June 28, 2007
Ok, so research Tuesday became research Wednesday Thursday.
Males Love Video Long Time
It’s been a reading week for me. Lots of great stuff to mull over and help shape ones thinking about digital media. Lets start with a report by consultancy Frank N. Magid & Associates with the irresistibly tantalizing header “80% of 18 – 24 Males Watch Online Video“. Only 53% of their female counter-parts are watching an equal amount of video. The report goes on to claim that news clips are the most watched content type. Teenage cat fights, skating injuries and soft-core porn dont even chart according to the report thus greatly reducing its credibility. Via Digital Media Wire
Ladies Love Drunk Texting
Ever gotten a drunk text at 3am from a former girlfriend, proclaiming her undying love and mounting desire for you? Maybe this just happens to me… Well, thanks to a new survey put out by Samsung we now have some fun research on these women. Yup folks, the technocrats at Samsung have put out a pretty funny research report outlining some of the cell usage behaviors of single women. The title is a good indication of the rest of the report: “Single Mobile Females Find New BFF: Their Cell Phone“. It’s a funny fast read lite on details with blog worthy data pulls like 40% of women experience “text shame” the morning after texting while inebriated.
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Conjecture, Gadgets, horrible headlines, Long Tail, Market Research & Intelligence, mobile, mobile phone, Online TV, Quantification, Research, Research Summary, SMF, social ideas, Tech Musings, Technology & Entertainment, trend, TrendSpotting, User Generated Content, video, Web Resources, Zune | 
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Posted by changesgood
May 11, 2007
Good news: Today Joost announced they raised $45 million bucks with power VC firm’s from around the globe and a YouTube hating media giant. The deal brings together Index Ventures of the EU, Sequoia Capital of Silicon Valley fame, and the Li Ka-shing foundation run by Hong Kong based billionaire, Li Ka-shing. The international focus of the money flowing into the coffers of Joost is telling as is the participation of the GooTube hating crew at Viacom. The real shocker isnt that Joost got a butt load of money, its that with all the MBA’s, consultants, researchers, futurist and pundits, that are employed by the media companies only Viacom was smart or savvy enough to get in on the deal.
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3 Comments | ABC, Broadband, Broadband-Wagon, CBS, CNN, Conjecture, deals, Digital downloading, Funding, futute tv, GooTube, hot betas, IPTV, joost, NBC, Online TV, social media, Technology & Entertainment, TrendSpotting, TV | Permalink
Posted by changesgood
February 2, 2007
The good folks at Viacom have sent our friends at GooTube a cease and desist letter, demanding that the service remove 100,000 video clips of the company’s shows. As of this posting Google has desisted from ceasing.
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2 Comments | copyright, Entertainment, Google, google trends, mtv, Online TV, Technology & Entertainment, User Generated Content, viacom, video, YouTube | Permalink
Posted by changesgood
September 20, 2006
On Monday Napster issued a press release, which got great pick-up, stating that it was gonna try to parlay the scant $97 million it has in the bank, the mirage of increasing traffic and a brand which is still incredibly popular with geriatric investment bankers, into a windfall for senoir management and a modest return for investors. In the press release company CEO, Chris Gorong, who owns about 700k shares of the companies stock, which at todays close ($4.01) is worth about $2.8 million, said that his company intends to “thoughtfully examine potential combinations that may further enhance Napster’s unique strategic and brand position in the center of digital media.” In other words, they’re gonna pretend they’re still relevant, collect as many offers as they can and sell while big media companies are in an acquisitive mood. Dump it fella’s, sell for as much as you can.
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1 Comment | Digital Music, Fun with PR, Music Musings, Napster, Technology & Entertainment | Permalink
Posted by changesgood
September 1, 2006
I’ve got a decent size music collection. According to my MP3tunes stats I could listen to music continuously for 6 weeks straight and not hear the same song twice (dare i say my drives are well endowed). Depending on my mood, the phase of the moon and amount of sugar in my system, I could listen to everything from Alison Krauss to Zero 7. So why does Pandora insist to be calling me gay? Not even a manly gay figure like Rock Hudson or Big Gay Al, but a chanting, new-agey, lesbian.
