Content

Content in its shift to become digital

MobiBlu DAH-1500 – The “World’s Smallest MP3 Player”
It must be tough trying to get noticed in the crowded MP3 player market.
Most small concerns haven’t got a hope in hell of competing with the grace or design finesse of Apple, neither have they the resources to dream up the compelling feature sets served up by the likes of Creative and iRiver.
So squeezed on both sides, smaller MP3 manufacturers often serve up designs “inspired” by their successful rivals, try to get noticed by playing the wacky design card or claim some kind of world record for their product.
So, no prizes for guessing what route MobiBlu have taken with their DAH-1500 player, billed as the “world’s smallest MP3 player”.
The new teensy-weensy MobiBlu DAH-1500 player apparently offers MP3 and WMA support, a FM tuner and a claimed 15- 20 hours battery life (we say ‘apparently’ because our Japanese translation skills aren’t too good).
But it certainly is a wee little fellow, measuring a Tom Thumb-esque 24x24x24mm and weighing in at just 18 grams.
The unit features an attractive OLED display taking up one side, adjacent to a iPod-style circular control wheel.
In an interesting twist, MobiBlu’s press agency seem to think that showing someone about to drop their sugarcube-shaped player into a cup of tea forms a winning marketing strategy.
If users manage to avoid dunking the player, their publicity photos also suggest they can wear the device as a head tilting earring or lug it around the neck as a clunky necklace. Cool, or err, what?
There’s some remote hope that the unit may see the light of day sometime this month – we spotted this rebranded JNC Digital version on the web.
imp3
Aving
11 April, 2005
Men Spend More Money on Video Games Than Music: Nielsen Report
A study by Nielsen Entertainment has revealed that men spend more money on video games than they do on music, adding weight to a growing belief that video games are displacing other forms of media for the notoriously fickle attentions of young men.
And it’s not just the kids fragging and gibbing away – the study also reveals that old ‘uns are getting down with da yoot on the consoles, with nearly a quarter of all gamers being over 40.
The random survey of 1,500 people was conducted by the interactive unit of Nielsen Entertainment earlier this year and revealed that games now rank only behind DVDs as a purchase category, ahead of CDs, digital MP3 files and other ways of buying music.
We’ve no idea why this is relevant, but Nielsen also wanted to know how gaming split along lines of race, discovering that African-Americans and Hispanics spend more money on games each month than Caucasians. So now we know.
Naturally, advertisers are keen to cash in on the rising popularity of games, and are looking at ever more persuasive ways to bombard bedroom-bound, bunglesome boys with beguiling adverts (branded billboards in race games are already commonplace, as we’ve reported previously).
Never one to miss an opportunity, Nielsen has announced that they are working on a method to measure audience response to the in-game ads.
The study also discovered that 40% of US households have some kind of system dedicated to game play – whether a gaming PC, a console or a handheld device – with 23% mad-for-it gamers owning all three types of systems.
Like masturbation, older gamers prefer to do it alone, with 79% of men and 79% of women over the age of 45 spending most of their time playing alone.
Teenage girls tended to play more socially, while women aged 25-54 spent equal time playing alone and with others.
Overall, Nielsen reported that active gamers tend to spend just over 5 hours a week playing alone and 3 hours a week playing with people or online.
The US video game industry now rakes in US$10 billion (€7.7b/£5.3b) in annual revenue, roughly as much as US box office sales.
Nielsen Entertainment
11 April, 2005
UK Online Broadband Now From £9.99
UK Online is hoping to bring broadband to the masses by smashing the price point for “entry-level” home broadband down to a wallet-untroubling £10 a month.
The Broadband 500 service will offer unlimited 512K broadband (yes, unlimited!) from just £9.99 ($18.95,/€14.55) per month to UK customers lucky enough to be in their catchment area.
The company has also reduced the price of its unlimited Broadband 2000 (2Mb) service, to £19.99 ($37.75/ €29.13) per month, with its Broadband 8000 (8Mb) service – the fastest home broadband service available in the UK – crashing down to an affordable £29.99 ($56.64/ €43.70) per month.
UK Online will be utilising Easynet’s Local Loop Unbundling (LLU) investment, to offer the new price points for 512K, 2Mb, and 8Mb broadband to users on its network of unbundled exchanges – adding up to over 4.4 million homes nationwide.
Chris Stening, General Manager of UK Online, said, “LLU enables us to offer more innovative products than our competitors. Our unique 8Mb service has led the way on speed and now we are leading the way on price.”
Surfers not used to this level of generosity may be wondering where the catch is, but we haven’t found it yet: we wrote to UK Online and they confirmed that both the Broadband 500 and Broadband 2000 are unlimited services with the Broadband 8000 offering an enormous 500GB monthly download allowance.
