This Wired piece is getting a lot of play in the blogosphere because it articulates just how male-dominated the podcasting world is. According to the article penned by Steve Freiss, 85% of the attendees at JabberJaW, a conference for podcasters, were male, and podcaster Leo LaPorte, host of This Week in Tech, says that 97% of his audience is not female.
It’s funny but after spending years as one of the few females at many communications and tech events, I don’t even notice the lack of my peers anymore. Things are so bad that the President of Women in Technology International is a man.
Posted by Cynthia Brumfield at 3:31 PM | Print | Comments (0)
Cable industry R & D consortium CableLabs and Redmond, WA-based software giant Microsoft announced this morning a landmark deal that will allow Microsoft and PC manufacturers to bring to market digital, including HD, cable-ready Windows Media Center-based PCs by the holiday season in 2006. The Media Center PCs will allow customers to receive one-way video programming on their computers as well as other compliant, connected platforms, including the XBox.
The content will be protected by Windows Media Digital Rights Management, so far the only major security technology to complete the DRM due diligence required by CableLabs, although the consortium is open to other DRM systems so long as they meet certification. [Note: earlier version of this item incorrectly stated that Microsoft’s DRM had been certified by CableLabs].
This is a huge, huge deal. It in essence reflects the cable industry’s recognition that PCs, and even more importantly mobile devices such as the XBox, are siphoning viewers away from the TV set, to the detriment of cable operators. In a statement, CableLabs CEO Dick Green said:
“The cable industry is very interested in having the PC serve as another means to allow consumers to enjoy cable programming. By working with Microsoft and the IT industry, we have come up with a solution to enable consumers to enjoy the wide range of entertainment options they want.”Posted by Cynthia Brumfield at 11:10 AM | Print | Comments (0)
Courtesy of PaidContent.org, TMZ.com (short for the “thirty-mile zone” around Hollywood) has launched. The AOL-backed joint venture with Telepictures is like a video-oriented People magazine with lots of celebrity news and video clips. Some of the videos border on the salacious (LAPD footage of Paris Hilton’s car crash aftermath) but some of it is mildly interesting, such as a feature that tracks the development of Harry Potter star Daniel Radcliffe over the years.
Steve Safran has an intriguing suggestion at Lost Remote: the critically acclaimed but now cancelled Fox series “Arrested Development” should take to the web, where, Safran contends, it will generate healthy ad revenues and DVD sales.
Safran thinks the loyal fan base will watch free VOD shows of AD and pay for premium access to archives, etc. Although this is a really creative suggestion for a show that can’t cut the mustard on the mass market-oriented Fox network, it’s doubtful that the highly compensated cast and crew could live on the earnings such an experimental effort would generate.
As one commenter to Safran’s post said:
At a cost of more than $1.25 million per episode (not including marketing and studio administration), Imagine TV would have to sell more than 1.25 million video podcasts (or more than 2.5 million VOD downloads) per episode just to break even. Or, at an average retail price of $30 a box set and a profit margin of 50 percent, they’d have to sell 1.5 million DVD box sets.Posted by Cynthia Brumfield at 8:51 AM | Print | Comments (0)
OK, Google Base, the much-anticipated online classified/eBay/everything killer application launched late yesterday and everybody is excited about it. According to the official Google Blog
Google Base enables content owners to easily make their information searchable online. Anyone, from large companies to website owners and individuals, can use it to submit their content in the form of data items. We’ll host the items and make them searchable for free.
In essence Google Base allows all users to put information on the web even if they lack web sites or blogs or any other formal structure for putting content on the Internet. John Battelle hails the development as a way of GETTING INTO THE INDEX, because if you or your product or your recipe or your yard sale or whatever are not in Google, you don’t exist.
if it’s not in the index, it’s not considered valuable in a search-driven world. This, of course, is a new way to Get Into The Index. We’ve only just begun…
I understand the import of what Google is doing, but don’t really grasp the impact Google Base might have, and am a little skeptical of its utility. Unless the content is considered highly “relevant,” it stays in Google Base and doesn’t migrate to the main search index or Froogle or other high-value search options. How many people will search Google Base compared to these other options?
Secondly, if this stuff makes it into the main search index, will it be sufficiently differentiated? Randomly submitted recipes are good things (they’re already all over the Internet now) but if I want a sure-fire way to make blueberry pie, I’d rather locate a recipe that comes with some kind of endorsement or has gone through some kind of vetting process (even if it’s a post to a cooking website) rather than simply submitted to Google Base.
Posted by Cynthia Brumfield at 8:05 AM | Print | Comments (0)Zatz Not Funny reports that Tivo “is moving beyond short advertising clips” and provides a link to a page on the Tivo web site announcing that “TiVo and Tai Seng Entertainment are pleased to present RED TROUSERS as part of the TiVo Video Download trial program.”
Zatz Not Funny explains:
The new trial involves requesting the 96 minute Chinese film Red Trousers by entering your email address and TSN on a TiVo web page. The movie will then be scheduled for download on November 23rd. Ultimately, I would hope for a TiVo-based movie selection interface and a more immediate download. However, free is good as are public trials!
From the Tivo site:
In this dazzling combination of documentary and short film directed by and starring Robin Shou, star of MORTAL KOMBAT, and which Los Angeles City Beat called “a must-see for Hong Kong action fans” and the LA Times called “pure delight,” the death-defying feats performed by the world’s greatest stuntmen (nicknamed “red trousers” for the pants they wear during their training at Chinese opera schools) are profiled through interviews and clips that showcase their work. Intercutting with the documentary footage is the short film LOST TIME, a futuristic martial arts adventure in the style of Alex Proyas’ DARK CITY, where one can appreciate the stuntmen’s extraordinary achievement in their final cinematic form.Posted by Mitch Shapiro at 1:07 AM | Print | Comments (0)
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