taxi, taxi driver - drive me a story tonight

The result - a "moving" piece

Sometimes the simplest question begets the most amazing results. And this interactive represents one of those cases.

The background (as retold to / on Source) was simple enough, but represents a novel twist on the "and why should I care" conundrum;

My goal was to give the reader the experience of being down $120 and needing to earn that money back

How do you do that? Well, step by step is a nice starting point - and having a "running" meter beneth the map is a great way to connect the real world taxi with the visuals in the story

     var line = new Polyline();
        requestAnimationFrame(function() {
          var point = getNextPoint();
          line.addPoint(point);
        });

And here-in lies the beauty of the simple done good enough:

Speaking of judgment: this code is super duper non-optimized. It could be several orders of magnitude faster by throwing in some clever tricks and caches. But the fact is it works, and it works across platforms. That’s the most important requirement you face in a newsroom!

Everything could be made better, re-factored  generalized. But often times having that luxury would take time away from the functionality at hand. Just like a piece of journalism generally reads differently from a novel, and a studio produced movie looks better than a snap of a goal in a football match. Given the right time and resources everything can be polished, but often good is good enough. And something new every day is even better.

[src, via Source]

I want to do it all, and then some more

How do you decide?

Chances are there are more thing you want to do, than people to do it.
More ideas than project teams.
More bugs than developers, never mind testers.

Should you focus on those big things that "wake up the neighbors" - attract a lot of attention and flair, preferably within the niche or market you play in - or should you do a lot of smaller, unknown and unknowing tests? Build the future stepwise, or stay the course first and foremost?

How do we find a balance? 

Can we?

Should we even try?

One reason that incumbents are so often defeated by newcomers is that the incumbents put their best people and their urgent focus on the stuff they used to do (like winning Pulitzer prizes, selling ads to cosmetic companies and counting dead trees) while the new guys have nothing but the new thing to focus on.

[seth, who else?]


Are you doing it wrong if you do what you know, what makes sense right now, and what "everybody" else is doing? Is radicall innovation and transformation advisable, never mind possible? Is it right to say to your current customers "sorry, we want someone else, so you'll be getting an inferior product - but it will be a lot better in a while, albeit something completely different"?

Apple could do the iPhone because they didn't have a phone business, didn't have telco relations to maintain, and an upgrade path to stick to. 3g, 4, 4s, 5? Incremental wrapping and icing on the cake.

Apple could also do the iPad, because they had 10% or less market share for laptops. Microsoft couldn't for the same reason. They had too many partners to placate, making the assorted touch screen laptops never-rans.

Facebook bought Instagram. Even if they had the bigger volume of users. Even if they had apps and were THE photo destination. But they didn't have or get mobile. As a core. As the only thing. Do they now? At least a bit more than before the 1 bn.

Just right, just so?

Online, now, last month or next year

"Banksy - kongen av gatekunst" aka Exit Through the Giftshop was shown on Norwegian public broadcast last fall. And that also meant that their (excellent) NRK TV site had it - but it was only online until November 3rd 2012.

It is all about the licensing.

...via image search - is a screenshot fair use when it is also art?

Sure, it might just be out there in some form or other - but for  using the subtitles and doing it right, NRK had to take it back down, or pay a lot more (speculation / assumption - they licenced it for one or two runs at off peak times on a small niche channel, and got x days of online as well)

Does that mean it will sell a lot of dvd copies here now, since the streaming is gone? Or will it remain more or less ignored in favor of Idol and Eurovison?

Since NRK doesn't do commercials, it makes sense to have it limited - and then hopefully get some cents on the dollar from YouTube ads or Netflix streaming. (They even had an ad for free trial - adwords for the win?)

But this isn't about a docu/mocu-mentary like Banksy, but about the global vs local distribution and licensing issues. Because when Facebook launches or test a new feature it is instantly worldwide, same for (most) apps in the assorted Appstores. Youtube same thing, no waiting for a localized Gangam Style, watch it right now now now. And once more. House of Cards blasted onto the scene as a worldwide event, for the tribes it targeted at least.

