By Levi Shapiro

One way to antagonize Mark Selby, Nokia's VP of Industry Collaborations, is to use the term "UGC." At the conference, he told the audience "never use the term User Generated Content? it's disgusting." Selby, who came from a television background at IMG, encouraged the media industry to "look beyond just the consumption aspect on mobile. It is critical that we also deliver the ability to create, connect and interact." Nokia (NYSE: NOK) is in the process of transforming Symbian into an open platform.

In a separate panel, Jordan Berman, Executive Director of Media Innovation at AT&T (NYSE: T) Advertising Solutions, talked about mobile advertising, which is new for AT&T with the launch this month of banner ads on MediaNet. Jordan said he encourages brands to employ the handset as a response mechanism for non-mobile media like print, outdoor, in store, and TV. In Jordan's Valentines Day case study with 1800-Flowers.com, called 'Cupid Goes Wireless,' he said "AT&T drove flower buyers to the brand's WAP store where customers could order bouquets and send virtual flower bouquet greetings." Jordan called this a "whole new wireless way to stay out of the doghouse." Levi Shapiro, a wireless specialist and founder of three mobile media companies, sent in a dispatch from the conference this week, which he helped organize.

Recently I spoke with Imad Mouline, CTO of Gomez, Inc. Gomez is involved in the software as a service testing space for Internet traffic and more recently streaming media. Imad outlined the company's products and testing capabilities for the iTV on-demand space using their Active Streaming XF product. In a follow up article I will flesh out our results and experiences using Active Streaming XF.

Listen to Interview with Imad Mouline

Brightcove, the Cambridge, MA. based video tools company has launched their 3.0 platform to publishers, this after several months of testing by beta users. The system which is totally different in look and system flow from the prior version uses tabs and overlays to navigate between some key functions and is easier and faster to move between uploading, managing and other aspects of the process. The system is concentrated around three key modules: media, publishing and advertising.

Uploading video content was easier and seemed faster then with version 2. As with players, version 3 has fewer default players available however, there is support for user created players via XML which you can then add to your list within the application.

Interestingly, I.E. which had been the only browser that supported uploading of video content is now considered the slowest by the company. "Brightcove Studio loads more slowly in Internet Explorer than it does in some other browsers, If you are using Internet Explorer and find the Brightcove Studio load time annoying try Firefox, Google Chrome, or another browser"

Continue reading "Brightcove 3 Launches" »

image © LinkedIn

The management team of Obama/Biden is seeking a Chief Technology Officer to bring real change to America.

Are you a self-starter who can work in a high pressure environment. Do you have a proven track record for technology innovation. Have you managed large groups, really large. Do you possess the ability to dream big and be able to craft new technology processes to solve some of the biggest challenges facing this country? Can you work with people of different ideologies and temperaments to achieve consensus for fundamental and meaningful change for how our technology infrastructure is rebuilt and in some cases built from the ground up?

Some of our goals over the next four years include:

We strongly support the principle of network neutrality to preserve the benefits of open competition on the Internet.

Deploy a modern communications infrastructure:

We believe we can get true broadband to every community in America.

Continue reading "Position Available, CTO for America" »

As reported today by NPR, the President-elect plans to appoint a technology Czar to coordinate the different silos of government, this in addition to fulfilling his pledge to provide broadband access to all American's. If I were to suggest a person for this post it would be Phil McKinney who not only understands technology innovation but has managed large teams and infrastructure at HP.

November 14th, 2007 Googleplex Campus, CA. Then candidate Barack Obama outlined his vision and goals for technology innovation with the Internet as a centerpiece.

There are many challenges facing the U.S. at home over the next four-years. The economy, healthcare and education to name a few. President Elect Obama's understanding of how Internet technology can provide equal access for all American's, bring healthcare into the electronic age and address a myriad of other challenges is a bright prospect that goes well beyond the technology itself.

AT&T announced that they are testing a plan to limit the amount of downstream data that new customers in the Reno, NV. market will be able to use in a calendar month, this for both DSL and users at the 10 Mbps level. According to the company, existing customers will be capped at 150 GB per month, this regardless of their connection speed.

According to company spokesman Michael Coe, five percent of AT&T's subscribers take up 50 percent of the capacity.

