Information Tids Bits About Media and Technology

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– Apple got a new VP of Product Design – Doug Field from Segway. Tim O’Reilly has an interesting observation about this move.

– Friendfeed is under fire:

• Om calls it FakeFeed
• CenterNetworks Shows that the guys who are followed most are not necessarily the ones who contribute to the conversation.
• Scoble believes that conversation really matters there.
• My view – Friendfeed is a hyped application. It has novelty by showing which topics are the most discussed among my friends, but it is nothing more than that. Maybe after the hype, now comes the phase of sad realization…

– HeySpread provides cool service for multisite video distribution and encoding. Business model is similar to wordpress.com – users buy credits for encoding, watermarking etc. Read more at their blog

Have a great day!

Om Malik at TWS2008 – Live Blogging

The state of Silicon Valley:

– Web 2.0 as we know it is over – the first years we saw Flickr, where we learned how to use the web smarter and better. But our expectations changed, all good services should have the high level of product. There were a lot of startups, and suddenly you had too many services all around. web 2.0 is being used in non web2.0 companies. The concepts are now mainstream.

Now what?

– Get things done kind of applications (such as 37signals)

– There is an explosion of information, and content creation

– We need someone to clean the noise

– Summize for the web – is a killer concept

– Mobile application has an important role in this area as well

– Cloud computing reduces the need to pay a lot of money for infrastructure

Om Malik Opens NTV Station – The Best of Web Video, Facing Challenges

Om Malik anounced a new venture today called NewTeeVee Station, an editorial driven guide to online videos:

...NewTeeVee Station is your guide to online video, pointing you to hot new memes, following the emerging stars of the web, and just generally indexing this new entertainment medium. Whereas in the past we covered online video shows like Ask a Ninja, Obama Girl andWallstrip from a business perspective, now we’re also reviewing content for content’s sake…

….NTV Station features editorial reviews of online videos written by a team led by Liz Shannon Miller, who comes to us from Variety and the Daily Reel. We eliminate the static and bring to you videos that are actually good — but also the stuff that’s so bad it has everyone talking… When you visit the front page of NTV Station, you’ll see in one glance what’s hot at that very moment. Our editors monitor the online video universe and refresh the site with new videos throughout the day. A special widget developed using the VodPod API allows you to scroll through all of our past video picks….

I am a big fan of sites trying to make some sense of all the videos out there. In a past, I wrote a hotly debated post where I asked when would someone create an online HBO equivalent, and gang all the best video shows to one site. This is a form of content discovery in my opinion – a way to bring the best videos to my computer screen. Would Om answer my prayers?

Challenges ahead

Value

There were several initiative in this area, one of them was Jeff Pulver’s Network2.tv. While N2 was aiming at being a definitive guide to all episodic video on the web, it seems that Om’s effort is a mix of being IMDB and an editorial driven site, that does some filtering for the audience. What I am missing here is a clear value proposition, or, in other words, what exactly should I expect – the best videos? The hottest videos? All the “good” videos?

Definition of Quality

One of the trickiest issues in the world of online video is the definition of quality. How can the editor in NTV know what’s good for me? Though philosophical in nature, it is a major challenge, that I’d love to hear Om’s opinion about.

User Interface

Last but not least, user interface is one of the biggest challenges in online video today. Looking at the current interface of most video recommendation sites, one would see the same scroll down page with x amount of videos. This interface works for YouTube, but in my opinion should be improved. NewTeeVee is built as a blog, and as such it is well designed. As a video interface – not so good IMHO:

1. Almost one-third of the screen is dedicated to promotion, ad space, and other money making machines.

2. Viewers need to scroll down in order to see recommended shows.

3. Video player is covering a small amount of the screen – while it is supposed to be the dominant experience

4. Users need to click at least twice to start playing a video

My belief is that online video interfaces should be, well, video interfaces. I’d like to see a site with a dominant video player, where users could navigate and find the best videos for them. This way, the video experience is the dominant one, and not the textual interface.

I hope that Om will be successful in this project – the web certainly needs one!

Watch Out Rupert!!!

Hot from the press – Facebook Pages just released

Facebook just released Facebook Pages, which enables you to create pages for items, and not only people.

Now you can create a page for a business, TV show, organization and so on.

I am very excited with this new feature, as I got a bit worried seeing all those fake profiles of companies and products on Facebook.

How it affects the market?

1. I believe that it improves the overall value of Facebook to users. Now we know who is a person, product or business.

2. Number of groups might be reduced – no need to open a group for fans of a tv show – you can just open a page for it.

3. Online directories might be affected – as users can find now businesses through Facebook.

4. Personally, I believe it will increase the time I spend on the site.

On the same topic, Facebook Beacon is really disturbing. This application allows site owners to add code to their site that sends through Facebook activity notification to contacts. Personally, I feel that this one is a bit too much.

Om thinks the same, and you can find a guide on how to block this intrusive product here.

Want to know more? Subscribe to my RSS feed or email list.

Technorati Tags: facebook,facebook pages,business,social media,facebook beacon,om malik

Om Malik Starts Video Shows

When I asked Om Malik in a joint panel at Blogference if he has plans to go into podcasting and Internet Video shows, he said that he was thinking about this direction. Less than a month later, Om published his first show, in cooperation with Revision3. The show covers Internet trends and analysis, topics he analyze in his blog.

