March 2005 – Page 3 – Digital-Lifestyles

Ourmedia Launches Free Community Site For Podcasters And Vloggers

Ourmedia Launches Community Site For Podcasters And Vloggers See our interview with co-founder of OurMedia, JD Lasica

OurMedia is a new community site providing online media creators a place where they can publish their content and share it with others, for free.

That last bit is important. Free. Nowt. Zip. Nada.

Anyone who creates digital media – whether it be podcasts, video blogs, photos, whatever – will soon learn that there’s no such thing as ‘free’ web space when you’re looking for a place to host those large media files.

Either you have to put up with a web page plastered with adverts or you’ll be lumbered with punitive restrictions on your bandwidth allowance.

Once you’ve got your latest artistic meisterwork online, the next problem is letting people know about it – unless you’ve got a degree in marketing or a hefty advertising budget, your video may get less hits than the Wurzels.

But – oh the cruel irony! – if by chance your work does become the hit’o’the web, you’ll be busting through your bandwidth allowance like an over-excited steam train and face having your page pulled by your web host – or be lumbered with wallet-draining excess fees.

And here’s where the self-styled “grassroots media organisation” OurMedia come in.

Using their service, video bloggers can log into the site, use the ‘upload’ tool to transfer their 50 meg video onto their server and waheey! – the file is now hosted online, complete with its own Creative Commons license – and with no bandwidth or file size restrictions.

Because it’s a community site, multimedia files can now potentially be seen and shared by thousands of people, with film makers and video buffs able to link to each other’s work, pool resources and share tips.

So what’s the catch? Well, none really, so long as you’re the sharing, caring kind.

Supported by free storage space from the Internet Archive, a nonprofit digital library backed by the entrepreneur Brewster Kahle, ourmedia’s mission statement explains that they are a “free, not-for-profit effort to create a global home for grassroots media”.

Their mission is to provide a “resource to bring homemade video, audio, music, photos, text and public domain works into an easy-to-access network” with the site acting as a “clearinghouse” to allow others to “search for video or music, download it, and reuse or remix it, with proper attribution. All legally.”

After the huge success of text blogging, pundits are predicting that video blogging (vlogging) could be one of the Next Big Things to hit the web, with a new audience tuning into alternative on-demand services, like a sort of alternative TiVo online.

Ourmedia.org The idea must be good, their servers appear a little slow

SPH-M4300 LAN: WiFi Music Phone From Samsung

Samsung Serves Up A Wireless LAN Music Phone Samsung’s R&D team’s crack-like addiction to creating new products continues apace with the announcement of a new Wireless LAN Music Phone.

Their all-singing, all-dancing SPH-M4300 LAN music phone allows users to watch a variety of television broadcast and Internet contents on the handset, and comes with a built-in ‘powerful sound system’, featuring dual speakers.

Now, when someone says ‘powerful sound system’, we think of an all-night squat party rave with bass bins the size of small continents, but Samsung are talking about how their adoption of SRS technology (a 3D sound technology usually used in MP3 players) will give the SPH-M4300 a sonic edge over their rivals.

Despite boasting more multimedia widgets than an interactive James Bond robot, the handset is a slim (114×59×25mm) slider-style phone, featuring a 2.8-inch LCD, a nippy 520MHz CPU and a 1.3 megapixel camera.

Running on Microsoft’s mobile operating system Pocket PC 2003 Phone Edition, users will be able to run applications like Outlook, Word and Excel, with the latest Windows Media Player on hand for playback of multimedia content like movies and music.

Samsung Serves Up A Wireless LAN Music Phone Sadly, there’s no QWERTY keyboard on the handset.

There’s been no announcement about internal storage capacity or expansion card slots, or if the unit supports Bluetooth as yet.

We like the look of this one, and (if it ever makes it out of Korea) the inclusion of wi-fi streaming could give it an edge over the hugely-selling PalmOne Treo 600/650 range.

Samsung

Interview With JD Lasica, Co-Founder, Ourmedia.org

During our preparation of our news piece on the launch of OurMedia today, we had a quick chat with JD Lasica, that we thought you might like to see. It gives a glimpse of the future for Ourmedia.