Starting in November, the company will limit downstream usage to 20 GB per month for DSL users. this at, at 768 Kbps. The limit increases with the speed of the plan, up to 150 GB per month at the 10 Mbps level. Users will be able to track their usage on the companies website, much like your monthly cell phone usage.

At the 3 Mbps tier this would amount to a monthly cap of 60 GB, or about the download of about 30 DVD-quality movies. Companies such as Roku which have announced HD streaming by the end of 2008 have indicated bandwidth caps will not affect their business model as they will employ new compression models to reduce bitrates. The net effect of the AT&T bandwidth caps is unclear at this point since there is no data to determine if this will be detrimental to residential customers.

image c. Fotolio

By Levi Shapiro

It doesn't take a vivid imagination to predict what the No. 1 topic will be after the November election: the weak economy and how to improve return on investments. While a slow-down in advertising spending represents an unprecedented opportunity to migrate ad dollars to the mobile space, that will not happen until standardized measurement systems are in place. For example, last month Chrysler's CMO Deborah Meyer announced 30 percent of the embattled car-company's ad-spend will move to digital. Unfortunately, it was also reported spending for "experimental" platforms, including mobile, would be cut in half. Mobile advertising desperately needs a unified measurement standard to help brands, agencies and publishers quantify ROI.

History suggests the process is slow. Although the first TV commercial aired July 1, 1941 (a 10-second billboard with voice-over for Bulova during a baseball game), it was 10 more years before the A.C. Nielsen Company's Audimeter became the industry's recognized standard for television audience measurement.

For their part, agencies are frustrated. "What is most glaringly absent is a mobile equivalent of persistent cookie tracking," said Dr. Yaakov Kimelfeld, senior vice president and director of Analytics at Mediavest. "Without unified tracking, mobile campaigns are destined to exist in some parallel world." He also said he believes online criteria, like click-throughs and downloads, "play only a marginal role in decisions to increase mobile budgets. The metrics that matter vary in each case, depending on the campaign."

Continue Reading, Mobile Advertisers Demand Unified Measurement Standards

Tivo has concluded their long sought deal with Netflix to stream over 12,000 movie titles to your home, this via standard Tivo DVR's. In addition to the Roku player and LG Blu-ray player, both currently available, Tivo plans to support Xbox 360 by late fall of this year.

Also, according to Steve Swasey, Netflix's VP of Corporate Communications. The company hopes to stream its content directly to television sets by the end of 2009.

Is Tivo positioning themselves as the bridge between lean forward and lean back entertainment in the living rooms of the U.S.? With over 100,000 titles in the Netflix library, the Tivo/Netflix deal has a way to go before this loss leader strategy for Netflix starts to impinge on their existing business model, would they want to abandon mailing discs in the future in favor of VOD?

But Tivo has been experiencing churn as subscribers leave the platform, this reflected in the chart below which illustrates a loss of 178k subscribers ending July of 2008, this verses 145k in the prior quarter.

Their overall market penetration is still small compared to the total universe of DVR's in the marketplace. In addition, with the U.S. in a deep recession, what impact will home budget constraints have on entertainment equipment and services?

With the U.S. Presidential election now four days away, Livestation will assemble what they call a "unique, interactive experience". With a number of news channels available in one place. According to the company, viewers will be able to view multiple perspectives and the chance to use the Livestation chat functionality to influence how live, on-air programmes develop.

BBC World News David Dimbleby, one of the BBC's most experienced presenters will be hosting an election special along with Matt Frei, anchor of BBC World News America. They'll be joined in the studio by veteran newsman Ted Koppel for big picture perspective and global analysis.

Euronews says it will be assessing the impact of the election from a European perspective and analysing how the outcome may influence the future relationship between Europe and America. The euronews coverage will be streamed in seven languages on Livestation.

France 24 has set up studios at the foot of the Trocadéro, where the largest American election evening outside the United States is being organized by Republicans & Democrats Abroad.

C-SPAN coverage will start at 14.00 GMT with an in-depth look at how the 2008 elections will impact the next Congress. C-SPAN will be taking the feeds from both campaigns' HQs from Chicago and Phoenix. This will most likely be interspersed with behind-the-scenes coverage, a studio host with guests and viewer calls

Fifty years ago last Wednesday on Oct. 15, 1958, Chicago, Edward R. Murrow gave what many consider the most profound speech about Television to the Radio and Television News Directors Association convention, know referred to as the Wires and Lights in a Box speech.