Contrary to what I thought, the initial aim of this product is not to get more advertising dollars. In a recent conversation, Om stated that he viewed video as a medium that surpass the limits of blogging – while posts has to be short and precise, online video enabled him to do long form interviews. Another angle I found interesting is that Om saw this medium as a mean to let viewers analyze the information given on their own, based on raw interviews.

And, as always, beyond the regular business concepts and needs, Om just stated that “it is fun” – I can’t agree more.

I wonder if we will see a lot of professional bloggers adding original video to their media offering. Video production requires different type of planning and production, it is more time consuming than blogging, and in today’s market, doesn’t necessarily brings more viewers than textual blogs. This would change if video production companies will tailor their service to fit bloggers, by reducing the planning and production overhead from the bloggers themselves. Script is especially crucial here – not necessarily a strong blogger’s capability.

In any case, if I was BlogTV or Ustream I wouldn’t hold my breath – when I’ve mentioned the option of having live sessions, he simply said that his schedule is too full for that. This is another proof that live broadcasting is not as appealing as pre-recorded content, an issue I’ve raised in a previous post.

Good luck Om!

                   

GigaOm Killed The Radio Star?

Technorati Tags: Om malik, revision3, gigaom show, internet TV, gigaom, blogtv, ustream

Industry Event – Blogference Follow Up

The last two days I’ve attended Blogference, the first international Bloggers conference in Israel. The event, organized by the Interdisciplinary Center of Herzliya, managed to create local buzz, that was increased when people learned about the impressive guest list:

Kent Nichols and Douglas Sarine, AKA Ask a Ninja

Justin Kownacki from

Something To Be Desired,

Andrew Baron and Joanne Collan from Rocketboom,

Om Malik from Gigaom,

and many others.

I had the pleasure to host two panels on the event: another installment of the Internet TV brainstorming, and a joint panel with Om Malik, where he gave tips to companies and bloggers about innovation journalism (in other words – how to get covered on his blog…).

More to come…

Technorati Tags: rocketboom, ask a ninja, gigaom, something to be desired, blogference, idc, andrew baron, Joann Collan, om malik, Justin Konacki, Kent Nichols, Douglas Sarine

Monday Morning Short Link-o-rama

Some of the more interesting links on the web today:

– Om Malik has an interesting view on the grim future of stand-alone boxes in the living room – have to agree with him on that.

– Newteevee published a short article about cool new P2P devices.

– Lance Weiler discuss his “lesson learned” from an interactive screening of his movie Head Trauma.

– My friend Tsahi send me an excellent legal guide for bloggers.

Update: Jaxtr – Free calls made better

Yesterday I talked for almost half an hour with Jeff for free. No news here. But the fact that he called me from his mobile to my mobile, without the aid of computer – that’s something else.

Jeff and I were using a new service called Jaxtr (can someone please explain to me why all these new companies have to find strange, unpronounceable, stupidly spelled names?). The service is very simple – you sign in, invite your friends (yes, I know, another annoying 2.0 feature), and get a local number to call your friend. From that point onward, you don’t need to use the computer anymore – just call the number and you get to the guy you want, in local call fee. It is easier to use than Skype, cause you don’t need a client, and simpler than Jah-Jah cause you don’t need to go to the website every time you want to make a call.

Cool isn’t it?

Well, nothing is perfect, as they have a strange credit system. When I signed up, I got 100 credits. After Jeff and I talked, I had zero credits. Jeff called me – and I lost my credits. Mmm… a bit stupid isn’t it? If these guys want me to use their service, I shouldn’t pay if someone calls me – it should be the other way around. For years, one of the major obstacles for mobile adoption in Israel was the fact that call receivers had to pay for each incoming call. That caused people to ask their friends not to call them on their mobile. Not really the best way to encourage usage isn’t it?

Another interesting question is how these guys are going to make money. It’s hard to find a reason to buy new credits, now that the free ones are used. Jaxtr have cool widgets for blogs and email signatures – but so do Skype. So, if I want someone to call me, I just put my Skype widget (as you can see already on the right) and get the same functionality. I hope that this is not another free-as-a-business-model companies.

Anyway, now I can get 20 credits for each new person I invite as my friend. If you are interested in this service, or calling me and wasting my credits, please leave a comment below and I’ll happily invite you.

And if anyone from Jaxtr is reading this post – I’d love to have a short chat with you guys, and better understand your business.

Notes – Jeff wrote about these guys, and also Mike. The company is stressing their social network affiliation as main value proposition and differentiation. I am still not convinced that they have a real edge on Skype and others.

Update – Konstantin Guericke, Jaxtr CEO left me a comment several hours after the original post was published:

“…Free calling is a feature of jaxtr, but so are things like being able to receive calls on your phone while keeping your number private and controlling who gets through to voicemail and who gets to ring your phone (and which phone). Also, you can do more with your widget than just receiving calls–for example, you can record an update in your own voice. Not everyone’s cup of tea, but some of our users like this as much as the “Skype without the hassles” feature. Like LinkedIn, we plan to offer our basic service for free, but charge for premium features (and integrate some advertising to support the free version)…”

Scoble interviewed him here .

Hey, Even I Can Use Jaxtr!