Ourmedia Launches Community Site For Podcasters And Vloggers DL: Is the site entirely bankrolled by Brewster Kahle (The Internet Archive) or are there plans to raise revenue through advertising/affiliate programs etc?

JD Lasica: The Internet Archive is providing free storage and bandwidth, and that won’t change. We’re also getting subsidized hosting from Bryght (a Drupal site), and Marc Canter’s Broadband Mechanics has kicked in some dough to pay for some programmers in New Delhi to get us across the finish line. Other than that, it’s been an entirely open source effort.

We plan to meet soon with some foundations. An infusion of grant monies would go a long way toward taking us to the next level. We have a very long road map of features and improvements we’re planning.

Marc and I are still discussing revenue models. We won’t clutter up the site with banner ads. But we are open to the prospect of corporate sponsors in addition to foundation underwriters. It certainly seems that the kinds of digital creativity we’re helping to enable would attract a wide swath of companies involved with helping consumers create personal media.

DL: Sadly, I imagine that scammers, spammers, porn merchants and ne’er do wells will be attracted to this venture like a moth to a flame. What measures have you in place to keep these undesirables at bay – or will the site remain a free-for-all with no censorship (past legal necessities)?

JD Lasica: It won’t be a free for all. We have a good-sized team of moderators around the world (including Britain) who will be watching everything that’s published on the site. The two big rules are: no porn and no copyrighted material (unless it falls within the scope of what we Yanks call fair use).

We won’t be the censorship police, so we expect a wide range of media that won’t be to everyone’s tastes. For those who violate our site rules, we’ll be relying on our team of volunteer moderators to shut them down, much as Wikipedia does.

DL: What measures have you taken in case of copyright disputes?

JD Lasica: Our site rules spell out the steps a copyright owner should take if he or she believes their copyright has been infringed. We respect U.S. copyright laws, so you won’t see Metallica mp3s winding up here — unless Lars himself uploads them.

DL: Is there a long term plan as such, or are you going to ‘go with flow’ and see where the venture takes you?

JD Lasica: We have a long road map of immediate features, functionalities and fixes that need addressing, and a longer-term plan for versions 2 and 3, which will incorporate more social networking functions, ratings, improved search, and so on.

DL: You mention that you will be getting involved with P2P – are there any other technologies up your sleeve?

JD Lasica: We’ll be looking at BitTorrent right away. I’m attaching a press release about some of the other things we’re doing.

One interesting item that will be rolling out soon: We’ll be working with Jon Udell and Doug Kaye to devise a standard for what we’re calling a media clipping service. Users will be able to cite a particular portion of a video or audio clip (a 2-minute dialogue that falls in the middle) rather than just point to the entire clip.

Here’s our version 2 roadmap as of this moment: http://www.socialtext.net/ourmedia/

DL: Thanks for sparing us time when you must be busy.

JD Lasica is co-founder of Ourmedia.org, author of “Darknet: Hollywood’s War Against the Digital Generation” (May 2005) and Senior editor of the Online Journalism Review.

He also writes the following blogs:

http://newmediamusings.com
http://darknet.com
http://socialmedia.biz/

Yahoo Buys Flickr

Yahoo Buys Flickr Yahoo has whipped out its wildly wedgified wallet and snapped up the online photo-sharing service Flickr, less than a week after launching a beta test of its new blogging tool.

Flickr lets users upload digital photos from computers, PDAs and camera phones, create their own photo albums, post photos to blogs, and store, sort, search and share your photos online.

Joanna Stevens, a spokeswoman for Sunnyvale, Calif.-based Yahoo, confirmed the deal Sunday: “We look forward to working with them for their innovation and product development across the Yahoo Network in the coming months,” she said.

Stevens said Flickr will remain a standalone site for now. The company’s employees, however, will have to up sticks to Sunnyvale later this year.

Yahoo’s existing photos hosting and sharing service, Yahoo Photos, will gain features from Flickr, although the two services will remain separate “for the foreseeable future.”

Yahoo Buys Flickr There will be some early integration, however, with the ability to log into Flickr using a Yahoo ID and password.

According to Caterina Fake, Flickr’s vice president of marketing and community, users of the company’s free and paid-for services will get more space, while prices for professional accounts are expected to fall.

This announcement comes less than a week after Yahoo announced Yahoo 360. This service combines a new blogging tool, along with long-established Yahoo products such as instant messaging, photo storage/sharing and Internet radio.

