The Rise Of The PVR: Painfully Slow. New Technology Adoption Is Slow

The Rise Of The PVR: Painfully Slow, But UK Highest In EuropeNever be fooled. Things always take a lot longer to change than you think they will – particularly where the mass adoption of a new technology is concerned.

The PVR lesson
When I started writing about TiVo back in 2001, I saw “PVR’s are a vital piece in the jigsaw.”

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Twitter Misunderstood In The Evening Standard

Twitter Misunderstood in the Evening StandardNick Curtis has written a poorly-researched piece in the Evening Standard that attempts to take a chunk out of Twitter, while asking if ‘Twitter is the new Facebook.’

Why poorly-researched? Well, he starts the piece saying that Tweets are 160 characters long – and as anyone who has ever looked at the sevice will know, they’re 140, the large ‘140’ beneath the input box being the clue. He then moves to tell us all how he didn’t really understand it.

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Kevin Rose: Pioneering the Downturn As Well?

Kevin Rose: Pioneering the Downturn As Well?It’s interesting how a couple of months can change the view you hold of a collection of companies.

These in particular center around Kevin Rose and the companies that he has an involvement in – Digg, Revision3 and Pownce.

It’s not long ago – back in March 08 – that there were rumours that Digg was subject to a bidding war between Microsoft and Google. The tech giants were – rumours told us – battling to outbid each other for the blessed Digg. Figures of $200 million were floated, although the accuracy of the rumours was questioned by Digg’s CEO Jay Adelson.

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Pownce: Shutting Shop On 15 December

Pownce: Shutting Shop On 15 DecemberPownce, a competitor to Twitter, has announced that it is shutting the service on 15 December – Just two weeks notice.

The two main people behind the service, Leah Culver and Mike Malone, will be going to work with blog company, Six Apart.

Two more of the Pownce team, Kevin Rose and Daniel Burka will be all ‘la de da’ and become advisers to Six Apart.

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Met Office To Offer Free VOD Weather To Your Mobile

Met Office To Offer Free VOD Weather To Your MobileThe Met Office, well-know weather forecasters, are to offer a world’s first – a free-of-charge (beyond any of your own mobile data charges), video on-demand weather service to your mobile phone.

Access will be via a branded portal (lovely to hear that phrase again :) ), giving access to weather forecasts that will be updated several times a day – currently the mobile site is saying it’s three times a
day.

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Amplified 08

Amplified 08I’m on my way to Amplified 08, a new UK event that brings together people who want to actively contribute to the conference/event that they’re going to – Think BarCamp/ unconferenced events.

Essential to the event is the lack of hierarchy to the organisation of the event – you don’t have a self-appointed panel of ‘experts’ that decide what is going to be the important things to tell the great unwashed about when they come along – as many ‘official’ conferences are structured.

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