But still movies and regular shows have a lead and lag type cycle, selling and repackaging based on the initial viewership (mainly US).

Will this be what really kills TV? 

A lack of flow or structures for moving the smaller things globally, in the same manner that the Olympics manage? Imagine having to wait a day or three to see the 100m sprint from London 2012 - and yes, I know that some US channels actually time-shifted a few events and tried to do spoiler free news...

Substitution - it really subs to be you

Seth, in an email this time - Domino;

A New York City publisher probably needs $2000 a page to acquire, edit, typeset, print and distribute a book (making up a number from thin air). A self-published ebook author needs $1 a page.
That’s not a cost-efficiency. That’s a totally different industry. But the if the viewer/reader doesn’t treat the two products as fundamentally different, if reading or watching one is a replacement for the other, then a crisis is right around the corner.

Dis-intermediation is one thing. But the democratization of production? Making everything digital, and then making the tools free? That is the real "killer".

And no, it is not the "same" tools as used by the pros, but for a lot of things, good enough is more than enough. It doesn't need to have 80 footnotes for each chapter if that is hard to make, it can just have a free companion book of notes, sources and ideas for further reading.


Take the Flinch, by Julien Smith. Yes, literally take it. It is free. Written, proofed, edited and with a cover. Uploaded to Amazon, hosted and distributed by them as well. All for free. Because the ideas are what matters. Getting more people exposed to it means more people hcaniging their life and our world.

Sure it might also give a boost to the rest of the Domino back catalog, some more traction for the blog, and related sales for Amazon of Pressfield amongst others. But the main point is that putting out a book for free can be close to free.

And it goes for a lot of other media content as well. The variety of choice enabled by global instant distribution, combined with digital back catalogs? Stunning.

Case in point; audio content and yours truly.

 (Caution; shameless self-links ahead - back in time)


Once upon a time audio was music. And music was cd's (well a few records and a bunch of tapes, but it took off with the shiny disc).

As I grew older I picked up back catalog for artists I liked, one or five golden oldies, and new releases every now and then. Then I had a rather modest 150. That is one a week for three years.

Then I got online radio streaming - and so I could listen any time and "any where"(well, at uni anyway). Whole new world, less planned music, more new and unknown stuff.

Then I got the Zen Micro. And started making digital copies of those 150 cd's. And enjoying them all over again in new ways.

Then I got podcasts - and suddenly a whole new world of audio content on the go poured in. First a lot of "talk". The stories as Escapepod led to Podcastle and Pseudopod. And now music at work - Tiesto, Gareth Emery, Sebastien B keeps me in the zone when coding or doing number crunching.

So from simply music, today there are four audio content sets competing for my time;

• 150+ albums in iTunes 
• DAB and streaming Pinnell radio
• Music podcasts at work
• Assorted podcasts on the go

Most of them at little or no cost to me beyond already sunk cost such as the radio, the internet connection and the iPhone.

And then there is Spotify and Wimp...


- ...and the sun is back - again - mixed day today, but bright summer nights keeps the sun on past 21:00 ...

Paint me a picture, sing me a song

Amongst other things the evening has been given partially over to reading up on some blogs, and a great post from Mitch at Six Pixels sparked of some ideas of my own;


When The Definitions Are Wrong

One of the biggest disruptions you may have noticed since the pervasiveness of Social Media is our definition of things

So what is a blog?

For me it is mostly a personal journal, that is available to me at anytime and any place. Yes it is public, but mostly only technically so as there are few links and prompts for readers.
It is a place to reflect, gather up links, insights and ideas. To make things clearer by putting them into writing, and to challenge myself in terms of concepts and ideas that need a bit more thought.

For a lot of people it is a way of life - the teen blogs and fashion blogs spring to mind. It is how they interact with their peers, how they define and shape themselves. It is about communication certainly, but also about building an image (or a brand?), shaping the story.

Above all it is everything it has ever been - meaning archives by date, tag or topic - a repository of collected posts, comments, links and media (images, video etc)

So what is a website?