The service also includes social networking tools for sharing recommendations about places to eat, favourite films, fab music, great clubs (like London’s Offline, for example!) and so on.

The acquisition of Flickr (and parent company Ludicorp Research & Development) and the development of the Yahoo 360 service reflects a growing interest in social networking and blogging services.

Microsoft added a blog product for its MSN Web service in December, called MSN Spaces. Google, meanwhile, owns the hugely successful Web log service Blogger and social networking site Orkut.

Flickr
Yahoo 360

Nokia 6680 Camera Smartphone Starts Shipping

High End Nokia 6680 Camera Smartphone Starts Shipping Incorporating not one, but two digital cameras (VGA on the front 1.3 megapixels to the rear), the handset was showcased a month ago at the 3GSM World Congress in Cannes.

The stylish new smartphone features two-way video-calling and sharing, push email, a crisp 262,144-color display (176 x 208 pixels), MMC card slot, plus a 1.3-megapixel snapper with flash and 2x digital zoom.

Whereas many 3G handsets prompt the question, “Is that a 3G phone in your pocket or are you just pleased to see me?”, the 6680 is a bit of a miniature marvel, measuring up at a Y-front unruffling 10.8 x 5.5 x 2.1cm – one of the smallest 3G handsets around (although not quite as teensy-tiny as Sony Ericsson’s upcoming K600i).

Running on the Symbian Series 60 OS, the smartphone comes with a personal organiser, video streaming and Internet browser, with a range of funky 3G-enabled features such as two-way video calls, video sharing and push email.

Using XpressPrint or PictBridge, Nokia phone snappers can print pictures, emails or contacts directly from the 6680 using a range of compatible printers or photo kiosks via USB and Bluetooth – or by simply whipping out the MMC card and slapping it in a card reader.

Joe Coles, director of imaging product marketing at Nokia, was at hand to get suitably enthused: “The Nokia 6680 enables the full benefit of high-speed 3G networks to be enjoyed with a wide range of multimedia services, including video, email, music downloads and internet browsing.”

“We are very pleased with the fantastic demand for the Nokia 6680, and expect it to be widely available in all the major 3G markets around the world.”

High End Nokia 6680 Camera Smartphone Starts Shipping Mindful of the fact that trying to write long emails on a handset’s tiny buttons is as much fun as counting ants, Nokia have also announced their new SU-8W Wireless Keyboard.

This small, lightweight add-on folds out to provide a near full-size keyboard, which connects to the phone via Bluetooth.

It must be said that while these fold out keyboards are really handy things to have, they look about as cool as a comb-over in a gale. So use yours discretely!

Nokia

IF… TV Goes Down The Tube – The Media 2016

I was asked to be lead technical advisor to a TV show, that was originally called IF … Media 2012. Over the last six months of script alterations and shooting the direction has changed, but finally the docu-drama is airing at 11:20pm BBC2.

It’s part of the highly respected BBC’s IF … series and it examines where TV may go in the next seven years. The piece is designed to give you some further background.

There’s little doubt that the media is changing significantly … and we haven’t even reached 2012.

Computers turned office life upside down. Now they’re focused on changing entertainment.

Each stage of the process – creation, distribution, and consumption is being altered, apparently inextricably leading us to the realisation of the long-held digital mantra (repeat after me) – What You Want, When You Want, Where You Want or WYW3 as it’s may become known as.

For those of you who haven’t downloaded and faithfully listened to the podcast of this chant on your media player, let me clarify – you will be able to access/consume any piece of media (text/audio/video/etc), on what ever device you have handy, no matter where you are.

Sadly the dream starts to falls apart at this point, because your commercial music or videos will only play on equipment approved by the owner of the content (more on that later).

Change is Afoot – High Definition

The Consumer Electronics companies have been spending a huge amount of effort promoting High Definition TV (HDTV) around the content production industries. They’re telling everyone that 2005/2006 is the year that HD will start to become a major driver for buying new TV equipment.

For those who haven’t watched HDTV on a large screen – let me tell you, it’s impressive. It looks far more real that Standard Definition (SD) and makes a return to watching SD difficult.

Will the dazzle of HD blind the buying public to the loss of control they will have over what they previously thought of as “their media”?

