According to an 8/11 e-mail from a Current staffer:
The Current Studio is online, serving up video: a virtual TV production zone coming to life with comments and greenlights…From the very beginning, we had the idea that we wanted our website to be not just a brochure or a product, but a real workspace, an extension of the desks and studios and conference rooms here at Current HQ.
There’s a Survival Guide for aspiring producers; a dashboard of all the pods under development; a streamlined upload process; a Screening Room where you can watch videos, and greenlight the good ones for TV; and a network of groups where you can ask questions and meet collaborators.
Indeed, the Studio’s only been open for a couple of days and new groups are already getting started: “The City That Never Sleeps.” “Canon Powershooters.” “Current Collaboration: San Francisco.” “disposable-culture.” Come check them out, or create your own.Posted by Mitch Shapiro at 1:14 PM | Print | Comments (0) | TrackBack
According to recently published study by CacheLogic, video accounts for 61.4% of P2P traffic by volume, with Microsoft video formats making up 46%.
Audio files claimed 11.3% of P2P traffic volume, with nearly two-thirds of audio traffic made up of MP3 files. More than 12% of audio traffic was files in the open-source OCG format, nearly all of it traded on the BitTorrent network, particularly in Asia.
Another 27.2% of P2P traffic volume was accounted for by “other” files, which included software, software updates, games and images.
CacheLogic found that BitTorrent “is increasingly being used for the distribution of legitimate content,” while “eDonkey is now the network of choice for video file trading.”
According to the BBC:
[CacheLogic’s Nick] Farka said that the fall in video and music content being swapped on BitTorrent could have been a result of the Motion Picture Association of America’s (MPAA) recent legal action which specifically targeted BitTorrent tracker sites…The MPAA had some success in getting major tracking sites closed down last year. Suprnova was the most popular of the BitTorrent tracker sites and was forced to shut in December.
Download services which make use of the way file-sharing nets work are increasingly being developed to distribute legitimate content, however. The BBC, for instance, is trialing its iMP (Interactive Media Player) which is based on file-sharing techniques. It will let people download BBC programmes for up to seven days after they are first broadcast.
The analysis also showed that file sizes varied between networks. Larger files tended to be swapped on eDonkey and BitTorrent. Smaller files tended to be shared on Gnutella and FastTrack.Posted by Mitch Shapiro at 12:40 PM | Print | Comments (0) | TrackBack
In a MediaPost column, marketing consultant Max Kalehoff considers the future of search-based “contextual marketing” in an online world where “every person with Internet access is considered a blogger” and where an increasing amount of web-based activity is accounted for by blogs, “social networking and democratized publishing technologies such as photo-sharing sites, wikis, multi-player gaming, community message boards and even e-mail groups, among others.”
Search paved the way for highly targeted contextual marketing, with highly demonstrable return on investment. It unveiled the notion of the long tail, and it’s fueling the current resurgence of online advertising. But search also is simultaneously fueling and being shaped by a new phase where media and markets become incredibly niche and personalized.
One possible implication is that the two-dimensional world of paid search and search engine optimization will become far more complex…the ability to be relevant in massively fragmented, individualized, and conversational contexts will be paramount… Increasingly, paid search and contextual advertising will move into the context of rich dialogue and consumer-created content. Search will become less a method to “acquire customers” - as if they’re objects - and more of a tool to insert brands into conversations between individual people, markets, and groups of affinity.
[I]ncreasingly search optimization will be the result of companies and brands actively listening and engaging in relevant conversations, as well as maintaining the good will of the people and key stakeholders. Search optimization will become less about direct response and more about the ability to identify conversation and conduct more direct, interactive customer relations.
In closing, Kalehoff suggests that search marketers “start thinking beyond the world of click-throughs and search-result placements, and prepare for the coming of the Cluetrain.”
Posted by Mitch Shapiro at 12:30 PM | Print | Comments (0) | TrackBackCourtesy of Jeff Jarvis, the British Chartered Institute of Journalists has lambasted media organizations such as the BBC and CNN for using material, mostly video footage, shot by citizen journalists. In a letter to the Press Gazette, the CiOJ said:
“We, at the Chartered Institute of Journalists recommend that non-professionals should not send in material to these above mentioned TV companies while they continue to exploit and denigrate news photography and their potential contributors, both professional and non-professional, in this way.”
Here’s what Jarvis has to say about the CiOJ’s position:
How ridiculous. I’d say that the CIJ’s attitude is journalistically offensive. We journalists should believe that more information, more news, more coverage, more knowledge are all good things for journalism and for society.Posted by Cynthia Brumfield at 10:40 AM | Print | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Staci at paidContent.org puts it nicely:
Among the biggest questionmarks around Fox Interactive’s pending $580 million acquisition of Intermix and its top property MySpace are whether the social network’s aura — and membership pace — can survive being owned by News Corp and how the company will make money from the deal.
To underscore her point, Staci cites a story in the Village Voice with the headline “Their Space? A rumor that a community-built Web behomoth has become a corporate trap.”
Another paidContent post provides additional context on the MySpace deal and News Corp.’s broader Internet strategy, extracted from the company’s recent earnings call. A follow-up post adds more thoughts on potential News Corp. acquisition targets in the search sector.
A key challenge for News Corp., which has set aside $1 billion for Internet-related acquisitions, will be to reconcile the potentially conflicting strategies suggested by the following two statements.
On one hand we have Teri Everett, a representative of Fox Interactive, describing News Corp.’s approach to managing MySpace: “We’re just going to go on letting them do what they do, since that’s what’s made them so successful.”
On the other hand, we have Rupert Murdoch telling Wall Street analysts that his priority is to monetize his company’s traditional media assets in an online world where a startup like MySpace (or a competitor) can quickly build (or lose) an audience of 24 million—and where the demands of community-building may conflict with those of corporate media models.
“We have tens of billions of dollars of asset value in our news, sports and general entertainment businesses. While we monetize this value daily in the form of our TV shows, channels, films, books and newspapers, our priority now, which is our mandate, is to perfect a plan that will monetize them across the world on the Internet.”
Regardless of whether News Corp.’s plan ends up “perfect,” a dismal failure or, most likely, somewhere in between, its evolution will shed light on the future relationship between “old” and “new” media.
Posted by Mitch Shapiro at 1:49 AM | Print | Comments (0) | TrackBack
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