Recently in mmf Category
Chis:
- 3M bands on MySpace vs. only a few thousand on major labels. Artists are now getting discovered by labels from myspace.
- Partnership with MTV for presidential elections is creating fantastic dialogue and engaged young people in elections like never before. Younger people are reading newspapers less and less and are hardly engaged in politics, except on myspace where they can now get engaged on a different level.
- Myspace was "open platform" from the beginning. That's how the whole widget economy started. YouTube, Slide, Photobucket. What that did was create a tremendous amount of traffic while creating a much better user experience on myspace as there was always something new to do when you came back to myspace.
- On MySpace v Facebook. The widget economy started on myspace. We allowed widget makes to take traffic off myspace while Facebook created the environment for it to all happen on facebook. Facebook allowed a little deeper integration on their site with their "closed" platform environment. Created tighter links into Facebook user experience.
- On OpenSocial. Creates new defacto standard for application providers to not only have deep integration into myspace but also into dozens of other networks.
- We could have done our own platform but that stifles innovation. Instead of engineers having to spend time building for multiple platforms, we decided to partner with google to form a defacto open platform.
- Wants Zucks to be part of opensocial.
- Thinks at sometime facebook will have to consider it.
- As more and more users are coming online, they are demanding more openness.
- If i'm a web developer, I'm going to choose opensocial.
- myspace open platform specs are out there now. Developers can develop to the platform immediately.
- of course [facebook and myspace] can both survive.
- 5 years out we will have more traffic and more revenue at myspace from outside the u.s.
- Mobile is increasingly important. 30-40% of access to myspace japan comes from mobile.
- On advertising: myspace is becoming one of those must buys for media buyers.
- myspace is 12% of all internet minutes, #1 site in the U.S. advertisers can't ignore that.
- myspace hypertargeting now enables us to drill down into thousands of categories -- e.g. not just movie enthusiasts, but more-so horror movie enthusiasts.
- Initial tests of hypertargeting on myspace are producing 50% greater click thrus vs. standard demo targeting, and up to 300% in some cases.
- Self service platform will enable anyone to setup their own hyper targeted campaign. can do testing with $50 spend for instance.
Vpod.tv enables anyone to create their own tv shows. Target is corporate groups -- e.g. marketing, hr, etc. for communication regularly with employees and partners, or a government group using to communicate with constituents..
Easy publishing tools to create short form videos then share them on websites.
As an example, the MMF video was created using Vpod.tv.
Company is also making all content avail on multi platforms and devices. iphone launching soon.
Announcing today 3 partners for in-stream video advertisements within tv shorts.
I'm going to try this one.
This is the 3rd time I've seen Wixi -- first at TC 40 this fall, 2nd on the panel I hosted yesterday on social media, now he public demo this morning. I still don't get it.
Wixi is designed to enable group sharing of media. People create their own "wixi" page by dragging and dropping files onto a windows vista-like web page, and then their friends/colleagues in their circle can basically access their media online.
My take is that it's sort of like a digital locker with some social elements. I guess it makes some sense for folks who want to have anywhere access to their media from multiple devices and locations, and to then be able to share that with their friends. But, can't you just share your files with your friends on Facebook?
Concerns are obvious: facilitates music / video stealing. Also, does this just become an easier way for like people to share porn?
I also don't understand how they are going to make money from this. Not sure why anyone would pay for their premium offering which just offers more online storage.
Company is now focused on P2P media delivery for media companies via its livestation development platform. "the equiv of a sat networking over IP." Company is ambitiously trying to send live video signals over peer networks.
We got to view a "pre-alpha" (another great term).
From Skinkers:
Based on peer-to-peer technology originally developed at Microsoft Laboratories in Cambridge in the UK, Livestation delivers remarkable quality audio and video using a simple software application.
With conventional streaming services, each stream is typically delivered from central servers or using a special content distribution network. Every additional user receives their own stream, which places enormous demands on the distribution infrastructure and ultimately limits the number of users that can be simultaneously supported.
In some cases it is possible to use multicasting to deliver a single stream to multiple addresses. Unfortunately, many networks do not currently support multicasting.
A peer network approach offers many of the benefits of multicasting, without requiring a multicast network. Effectively, it enables an overlay network to be created using the combined intelligence and network capacity of the computers of its active users.
In a peer network, each node functions as both a client and a server, sharing its data with other users. This helps spread the load to the edge of the network, so that capacity grows with demand.
Livestation works by splitting a stream into multiple stripes, each of which can be shared with other users. This allows users to share some of a stream with other users, without having to relay the whole stream. This dramatically reduces the central serving capacity required to deliver live audio and video to very large numbers of users.
The net result is actually more robust than receiving a single stream from a single source. A level of resilience is built into the system making it more resistant to general network traffic congestion.
As with any broadband service, the quality is ultimately limited by the speed of the connection of each end user. With faster networks, even high definition television could be delivered in this way.
Livestation delivers a range of live radio and television channels to your computer over a broadband network.
There is no need to install a tuner, aerial, or any additional hardware. Livestation works anywhere with a basic broadband network connection. Simply download the free Livestation player to watch television wherever you are, whenever you want.
You can watch television on your desktop, or on your laptop, at home, at work, on the move, or in a hotel room, provided you have a broadband internet connection or wireless access.
Unlike video-on-demand or download services, Livestation delivers live broadcast channels, so you can watch news, sports or live events as they happen.
Livestation offers an integrated player that allows you to choose from a number of channels and continue listening and viewing while using other applications. You can watch in a window while you work or play, or view full screen.
While you are listening or watching, Livestation shares some of the stream with other users. This allows Livestation to serve a very large number of simultaneous users.
Livestation is designed to be able to serve millions of users without many of the limitations associated with traditional online streaming services.
Hugely ambitious project. Uncertain if it will work in production.
Beyond the technical challenge, major business challenges with cable operators.
My favorite quote from BD thus far: " Trouble in music industry is because of executives who have had their heads in the sand for too many years. It's not because of apple."
Rafat at PaidContent has fuller details (Rafat's a real journalist, i'm just a hack blogger).
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Gem #2:
On Facebook $15B: "If it's real money it's insane. But it's not. That's a craziness no one knows about. It's a fantasy false valuation"
Gem #3:
On Facebook & MySpace phen: "I love social networking just love i love the word portal or the terms user generated content. Look, these are good tools, modern tools, to get circles of people they are interested in."
On Facebook particularly. "It's just life. It's a toolset that deals with what we do."
I haven't had a chance to check it out yet. See for yourself here.
Your Truman Show (currently in beta) is a video blogging service that seems to have evolved into a widget provider. Demo was of VideoMap social graph of videos (e.g. who on my Facebook is in which videos, across my FOF network.).
Most interesting part is video search based on common interests across networks, relying on preferences and social graph rather than metadata. Ask the community to add the metadata vs. other video search services which are trying to use technology to extract metadata from video.
Spotzer out of Amsterdam offfers a library of ready-to-air commercials produced by professionals around the world.
People can easily search from more than 200 available video ads and then tailor them to their local market needs, and instantly have read-to-air commercials for their own use. Select an ad, then add your own logo, voice, etc.
Company also offers some awesome media planning tools for running online video ads.
See more here. -- their site, pressdisplay enables you to read hundreds of papers offline formats online as they are published.
Big question is if people will want to read the paper format online.