What do I mean, loss of control? Well, there are changes underway which mean that what you previously did without thinking (eg. recording a TV show, backing up a DVD) will become difficult, and in a lot of cases illegal.

Encrypted to the Eyeball

The companies that produce/own audio recordings, video, TV shows and films don’t trust the general public (a director of a large film distributor used those very words to me). Because they don’t trust you, they want to ensure that throughout the value chain (their words – meaning from production, to you watching it), the content will remain encrypted. The only time it’s not encrypted, is when it leaves the screen or speakers and hits your eyes/ears.

This way of locking the content, called Digital Rights Management (DRM), can also restrict other factors such as, whether you can record or how long a recording can be kept for.

DRM protection is intrinsically flawed. It can be broken and traversed. Aware of this, Governments have been lobbied and they‘re making it illegal to examine how a DRM scheme might work.

In Europe this legislation is called the EU Copyright Directive (EUCD), and in the US, it’s the DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act ).

Given this, it will be illegal and you will be open to prosecution, if you use a program to take a copy of disc if it has copy protection on it., unless you use an approved application. What you can do with your media will be directly controlled by its rights holder.

If you want to watch films in HD resolution in the future, you will need to ensure that your equipment (Set Top Box, screen, etc) all have a HDMI interface and are able to support HDCP (High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection).

After 1 July this year, it will be against US law to manufacture or sell equipment that is capable of handling/recording HD material, if they do not recognise what is referred to as the Broadcast Flag – a copyright flag that is controlled by the broadcaster. Indeed to qualify for a European “HD Ready” label equipment must support HDCP.

Old equipment might have problems. All those who have bought their dream 42” plasma screen, had better check around the back. If you don’t have full HDMI/DHCP support, your £5,000 screen will be of no use for HD content.

The Content Explosion

While content created by the current commercial entities, like studios, will become more restricted, the good news is that the places that we’ll be able to source media from will increase substantially. It won’t just be from what are currently thought of as “normal” sources.

With a TV connected to a broadband connection (and they will be broad by 2012), you will be able to access the content from around the connected world. Any subject you imagine will have content available about it.

If you’re finding it hard to visualise, think WH Smiths in 1970. Back then the whole range of magazines available to you would have been about 20. These days the groaning shelves take up half of the shop and there are 100’s of regular magazines available to you.

User Generated Content

We are in a period of an explosion of User generated content. It’s no news that this type of content is going to be huge, but it will also be diverse, plentiful and importantly, quite well indexed.

The first few rungs on the Bandwidth Ladder have been reached. Blogging tools, essentially word processors for the Web (they print Web pages not paper), have enabled people to simply generate huge amounts of content online.

Audio content is currently seeing a lot of increase through Podcasting. Already the breadth and depth of the programming available is impressive.

Video is less prevalent and some way off. The delivery and receipt of it are all possible. It’s the generation of original content that is very time consuming, as it is currently cumbersome.

The public creating programming by using pre-made segments of content, is far more achievable. But where do the segments come from?

The BBC Creative Archive is important

The Creative Archive – started as an inspirational idea. The BBC has thousands of hours of content (audio & video) in its archive, This content has already been produced and paid for by the licence payers of the UK.

The inspiration of pioneers of the project was to make this archive content available for people to be able to download, watch, re-edit and create new programming from, to share with the UK. Ideal.

Since the project was floated the BBC has been very good at making the right sounds about it – and have generated interest in the idea around the world.

I hope that the loss of Paula LeDieu a joint- head of the project will not be too big a blow. I also hope the BBC delivers what it has spoken about – a wide range of free programming, which can be freely edited.

To maintain its highly regarded position in the world, the BBC must not continue to make bold new media statements, only to not deliver them. Failure to do so will reflect badly on the whole of the BBC.

Ofcom – Hands off the Internet

Given the restrictions that will be hoisted on to users of media, it is all the more important that there is no restriction on flow of information that can come down your Internet connection. By 2012 this will include your radio and TV.

Having been technical supervisor for the show, seeing the script going through the twists and turns before coming to life – the decision to bring the dark side of IPTV (Internet delivered TV) to centre stage disappointed me.

I felt the programme helps the argument of those who want to control and restrict the Internet and the video/audio it could provide, missing the opportunity to highlight the many great advantages about having a free IP-based media.