The spokeswoman also added that none of their current customers currently signed up to the package have come anywhere near that limit yet.
Suitably tempted, we headed off to their site faster than a crack-fuelled ferret up a drainpipe, only to discover that we weren’t in an “enabled” area.
This meant that the service would have to be delivered via BT’s network, pushing the prices up to £19.99 per month for the Broadband 500 per month and £29.99 per month for the Broadband 2000 – with no Broadband 8000 option.
UK Online
11 April, 2005
Google Launches Q&A Service
Google has started dishing out factual answers for some queries at the top of its results page, thus sparing click-weary users the hassle of navigating to other sites to look up the information.
For example, if a user keen to discover more about the greatest country in the world enters the query, “what is the capital of Wales”, Google will serve up the first paragraph from a wikipedia feature on Cardiff, along with a link to the originating page.
Typing in separate requests for the populations of England, Scotland and Ireland produced the correct results at the top of the page although – disgracefully – there was nothing for Wales. Outrageous!
The Q&A also works for celebrities, countries of the world, the planets, the elements, electronics and movies. Peter Norvig, Google’s director of search quality, states that the company will continually work to broaden the scope of topics and to improve its capability to deliver more complex answers.
Only a small percentage of queries currently produce these factual answers, but the service is still its early stages, added Norvig.
Google are a bit late to the party with this one – other search engine providers such as Ask Jeeves, Yahoo and AOL are already offering similar services.
Norvig went on to explain that Google feeds the service with information from Web sites they considers to be reliable, but it’s yet to establish formal relationships with any of the sites providing the content.
You might think that some of the sites might be a tad miffed to see Google stealing their thunder, but Norvig thinks that they’ll be so chuffed to find themselves at the top of Google’s results list that they’ll want to run naked through the streets, clenching roses between their bum cheeks.
Well, he might have said that. To himself. When he was asleep. Possibly.
Google
Google Blog
8 April, 2005
Yahoo To Support Wikipedia Online Encyclopedia
Yahoo’s search engine division has announced that it will be dishing out hardware galore, resources and “critical material aid” to support the non-profit Wikipedia online encyclopedia.
Yahoo Search’s contribution is the most significant received by Wikimedia from a corporate sponsor to date, costed at “several hundred thousand dollars,” by David Mandelbrot, Yahoo’s vice president of search content.
Wikipedia is a global charitable effort, to create and give away a freely licensed encyclopedia in every language of the world.
In just four years, the non profit Wikimedia Foundation has created the largest English language encyclopedia in history, supported by substantial encyclopedias in French, German, and Japanese with “strong efforts underway” in over 100 other languages.
Much like Google’s new Q&A service, Yahoo Search will also feature abstracts of Wikipedia content at the top of relevant search results in the form of “shortcuts,” containing factual information or links to factual information.
Yahoo’s shortcuts are intended to give users the answer they’re looking for on the search results page, saving them the bother of clicking onto other Web sites for the desired information.
Yahoo’s support comes completely free of charge and they will in no way benefit from the positive world-wide publicity or continuing access to Wikipedia content. No sir.
To the strains of “We Are The World” serenading in the background, Mandelbrot explained Yahoo’s generosity, “To operate a site that reaches as many people as Wikipedia can be costly for a non profit, and we’re contributing with resources to help with that effort.”
“Their popularity is growing very fast and, accordingly, their bandwidth and hardware needs have increased substantially.”
Jimmy Wales, Wikimedia’s president, was naturally well chuffed with the announcement; “Our growth in Web traffic continues to be staggering, doubling every few months. Yahoo’s generous donation to our cause in the form of servers, hosting and bandwidth will have a huge impact on our ability to get our message of sharing knowledge out to the world.”
In a separate statement from Wikimedia, the charity revealed that Yahoo will also be dedicating “a significant number of servers” in a Yahoo facility in Asia.
Yahoo’s profits tripled from $65.3 million (£34.9m/€50.9m) to $253.3 million (£135.4m/€198m) last year.
Wikipedia
Yahoo
8 April, 2005
TiVo And Comcast Plan System To Place Fresh Ads Into Recorded Programs
Comcast Corp. is working with TiVo on an advertising system that will slap new, updated commercials into already-recorded programs.
Philadelphia-based Comcast, the US’s numero uno cable company, announced last month it would start offering TiVo’s DVRs by 2006.
Viewers looking to sit back and watch their favourite shows recorded months ago would have their old commercials replaced with brand spanking new ones.
Like a Big Brother stalker in your very own home, the system could rummage through your viewing patterns to serve up specific adverts targeted at lucky old you.
The new technology could help make DVRs more palatable to advertisers and the television networks because it should increase the chances of someone watching an ad rather than fast-forwarding through it.
