Thursday, March 31, 2005

David: It's been a while since your last transparency post. What's up? Yes, it has been a while and apologies. Time is such a gating factor to running this channel. As you can see, I'm still doing some stuff behind the scenes. For example, I'm adjusting the design of the site and have some work to do there. I'm also prototyping a software connection between my e-mail system and this transparency channel to more efficiently move content into the channel (since so much of the relevant content comes to me via e-mail). This is taking longer than I had hoped. But once I'm done, I'm hoping the result will be like prying loose a cap off a fire hyrdrant. The flow should pick up significantly. On this vector, the important finding of my experiment is that it's not as easy to be a transparent journalist as you'd think. If you're on the hook to crank out content on a daily basis (as I am in the two blogs that I write for on ZDNet), there's not a lot of time left over to be transparent. This is particularly so when the heavy lifting to be transparent on a particular story is about 10x the work of the story itself. All this said, I have some cool postings in the works that get to the heart of some really interesting blogging/journalism matters and also, I have several things cooking on the research transparency front. My musings about research transparency have apparently struck a nerve and my inbox is full of comments and thoughts that I must parse through.  Stay tuned. 9:58:16 AM    comment [] RadioEdit

MPEG nation aims to democratize TV and video distribution From the below press release: "a one to sixty minute video uploaded to MPEG NATION, encoded into Microsoft(R) Window's Media(R) Format (150k, 300k & 700k), costs just $4.95 including unlimited streaming (viewing) bandwidth and storage for six months." Long term, given the efficiency and convenience of time-shifted consumption of text, audio, and video (and a fourth medium like Flash that I call i-media... the "i" is for "interactive" and implies a form of audio or video that the end user can interact with), and the fact that portable hard drive space simply isn't an issue, I wonder whether streaming will finally give way to downloading for all but the most incredibly time sensitive news and information. About 99.99 perecent of the content we consume doesn't have to be consumed live or while connected to some network. MPEG NATION Launches Powerful Broadband Streaming Video Service for the Masses Stream your video world-wide to millions of people for less than $1 per month! CHICAGO, March 30 /PRNewswire/ -- MPEG NATION, a division of Digital Silo, Inc., a global provider of integrated content delivery and streaming media services, today announced a new, first ever, low-cost service to encode and stream consumer and commercial video content via its worldwide content delivery network, within minutes, via a simple upload. MPEG NATION enables individuals and companies to inexpensively begin streaming video across a high-performance, reliable content delivery network without having to spend hours encoding and transcoding formats, negotiating rates, or worrying about ongoing storage and bandwidth costs. MPEG NATION is the first-ever "one-price-fits-all solution" for placing video in blogs, auctions, personal and corporate websites. "We are working towards a world where television and video distribution are much more democratized and where a creative spark, a camera, and a computer are all it takes to put video content before the eyes of thousands of people. MPEG NATION is excited to announce the first affordable streaming video service for delivering streaming solutions to meet market demand for Microsoft(R) Windows Media(R), RealNetwork's RealPlayer and Apple's QuickTime video formats," said Scott Wolf, president and chief technology officer of Digital Silo's MPEG NATION division. (more) 8:39:32 AM    comment [] RadioEdit

Has this guy turned the internet into a global cable TV network? This sounds to be true. But even if it isn't, it suggests that entrepreneurs are out there thinking about interesting ways to move broadcast media onto the internet. So, the theme is convergence and broadcast media execs (radio and TV) have to be thinking about what entrepreneurs like this mean to the their business. Whether this really does what it says it does doesn't matter. Sooner or later, someone will figure out how to do this and the international nature of the Internet could will affect the legal options that are available to broadcast media outlets. From: Jonathan Rodriguez [mailto:JonathanR@bitmar.com] Sent: Friday, March 25, 2005 1:33 PM To: David Berlind I am the creator of WebBrowserTV and WebBrowserRADIO; two new, revolutionary, upcoming computer softwares. Basically, by inserting these CD-ROM softwares into a computer, any user can watch live worldwide television and/or radio, right from their computer. An Internet connection is used as the receiving via (no antennas and/or cable box needed). Please take under consideration that most people are now, more than ever before, going online for everything. Television networks and radio stations are now realizing that the computer business is taking over the world, including their own industries (TV and radio industries). As a result of our constantly-changing competitive world, new technological products are always arising, re-shaping each of the industries they fall under. I feel that I may have a product line (these two products) with a great possibility of becoming a major deal in the market, especially if large chains (like Wal-Mart, Staples, Best Buy, Radio Shack, etc.) decide to add these products to their catalogs. That could mean a tremendous amount of long-term business. The other good thing about these products, in particular, is that they are both hybrids of very stable industries: The Internet, TV, and Radio... (more) 8:00:10 AM    comment [] RadioEdit