I feel it’s important that the limitation of what people can access over the Internet is decided by the individual or household, not an external, overseeing Quango like OfCom.

Conclusion

As with any massive change, there are going to be advantages and disadvantages. I think the advantages of a new form of media, where everyone is able to contribute is a good thing. Any objectionable programmes like The Cage, while they may generate a lot of headlines, are ultimately insignificant when weighed against the advantages against a freer media.

It is vital to a healthy society that expressions are freely available to all, without restriction.

If you see the show, it would be great to hear your thoughts simon(at)Digital-Lifestyles.info.

>BBC IF …

Tango.TV: TELE2 Launches Free 3G TV For Phones

TELE2 Launches Free TV For 3G Phones European telco AB has announced that it’s launched the first worldwide free TV station available on 3G mobile phones, via its own TV channel Tango.TV (TTV).

Describing themselves as the “leading alternative pan-European telecommunications company” (have they got, like, cray-zee hairstyles and listen to The White Stripes all day?), the TV station is a product of their development centre located in Luxembourg.

The centre is in charge of applying the company’s convergence strategy and has also created an Internet radio, the painfully cheesy-sounding Sunshine Radio, also available on 3G phones.

The streams are available to any customer looking for some full-on AOR action from the new wap portal T.TVMobile.

We gave the channel a listen via the Web and weren’t impressed. The Dad-friendly soft rock was bad enough, but the dire tunes were rendered even more unlistenable by the stream jumping around like a hyperactive flea on amyl nitrate.

We couldn’t work out if this was supposed to be the 3G TV station or not, but after five minutes of looking at a blank screen on our desktop media player, we gave up waiting.

Lars-Johan Jarnheimer, CEO of Tele2 said; “With the launch of this TV over 3G service, Tele2 is showing that it is at the leading edge of mobile technological developments. We look forward to monitoring the development of this service in Luxembourg to learn about customer behaviour, which we can apply later to our other mobile markets”.

There’s no doubt that mobile TV and radio has a strong future, but this venture strikes me as being more of a publicity stunt than anything. And seeing as I’m writing about it, I guess it’s worked too. Doh! Outwitted again!

Tele2
Sunshine Radio
TTV Online

Ask Jeeves Sold To Diller’s InterActive Corp?

The wires are buzzing with rumours that Barry Diller’s InterActive Corp (IAC) is set to buy the Internet search engine service Ask Jeeves for almost $2bn.

Ask Jeeves is currently the fifth-largest search-engine provider on the Internet and the company also owns the popular ask.com, Bloglines and Excite Web sites.

In the UK, Ask Jeeves is the seventh most popular search site with 1.9 per cent of total searches, dwarfed by Google who weigh in with a mighty 63 per cent of total searches.

IAC already owns assorted Web properties including CitySearch, Expedia, Hotels.com, TicketMaster, dating site Match.com and the Home Shopping Network.

CitySearch offers localised search results for businesses, bars, cinemas and restaurants.

The reported US$1.9 billion price tag is something like 35 times AskJeeves’ 2004 earnings from continuing operations of US$52.4 million, and is 27 times its 2004 pro forma earnings from continuing operations of US$71.1 million (this excludes items like depreciation and amortisation).

About US$1.2 billion of the purchase price will be in cash, the New York Times reported (although we don’t think they mean used wads of dollars stuffed in suitcases).

Today’s expected announcement shows that search sites are still attracting investors and that there’s rich pickings to be gained with Microsoft recently following Google and Yahoo into paid-for-search advertising.

We tried to check the story by visiting Ask Jeeves and typing in, “are you being bought by InterActive Corp?”

Disappointingly, the search engine failed to find the answer.

AskJeeves
InterActive Corp

Wireless Internet Soars Nearly 30% – Ipsos Insight Report

Wireless Internet Access Soars Nearly 30% In 2004 The number of wireless Internet users grew by 29% in 2004 according to a recent research study by Ipsos Insight.

The study estimates that 171 million people, or 44% of Internet users in the measured markets, have accessed the Internet wirelessly.

The wireless population growth was largely driven by the two biggest Internet markets, the US and Japan, fuelling 69% of user increase and adding an estimated 15 million and 11.6 million new wireless Internet users, respectively.