In reflecting on the state of Television as currently presented and the next wave of iTV/ IPTV and other forms we may not be yet aware of, I found much to consider when reading Mr. Murrow's speech.

While news and informational programming has expanded well beyond what Mr. Murrow called the "intellectual ghetto on Sunday afternoons", I often wonder what the value of repetitive news of the 24/7 cycle other then to scare, this as example in the case of the recent Wall Street melt down. If Morgan Stanley stock can fall in real time when cable news pundits repetitively wondered if MS would survive then the connection from input to output and back has created a closed loop where the news anchors are feeding and regurgitating the same information over and over, to what end other then filling time or boosting ratings?

Similarly, in this election year when some would use the medium to divide and instill fear that we are not all equal or equally concerned about our country, Mr. Murrow's words that the "battle to be fought against ignorance, intolerance and indifference" are as profound today as when first spoken.

If our history is, what we make it, as Mr. Murrow said then what is the next chapter in iTV and IPTV as a medium and can it rise above simply the technology itself to inspire, educate and entertain us? Will it be just a new form of technology for established media outlets to showcase their content and adverts, or will it afford a more inclusive media for individuals to express themselves while being able to make a sufficient living to expand the diversity of voices online?

Joost has come of web age, a Flash based site, which aims for a Hulu type audience with a nod to sharing and community integration. Is this all a little too late? While a nice application platform when it launched in 2007, I was trying to figure out their "business" model.

While some have suggested technological extensibility options to save Joost, I would suggest they need something more then a better widget, partner with Strike TV, partner with Indie talent, like the producers of The Cult of Sincerity, or Tiffany Shlain of The Tribe to make it a destination site for people seeking first class Indie content but with a wider footprint then the aforementioned sites.

Make the platform into a model for groups to drill down to deliver-localized content, a la the Inverted Pyramid. Therefore, I guess it is, it's the content stupid after all.

September 23, 2008, New York City. This morning, the first Android based mobile device is being rolled out. Based on Google's operating platform, the Android G1 is aiming to assimilate users who might otherwise look to the iPhone.

To view the press conference, visit: Andriod Press Conference

For more information about development, see: Android - Open Handset Alliance Project

For more information about HTC, Visit: HTC Press Release

HTC Specs on G1, visit G1 Specs

Additional Coverage about Android at BBC News

Continue reading "Android T-Mobile G1 Press Conference" »

By Levi Shapiro

iStock ™

Rod Serling, producer of "The Twilight Zone" television series once commented, "It is difficult to produce a television documentary that is incisive and probing when every twelve minutes is interrupted by 12 dancing rabbits singing about toilet paper". Although we may not like advertising, the reality is that a variety of the most successful video delivery platforms, from television to the internet to mobile, have reached their success when pricing was reduced through advertising. The upcoming national launch of WiMax (the next generation of mobile broadband) in the United States presents an opportunity for content owners to reach audiences on any device, anywhere. Low pricing, supported through advertising, can help spur the adoption of WiMax.

Continue Reading, WiMax, Advertising Goes Here

Last week IFP hosted their Filmmaker conference in New York City. Among the topics covered was specifically that interested us, Alternative Distribution via the ITV space. The track, The Digital Download highlighted two films, The Cult Of Sincerity and Helvetica and their producers efforts to market in the online space.

While there was useful information specific to identifying a films audience early in the production process and learning how Gary Hustwit, Director of the film Helvetica reached out to a targeted community of graphic designers to market the film, there could have been more practical information. For example, how creatives should attack the problem of navigating the myriad of options for distribution online, the technology issues from shooting for ITV, too an Encoding primer. The difference between aggregators and super aggregators and which work with Indies and the platforms considerations for fixed and mobile devices to name a few. Eric Opeka, Senior Manager of distribution for New Video spoke about his companies services.

After the panel I spoke with Daniel Nayeri, writer and producer of the film The Cult of Sincerity who worked with YouTube to premier their film.

Perhaps the lack of outlining a road map for Indies in the ITV space was due to an industry still in its formative years with people unclear as to what if any formula works? Perhaps its as simple as a lack of eyeballs and CPM which is the bottom line regardless of what strategies are employed? Perhaps there are other factors that are less apparent. Whatever the reasons, I'd like to see a more targeted round table or series of ideation sessions where people dig into these issues going forward.