, and other critics attacked advertising in the 1950s, 1970s, and 1980s (respectively), defenders of industry often cited a common refrain: "advertising provides free news and entertainment." In other words, the major networks (in conjunction with the ad industry) have promoted the idea that television is free for decades. Now that viewers have taken their word for it by recording and sharing TV shows freely, the industry has only itself to blame. Via Free As In...TV?: Corante > Copyfight > [unmediated] 7:36:54 PM

Dave Winer and Dan Gillmor Speak with Laura Knoy New Hampshire Public Radio talks blogs. New Hampshire Public Radio - NHPR.org featured a show on their morning talk show, "The Exchange" hosted by Laura Knoy, titled Blogs of War. "Unheard of just a few years ago, these web journals set up by anyone with a story to tell…or an axe to grind….have brought down major media and picked on politicians, but now find the spotlight’s glare turned back on them." Featured guests included Dan Gillmor and Dave Winer. You can listen to the show at the link above, via RealAudio or WindowsMedia. [Ted's Radio Weblog] 7:11:47 PM

Yahoo Search and Web 2.0 Good Move, Yahoo: APIs for Search. Yahoo tonight announced the Yahoo Search Developer's Network (no link up yet). In short, this is a program to allow developers to build upon the Yahoo Search and Overture platforms (Overture will be rebranded Yahoo Search Marketing Solutions - I was wondering when the Overture name was going to be phased out). This is big Web 2.0/Web as Platform news, and I can't wait to see what comes of it. From the release: The Yahoo Search Developer Network features Yahoo! Search APIs which span Web search verticals, search engine marketing and direct advertising products including: • Web search – leveraging Yahoo! Search Technology • Image search – the largest image search index on the Web with more than 1.5 billion images • Video search – providing users with one-click access to any video • News search – with more than 7,000 news sources • Local search – the most popular destination online for local information • Spelling correction – advanced search query spelling correction technology • Related searches – advanced search query recommendation technology • Overture – access to its search engine marketing API program Most APIs provide the developers with access to 5,000 queries per day per API, exceeding current competitive search API offerings. That last part is a dig at Google, which limits its APIs to 1000 queries, hence there has been no real commercial development on top of the Google search platform. But will 5000 be enough? Not for really scaled innovations. Let's hope they figure out the model to allow for more....full release in extended entry. Cnet coverage.... [John Battelle's Searchblog] 7:42:34 AM

Happy Birthday Daily Poligraf! Happy birthday Daily Poligraf! Un autre match nul... Happy birthday Daily Poligraf! Un autre match nul pour les Nordiks. Dans l'ensemble on a pas joué une mauvaise partie, mais on a encore été victimes d'un de nos typiques relâchements en deuxième demie alors qu'on avait les devants. Des suggestions pour se défaire de cette mauvaise habitude ? Une mascotte qui nous crie de ne pas relâcher pendant la pause et au début de la deuxième demie ça pourrait être bien, non ? Y'a un volontaire ? Comme à la fin de chaque mois, j'archive présentement les statistiques du site de distribution. Le nombre de téléchargements fut sensiblement le même en février qu'en janvier, mais c'est une bonne nouvelle si on considère qu'en cours de mois j'ai mis un terme à l'utilisation de campagnes de promotion payantes. De un, étant donné la nature de Weed, il est plus efficace de rejoindre directement les communautés d'utilisateurs, par exemple en approchant les propriétaires de sites à vocation musicale et en les convainquant d'ajouter un lien à leurs répertoires. De deux, plus j'ajoute des artistes à la base de données et plus il y a de visites en provenance des différents moteurs de recherche. Bref, une stagnation temporaire, mais une meilleure stratégie à long terme. Weed Search : un nouvel outil de recherche pour les fichiers Weed. Le site vient à peine d'être publié, alors il y a peu de fichiers indexés pour le moment. J'ai contacté le propriétaire du site afin de savoir s'il a prévu un mécanisme d'importation, question de ne pas l'ensevelir sous mes 12000 fichiers. Les Québécois aiment leur cinéma : Depuis cinq ans, la hausse annuelle moyenne des assistances aux films québécois est de 38,2 %, alors que les films étrangers connaissent un recul de 0,3 %. :o) De la vie sur Mars? Du formaldéhyde, un composé organique volatil, a été trouvé en grande quantité dans l'atmosphère de la planète Mars par les instruments de la sonde européenne Mars Express. Des chercheurs de l'Agence spatiale européenne estiment que cette découverte pourrait signifier la présence d'une importante activité géologique sur la planète rouge. Ils avancent même que le formaldéhyde témoignerait de l'existence de colonies microbiennes sur la planète voisine de la Terre. Unusual Plates on Mars : J'ai de plus en plus hâte de voir des martiens ! - poligraf [The Daily Poligraf] 7:36:45 AM