Month: May 2010

Goodbye Satellite truck – stream H.264 in real time over WiFi or cell network instead. http://bit.ly/aHLnAG

The device, [a portable battery-powered, video encoder] which can be attached to a camera, creates a H.264 file which is streamed to a CDN via Wifi or to a cellular network..

This sort of functionality for live streaming is currently provided by a computer connected to the camera.  Having a portable solution opens a number possibilities for news organizations, sports teams and performers.  We think this is very cool.

Is Android the “Windows” of the mobile world to Apple’s Cocoa Touch (aka OS X)? http://bit.ly/alUHW7

Is the operating system of choice war gone from Microsoft vs Apple, to Google (Android) vs Apple (Cocoa Touch/OS X) for the mobile handset OS of choice?  Looks certain that Android will be very pervasive as t’s as adaptable as OS X (for everything but desktops – so far): Android on Mobile phones is a true competitor to Cocoa Touch on the iPhone and iPad (and I’d love that built-in wifi hotspot capability to make it to an iPhone); Android in “Google TV’s” up against Apple TV running a (older) version of OS X (Tiger iirc).

Maybe Apple will always be a highly profitable “minor player” that leads in innovation?

Just look at some of the most recent Android-specific stats:

• 100,000 Android-based phones are activated every day.
• It’s on 60 devices from 21 OEM makers on 59 carriers in 48 countries.
• There are 50,000 apps in the Android Market Place.
• In the first quarter of the year, it was the second-best selling smartphone OS after RIM’s BlackBerry.

MASH Finale – 106 million viewers; LOST finale – 13.5 million. Hasn’t the defintion of a “HIT” fragmented with burgeoning channels?

Even a hit show of today wouldn’t get renewed 20 years ago, such is the fragmentation of viewership.

Flash For Smartphones Is Finally Here, And It Is Terrible http://bit.ly/cHhKvj

Apparently the performance is good for games but in a browser it’s as bad as Steve Jobs predicted.

Of course, this is beta software – both the version of Android OS and Flash 10.1 for mobiles – so this isn’t the final form we should judge, but you’d thing, if this is the killer aspect over the iPhone, Google and Adobe would want to show something that deflected Mr Jobs’ criticism.

PocketNow recently put a Nexus One with Android 2.2 through a series of speed tests against an iPhone 3GS and and HTC HD2 running Opera for Windows Mobile. The Nexus One outperformed the other phones by a comfortable margin — but only when Flash was disabled.

With Flash enabled, the Nexus One was the slowest of the three phones.

Speed isn’t the only problem with Flash in Android. A snap review from Gizmodo on Thursday pointed out that it’s also a huge battery drain, and outside of sites specifically optimized for mobile, isn’t yet all that reliable.

 

10 Tips to better pricing http://bit.ly/9aFpu4 How 1% increase in revenue usually leads to 11% increase in profit.

There’s a lot of detail, and not every suggestion applies to every business, but these will find their way into my “How to Grow your Production and Post Production business” (Next up May 19 in San Francisco with SF Cutters.)

• Stop marking up costs.
• Set prices that capture value.
• Create a value statement.
• Reinforce to employees (and yourself) that it is okay to earn high profits.
• Realize that a discount today doesn’t guarantee a premium tomorrow.
• Understand that customers have different pricing needs.
• Provide pick-a-plan options. (Some people want hourly, some want project price)
• Offer product (or service) versions. (My brother has a premium roof gutter business, and a competing budget roof gutter business.)
• Implement differential pricing.
• Use pricing tactics to complete your customer puzzle.

and in summary:

Since pricing is an underutilized strategy, it is fertile ground for new profits. The beauty of focusing on pricing is that many concepts are straightforward to implement and can start producing profits almost immediately.

Cracked nails it! http://bit.ly/dn0Cpz With every technology innovation we’re all doomed. Again. and Again. Will they never learn!

The various industry spokespeople and representative never look for the opportunity, only the threat. Look how the industry’s first responses were so very, very wrong.

1. VCR’s Will Kill Television!
2. Phonographs and Player Pianos Will Kill Music!
3. Pirated BASIC Will Kill Software Development!
4. The Cassette Will Kill Music! Again!
5. The Printing Press Will Kill Literature!

I am reminded that Jack Valenti who famously told a congressional panel in 1982:

“I say to you that the VCR is to the American film producer and the American public as the Boston strangler is to the woman home alone.”

And then the Video Cassette (and later the DVD) saved the film industry and now generates the majority of the profits.

NEVER believe an industry insider’s take on new technology. They will always be wrong. Remember that MPAA and RIAA! Your own history proves you’re probably wrong about every thing you’re arguing now.

Branded Content: Why you should care http://bit.ly/d6P0fn I believe branded content is more the future of advertising than ads. When advertising becomes content, if I’m interested in the content, I’m probably also interested in what the brand is offering.

I only hate (with a passion) irrelevant advertising that interrupts the program I’m watching. Relevant advertising that’s integrated with the program, in a style and format matching the entertainment content, I don’t have anywhere near the problem with “advertsing”.

The problem is, 99% of the advertising I’m exposed to is completely irrelevant for me nearly all the time. And that’s a problem that branded content usually solves.

Much web content has become reliant on brand partnerships and sponsorship deals — making it one of the easiest ways to survive in the web series world.

Darpa looking for “anomalous behavior” http://bit.ly/dsR2eV Once you get computers “inferring” all sorts of editing can be done automatically.

Inferred metadata: metadata that can reasonably inferred from actual data. For example photos with a similar time stamp are grouped in iPhoto (and other apps) as an “Event”: inferred from the time stamps being grouped together.

Check our my “The Mundane and Magic Future of Metadata” Article in Supermag Number 4 for more about the different types of metadata (I think there’s a sixth type of metadata” links back to my earlier articles. Inferred is Number 4.)

Good article on self promotion http://bit.ly/bdkfas -How to have good relationships as a self publisher. Networking gets us work! Work at it constantly.

So, after that quick brain dump, let me recap:

• Relationships are everything.
• We publish primarily in text without the nuance of critical non-verbal communication.
• Text has non-verbal elements like style and emoticons, but we can only control the latter.
• Context is also non-verbal communication. Context is karma: Character and professional reputation.

Written from a British perspective but with an American context in mind. Good advice for anyone who needs to network, and that’s everyone.

Cringely talks on the future of Television http://bit.ly/cxfa37 First I heard of it, but Veetle http://bit.ly/r3cJP looks interesting.

I disagree with Robert Cringely as much as I agree, but I always read his recent postings because they make me think. And that’s a good thing for me.

What makes this one interesting is that he exposed me to Veetle for the first time. Veetle is an attempt to bridge the openness of the net, the on-demand future of media consumption, with a protection model that doesn’t get in the way.  I could be interested in that!

Veetle, if you haven’t heard of it, is a Palo Alto-based startup that isn’t nominated for this summer’s Startup Tour.  Veetle appears from my vantage point to be a peer-to-peer video distribution system that most closely parallels the current cable TV model except applied to the Internet.  Veetle video channels can be viewed in a browser (32-bit plug-in required) and present — just like CNN — a continuous stream of programming that can’t be interrupted, paused, or changed and can’t be very easily recorded, either.

In fact a Veetle channel very well could be CNN, because almost anyone can become a Veetle broadcaster by just grabbing a video feed from their DVD player or cable box and throwing it up on the web in glorious H.264.  Veetle is an adolescent cesspool of intellectual property confusion but that’s part of what makes it so much fun.