Author Archive

On TV and on the Web, "The Daily Show" sports an impressive political guest list

by Daniel Langendorf

April 24th, 2008 | Posted in Net TV | Comments2 Comments

obama on jon stewart showI sometimes forget just how powerful Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart” has become. On Monday, the night before the Pennsylvania Democratic primary, there was candidate Barack Obama chatting and laughing with Stewart.

It wasn’t eight months ago, when Obama first appeared on “The Daily Show.” It was the night before an important primary. Stewart obviously carries some serious clout — and not just on television. Every clip from “The Daily Show”, whether political or not, is available for free for streaming from the show’s Web site.

Today Comedy Central announced more notable political figures will appear as guests in the next two weeks as part of “Indecision 2008”: former President Jimmy Carter (April 28), former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (April 29), Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean (May 1), and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (May 5). You can expect many more politicos during the run-up to the November election.

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The Mobile Industry Wants You! (to tell them what you want in a cell phone)

by Daniel Langendorf

April 23rd, 2008 | Posted in Mobile | CommentsNo Comments

mobile industry wants youSomething is going on here. Why does the mobile industry want us, the consumer, to develop its phones for them?

At the Wireless Innovations 2008 conference today in Redwood City, Calif., panelists predicted “radical changes to what customers expect and demand,” according to a Dow Jones report.

T-Mobile reps said its first Google-powered Android phone, due out in the fourth quarter, will be tailored to the consumer, and at the same time the consumer will tell the carriers what they want their mobile devices to do.

This will lead to an “avalanche” of innovation from consumers, panelists said.

As the Dow Jones report notes, “The time is ripe for innovators and start-ups to deliver what consumers want in new, possibly lucrative ways.”

At least four household-name companies are asking customers and third-party developers for input — Google, Apple, Nokia, and LG — and two of them (Apple and Nokia) are believed to have their acts together in the mobile space.

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Sony delays Home a second time; it's now a year behind schedule

by Daniel Langendorf

April 23rd, 2008 | Posted in Other | CommentsNo Comments

sony homeLast100 editor Steve O’Hear asked me today why, in a post about Sony’s movie/TV download service for the PlayStation yesterday, did I use the phrase “may launch” in the headline.

I thought about it, and I guess it was an oversight. I should have been more concrete: Sony is launching a movie/TV download service for the PlayStation.

But I explained that there is something deeper in my psyche that probably chose “may launch”: I don’t trust Sony these days. This movie/TV download service isn’t the first one the company has tried, and it’s not the only one that’s been on the drawing board.

Today comes along the news that Sony is delaying the debut of Home, its Second Life-like 3D virtual online community service for the PlayStation 3. See what I mean? Home has now been delayed twice and is now at least a year behind schedule.

Sony now expects a test version of Home to be available this summer for a limited number of users in Japan, the U.S., and Europe. After getting user feedback and making tweaks, Sony will release a beta of Home for all PS3 owner to try this fall.

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Apple patent for real-time IM on iPhone hints at what's really to come

by Daniel Langendorf

April 22nd, 2008 | Posted in Mobile | Comments1 Comment

iphone patentFrom Day 1 of the iPhone’s existence, users have clamored for a real-time instant message client like iChat. Instead, they’ve been given a sub-par intermediate solution — SMS through the exclusive iPhone carrier network, AT&T.

When Apple announced its software developers kit (SDK) will be available for third-party application development in June, those who covet an iPhone IM client rejoiced, crossing and recrossing their fingers in hope.

On Tuesday, AppleInsider noted that Apple applied for a patent last August on a universal interface for a real-time chat service on the iPhone. The patent was recently published in March.

The patent details what the IM client would look like and how it would behave on the iPhone. Judging by images that accompany the patent, IM will look like the current SMS program and also be a bit iChat-esque.

When I heard of the patent, I wondered why Apple just didn’t wait for others to develop their own third-party IM clients — AOL for AIM, Google for Gtalk, Yahoo! for Messenger, and others. The answers I came up with were:

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Let's hope Sony gets it right this time: may launch movie/TV download service for PlayStation

by Daniel Langendorf

April 21st, 2008 | Posted in Net TV | Comments2 Comments

sony ps3Word that Sony may be again launching a movie and TV download service was met today with interest and a bit of much-deserved scoffing.

