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Read the full post February 13th, 2007
Archive for February 13th, 2007
Coming soon: Mobile social networks
If social networking works online, why not extend it to mobile devices? Several technology companies are doing just that, and one company is talking to broadcast and cable networks about creating mobile communities around TV shows. AirG would allow fans to interact with each other during and after a show airs, even sending video clips from the show or video of themselves to each other. Meanwhile, Discovery is exploring the possibility of tapping into GPS-enabled phones to facilitate social networking between people in similar locations, all in connection with Discovery Travel Media. It’s clear there’s lots of growth potential here, especially with younger audiences.
Add comment February 13th, 2007
Fox News tests ‘The 1/2 Hour News Hour’
Coming this Sunday, Fox News Channel will air the first of two episodes of The 1/2 Hour News Hour, a concept show that pokes fun of the day’s news events. It’s looks remarkably like The Daily Show, which you’ll see in the preview clip below, and you’ll also be reminded that the talent is nowhere close to Jon Stewart…
Soooo, what do you think?
98 comments February 13th, 2007
YouTube hands over user’s ID to Fox
In response to subpoenas, YouTube and Live Digital revealed the identities of two people who uploaded entire episodes of Fox’s 24 a week before the show’s season premiere. In YouTube’s case, the user’s handle is ECOTtotal, and he’s also believed to have uploaded 12 episodes of The Simpsons. “We intend to use the information provided to pursue all available legal remedies against those who infringed our copyrights,” said 20th Century Fox TV VP Chris Alexander. Points out Marshall Kirkpatrick on Techcrunch, “If the episodes of 24 were already circulating on P2P networks before they hit YouTube, as some reports suggest, then this is little more than a symbolic blood-letting.”
Adds Donnie in comments: “I don’t understand why YouTube was so reluctant to hand over the information from the get go. The users obviously broke copyright laws and YouTube’s user agreement, so why bother trying to protect them?”
10 comments February 13th, 2007
Check out Digg’s ‘Big Spy’
It’s a new graphical coolness from Digg Labs, which scrolls newly-posted or newly-Dugg stories in a real-time Flash presentation. Check it out. Screen grab…
Add comment February 13th, 2007
CBS forms cross-platform sales group
The new unit is called CBS RIOT, which stands for radio, internet, outdoor and television. RIOT will focus on local ad sales across CBS properties, and it’s first deal is with Dodge.
Add comment February 13th, 2007
Your thoughts on Frontline’s ‘News War’
Part one of a four part series by PBS’ Frontline on the state of media and journalism has aired. The first installment largely focuses on how the media handled the march towards the Iraq War and the Plame affair. Frontline’s site is loaded with interviews and will eventually offer the whole series for online viewing (they’ll post the first part on Wednesday). It is a serious production on a serious topic, certainly worth discussing on many levels. Please leave a comment with your thoughts.
Adds Jason in comments: “I thought that it was very well done. A nice, balanced and in-depth look at the entire event, all the issues it raised and the history leading up to the confrontation. Though I followed the story originally, I acutally learned a lot that I hadn’t known previously. Well done, so far.”
4 comments February 13th, 2007
Podcasts up tenfold in 2006
A new Forrester report finds that 10 percent of North Americans online downloaded a podcast at least once a month in 2006. Nearly half, 49 percent, of Gen X and Gen Ys downloaded podcasts at least once a week, like Diggnation (my favorite). Hmmm, I guess these podcast thingies are catching on, huh? Beet.TV has a video interview with Forrester’s Brian Haven about the study. (One thing to note. In my experience, video podcasts that are repurposed from TV are not attracting significant numbers of downloads. But original, niche content — that’s unique in style and personality — is making some real forward progress.)
3 comments February 13th, 2007
TV industry briefs: Ancier, WFRV-TV, Barber
- Former Fox/WB exec Garth Ancier to head BBC’s U.S. operations
- CBS selling Green Bay’s WFRV-TV to Liberty Media
- NY Giants’ Tiki Barber takes correspondent job at Today Show
Add comment February 13th, 2007
Adobe wins props by doing business the Macromedia way
Keeping developers happy isn’t easy, but Adobe has managed to do it by maintaining Macromedia’s excellent tradition of customer relations, especially the very popular user groups and conferences. Much of what we love about Web 2.0 is pouring out of Adobe’s MAX developer meetings, and new products like Spry build on the tradition of Flex, allowing rapid development of rich applications for web services, creative advertising, and stunning video interfaces.
Add comment February 13th, 2007
MSNBC.com, CNN.com battle over video
I hesitate to post stories that compare online traffic between sites (other than Nielsen/Netratings stats) because it’s nearly always apples-to-oranges. So keep that in mind as you look at these stats, both from internal traffic logs. CNN.com says it served up a little over 600 million video streams in 2006, and MSNBC.com put its number at 712 million. Needless to say, video is a priority for these top news sites, both in reality and perception, as they battle it out for audiences and advertisers (and in CNN’s case, Pipeline subscriptions, too).
7 comments February 13th, 2007
MTV Networks making videos embeddable
We here at Lost Remote headquarters have always explained why we embed YouTube players with copyrighted content, such as The Daily Show: because the TV sites’ video players aren’t embeddable. Well, ComedyCentral.com began offering embeddable players a few weeks ago (and we’ve embedded them instead of YouTube), and now MTV Networks says it’ll extend the same technology and philosophy to its entire network of sites, including MTV.com. Of course, Viacom content was pulled from YouTube a few days ago, so the urgency stepped up a notch. “We need to open up our websites and content both for consumers and for other companies,” said Mika Salmi, MTVN president of global digital media. Glad to see MTVN gets it, and we’ll see which media company is next to open their video doors and encourage bloggers to embed their players.
The embedding functionality on ComedyCentral.com’s home page. Oh, by the way, you gotta watch Jon Stewart rip the media over Anna Nicole Smith coverage.
5 comments February 13th, 2007
Newspaper circulation is growing
Seriously. If you go by new numbers released by the World Association of Newspapers, readership of print newspapers is at an all time high. Here’s the lowdown:
- Global circ up 9.95 percent over five years and 2.36 percent over twelve months
- Daily newspaper titles surpass 10,000 for first time in history
- More than 450 million copies sold daily
- In excess of 1.4 billion paid-newspaper readers
- Total free daily circulation more than doubles in five years
Now, that’s worldwide. In North America, numbers are still up but lower than the global figures: Newspaper circulation increased 0.7 percent over five years, and marginally declined 0.04 percent over one year. The number of titles declined 0.84 percent over five years but increased 1.21 percent over one year. With all the focus on digital, analysts at the Paris-based WAN say that we’re overlooking the incredible innovation and diversification that is going on industry-wide.
2 comments February 13th, 2007
29 stations getting new mobile sites
Internet Broadcasting is rolling out new WAP sites for 29 TV stations through a partnership with Crisp Wireless. The sites offer advertisers ad opportunities in the form of rotating display and text ads on the front page and index and story pages. Slideshows, surveys and quizzes, and video, will be added over the next six months.
Add comment February 13th, 2007
Veoh relaunches with powerful video features
The user video site Veoh, which has Michael Eisner on the board, has relaunched with some impressive new features, especially for video publishers. Upload your video to Veoh and the site will also automatically publish it on YouTube, Google Video and MySpace. Then you can track your stats across all the video sites. Veoh will also transcode the video as a podcast on iTunes, and you can embed a Flash player on your site that includes all the videos from your personal channel. Publishers can also charge for online rental or DVD-quality downloads. Finally, Veoh will begin offering video recommendations based on clips you’ve viewed. Very slick.
3 comments February 13th, 2007