Simply a subset of content, structured and presented at a certain time to a certain user. On a blog everything is (in principle) there for everybody, whilst a website might adapt to the user (dynamic content, personalized) and vary over time with out storing the older versions.


Just those two words give so much meaning and so many expectations when we navigate the web. Will the page be there tomorrow? Will it look the same, and will it give us the same information?

I took some time put to watch a video on MTV - in and of itself a rare occurrence these days, as the music videos have almost all moved to the sub-channels that are premium paid - namely Runaway by Kayne West (YouTube).
No doubt a video that stretches the definition and scope of music video, more like a mini movie or the visual equivalent of a concept album. Yet it was still clearly a music video. The visuals tied into and built around the music. The story was there but served mostly to lift the different segments (verses?) into their own setting.

Would it have been better at five minutes?

Maybe, but sometimes to change and evolve things we need to push it beyond the natural limits, cross into a different but related realm in order to get a new frame of reference. Disruption and discomfort breeds innovation and change. You don't change by looking closer at yourself, but by looking at other things, other fields, other industries, other people or cultures.


Or like a short but thoughtful post put it (talking about people first, then companies):

Brand-driven businesses are of necessity mired in the competitive trap of trying to be somebody. To be the biggest, loudest, bestest somebody on the block. Innovation-driven businesses are trying to do something: they win by making better, doing better and being better.

(unfinished business)

So if you are trying to BE a blog - how is that working out? And just what is a blog - for YOU?

- ...and the sun is so far away, and sorely missed - ten below for weeks now...

Storytelling, what is it really?

Interactive book
Doesnt work out so well, according to N.carr's post, inning off another 'story' on interactive storytelling.

"As soon as the reader begins to fiddle with the narrative - to take an authorial role - the spell of the story is broken"

But isn't that what immersive games are all about? And they are certainly "designed by comittee", yet the time apent with games for youths would seem to surpass the lovely old linearly novel.
So, it is possible to do way more in terms of story and involvement, butmere word are not really enough to "keep the spell" - it takes a full experience, and even then it is hard to do (but then again so is writing a really great novel as opposed to just airplane fare...!

Another angle I miss in the post is the bardic / fairytale angle, when an oral story was told and retold countless times and over a length of time - with the Teller adjusting to fit the audience reaction and sentiments.

- ...and the sun gives scant comfort, with solid ice and show on the grpund and 8-10 below, 'tis winter time again...

Books? Who needs them...

The first printed books came with a question: What do you do with these things? (boston.com via Nieman Lab)

Great read on the history of print and publishing, and how it evoloved - lots of interesing similariteis to the cahnge towards digital now; business leading the way with internal documents, lots and lots of classics reprinted / repurposed, and slim odds for authors expecting to make it big.

And one more thought from this weekend, as I've picked up a couple of magazine for the iPad - at 20-30 NOK ($ 3-5) the digital version is going for ~20% of the retail price here in Norway. And pretty close to the coverprice for a daily newspaper (at least weekend editions)

What does that imply short to medium term for those selling magazines at retail in Norway? 

And for those translating and re-issuing localized versions? Suddenly there is a very direct and very cheap competitor right there. Would you rather have the latest fashion trends the same day as 'everyone' worldwide, or at best a week or three later when the print editon is in the store - or the local version is out?

News draft

Reflections of a Newsosaur: A tale of two very different journalism start-ups:

Crovitz "late 1990s, one-year WSJ.com sub. cost $49, the incremental cost to serve a new subscriber was $8, By 2006, the price was $99 while the cost had dropped to 85 cents."

Publish2 - Karp, the venture’s CEO:
"Google and others have taken over distribution. And newspapers are at the tail end, which is the least profitable.”
“Collecting links should be a work product, Newsrooms can use and publish those links instead of throwing away that research.”

combine those two views with
"The Next Twitter or Facebook is the Open Web" a blog post from micropersuasion

"Marketers need to really embrace the fact that it's peers and their data, rather than brand, that will become the primary way we make decisions."