Comcast Chief Executive, Brian Roberts, was clearly stoked by the idea; “In the long term, advertising is going to be a big winner. They’re going to get more bang for the buck.”
We think it makes sense to offer advertising that is directly targeted to the viewer; it could even be of use if the selection is comprehensive enough.
As to if TiVo owners would find this acceptable is quite a different issue. Many of the early purchasers of TiVo’s bought them because they wanted to avoid adverts and the only way DVR manufacturers will stop those people fast forwarding through ads, is to physically remove the button off the remote.
Separately, TiVo and satellite broadcaster, The DirecTV Group, announced a deal to let both companies sell advertising for TiVo recorders. The DVRs recently began showing static images, such as company logos, when fast-forwarding some shows.
Under the pact, both companies are free to sell ads on the service, and each retains its respective revenue from any sales.
TiVo
Comcast
Renting TiVo
Threat from ad-skip tech hyped: Nielsen
7 April, 2005
NW-HD5: Sony Launches 20GB Network WALKMAN Against iPod
iPod killers, eh? You can barely get out of bed without some hyperbolic company boldly giving their new MP3 player the big one, only to discover that it’s proved as popular as a lager lout on a teatotallers daytrip.
This time, however, it looks like the boffins at Sony could have pulled something special out of the bag.
The highly pocketable Sony NW-HD5 is a 20 Gigabyte hard disk player that is both smaller and lighter than its equivalent iPod, weighing in at a lithe 125g.
The machine supports Sony’s ATRAC3 and ATRAC3plus compression formats, Windows Media Audio, WAV files and the vital MP3 format.
When it comes to battery life, the Sony has taken the iPod around the back of the bike sheds and given it a good thumping.
The Sony’s far superior battery life serves up a mighty thirty hours of MP3 playback, (40 hours using Sony’s proprietary ATRAC3Plus format at 48kbps), kicking sand dunes in the face of the equivalent iPod’s weedy 12 hours.
Even better, Sony’s battery is replaceable too, with Sony promising that spares will be available from High street stores – a far cry from iPod owners having to shell out big bucks to get Apple to exchange their worn out power packs.
“We’re raising the stakes again in the digital music player market,” purred a delighted Gregory Kukolj, General Manager for Personal Audio Europe. “The stunning new ‘follow turn’ feature, 40 hours battery life, incredibly compact design, and to top it off, very affordable pricing, make the new Network WALKMAN an irresistible proposition for users who seek a quality digital music player.”
We’re yet to rub up and get intimate with the Sony NW-HD5 but it appears to be an attractive looking affair, available in silver, red and (none more) black.
Unlike previous Sony models, the NW-HD5 is based around a portrait design where the seven line, 1.5-inch backlit LCD sits above the controls. In a neat twist, the new ‘Follow Turn Display’ feature automatically orients the interface screen horizontally or vertically depending on which way the player is held.
The player comes bundled with SonicStage 3.1 music management software for converting and managing music from CDs in both ATRAC3plus and MP3 formats. The software also offers access to Sony’s iTunes-challenging “CONNECT” online catalogue of more than 600,000 tracks and albums.
The player goes on sale in May for £200 (US$375/€292) (£10 [US$19/€14] less than its equivalent iPod), with a 30 Gigabyte version in silver following the month after.
Sony UK
7 April, 2005
Google Video To Expand Search To “Video Blogging”
Google plans to invite users to submit personal video clips for archiving as part of its recently launched video search service.
In a speech at the annual cable industry convention in San Francisco, company co-founder Larry Page announced that the company will start taking home video submissions from people, adding that, “we’re not quite sure what we’re going to get, but we decided we’d try this experiment.”
Not surprisingly, Page admitted to having concerns about the nature of content that people may want to upload (but we think that that may only add to the appeal of the service!)
Google first rolled out the test version of its video search service in January, allowing users to find content in television programs from such providers as PBS, Fox News, CSPAN and local ABC and NBC affiliates in San Francisco.
The service, called Google Video, offers up still images from the video clips and associated closed-captioning, but users cannot view video or read a transcript of the program due to unsettled licensing terms.
In the meantime, an “About this show” option provides information on the program’s next air time.
Google has already established search relationships with numerous content and broadband providers, with Google co-founder Sergey Brin commenting, “We’re always looking for ways to expand partnerships.”
The company also announced that it would provide data about popular Web searches to Current, a new television network for the 18- to 34-year-old audience, backed by former US Vice President Al Gore and other investors.
Arch-rivals Yahoo have already begun promoting their own TV and video search site, launched as a beta in December of 2004.
