18th October The one-day event will address the changing telecoms landscape, looking at drivers for change. Which companies are proving to be most successful at adapting to the changing business environment? What does the European regulatory framework mean as new technologies are introduced? What are the challenges that lie ahead for traditional operators as they seek to ensure future profitability? Radisson Edwardian Mayfair, London http://www.economistconferences.com/roundtable/public/con_common.asp?rtid=917&rtRegion=4&area=1
Simon Perry
SlingPlayer Mobile: Symbian and Sling Partner For Mobile TV
Sling is developing software to play their video on Symbian mobile phones.Sling Media’s SlingBox has been letting people watch TV programming from their home, remotely on laptops while they are travelling away from home.
Sling already have a Mobile player that runs on PDA’s and mobile phones that work on Windows Pocket PC, but the new version will hit the mobiles widest used OS, Symbian s60 and UIQ operating system.
Symbian largest shareholder is Nokia, who own 47.9%.
The current Pocket PC version of the SlingPlayer Mobile software application is currently available only in the U.S. and Canada. The Symbian OS version will be made available in select European and Asian countries during Q4 and will extend availability to the US shortly thereafter.The advantage of this service over other pay-for video offerings from the mobile operators is that there is no additional cost to watch the content. You pay the data charges, not the programming. People with flat-rate data plans won’t have to worry about that.
Mobile Clubbing Flashmob Takes Over Liverpool Street
We all remember the flash-mobs of yesteryear, way back in …. 2003, when the first one happened in the UK.Well, last Wednesday saw the Mobile Clubbing flashmob descend Liverpool Street Station on the East side of London, as flagged by Helen Keegan (Technokitten).
From the photos and the videos, it looks like it was pretty well attended, with what was estimated as a thousand people.
The instructions?
1. Bring your favorite dance music and walkman/mp3/ipod/phone with you
2. Arrive at the station at around 19:15
3. No dancing before 19:24
4. Spread out throughout the whole station concourse
5. When the clock strikes 19:24 DANCE LIKE CRAZY!!
6. Try not to dance in one place
7. Dance like you’ve never danced before
8. Dance for as long as you can
9. Enjoy :)Come 19:24 they started dancing to their own music, leading to the individual, random gyrations that you can make out on the video – with the added strangeness that there’s no music playing, as everyone has headphones on. James A White goes into more detail.
Thanks to Monkeys & Kiwis and The City Gentleman for use of the photos.
Jawed Karim: The Third YouTube Founder
There’s bound to be lots of these stories floating around the Valley, as companies started getting bought for large sums of money. It’s going to be the equivalent of being/claiming to be the fifth Beatle.We feel it’s more likely that this one is true as it’s covered by the New York Times.
Jawed Karim was the third founder of YouTube beyond Chen and Hurley we’re told. He was with them at PayPal, before it was sold to eBay, then at the very start of YouTube, throwing in
“They would often meet late at night for brainstorming sessions,” he continues, “Mr. Karim said he pitched the idea of a video-sharing Web site to the group.”
Beyond the early stages, Karim decided to not take a full time role there but returned to studying instead, for this he reduced his equity holding. After the sale, he’s still a very rich man.
Living what he was building, “Armed with a video camera, Mr. Karim documented much of YouTube’s early life.”If you’re a struggling entrepreneur reading this, there’s a very interesting section that Karim filmed in April 2005. Fellow founder Chen talked about “getting pretty depressed” because there were only 50 or 60 videos on the YouTube site. Clearly there are fallow times before growth.
It’s also amusing to see his own site where he’s listed his latest programs – “YouTube, My new company.”
The first piece of video ever put on YouTube.
via NYT
Five Download VoD Launches With CSI
UK Broadcaster Channel Five have launched their Five Download, Video on Demand (VoD), service with US series CSI. They’ve previously offered downloads of the car show, Fifth Gear.The new service is offering straight CSI: Crime Scene Investigation; CSI: NY and CSI: Miami.
This isn’t Just-Another-VoD-Service (JAVS), as there’s some innovation in here. CSI fans are mad keen on the programme (so we understand) and understanding this, Five is offering the episodes seven days ahead of the TV broadcast date. Fans will pay a premium price for this £2.49 vs the usual £1.49 per episode. We suspect that once hooked on receiving the content early, fans using the service will have to continue paying to stay ahead.
Engaging in some mutual back slapping Jane Lighting, Five’s Chief Executive, said: “I’m delighted that we are launching the service with CSI enabling us to offer the highest quality content to viewers with a viewing window which exceeds anything currently in the marketplace,” to which Ted Riley, Executive Managing Director, International Content Distribution, Alliance Atlantis whooped “The first-ever CSI Franchise VoD service outside the U.S., is both a thrilling proposition for U.K. fans,” adding that it “heralds the roll-out of other new media opportunities for this fantastic franchise internationally.”
