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Thanks to Lost Remote for point to this article from Read/Write Web. It's a pretty good overview of the various online video companies competing in the YouTube space, as well as the various technologies used to deliver the videos.
Not really Hub related but I wanted to see what Comedy Central's embedded video player looked like. Ishmael spoke at our Gala in 2005.
... good thing we're not squeamish.
Katrin Verclas of NTEN and MobileActive fame writes on the NTEN blog:
• Mobile phones should be used as part of an integrated campaign. As sexy as mobile marketing and campaigning is, it can’t yet stand by itself.
• Texting campaigns, especially with short codes on a professionally run platform, are still expensive and will not turn into ‘profit centers’ any time soon.
Here are the figures from TVWeek:
The potential for social networking on phones is huge. MySpace, the biggest social networking site on the Web, now commands nearly 5 percent of all Internet visits. Audience measurement firm Hitwise reports that one of every 17 Internet visits is to a social networking site, with MySpace commanding 81 percent of those visits.
With 2.8 billion mobile phone users out there it's predicted that 2007 will see more people will accessing the internet via a mobile phone than via a PC. Huge potential for social networking on phones? You do the math.
What should be interesting is whether or not that translates into the widespread use of mobile social media.
Veoh, one of the video sharing sites we looked at early on, has relaunch with a new slicker interface as well as some cool transcoding and syndication features, including automatic cross-posting to YouTube, Google, and MySpace.
Here are a couple of reviews from TechCrunch and LostRemote.
It's been awhile since I've posted anything about the Josh Wolf situation. He now has the distinction of being longest incarcerated journalist in US history for contempt of court, 170 days.
An article from Slashdot links to an interview with Wolf on Democracy now.
Video blogger and independent journalist Josh Wolf has been in a federal jail for 170 days for refusing to turn over to a federal grand jury a video of a San Francisco demonstration. On Feb. 6 Wolf's length of incarceration set a new record for US journalism. "Democracy Now!" has an interview with Josh Wolf from his jail cell. If federal authorities can jail bloggers with impunity, it does not bode well for the future of citizen journalism.
While researching possible options for video filtering technology for the Hub, we came across some stuff about Audible Magic, a company that was developing a way to filter for copyrighted material. It appears that MySpace is going to use this technology for their videos.
It will be interesting to see how well it works. In the mean time check out the article on TechCrunch, and the ensuing discussion.
The folks at unmediated highlight efplighting.com, a site with some good tutorials on how to light subjects for interviews among other things. It could be useful for some of the educational modules for the Hub, although we are still on the lookout for a good tutorial on best practices for shooting cellphone video.
The 3GSM World Congress is happening in Barcelona this week, and the BBC is covering it.
They've also put together a list of some companies to keep track of in the coming year. Not surprisingly, there are a number of companies offering services for user generate content producers.
UK based, YoSpace has created See Me TV - sort of like a YouTube for mobile phones, but creators get paid each time their content is viewed.
Tocmag allows users to create "magazines" that can be downloaded to mobile phones. I haven't been able to see anything since my Treo 650 doesn't seem to be able to render the wml properly, but if anyone gets a chance to check it out, let me know how it is.
There are so many social networks out there already, are people beginning to tire of them? Will this have an affect on participation on the hub?
How many linkedin request have you gotten this week?
This article from unmediated, goes into further detail.
While catching up on my podcasts from The Economist, I came across this article about whether or not Bosses should Blog. It was pretty funny, especially the part about SecondLife.
Guess I'm not the only one who has doubts about it.
If blogging doesn’t appeal, WEF offers the suggestible chief executive another way to make a noise in cyberspace. He can join a fantasy game, Second Life, and give an interview in the persona of a computer-generated puppet, or "avatar".
One attraction of Second Life is the freedom to choose an avatar with the dress sense of a rock star and the physique of a porn star. Whether the Davos demographic leans that way remains to be seen. But it would probably pose fewer legal risks than blogging with candour.
In all the hubbub about video on the hub, we seem to be forgetting that a big, if not bigger, consideration should be the hub's social networking capabilities. If people can't connect, interact, and organize as a community, how will the hub be anything more than a bunch of videos tagged as being "human rights related?"
Techcrunch, recently posted articles about two social networking sites change.org (how'd they get THAT url?) and dotherightthing.com. They liked change.org, but were less complementary about dothrightthing.com, which they dub "do the smug thing."
From unmediated: When the value of a website is completely dependent upon the participation of its user community, changes made to the site that upset that community can have a very negative affect on the website.
From the full article:
...the relationship between users and empty vessel web services [i.e. flickr, Facebook, YouTube]is unique in the history of user/technology relationships — and user/media relationships, for that matter... The sense of ownership is now just based on use — it’s based on the users’ content actually bringing the service to life. So while Flickr, Facebook, and YouTube, as traditional corporate owners of the service, can technically do anything they want — and they will surely have valid business reasons for wanting to make changes — they are ultimately beholden to their users.
Just ask Friendster.