Wireless Internet also gained some popularity in Western Europe, South Korea, and Urban China.

Surprisingly, it wasn’t the growth in Wi-Fi enabled laptops leading the charge, but consumers accessing the Internet through their mobile phones.

In Japan, for instance, where wireless Internet, laptop, and mobile phone prevalence is highest, twice as many adults (59%) have accessed the Internet through a mobile device such as a mobile phone than have used a wireless laptop connection (28%).

Similarly, outside of North America, Germany, and Urban Mexico, mobile devices like mobile phones are propelling wireless Internet use.

This reflects the belief that mobile phones have reached a turning point, evolving from primarily a voice communication device to a popular multimedia tool encompassing data and Internet applications.

Although SMS may have been the growth vehicle for non-voice applications on a mobile phone in recent years, the survey predicts Internet-based applications are the ‘wave of the future’.

The survey discovered that one in three mobile phone households (estimated 175 million) have exchanged email via mobile phone, with one in four (estimated 124 million) using their handsets to browse the Internet.

Wireless Internet Access Soars Nearly 30% In 2004 A similar percentage of users have exchanged digital image and videos over their mobiles.

With the exception of SMS and ring tone download activity, 2004 saw a year-over-year increase in wireless activities across the board, with email usage growing by 21% and the nascent market of mobile commerce growing by 60%.

Said Brian Cruikshank, Senior VP of Ipsos-Insight and co-author of the study: “These developments are indicative of an early adoption of multimedia and transaction-based activity through a mobile device. As smart-card technology handsets are introduced in many markets, transaction-based activity will be yet another frontier driving data connectivity and ARPU in the next three-to-five years.”

Ipsos predicts that 2005 will be a ‘spring board year’ for wireless Internet via a mobile phone, with uptake encouraged by cheaper 3G coverage offering more mass market services.

“The mobile phone is the most prevalent global device. The continued adoption of the Internet and the recent launch of advanced mobile networks will no doubt lead to a greater number of people connecting to the Internet through a mobile phone.

In fact, we feel that wireless Internet connection via a mobile phone may indeed become the predominant and, perhaps, only point of connection for many in the developing parts of the world, akin to the technology jump from wired to wireless voice communication,” said Cruikshank.

Ipos Insight

Apple iPod Under Pressure From East

Until now, Apple has been pretty safe in its position of master of all digital music players. That’s lead to speculation of their crown slipping. We’re fresh back from the European consumer show CeBIT and saw many, many good looking, highly functioned, portable music players there.

The Far Eastern companies that’ve been building digital music players for the Western companies have learned a few tricks. Not content to just been passivley manufacture, they have discovered design and embraced it. In our view they have what is needed to go toe-to-toe with Apple.

In addition to that, Korean electronics giant Samsung has launched a hefty push into the highly competitive MP3 player market with six brand-spanking-new players.

The half dozen new players should be available in the first half of the year, ranging from a 256 megabyte flash memory type to a 30 gigabyte hard disk drive model capable of holding about 7,500 songs.

The pocket-sized players will sport colour screens and radio tuners, while some will allow users to watch music videos or take digital photographs.

The company has vowed to grab a giant sized slice of the highly lucrative market within in the next two years.

Samsung sold 1.7 million MP3 players last year, and is the market frontrunner in China. Mindful of expanding its presence, the company said it will focus on products that go beyond the basic flash and hard-disk categories and include products that target the premium, fashion and video-enhanced market segments.

In other words, they’re going to try and outflank Apple by stuffing their players full of multifunctional and multimedia gizmos that allow users to play electronic games, watch music videos and movies, and view digital photographs.

We’ve no doubt that these players will be lovely little fellas, but whether they’ll be capable of overcoming the sheer market presence and all-round design quality of Apple – and more recently Sony – is open to question (Sony’s shift to open standards, switching from its proprietary ATRAC music format to MP3 is a highly significant development).

Both Apple and Sony have branched out into music delivery solutions and it remains to be seen whether a hardware-only product will have enough clout, ‘cool’ and interconnectivity to unseat the market leaders.

After all, with zillions of options available to consumers, it’s vital for music device makers to offer shedloads of connectivity with other hardware, along with easy access to the content.

Samsung