One of the challenges for this service, as it is with all others – they’re competing against the same content being available on file sharing networks near-instantly available after they’ve been shown in the US – yonks before they hits the UK. Fanatical fan’s will more than likely not wait for the legitimate source and go the file-sharing route. The fact that the programmes won’t cost them anything will be incidental.
Five will be charging either £1.49 or £2.49 per download which we think it pretty steep given the episodes are only available for 14 days and is restricted to one computer. If you’re impudent enough to try the content that you’ve paid for on another machine, you’ll be completely locked out of that content.
To use the service you’ll need to download and install the Five Download Manager and Player which has been provided to them by BT Media & Broadcast, but the base level technology is from Entriq. Entriq’s MediaSphere is used by other companies such as BT Vision and with download services.
As Five are using Microsoft’s DRM, the service is only available to those in the UK who run Windows XP or 2000 and browse through Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0 and enable ActiveX. Users of Windows XP must use Windows Media Player 10 and 2K users must use Windows Media Player 9.
Microsoft has steadfastly not introduced their latest DRM on the Macintosh, so they’re excluded.
Those of you lucky/unlucky enough to not have the above, can still view the trailers (well we could on a Mac anyway).
Carphone Warehouse Shares Drop On Vodafone News
The Herald is reporting that the shares in Carphone Warehouse took a bashing on the news that Vodafone is switching away from them, to sell their mobile phone contracts through Phones 4U instead.The shares dropped 13.9%
Vodafone cited that Phones 4U charging Vodafone a lower commission was the reason for the change. We suspect that doesn’t quite tell the whole story.
Carphone (as those in the industry call it) is becoming a major threat to Vodafone as they both move into other areas of communication – in the big communications convergence rush.
Carphone has been building up its bought AOL UK two days ago.Vodafone themselves have recently moved into broadband, in a deal with BT. With Carphone effectively becoming a competitor, we assume that Vodafone don’t want to carry on giving them money.
If Vodafone’s choice to dump Carphone hurts them more will be revealed in the future. As Roger Taylor, FD for Carphone points out, “Every Vodafone customer that walks into our stores now will not walk out on a Vodafone contract.”
iPod (RED); Razr RED; Slvr RED:Help Eliminate AIDS in Africa
If you haven’t heard of (RED) yet, you certainly will – there’s a ton of celebs involved and it’s going to be all over the media. It was created by Bono and Bobby Shriver, Chairman of DATA and it’s already been on Oprah in the US with Penelope Cruz and Kanye West.(RED) tell us they’re not a charity, they’re a business model. “You buy (RED) stuff. We get the money. Buy the pills and distribute them. They take the pills, stay alive, and continue to take care of their familiaes and contribute socially and economically in their communities.”
Apple have a Nano (RED), which is not surprisingly red. Buying one will give you the prefect opportunity to show that you are supporting the (RED) cause. $10 of each one sold goes to (RED). Apple will also offer a £15 and £25 iTunes (PRODUCT) RED gift card available for purchase at Apple’s retail and online stores next month.
Motorola are the “exclusive wireless partner” for (PRODUCT) RED and have two handsets of the red hue. The red MOTOSLVR is exclusive to the UK and the MOTORAZR V3m is only available in the US. The deal with the phones sounds like it’s actually better for (RED) long term depending on the service provider. With Orange, 5% of your monthly phone bill spend will also be donated to (RED).We’d normally be dismissive of red-ipod-type-stunts, but an effort like this can’t be a bad thing. Tune in to their blog to stay current.
Spoof David Cameron Video Brouhaha
Some MP’s are trying to create brouhaha (fuss) about a spoof video put out by labour MP Sion Simon mocking the first video of Conservative party leader, David Cameron on his Webcameraon site.If you’ve not seen Cameron’s first piece, which was put out in advance of the Tory party conference, take a trundle through – it’s only just over a minute long.
When we saw it, we found it pretty contrived, with “Dave” just about to do the “washing up” – clutching his Ecover washing-up liquid (look how green I am), without rolling his sleeves up!
Sion Simon’s video repost parodies Cameron’s “hey, I’m just like you” approach and
can be seen belowcan’t been seen on YouTube anymore as someone has pulled the video. To see it now, you’ll have to watch it via the BBC.The criticism of Simon is being lead by Peter Luff and given Luff’s comments, it appears that he’s not too secure in his position, “When you go over the top like this, you bring all of us in politics into disrepute.” If you’ve watched the film I think you’ll agree that the video is hardly over the top, just gently mocking.