It’s not like Sony hasn’t tried this before. Remember Movielink? Thought so. (It was sold to Blockbuster, by the way.) Remember Sony Connect? It shut down in March.

Heck, since the monumental success of the Walkman ages ago — in an analog world far, far away — Sony has pretty much failed at every digital offering, minus the early PlayStations and some home theater equipment. The whole digital music thing passed Sony by as Apple took over the Walkman mantle with the iPod, iTunes, and the rest of its digital lifestyle ecosystem.

The Los Angeles Times today reported that Sony is again in talks with Hollywood muckety-mucks regarding a download service that would beam movies and television shows from the Internet to the PlayStation 3.

But because said muckety-mucks are hush-hush over the negotiations, not much else is known — no pricing or if the movies and TV shows are for rent or purchase. One tantalizing tidbit, however, is being floated about.

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Google says it has received 1,788 entries for Android challenge; not everybody is happy

by Daniel Langendorf

April 18th, 2008 | Posted in Mobile | Comments1 Comment

android dudeIt’s great that developers for Google’s mobile operating system Android have “risen to the challenge,” as a Google-ite said on the Android Developers Blog late Thursday. Google has received nearly 1,800 submissions from 70 countries for its Android Developer Challenge.

But at least one developer we know has ditched Android for the time being because his investors are demanding results, and so far he cannot deliver an Android solution in tandem with actual working hardware.

Peter Wojtowicz, the mastermind behind the Wi-Fi Army mobile game, announced early this year that his team would be developing the revolutionary game in Android, which generated a lot of interest from gaming, mobile, and Android blogs around the world.

Because Wi-Fi Army is cutting edge, combining a cell phone’s camera with Wi-Fi, bluetooth, location-based service, a back-end server architecture, and a slew of other complexities, investors interested in supporting his team have demanded proof-of-concept results that Wojtowicz cannot deliver with actual working Gphones. Adding to the frustration, Wojtowicz is often delayed when one Android SDK release isn’t compatible with an older one, forcing the team to lose time backtracking.

Time is something Wojtowicz doesn’t have as he — and others — are racing to get their next-generation games to market as quickly as possible. For the time being, Wojtowicz’s team is developing Wi-Fi Army simultaneously in Microsoft’s Windows Mobile and Symbian; he expects to start work on the iPhone when Apple releases the SDK in June.

“It would be a lot easier with the (Google-powered) phone in hand,” Wojtowicz said.

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Let's hope Lonelygirl 15 and KateModern creators put their $5 million to good use

by Daniel Langendorf

April 17th, 2008 | Posted in Net TV | CommentsNo Comments

eqalThe Internet is really feeling like the fifth TV network these days, with the line blurring between producing content for television and the Web. For a while now, the Internet has had its own production companies like NextNew Networks and 60Frames to develop unique online “shows.”

On Thursday Net TV got another online production company, one with pedigree. Miles Beckett and Greg Goodfried, the ones behind Web hits Lonelygirl 15 and spin-off KateModern, secured $5 million in Series A venture funding to launch Eqal, their new “social entertainment” production company, which supplants an earlier effort known as LG15 Studios/Telegraph Ave. Productions.

Eqal — pronounced “Equal” — join the likes of Joss Whedon’s Mutant Enemy and Bryan Singer’s Bad Hat Harry Productions as independent production houses, only Eqal produces for the Web, not for television or film.

“It’s an exciting time for online entertainment,” Beckett and Goodfried wrote on the company blog. “There are a slew of independent producers, digital studios, and social media companies sprouting up, not to mention the fact that traditional media isn’t exactly ignoring this whole ‘internets’ thing. . . .

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Catching up on iTunes news: NBC wants back on iTunes, but with conditions

by Daniel Langendorf

April 16th, 2008 | Posted in Audio | CommentsNo Comments

Catching up on iTunes with NBC Universal, Fox and Paramount, Amazon MP3, and Starbucks.