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4 Comments | Foolishness, Humor, Pandora, tech humor, Technology & Entertainment, Web 2.0 | Permalink
Posted by changesgood
August 23, 2006
Sony Pictures Entertainment announced today that they were buying Grouper.com, one of the 30 plus UGC video sites attempting to unseat YouTube as the King of crap collection. The deal puts $65 million in the coffers at Grouper and CEO, Josh Felser, gets to keep his job. They say they may move the company towards advertising in the future but have no current plans to change the sites model or structure. You can read the press release here or just marvel at the word-smithing of Grouper’s CEO below.
“When you pair Grouper’s innovative video sharing platform on the web and the desktop with Sony’s connected devices and copyrighted media you create a dynamic and exciting environment for consumers,” said Grouper CEO and co-founder Josh Felser. “We have an opportunity, as part of the Sony family, to bring together user-generated and copyrighted content across platforms and devices for the first time.”
Someone need to let Josh know that for the last 10 years user generated content has been little more then copyrighted content flying across platforms and devices without the permission of companies like, say, I dont know, SONY. Read the rest of this entry »
Leave a Comment » | Broadband, Broadband-Wagon, Fun with PR, Grouper.com, social networking, Sony, Technology & Entertainment, User Generated Content, video, Viral marketing, Web 2.0 | Permalink
Posted by changesgood
May 10, 2006
Yesterday's NYT carried this story about "the frog" doing a deal with BitTorrent to distribute hundreds of movies and TV shows via its software. My favorite quote form the whole article is by Kevin Tsujihara, a WB prexy, he said, "If we can convert 5, 10 or 15 percent of the illegal down-loaders into consumers of our product, that is significant."
Awesome. This is what I've been saying (here and here). Someone on the left coast is finally getting it. Now if they would only mention it to their brethren in the music biz we might actually see some innovation in payment options, distribution models and devices.
The service wont be available until the summer and no information was offered in terms of pricing or DRM but its safe to assume they are both going to be part of the deal. Big questions not addressed in the article or press release include users response to paying for music they help distribute. Read the press release here although the article is a tad more insightful.
Crosbie Fitch and Andy Green's discussions on the pho list introduce a number of great questions and some possible answers.
Leave a Comment » | BitTorrent, Movie downloads, Tech Musings, Technology & Entertainment | Permalink
Posted by changesgood
April 3, 2006
I'm not sure about the sex, but movie industry executives are displaying lots of stupidity and greed.
You know that the movie industry has a great press machine when both the NY and LA Times carry stories about their latest efforts to prove that they have learned nothing from the last 7 years of media experience. You also know that the industry is on a long, slow march into irrelevance as both papers chose to lampoon their latest announcements rather then turn it into the usual piracy debate. The movie industry has clearly decided to follow in the footsteps of the record companies and pretend that people have no other options to their inane "offerings". In the fanciful minds of movie executives consumers appear to be so flush with cash and devoid of Read the rest of this entry »
2 Comments | BitTorrent, Broadband, cinemanow, Entertainment, Movie downloads, movielink, Tech Musings, Technology & Entertainment | Permalink
Posted by changesgood
March 13, 2006
I’ve been active on the Internet since 1990 and have been working with content on the web since 1994 (history permanently archived here and here ) so I consider myself something of a veteran (not wiser or smarter just older). So, when in the course of my latest gig I decided to put my random thoughts, arcane readings and strange encounters online as an opportunity to teach myself about the new tools and services for content creation I was sure it would be a breeze. Instead, what I found was that an old dog can get really frustrated by all the new tricks. My odyssey from the world of mute silence to global blogging on the web’s bleeding edge is cautionary tale of exploration and discovery.As a die hard Google enthusiast, I started my journey with a Google owned blog creation tool. I expectied a “killer app” that took the best bits from Gmail, Google Pages , Google Maps and Picasa. Instead what I got was Blogger.
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4 Comments | Broadband, Innovation, Tech Musings, Technology & Entertainment, Web 2.0 | Permalink
Posted by changesgood
Change Is Good 