Criticism of the video isn’t just restricted to the opposition. Labour MP Stephen Pound said he thought Mr Cameron’s wife Samantha would be “hurt and insulted” by remarks made by Simon, referring to his comments suggesting that Cameron would be fine with people sleeping with his wife.
It’s not just MPs that are creating spoof videos. Someone calling himself WebCameraOn has created a number of videos pocking fun as well.
Cameron is playing the “am I bovvered” card. 2:49 minutes into this piece, Cameron mentions that there had been a number of spoofs of his piece, calling them “The greatest form of flattery, imitation.” Bizarrely Cameron also says, “Hope that you people are enjoying the Web site,” “You People”?
Cameron – or at least someone in his team – has clearly seen that he now has the ability to bypass the media and the filter that they apply to his comments.
Orb MyCasting on Nokia N80 In US
Orb MyCasting has been grabbed by Nokia to be bundled in with the Nokia N80 Internet Edition, in the US only.When US N80 owners are swanning around, they’ll be able to watch live TV, videos, listen to music and podcasts and video images on their PC. Not just that, but they can set programs to record on their PC from their mobiles.
The TV and media companies have not, to say the very least, been particularly keen on letting people do this. We’ll see if they come out against Nokia.
Back in August this year, Orb MyCasting were keen to “share”, that 19 months after the service was launched, they’ve had over 1.5m hours of digital media transfered over their service – equivalent to 125 years of media-idge. Interestingly up to 45 minutes per user per day, on average.
Orb has similar deals with companies such as AMD, Vodafone, Hauppauge, Intel and Creative Labs.
Programming video recordings is not unique – Sky TV has been offering this since July this year through their Mobile Sky+ Programming
Writely and Spreadsheets Combined By Google
docs.google.com is the new destination for Google’s Web-based Writely word processor and their companion spreadsheet.Given both of the apps are Web-based, anyone with a Web browser can use these apps, no matter where they are. It’s not surprising that Google also offers extensive searching within the documents that are created.
Just how long the Writely name will survive, now it’s being referred to as Google Docs?
Google bought Writely back in March and got to work with bringing it into Google-dom.
Back in June, Google let it be known that they’d matched Writely with a spreadsheet, causing waves of discussion as to them treading on Microsoft’s toes.
One of the nifty features is the ability to collaborate with other people in your Google address book and choose to share the documents in an area created with anyone on the Web. Once created, the authors can attach tags to the content to locate them again.
This is great for Google, not just because they are knocking one on the chin for Microsoft, but because they’re giving people tools to generate content … for them to search on Google. Pretty cyclical init.
Sling is developing software to play their video on Symbian mobile phones.
The current Pocket PC version of the SlingPlayer Mobile software application is currently available only in the U.S. and Canada. The Symbian OS version will be made available in select European and Asian countries during Q4 and will extend availability to the US shortly thereafter.
There’s bound to be lots of these stories floating around the Valley, as companies started getting bought for large sums of money. It’s going to be the equivalent of being/claiming to be the fifth Beatle.
Living what he was building, “Armed with a video camera, Mr. Karim documented much of YouTube’s early life.”
UK Broadcaster Channel Five have launched their Five Download, Video on Demand (VoD), service with US series CSI. They’ve 
The Herald is reporting that the shares in Carphone Warehouse took a bashing on the news that Vodafone is switching away from them, to sell their mobile phone contracts through Phones 4U instead.
Carphone has been building up its 
If you haven’t heard of (RED) yet, you certainly will – there’s a ton of celebs involved and it’s going to be all over the media. It was created by Bono and Bobby Shriver, Chairman of DATA and it’s already been on Oprah in the US with Penelope Cruz and Kanye West.
Motorola are the “exclusive wireless partner” for (PRODUCT) RED and have two handsets of the red hue. The red MOTOSLVR is exclusive to the UK and the MOTORAZR V3m is only available in the US. The deal with the phones sounds like it’s actually better for (RED) long term depending on the service provider. With Orange, 5% of your monthly phone bill spend will also be donated to (RED).
Some MP’s are trying to create brouhaha (fuss) about a spoof video put out by labour MP Sion Simon mocking the first video of Conservative party leader, David Cameron on his Webcameraon site.
Orb MyCasting has been grabbed by Nokia to be bundled in with the Nokia N80 Internet Edition, in the US only.
docs.google.com is the new destination for Google’s Web-based Writely word processor and their companion spreadsheet.