mip's scan

Let Your Content Go with YahooGo

Yahoo just launched/made availble their suite of tools called YahooGo.  I spoke about it in today's podcast so you can get details on the service there or via their site.  I saw it early this morning and have thought about it a bit and decided I'd put some additional thoughts down now that I've had some time to turn it over in my head.  Firstly, I like the fact that Yahoo is doing this as it demonstrates that they get it in terms of the emerging nature of content.  Consumers / users want content, be it music, photos, video or television programming, to move seamlessly across the various devices they may consume it on.   It seems to be a theme I've been echoing in the last little while, which is "set content free" and you get better content.  YahooGo does this and takes into consideration the three screens I've talked about in the past, as YahooGo is for TVs, PCs and Cellphones.  I'm rather disappointed to see such a limited (i.e., one) release of YahooGo for cellphones.  They need to broaden that for it to make any sense at all. 

It's a clear shot at Microsoft's Media Center and Apple Frontrow.  It's a bit more robust it seems than Frontrow as it has the DVR capabilities but I'm not sure how effective the implementation or experience is, yet.  I will test it this evening.  I'll get back to you with my verdict after that.

If you've been looking for a way to connect your PC to your TV but don't have Media Center or a new Mac, than check out YahooGo.

More Video Content for Sony PSP

It'd been a while since I've written anything about the Sony PSP.  Well it looks like more content has been made available for the PSP.  Veoh Networks announced it was making available approximately 20,000 titles for download.  That rocks!

Veoh Networks, Inc. (www.veoh.com), the first Internet Television Peercasting Network, today announced that the majority of its catalog of more than 20,000 independent, user-published videos is now available for download and enjoyment on the Sony PSP computer entertainment system. Veoh automatically downloads videos of interest to a PSP owner's device each time they connect it to their PC.

That is so awesome.  I haven't downloaded any titles yet but will.  I like the fact that their software, which downloads content each time its connected to the PSP, will run on both Windows and the Mac OS.  You can read additional details on the announcement here.

Google Video Open For Business

When I wrote last Friday about Google's big CES announcement one of the items had to do with video.  I podcasted about this as well in my Leading Edge Technology show but didn't have many details including not knowing the URL.  Well the Google video store is officially open this morning.  You get to it via video.google.com and if you've been there before when it was all free content you'll find some changes to the layout.  The screen cap to the right shows the landing page (click to make larger).  I llike how they've created a view that shows content for sale and conten that is free.  I dug into the content and there is a limited amount currently no unlike when iTunes first started selling content.  I was curious if I could purchase something so I clicked on a great throw back to my childhood - the Twilight Zone.  I was taken to a page where it indicated I needed to be on a Windows machine if I wanted to purchase content.  I was on my Mac - boo Google....hurry up and get Mac and Linux support!  What I found interesting is that they started to stream the show to me.  My initial thought was that perhaps I couldn't buy it as portable video but I could watch it as a stream.  Alas, I was only shown the first 20 seconds or so and then I was encouraged to buy the episode. 

So my initial thoughts - I like it.  I mean what's not to like - more access to content is always a good thing.  I also like how Google is giving people the choice of whether they want to DRM their content or not.  As well, content producers can set there own price.  I like that too as it'll get the video content to the level which the market is willing to support.  They should do this in music as well.  The recording industry is pressuring Apple to have some songs sell for higher prices and other songs to sell for less.  I say Google has it right - let the content producer set the price and adjust it as they see fit based on interest and demand of the content.

Blinkx TV

I was recently talking about the search tool Blinkx to one of our readers and he blogged about it as he tested it out.  So then blinkx was on my mind for the past week or so and I went and did some re-exploring and wow! was I impressed with a little something I found.

Enter blinkx.tv a search engine that lets you search through a million hours of TV and video.  So I gave it a little spin.  I keyed in King Kong since Peter Jackson's smash hit was on my mind and I got a whole list of results that I've capture in the screen capture to the right (click it to make it bigger).  Take special note of those little orange buttons in the top right of the screen.  Yup - that's right...an RSS Feed, an iTunes or Atom Feed.  That means you can subscribe to this search as a channel - anytime there is anything new in terms of new video content and it'll show up in your RSS Reader or in iTunes.  Now I just have to see if I can get this onto an iPod or not?!?