Windows Media ecosystem spreads its wings I received the following email on March 30, 2005. I'm not sure how many people realize how vast the Windows Media empire is. In the traditional ecosystem sense, where more developers begets more content and more content begets more users and more users attracts more developers (all to the benefit of the underlying platform), is there any digital media ecosystem (the choices are quicktime, real and flash) that matches the depth and breadth of the Windows Media ecoystem? The e-mail does a great job of describing the reach of the Windows Media empire. Don't forget that media platform pervasiveness begets digital rights management platform pervasiveness. (ps: I normally don't publish emails without the permission of the sender but this e-mail is obviously a boilerplate with nothing specific to me or other recipients. I redacted the sender's contact information) ==Email Begins Here= Microsoft Corp. today will announce the launch of MSN Video Downloads, which provides daily television programming, including content from MSNBC.com, Food Network, FOX Sports and IFILM Corp, for download to Windows Mobile(tm)-based devices, such as Portable Media Centers and select Smartphones and Pocket PCs. Since launching the Windows Mobile-based Portable Media Center last fall, more than 20 new partners, including CinemaNow Inc., MLB.com, MSNBC.com, MTV Networks Music, Napster Inc., SnapStream Media Inc and TiVo Inc., have agreed to make video available online specifically formatted for Windows Mobile-based multimedia devices. In addition to MSN Video Downloads announced today, there are a number of ways to obtain legal content that can be transferred to Windows Mobile-based devices: * People can transfer recorded television to Windows Mobile devices from any Windows XP-based PC, either with Media Center Edition PCs or PCs with built-in TV-tuner cards from companies such as ATI and NVIDIA and third-party PVR software such as SnapStream Beyond TV 3. Soon, via the TiVoToGo service, people can take their TiVo Series 2 content from the PC and transfer it to a Portable Media Center. * The recently launched Napster-to-Go service allows people with a monthly subscription to have unlimited access to hundreds of thousands of songs that can be transferred to Windows Mobile devices. In addition, online movie provider CinemaNow will have hundreds of movie titles formatted specifically for viewing on Portable Media Centers. * On March 16, CinemaNow and MediaPass announced it will make music videos available specifically for Windows Mobile devices. Following is a summary of today's announcement. The full press release is below. * The MSN Video Downloads service is one of the first online video download services dedicated to portable entertainment and is designed to keep people better entertained and informed, wherever and whenever they want. MSN Video Downloads debuted in a preview of the service at the International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in January 2005. * New in the launch of the service is the ability to select the specific content downloaded to the subscriber's Windows XP-based PC each day. Also people will be able to activate a new "automatic deleting feature," which specifies how long video from the MSN Video Downloads directory remain on the PC, avoiding a large backlog of clips. * Along with our CinemaNow and MediaPass partnerships announced last week, content from MSN Video Downloads is for use with PlaysForSure compliant devices that play video, enabling people to download to their Windows(r) XP-based PC and transfer to any Windows Mobile-based Portable Media Center, or Smartphones and Pocket PCs equipped with Windows Media(r) Player 10 Mobile. The Following Companies Have Announced Support for Windows Mobile-based Devices : (more...) 7:46:34 PM    comment [] RadioEdit

Hollywood looking for copy and copyright protection Hollywood seeks iTunes for film. Sony Pictures, other media giants mull "anti-Napster" for movies and the future of advertising at Digital Hollywood conference.   This is a story about digital rights management and sooner or later, Hollywood will be forced to talk to Microsoft since it's media client is the most pervasive (not just in computers). 7:25:23 AM    comment [] RadioEdit