Category: Video

Categories
Apple Downloads iTunes Links Video

Links for Wednesday, September 27, 2006

gv_berkeley-logo.jpgBerkeley and Google Video team up
Not content to get your lectures via podcast? Now you can watch your prof’s give lectures on Google (as well as talks, symposiums and more). I wonder what this does to attendance?
[via eContent

Two thumbs down for Amazon Unbox
Wow… so I never did my review of the service (actually, I never downloaded a movie), but this review pretty much seal’s the deal. Old time computer smarty pants Peter Lewis gave Amazon’s Unbox service a pretty scathing review in Fortune magazine. His 5 hour download experience alone makes you want to run to bit torrent. I wonder if their update has helped?
[via Paul Stamatiou]

iTunes sharing skills
Playlist magazine has some good tips on managing the sharing aspects of iTunes.

iTunes updated to 7.01
Fixes a whole bunch of stuff. Go get it.

Categories
Links Macintosh Microsoft Video

Links for Thursday, September 13

Skype 2.0 beta available for the Mac
I can finally use video Skype with all my PC pals. I knew the MacBook camera would come in handy for more than making goofy faces via iChat.

Zune launching tomorrow
The battle for your pocket (and pocketbook) is on!

Web Geeks show off new tools
Future of Web Apps conference started today.

Categories
Apple Facebook Social Media Tivo Video

Links for Wednesday, September 12, 2006

Is Steve Jobs Bill Gates 2.0?

Om works out that Steve has the new monopoly so he can afford to pre-annonuce products to scare the competition shitless. Interesting observation…

Facebook to allow open registration
Apparently, both salt and lemon juice do wonders for open wounds.

Tivo Series 3 launch video
Dave Zatz gives us the Tivo Series 3 promo video. Looks like this sucker is gonna cost you $800. Ouch. Here’s the press release from Tivo.

Dave.TV to share revenues with users
Yet another video site decides to share revenue with their users. Where will the madness end??

Categories
Downloads Video

AOL Video: Want to buy a video? Watch an ad first

You gotta be kidding me…. If you watch a preview of a movie that you would like to buy, AOL makes you sit through an ad. Great user experience.

Wow.

What are we selling here? A movie download or Citibank Visa?

This is one of the reasons going to the movies sucks. It’s the only place I see video ads.

I’m not even gonna link to them.

(Not to mention, when I view this on my Mac, they totally get me to the video popup and then finally tell me that the DRM isn’t “available” on my Mac.)

Categories
Downloads Social Media Sony Video

Sony acquires video sharing site Grouper for $65mm

Here’s a link and comment roundup regarding the purchase.

Sony is acquiring Grouper Networks in web-video bid – WSJ
“YouTube Inc., which had about 16 million unique visitors last month compared with 542,000 for Grouper, according to comScore Media Metrix, a research company. Grouper says comScore doesn’t measure its traffic accurately and claims its numbers were about eight million last month.”

Grouper sells for $65 million – TechCrunch
“the $65 million valuation on Grouper suggests a YouTube valuation of around $2 billion.”

Sony Pictures Buys Grouper – PaidContent
“valuation is not really based on traffic…what it does have is a solid management and technical team…and user tools”

It will be interesting to see what happens to Grouper as a result of this acquisition. Sony may actually be ahead of Apple in the NIH (not invented here) syndrome. Of course, this acquisition is from Sony Pictures, not electronics, which may or may not make increase the chances of a successful merger and integration.

Categories
Apple Links Social Media Video

Monday Links

Why Apple should buy YouTube
This will never happen, but it’s fun to talk about. Apple has a long history of not doing big acquisitions (NeXT excepted). Fact is, Apple (a) could build a crappy version of YouTube that integrates nicely into iLife or (b) just sit back and wait for one of the numerous companies falling all over themselves to get onto the iPod to make a service that works with the iPod?

Farecast goes Coast to Coast
Damn, now the rest of the country can enjoy the data porn Seattle and Boston-ites have been enjoying the last few months.

Seth Godin’s Web 2.0 Traffic Watch
Keep track of your favorite Web 2.0 company.

Categories
Downloads Portable Entertainment Video

Amazon Unbox Video launched?

Methinks someone pushed the wrong button at Amazon.

Gizmodo
Kokogiak.com

Here are some pix, click for bigger images.

amazon-movie-download-main2.jpg

amazon-movie-downloads-main.jpg

amazon-movie-downloads3.jpg

More in my Flickr stream.

It looks like the video will work on some portable players, will contain DRM, Mac users need not apply, and you will be able to rent as well as buy.

Check it out

Categories
Links Video

Thursday Links

Del.icio.us slightly less ugly
Hey, I didn’t say that I didn’t use it, but come on, it ain’t pretty.

YouTube talking to record labels on music videos
YouTube owns the long tail of internet video and they seem to be going after the head. Interesting… now, if only it worked on my iPod.

CBS to Webcast Evening News
But until I get it on my iPod, it doesn’t matterOk, is it me or does ‘real-time’ streaming video still suck? I’m not talking about Flash here (which for some reason does not suck), but WMV, Real, Quicktime streaming. Is there any reason these are still used?

Categories
Video

WSJ – NBC, YouTube in promo deal

This deal is pretty big for YouTube, who just months ago was being sued by NBC:

NBC plans to announce that it will make available on YouTube promotional video clips for some of its popular shows, such as “The Office,” “Saturday Night Live” and “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno.” NBC plans to market its new fall lineup using clips on YouTube, and is holding a contest for consumers to submit their own promotional videos for “The Office.” It will also buy ads on the site and promote YouTube with mentions on television.

The article goes on to do a profile of the YouTube founders and their meteoric rise.

Read [subscription site]

Categories
Downloads Video

GUBA goes legit

guba.jpgUsenet and illegal video fans should be weeping today, GUBA has signed a deal with Warner Movies to distribute Warner’s videos day and date as the DVD releases. Rentals are available for $1.99 and purchases are 9.99 for catalog titles and 19.99 for new releases(that sounds really familiar). You gotta have a Windows XP or 2000 box and Windows Media Player. No Macs need apply.

I haven’t been a customer of GUBA in the past, but originally, the site made its money selling subscriptions to Usenet groups that had illegal videos and porn. I’m assuming that all illegal video has been removed (and if you look around you are hard pressed to find Usenet at all) as a result of this deal.

GUBA, in their former life, even transcoded video from Usenet groups into an iPod compatible format. That appears to be gone as well.

I suspect that with it’s new “official” catalog, GUBA will lose more customers than it gains. Although, it might not get sued out of existence.

Read [via iPodNN]