Reccomendations first from your friends, then from their network, then from everybody?
circles of trust, weight and degree of match (people like you thought this was a 4.1 - ref. netflix challenge - see older post)

what does that amount to for news?
journalists we trust?
editors as stars?
the return of the personal anchor?
blogs and gateways - and using a cross section to get our overall picture?

???


??

?


Getting Money from Readers Who Won't Pay for Online News

"I'm sorry, but on the Web -- with 15 years of free news already in the bag -- the reality is that it's not worth much coming from most non-niche daily newspapers. So learn to sell something else to support the journalism."

Membership - because it is worth it... think crm, think overall relationship and insight, added value for members and for 'sponsors' (aka advertisers giving something more as member benefits)

Then, to finish off - head over to brogan for some thoughts on 'The Next Media Company' - nothing less... way general, way first draft (at least it was back then), but good list to get the mind moving in new directions and challenge the assumptions we currently hold.

iMagazine, iVideo or iPaper?

Playing around with the iPad it is fun to read and see a lot of different experiments and approaches to presenting content, both in terms of packages, user interaction models and of course payment models ranging from totally free, via ad supported to direct paid or subscription.

The Wired app was a break-out hit in its first incarnation - and judging from the Adobe promo video, there is still a ways to go within their planned scope. And while it has taken a bit of flack for being mainly an early 90-ies style interacitve cd-rom style solution it is a good read. My major gripe is the lack of clear indication of reading direction (ie is there more content down below, or should I swipe sideways to move forward - can't be to hard to add in a couple of options for this; 1. default - as now, 2. full - swipe sideways takes next page no matter what, 3. fallback - swipe down takes next if no content, sideways still skips)

Naturally as a long time reader of Wired I'm a bit biased, but the idea that magazines in general might be better suited for taking advantage of the tablet style solutions is interesting none the less. They already have a modest to long cycle with their readers. They have a lot of focus on flexible fullpage and multi page layouts. And the content generally is intended to stand on its own.

At least that seems true in terms of dedicated apps - while the "webapps" space seems ideally suited to more normal news-oriented organizations, where having direct access, instant updates and pretty much full control over both content and technology is an asset. Especially with frameworks like Sencha Touch (or iUI) taking a bit of the "grunt work", the road to an extended experience seems feasible.

- ...and the sun might break through the clouds any moment ...

Madden Madden ho

Game Changers: How Videogames Trained a Generation of Athletes was a major piece in Wired on how Madden in particullar was changing the way football (or american football in these World Cup 2010 times) is played. Because all of the players now competing grew up with second generation games consoles (PS2, xbox) and most of them probably have one or more third gen (PS3, xbox360, wii) - and the Madden franchise is so pervasive, the mindset changes - and the raw understanding of the game also changes

The same general ideas were discussed On The Media, were Bob G. interviewd the author of the piece, Chris Suellentrop in a segment called Field Guide February 05, 2010 (full transcripts online as for all OTM segments, transparency and "checkability" in effect)

I have no problem seeing the case for this, during the 99 cent sale from EA among other things I snagged the Madden iPhone app for use in 2x mode on the iPad. And it is just so increadibly immersive, escpecially for someone over here where NFL broadcasts are a rare treat - often shuffeled around on the program, and the few live matches are filled with overhead images of the stadium whenever there is a commercial or other break.

Mo'money?

Yes, I've jumped on the glorious bandwagon - a double whammy of corporate inducements joined the ride as I jumped onto a new template based design for the blog (and finally got around to getting it wider, nice touch with slider for both total and sidebar widths)

First off I added AdSense to get some first hand experience from tweaking it and adjusting the settings - not that the current or historical traffic numbers give me too much to work with...

The second thing that has been on the todo list for a while, was to try out the Amazon Affiliate integration that was being touted. As a mild Amazon Addict myself, it seems like a good fit - and also a good excuse to actually write up a few short posts on some of the books I've flown through after getting the Kindle Global Edition.

