07.11.07
Posted in entertainment, media at 7:09 pm by mridley
I didn’t see an announcement on my TiVo about this, but I received an email from Amazon letting me know that I can set up a PIN to purchase Amazon Unbox content directly on my TiVo. I tried this out and it does indeed work. I think this is going to make Amazon Unbox all the more popular. I know it will drive my usage of it. Sometimes I’m watching TiVo and someone references a movie and I think, “Oh I want to watch that.” This will drive impulse purchases of that content if I can pause what I’m watching and grab the movie directly from my TiVo.
Unfortunately the available content for Unbox on TiVo is still pretty limited, but hopefully that will change down the road.
Tags: TiVo, Amazon, Unbox
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04.27.07
Posted in media, tech at 4:42 pm by mridley
I signed up for a RadioDaddy.com account ages ago. This is an online exchange for people to trade radio promos, and is also popular with the podcasting crowd.
I received an email today from Leo Ashcroft announcing VoiceDaddy.com. An excerpt from the email:
I just wanted to let you know about the new site we have created for free voiceovers. From the creator of Radiodaddy.com comes VoiceDaddy.com! As a current or former RadioDaddy member, we would like to invite you to be the first to beta test the new site and help get some posts built up. Right now we’re naked! Youch! And everyone knows you don’t want to see me that way! So pop on over and give us a look, and help us get started.
Sounds interesting to me.
Tags: RadioDaddy, VoiceDaddy, Podcasting
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03.22.07
Posted in media, tech at 8:21 am by mridley
This article on MarketWatch quotes a yet to be released national survey which shows that the number of people who responded that they had ever listened to a podcast was only up slightly in the last year. This is in spite of the fact that there is a lot of mainstream press about podcasting and videoblogging and the like.
There is speculation in the article that the technical hurdles required to listen to podcasts are still too high. I don’t buy into that. iTunes has supported very easy podcast subscription and listening for quite some time now. And iPods, the kind of the portable mp3 player market, also have good support for playing podcasts.
The real issue is content. As with all media, and especially emerging media, content is king. Just as shows like The Sopranos drive up HBO subscriptions, so too will “must listen” podcasts drive listener adoption. I’m still bullish on podcasting for the long run, and I’d say that survey results of 11-12% of Americans having listened to a podcast are actually high numbers not low numbers given how new the space is.
Tags: Podcast
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Posted in entertainment, media, tech at 2:32 am by mridley
I got an account on the Joost public beta program today. I hadn’t been real aggressive about trying to get one, but I figured I may as well since they’ll launch it soon.
I accidently forgot to pay attention to the EULA as I clicked through it, so I’m not sure if there is some NDA stuff in there. I doubt it. I don’t have much to report in any case, as I have only played with it a little bit.
The idea for Joost is peer-to-peer legal television-quality programs on demand. Unfortunately right now the service is extremely content-starved and it’s clearly much more of a technical beta than anything else. There are some interesting documentaries and music video content, but if you’re looking for prime time US television, it’s not there. Yet.
As far as the technical features and interface goes, it’s not a traditional Windows UI app and that may cause some learning curve. It looks and feels more like a Flash web application. This isn’t necessarily a negative and it does make the interface feel fresh and trendy, but it may create usability issues for some.
The video codec they are using is fairly resource intensive. My computer isn’t the newest on the block (in fact, it’s becoming a bit out dated as evidenced in my recent experimentation with Second Life), but I have found that I need to close other applications and give Joost everything my system has.
As I play with it more, I plan to send them some feedback. So far it seems promising, but this platform will live and die by its content so it’s too early to say what the real prospects are for Joost.
Tags: Joost
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03.19.07
Posted in media at 5:37 pm by mridley
Did anyone else know that Reuters has a Second Life bureau? That is to say that the news wire service Reuters actually reports on events transpiring within Second Life. Very interesting.
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03.17.07
Posted in media, tech at 11:50 pm by mridley
Recently I’ve been watching current.tv. It’s a cable television network (channel 150 for me on digital cable) but the content is mainly user uploaded videos. The web site community votes on what should air, and it’s broadcast on the television channel. It’s a mashup of television with something like youtube.
It’s interesting stuff. There are some issues (like the fact that appointment television is somewhat difficult given that they don’t seem to schedule things regularly and their pieces are 5-7 minutes long). This makes it much more of a browse medium - watch for a few minutes and then switch to something else. But that’s really the apex of what the MTV format has been pushing towards for years.
I’m not sure if current.tv as it exists now is the ultimate solution to viewer created television, but it’s certainly an interesting first foray. Worth checking out.
Tags: Current TV
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02.07.07
Posted in life, media, tech at 5:19 pm by mridley
As a sort of Christmas gift for myself, I purchased a Olympus Stylus 1000 10MP Digital Camera with Digital Image Stabilized 3x Optical Zoom
. I decided on this model after playing with one that a friend of mine received for Christmas. So far it has turned out to be a great toy. The image quality is very decent (hint: turn off the electronic image stabilizer for much better pictures), and the price is right. While the images won’t compare to 8 megapixel digital SLRs, they look great for a $280 10 megapixel pocket camera.
Once I find something interesting to take pictures of I will post some samples. I bought mine in a bundle with a 2 GB XD memory card, which I highly recommend. You can fit an insane number of pictures on there (about 400 at the highest quality, 800 at the second highest quality, and thousands at lower quality settings).
Tags: Camera, Digital Camera, Olympus
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07.11.06
Posted in business, media at 8:44 pm by mridley
This is a little bit of a low-content post, but Adam Curry aired his thoughts on the Rocketboom staffing changes today on DSC 418. You can cue it up to about 25 minutes or so into it to hear that part. I mention this mainly because he smartly avoids all the speculation and politics of the interpersonal relationships involved - since nobody knows what really happened and for those of us not directly involved, it doesn’t matter.
But he makes some good points about the larger issue of talent versus production versus branding and content. It’s worth a listen.
Tags: Daily Source Code, Rocketboom
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07.10.06
Posted in entertainment, media at 6:00 pm by mridley
I’m not a big fan of reality television. Or more accurately, I enjoy celebrity reality TV (Hogan Knows Best and the like), but shows like Survivor or Big Brother do nothing for me. Call me high brow, but I like a scripted comedy or dramatic series.
Having said that, I do have an idea for a reality show that I would enjoy watching. So here’s my pitch to the world. Most of these shows are about trying to win the big prize - typically a sizeable amount of money. But what if that were the beginning of the show, not the end?
What if you picked the winner on the first episode, and gave them a couple million dollars, and then followed them around for a few months to see how their lives changed. NBC is doing a similar thing with the dramatic series Windfall - but why not do it for real?
Depending on who you picked to be the “winner”, I think a lot of drama and humor could be found in taking someone to a Ferrari dealership for the first time, or out to a $200/plate restaurant, or to a money manager’s office.
I think a good title for this reality program would be Nouveau Riche and if someone would like to front some sponsorship money I’d be happy to executive produce an online version of it.
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07.04.06
Posted in business, media at 2:27 pm by mridley
An online acquaintance pointed me to BiancaVision today. This site is great! I suppose you could call it a “vlog” but since I hate that word and concept with a passion, I won’t. Instead I’ll say it’s an online cooking show hosted by a young girl (early teens I suppose).
I think this is a great example of where media is going. If she did a few more episodes I bet she could develop a following and easily get sponsorships.
This is the kind of business opportunity I like. It requires very little startup investment, develops organically, and then has a very manageable ongoing cost of operations. It’s all profit. My kind of play.
Tags: Cooking
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