NBC wants back on iTunes, but with conditions

George Kliavkoff, NBC Universal’s chief digital officer, indicated indirectly and directly at the Ad: Tech conference that NBC would like to be back on iTunes, which the network dumped in late 2007 over a nasty public spat about pricing.

kliavkoffIndirectly, Kliavkoff said during an on-stage interview at the conference, “If you look at studies about MP3 players, especially leading MP3 players and what portion of that content is pirated, and think about how that content gets onto that device, it has to go through a gate-keeping piece of software, which would be a convenient place to put some anti-piracy measures.”

Directly, Kliavkoff said, “We’d love to be on iTunes”, but only if Apple institutes more anti-piracy measures. “It has a great customer experience,” he said. “We’ve love to figure out a way to distribute our content on iTunes.”

The timing is interesting. iTunes is now the largest music retailer, and while the video side of the store (TV shows and movies) has not reached the same level, it still benefits from the overall iTunes brand and music traffic. Since NBC bolted, no other major network or studio has followed, leaving NBC standing alone.

Think NBC regrets its decision?

If it does, NBC doesn’t appear to be budging. In addition to the extra anti-piracy protection, the network would also like to see flexible pricing on iTunes, which doesn’t seem to be likely anytime soon.

(via News.com and NewTeeVee)

Photo credit of Kliavkoff: News.com at Ad:Tech

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Where do you get your recommendations on the Web? From a service like The Filter? Or from friends?

by Daniel Langendorf

April 15th, 2008 | Posted in Audio, Other, Social | CommentsNo Comments

It’s hard to fault Peter Gabriel’s logic: We are overwhelmed by the amount of information and choice we have on the Web. But is his solution — a recommendation engine called The Filter — really the answer?

Of course Gabriel, the genius behind the British rock band Genesis and the solo artist who gave us such tunes as “Solsbury Hill,” “Exposure,” and “Games Without Frontiers,” thinks so as he and England’s Eden Ventures have invested $8 million in The Filter. They believe people are overwhelmed by the Web and can’t find good content because it’s buried out of sight.

“When you drown people in an ocean of information, you’ve got to give them navigation tools,” Gabriel told News.com. “I know that there is better stuff out there than what I generally am exposed to . . . So if I have a sort of intelligent ally working with me 24 hours a day, I think I have a much better chance of getting stuff that will entertain, excite, and inspire me.”

The Filter, originally launched as a music recommendation service about a year ago in Europe, re-launched today in private beta as a more complete solution. It will be available to the public sometime in May.

But there’s something about The Filter that bugs me. What separates The Filter from any of the other algorithm-based recommendation engines out there, whether a human is a part of the process or not — Amazon, iTunes, lastFM, Netflix, Imeem, Digg, Pandora, and many more?

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CBS scores big with March Madness on Demand

by Daniel Langendorf

April 14th, 2008 | Posted in Net TV | CommentsNo Comments

cbs march madness on demandNo surprise here, unless of course you were a Memphis fan, but CBS’ online March Madness on Demand was a big hit.

CBS said it had 4.8 million unique visitors throughout the three-week tournament, a 164 percent increase over 1.8 million uniques in 2007. Of course, that’s apples and oranges: This was the first year CBS made the entire NCAA men’s basketball tournament available from start to finish.

Total hours consumed live online were 4.9 billion, up 81 percent from 2.7 billion in 2007. Again, apples and oranges. (via paidContent)

As you might figure, interest in the tournament was greater at the start, when 64, then 32, then 16 teams were involved, expanding the number of fans who might tune in via the Web. The busiest time was during business hours, when people did not have access to a television and the boss was out of earshot.

CBS has not said anything officially about the profitability of March Madness on Demand, but a spokesman got in touch with the folks at NewTeeVee to say it estimates revenues at $23 million, up from an earlier prediction of $21 million.

All in all, not bad for CBS, the NCAA, and tournament winner Kansas. Memphis, however, may see it a bit differently.

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