Yahoo has also partnered up with TVEyes to index closed captioning content from BBC, Bloomberg and Sky programming, while Blinxx launched their own movie and TV service, blinkx.tv, at the end of last year.
Google barged its way into the world of blogging after buying the popular blogging tool, Blogger.com in 2003.
The growth of affordable digital camcorders (and movie enabled digital cameras) coupled with cheaper (or free) Web space suggests that vblogging could be big news for 2005, creating a need for suitable search tools.
Google
6 April, 2005
Cicero, Talktelecom Launch Business VoWiFi Service In UK
Irish VoIP solutions provider Cicero Networks has announced its first major telecom provider deal with Talktelecom Ltd, an independent, fully licensed General Telco Operator, based in Dublin.
The deal will give Talktelecom’s corporate customers access to Cicero’s mobile VoWiFi service to its corporate customers, following the completion of a two-month trial.
According to Cicero CEO Ross Brennan, the bulk of mobile calls are made from business premises by people plumping for convenience over cost (fixed-line costs are generally much cheaper than mobile rates)
Talktelecom hope that there’ll be healthy profits on the horizon to companies offering a mobile phone service using the global IP network
According to a study cited by Cicero, of the €0.75 (£0.51/US$0.96) cost of a three-minute cellular call, about €0.69 (£0.47/US$0.88) goes to the mobile operator and only about €0.6 (£0.41/US$0.77) to the fixed-line carrier. By contrast, the VoWiFi solution will deliver all of the €0.15 (£0.10/US$0.19) cost of the same three-minute call to the fixed-line provider, leaving room for both higher margins and cost savings for customers.
Talktelecom has deployed Cicero’s full package, consisting of three components; the Cicero Phone – a softphone client running on dual-mode GSM/Wi-Fi handsets – a Cicero Controller, handling call management, call routing, QoS, back-end authorization and authentication functions and billing data, and the Cicero Connect, gateway to the PSTN or other external network type.
“Cicero Networks’ integrated end-to-end solution has given us a fast time-to-market in delivering a truly innovative and cost-effective wireless voice service,” buzzworded Talktelecom CEO, Johathan Mills. “Cicero lets us grow our existing business and enter new markets while delivering a substantial return on investment in a short time,” he added.
“Talktelecom is pioneering the advancement of fixed-mobile convergence by offering its customers wireless voice services at fixed-line costs,” added Cicero’s Ross Brennan.
Talktelecom customers will be able to use the Cicero solution wherever a Wi-Fi connection is available, with the company increasing coverage through its recent partnership with The Cloud, managers of the UK’s largest wi-fi hotspot network.
Talktelecom
Cicero Networks Ltd
6 April, 2005
BookSurge, Print-On-Demand Book Company, Signs With Amazon
Online retail giant Amazon.com has scooped up the ‘printing fulfillment’ company BookSurge, which maintains a catalogue of thousands of book titles available for users to print on demand.
“Print-on-demand has changed the economics of small-quantity printing, making it possible for books with low and uncertain demand to be profitably produced,” Greg Greeley, vice president of media products for Amazon.com, said in a written statement.
The move seems to reflect Amazon’s continued efforts to add new revenue streams and fight off competition from online rivals such as eBay and Overstock.com. Amazon has already been forced to lower prices to keep customers wandering off elsewhere.
Despite generating twice the revenue of its main rival eBay, Amazon is lumbered with the hefty financial drain of maintaining and operating its warehouses throughout the world – because eBay sells a service not a product, it manages to be three times more profitable than Amazon with only half its revenue.
Amazon’s deal with BookSurge gives the company the ability to offer a new product without adding any further burden on distribution network.
The company will now offer (cue: North American accent) “inventory-free book fulfillment” to publishers through BookSurge Publisher Services and to authors through BookSurge Publishing.
Print-on-demand allows booksellers to offer titles with limited appeal, without the hassle of having to keep stock which may not get sold.
Additionally, retailers, wholesalers and distributors will be able to leverage the BookSurge Direct wholesale platform.
“BookSurge makes it possible to print books that appeal to targeted audiences, whether it’s one copy or one thousand,” Greeley said. “Our new relationship with BookSurge will provide Amazon customers an ever-expanding selection of titles that are not available through other channels. Thanks to print-on-demand, ‘out of print’ is out of date.”
This latest move continues Amazon.com’s trend toward the world of e-books and other downloadable products, building on its 2001 eBook deal with Adobe Systems that added nearly 2,000 e-books to its catalogue.
Although e-books are still a small part of the current online book market sector, significant growth is expected by publishing companies and online retailers.
Internet portal Yahoo already has an e-book sales deal with four major publishing houses and Amazon are clearly looking to get their size nines wedged into this door of opportunity.
Amazon
BookSurge
6 April, 2005