Archive for April 27th, 2007
Presidential Debates Move Online
Last night’s presidential debate featuring candidates for the Democratic Party nomination hosted by MSNBC was available live at their website. Candidates fielded questions from Brian Williams as well as from good old “regular Americans,” and focused on the issue of the Iraq war. MSNBC’s debate page has plenty of ad-supported video, and there’s also clips available (for now) on YouTube.
“If MSNBC had any sense, which it doesn’t, it would have taken every one-minute answer from last night’s ping-pong debate and put them up on YouTube themselves,” argues Jeff Jarvis over at PrezVid. His point is that, instead of popular, highly-trafficked political blogs being able to link and embed video that could potentially generate pre-roll ad impressions if MSNBC had its own flash player, they’ll be busy issuing DMCA takedown notices threatening YouTube users who are, in effect, promoting MSNBC’s brand.
Rocketboom opts out, Abbey Corps R.I.P.
Update: Rocketboom, the internet video show (vlog) has decided to opt out of Abbey Corps, an online video project that wanted to become a new kind of a network for the post-TV video content. We confirmed this information with Andrew Baron, earlier today.
Abbey Corps made news last December, but recently many have asked whatever happened to that effort.
While Baron declined to give us details about why he decided to opt out the proposed venture, he did say that he was going to be spending an extensive amount of time and energy on Rocketboom.
Rocketboom will expand beyond the current 3-minute daily show format. He is planning an additional Afternoon Update for Rocketboom and a Sunday show that would feature video content from Make magazine.
Andrew Baron and Jeff Pulver confirm the news on their respective blogs.
Need NFL Draft Info? Go Online
It’s that time of year again — when crotchety old men gather around novelty helmet phones to pluck the fruits of the NCAA’s talent orchard, selecting a handful of 21-year-olds from the thousands who have been chasing the dream, risking life and limb on the gridiron in exchange for a college scholarship and a shot at the big time.
Nobody, of course, ever actually watched the draft until cable network ESPN came along and figured a weekend of draft coverage was a bigger draw than repeats of Australian Rules Football and “World’s Strongest Man” contests. Now you can catch full coverage on the NFL’s own network, as Will Ferrell and USC’s Ryan Kalil recommend in the goofy sketch above.
The NFL’s SportsLine web site also has plenty of player and analyst video, and then Sports Illustrated’s Gotuit-powered entry has even more for those draftniks who need to watch Adrian Peterson score touchdowns over and over.
Do PS3 owners want a Third Eye?
Sony unveiled a rather fugly PS3 camera yesterday coupled with a top-heavy noise-reducing microphone.
The press release promises the device “will enable gamers to enjoy their [PS3] like never before.” Will it? We won’t know for sure until its release this summer for an undisclosed price. But one thing’s for sure; we have seen something like this before. It was Sony’s marginally successful EyeToy for PS2, the Eye’s predecessor.
While the new video chat attachment eliminates the need for a headset, what happens to speech-recognition performance when playing games alongside a loud home audio system? And even though PlayStation Eye has double the video fidelity of Xbox’s Live Vision cam at 640×480 resolution (60 frames/second), it’s hardly enough to match Sony’s 1080p graphics.
YouTube: Great for Chad, maybe not for You
Forbes magazine recently published an article by YouTube CEO Chad Hurley in which Hurley explained the benefits, as he saw them, of partnering with YouTube.
Hurley’s argument was twofold: That YouTube subverts the traditional media structure by democratizing distribution while simultaneously supporting that media structure by serving it with new, low-cost talent. Both parts of the argument are true. But Hurley neglects to mention several consequences of the YouTube model that disadvantage both old media and the YouTubers themselves.
Neokast, Emerging from the Shell
It’s highly appropriate that Neokast, the still-mysterious streaming video startup, is showing a bit of its chops by supporting a live stream of some eagles hatching in the wild.
Cautiously, slowly, Neokast is emerging from the egg, almost ready to fly. Yet we’re still not sure what’s going to keep this bird aloft. And we promise, thus endeth the bad nature-flick metaphors.
Following their public intro via a highly laudatory profile from tech headliner Robert X. Cringely, the Neokast gang played to rave reviews at the VON show in San Jose in mid-March. Since then, according to Neokast team members we spoke with Thursday, it’s been non-stop meeting-taking and working-on-the-now-overdue beta coding, while trying to get some word out about their planned personal streaming technology without giving too much away before it’s really ready.
“Don’t be surprised when you hear some big business-related news from us in the next couple months,” said Adam Johnson, Neokast CEO, in a Skype-based conference call Thursday that was arranged by Neokast folks, who seemed like they wanted to talk more… but then couldn’t. What is next on the probable horizon? Maybe a video portal deal, since Johnson did say “there are definitely companies out there, with portals, who are interested in using Neokast on the back end.” At least one thing is clear — Neokast isn’t planning on being a media company itself, but instead a technology enabler.
But what exactly is Neokast, and how does it work? Still a puzzle, though some of the pieces are emerging.
Friday Vid Picks: Jack Valenti
Former MPAA chief Jack Valenti died Thursday at the age of 85. While a somewhat reviled figure among online critics, it was his job to be Hollywood’s lightning rod for criticism of copyright policy and the ratings system. “A gentleman, very old school” said Joi Ito, Chairman of the Creative Commons Board of Directors, of his personal encounters with Valenti. “None of us thought that he was a mean person or a rude person, he was always polite.”
Ito further noted that Valenti commended the Creative Commons when it was released as an admirable effort to give more rights to artists. A good sport, I remember when then EFF employee Annalee Newitz text messaged me from the steps of the supreme court, giddy that Valenti was signing a BetaMax tape for her.
While I can’t say I agreed with Valenti’s position, he was certainly a staunch advocate for the position of the MPAA and passionate in his delivery of their message. And in a fitting footnote to his career, it is very difficult to find footage of Valenti, authorized or otherwise, online — so this vid picks is shorter than usual.
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