I now have the Kindle software on my Touch (used mainly for listening to podcasts and podiobooks), my personal laptop (less and less in use - see next item), the iPad (great for watching web video, playing games, twitter, mail and general news overview) and on my iPhone.

But still I read on the actual Kindle device and love it - for a lot of the same points raised by JES in his post 
"Kindle – my perfect vacation companion" - this afternoon I was outside in the sun while junior was splashing in his tiny pool and running around the terrace. So the 'book' was in the side pocket of my cargo shorts, and I could get a couple of pages at a time when he was occupied. Lightweight, stays "on" and great in bright light? Perfect summer reading.

Fun distractions

The last shall be the first, so in order to work my way back through the pile of blog ideas, notes and clippings - I thought it would be easiest to start of with the newest stuff

And one of the newest items is in fact one of the oldest - Wired Reread is a blog going through back issues of Wired, presenting ads that might not have stood the test of time; like the book ad for Windows 3.1 Bible - because faith was required. So far the total is up to 36, with more sure to come as Mr. Søndergaard keeps on browsing.

The other fun concept seems to be either gone or down. 'twas a MacBook cover made as a book - hence the BookBook. The cached page is still at Google, sans the images. They have some products listed on Amazon, but no BookBook.


Then for the gripe of the day, @blogger; apparently either the new compose editor has "forgotten" a few shortcuts (ctrl-shift-a links yes thank you) - or Google Chrome feels the need to override them. 'tis a wonderful life - bold and italics work fine though

- ...and the sun just went away for some evening showers, still summer and warm so no complaints...

Fictional dimension

Dimensions in Mathematics - a phantom, a chimera

Readers who will have snagged a copy of Stieg Larsson's newest thriller The Girl Who Played with Fire ... HUP blogpost de-bunking the book - a shame since it sounded like a great read. As is the Millenium Trilogy by the afore mentioned mr Larsson (Stieg not Steig as the have it), crime with a twisted backstory and a bit of tech thrown in more or less likely.


As for the more meta dimension on this blog - I've been blogging a bit in Norwegian on two different WP blogs (consolidated them last week) the last six months, as well as playing around with Tumblr and WP in general to get a feel for the systems. Also Twitter has been eating up a fair share of time - skimming tweets, reading articles and re-tweeting rather than reflecting a bit more in-depth. But today being 2-2-10 (or binary 2 ;D) it was time to get some thoughts flowing again for the new month, year and decade

...and the sun shone somewhere behind the clouds today - as the snow kept on falling...

Soundtrack; Gareth Emery podcast, epi 87 - bit of backlog there as well

Immature subset

"In the last week I've gotten ads that range from 10 seconds, 15 seconds, 30 seconds, 41 seconds and 60 seconds. What is going on?"
- Streaming Media post [track]

there seems to be little doubt that online video or web-tv as both a narrative medium and as a commercial vehicle is immature. Being on the 'forefront' of online, which is itself still a bit underdeveloped in terms of sustainable monetization.

But is the length of an ad really the main point going forward? On tv you can get 15 as well as the more standard 30 second spots, but you can buy longer blocks and keep the story rolling. Or you can get a burst-ad (several small spots of a few seconds each combine to tell a larger story).

Isn't the real challenge finding a better way to match ads, content and viewers? The holy grail of behavioral and predictive matching, how the web was/is (???) supposed to move beyond billboards (aka banner-ads on mainstream sites) and into the land of quality - thereby breaking the old adage about half of ads being wasted.

Search ads have been one step in the direction, with Ad words also potentially stepping forward. But with so many advertisers and so many "non essential" or "non engaging" products, how can you keep the dream alive?
Detergent ads after surfing for several hours straight? Or only if you don't visit online ordering for pizza delivery?


Some good thoughts and questions in Six Pixels - both a blog post (Display Advertising And Search Are Connected At The Hip ) and the 'breakfast talk' with mr analytics (SPOS #152 - Orgasmic Digital Marketing Avinash Kaushik )

Things will change. Radically. But it will take time.