Video Content for your PSP and iPod

New site I came across that provides content for your PSP or video iPod.  Check out FLiXPO. 

The Internet's largest collection of free iPod and PSP downloads.

They've got a series of categories like Funny Ads, Comedy, Movie Trailers and Popular Clips to name a few.

Said it once, and I'll say it again, "Content is King" - it's nice to see more and more portable content becoming available.

Importance of the Third Screen

  What do I mean by the Third Screen and is it really important?  Well let's start with the first screen - your TV.  For decades content producers and advertising companies were vying for your eyeballs on the television.  Then came the second screen - your PC.  With PCs becoming mainstream and being found in most homes, content producers and the companies that want to advertise while you consume that content started to compete for your attention on the PC screen.  So what is the third screen?  I don't think it's decided exactly yet - could be your smartphone, your video iPod, your PSP or whatever else you might be carrying around.  Suffice it to say that the third screen is content on the go.   Now people may scoff (remember when everyone said the internet was a fad and wouldn't last...hmmmm) but I think that just as the PC took people's attention away from TV, the third screen, mobile content, will do the same.  So it wasn't surprising for me to read that a new category had been announced for the Emmy's.

The group behind the daytime Emmys is expected to announce a new category specifically for content made for computers, cell phones and other hand-held devices

I think that is awesome - it'll drive increased high quality content for such devices.  And who knows, perhaps you'll be watching the Emmy's on the train ride into work on your brand new third-screen.

To read the whole article titled Emmys for the iPod just click here.

PSP and iPod - a Video Comparison

So you're still torn over which device you'll get.  You love the PSP's beautiful large screen but also love the iPod's sleek compact form-factor.  I don't envy you dear reader - its a tough choice to make.

So here's a link to a review that was done comparing the video quality between the two devices that PSPWorld did.  Even they have trouble saying who the winner is.  As I stated in the past - its not really an apples to Apples comparison (sorry for the pun - I couldn't resist).  Each device as far as I'm concerned satisfies different needs.

As an added point, I disagree on the point of view that the PSPWorld review makes about the video quality being better on the iPod.  I use PSP Movie Creator and it creates fantastic looking video for the PSP that I felt looked better than the video I saw on an iPod 2 weekends ago.

iPod Video - A Sneak Peak Video

If you'd like to see a short video clip of the iPod video, cNet has a fairly good one.  It is brief but it'll give you a good sense of the screen size and the video quality - both of which look good on such a small device.  The screen is large, by iPod standards but small compared to a PSP, obviously.  But the unit is slim and looks very portable.

See it by clicking here.

At Last - A Video iPod

  Well it seems that for all his saying that there wouldn't be a video iPod, Steve Jobs has indeed released one.  I've been calling for this as a needed product from Apple for over a year so I'm glad to see that they finally did it (click the image at the left for a good look).

With support for up to 150 hours⁽⁴⁾ of video and a 2.5-inch color display, the new iPod lets you take music videos and TV shows on the road.

Now we'll have to see what kind of content they provide.  I'm going to upgrade to iTunes 6.0 that has video for sale as well and I'll provide an update with my impressions. To get all the details from the Apple site, just click here.

P2P BBC Programming

Beautiful.  Absolutely beautiful.

This is the type of thing we need to see more of.  The BBC is beta testing its peer-to-peer (P2P) television program download app called iMP.  From their web site they describe iMP as...

iMP is an application in development offering UK viewers the chance to catch up on TV and radio programmes they may have missed for up to seven days after they have been broadcast, using the internet to legally download programmes to their home computers. iMP uses peer to peer distribution technology (P2P) to legally distribute these programmes.

Seven days after the programme transmission date the programme file expires (using Digital Rights Management - DRM - software) and users will no longer be able to watch it. DRM also prevents users emailing the files to other computer users or sharing it via disc.

I think this is brilliant and would encourage other's to leverage P2P technology in a similar fashion.  What I absolutely love about this implementation is the ability to move the content to a mobile device (click thumbnail picture to the right). This will drive eyeballs to content and that is really what it should be about.  If you want to take a tour of iMP click here.