Do you want to make it change?
Or hope to get by until retirement or similar before it does?

Tri-pod or three horesmen?

Triple-header of media thinking today:

The speech the NAA should hear

(BuzzMachine, April 7th) - "you blew it" - a strong rant on the state of the States especially, having focused on milking a dying cow rather than changing with (or ahead of) the times.

Is it to late now, because the financial situation has turned years of cash reserves into weeks of burn-rate funds? Because there just isn't money enough to go around?

Only 20% of users use frontpage - rest from search, aggregators, blogs etc? Not quite the situation in Norway and the Nordic markets, but a strong reminder that more ways of finding content also means more ways of 'losing' control

Google's Love For Newspapers & How Little They Appreciate It

(Danny Sullivan, April 6th) - thoughts on the "print is the quality stuff, online is auto" (as said by surprisingly many abroad and locally), and the search (pun intended) for scapegoats, blaming google for being too good at search and then not blocking them out? Starts with an h...

Bit narrow overall, but solid on the google relationship and options.

Future May Be Brighter, but It's Apocalypse Now

('Chaos Scenario' author et al. Bob Garfield on March 23rd) You have to love the title. Cross referencing 80-ies movies across genres and slogans? Priceless. And it wasn't even "edited by brooke"

"economies are unsentimental and denial unproductive" -expand the horizon and mass media with advertizing becomes a short blip. Word of mouth. Trust and relationships. That goes back a bit. Things have changed, and will continue to change.

mr OTM and adage goes through the media channels one by one, leaving no hope hanging, no rosy tint unbleamished. It certainly bodes well as an indicator of the entertainment value of the book, but not quite so well for the businesses and employees at hand.

"if you can watch TV programs on your actual TV, with very few ads and no subscription fees to a cable middleman, why wouldn't you?" Convergence is coming. Convergence is here.


And even the online "giants" get theirs, since online is also "killing" itself - anyone can blog, so everyone blogs, so "no one" gets a premium cpm and margins plummet faster than Moores law reduces tech costs.



The first two both from jayrosen_nyu - there are many thoughts and ideas out there, but unless we trust someone to distill them for us, how can we even hope to have the time to cover it all for ourselves? We publish well over a hundred stories on average (in the rss feed), and that excludes the majority of the sport coverage.

Can you build a trusted position with just a bit of content? Become a gateway with an opinion and bit of unique flavour? How much tech and personel can you support that way? How big or small can the audience get while still being valuable enough to warrant ad sales?


...and the sun got a bit covered in the afternoon, still hoping for a bright easter and some time on the bike...

Memix - remix

YouTube: "Memix" a fun remix/mashup of the interview between Colbert and Lessig, "set to a dance beat" [first vid via gisleh on twitter]

Love the focus and twist to "memix" - how I add value by doing something more. Really in character while at the same time making a great point. It's not about distribution, but about creativity and the chance to express something based on the things around you.

Strangely now meme or wikipedia article on the term yet.

...and the sun ran away from the rain of winter today ...

News or media?

"Mark Glaser, of PBS's MediaShift... offering up alternative business models" [SFN blog]
"mixing business models for journalism with business models for newspapers" - from the comments on the 'guide'

It is a (by web standards) interesting and broad piece - but I agree with some of the commenters; Glaser is mixing it all up and could do with a bit more structure and defining some terms.

Journalism, publishing and media - are they entwined, and do the need to be?

Looking across from newspapers into print in general, television and online services - the answer is a partial yes, and clearly no.

Most magazines offer some sort of "journalistic content" - but the form and process differ across titles and genres (compare a games magazine to a fashion title, and then with a journal like Nature)

Many (most?) television channels offer only a small share of news - and even for those that do it makes up a small percentage of total time spent viewing. And yet some of the core tenets of objectivity and presenting a story are well taken care of on channels like Discovery and National Geo. (Mythbusters rather than American Chopper - but even the latter serves as a human interest story and presents both details on the production as well as the cause of the bike in question)

Turning back to Glaser - blogs and video are tools for spreading online content, not a business model as such, but a vital part of any broader or more niche offering. Hyperlocal and niches are targets or user needs - but still need to be supported by revenues.

That narrows down the list to subscription (walled garden), classified (ie business and private ads), philantrophy (crowdfunding, nonprofit) - with the last one being the only "alternative" to the two most common for newspapers today, but still as well known media solution in terms of NPR, PBS etc.

Does that make the piece thin? No, because the main conclusion is delivered up front before the different models - and it is one with which I for one wholeheartedly agree with;

"a successful online newspaper will need a mix of many different revenue streams to survive in the digital age" - Glaser

...and the sun turned around today - heading towards summer as of a little past noon local time...

...and yes - I intentionnaly did not define the terms or link extensively to wikipedia and so on - as this is a short musing and not a "guide" :)

Poynter column on the news as a part of a process rather than as a goal in and of itself;
"News doesn't always have to be a finished story. In some cases, a launching point might be even more intriguing and engaging."

Isn't that the "holy grail" or great promise of online journalism? Giving the reader everything they need in order to go as deep or far as they need, want and have the time for?
By tying in information both from internal and external sources, you can provide a much bigger picture - just like Silobreaker - thereby broadening the options for the reades.
Previous articles about the mayor and his campaing finance? Check. Previous tv-segments from the debate last fall? Check. Google or Archive versions of his blog posts? Check.
No, it doesn't make sense for a lot of stories - but the more automated the core is, the easier it becomes to add some insight quickly by highlighting one of five possible stories - or by removing one that is out of date. When there is between a hundred and three hundred articles on the taliban in silobreaker, it is a pure necessity to be able to filter further, zoom in on a timespan (use the chart) And the same policy should be core for any news organization.

Bring the reader everything they might need or want - and then make it easy for them to do their filtering.

"But then, "most people" don't care about any particular story you can find in a mainstream news venue. The "general audience" is a myth. When you get down to the story level, news has always been about niches. Every piece of news has its own community of relevance -- and every news topic offers myriad potential stories." - check for further comments

Bit by little bit

What is next and now in terms of streaming video? The Adobe Media Player looked really neat when it arrived, playing up CSI episodes full screen even over here in Norway. But now it seems to be a bit quiet on that side of the aisle.

Several companies are working on changing the underlying logic, much like bittorrent did for distirbution of files. Here are some notes and thoughts on tow of them - BitGravity and Move Networks.

Bitgravity caught my notice due to a nifty "multiview" experiment one of their people put up, and I think it was CC who tweeted it.
They got a bit of funding back in august (2.5m)- and uses a flash interface making them at home on most computers;
"challenged conventional methods for delivering content" - "automatically detects end-user bandwidth quality ... adjusts the stream’s bitrate to optimize it for the user" - sure sounds nice and comfortable.

Move on the other hand got their hands on quite a bit of funding this spring (46m), they have a solid roster og clients ( ABC, FOX, ESPN, the CW, and Discovery.) - but have been based around a dedicated player.

However, there was talk of the solution becoming a part of Silverlight (v2 most likely?) - and MS also put up some cash. But little readily available info on what has happened since march. A good sign that they are doing a solid job, or another case of times moving on?

With MS partnering with Akamai; "Smooth Streaming (SmoothHD.com) from our partner Akamai. Smooth Streaming will be available in a public beta in Q1 2009. " - and that ties into the Open Player initiative.

...and the sun, oh the sun...

Silver lining?

"in most cases, Flash video streaming is still more expensive for content owners to deliver, especially for those with a lot of traffic" (full post and comments)

Could Silverlight seriously push aside Flash as the main format for more advanced web applications and experiments? With javascript apps eating away at the other end of the market, losing the video/animation focus could seriously dampen the way forward.

Several media companies are already promoting Silverlight as a Mac/Unix option for their exsisting WMV streaming, thereby helping spread the installed base and user awareness. And solutions like the JW makes it even easier to play around.

Short term? No worries... long term? Netscape, Real Networks and Wordperfect anyone?