Broadcast live events with Ustream.tv

Ustream.tv lets you broadcast any live event over the web using nothing more than a webcam.

You could use this free service to broadcast your band's concert, your high school's football game, your company's training session or just about anything else. All you need is a Ustream.tv account, a video camera (either a webcam or a camcorder that has webcam capabilities) and a broadband Internet connection (cellular modem cards are recommended for on-the-run notebook users).

You can schedule events, send out invites and archive broadcasts for later viewing. It's a pretty amazing service, though the Ustream.tv site doesn't do a particularly good job of explaining its features, nor does it offer much in the way of help. Still, this definitely has the makings of a Next Big Thing. What kinds of events would you broadcast?

Broadcast live events with Ustream.tv - Lifehacker

PublicSquare: Painless Publishing

PublicSquare makes publishing easy. Stop wasting time on the mechanics, and spend your time on the stories and the people.

PublicSquare: Painless Publishing

Podcasting: Believe The Hype

[Like] blogging... podcasting is a relatively easy way to increase consumer awareness and create an open dialogue between your customer and your brand, ultimately creating loyalty...

Customers can also subscribe to your podcast, so that each time you produce a new show, they will automatically receive it. Much as a webinar can do (but without needing to be live), podcasts can reach your target market with regularly scheduled relevant messages and information about an issue, your industry, and your business.

Podcasting: Believe The Hype

Success With Search Engines

What if you had a Web site and no one came?

Success With Search Engines

Business Blogging

Your small business can benefit from using blogs to raise awareness, increase customer loaylty, and boost sales.

Business Blogging

PAH-FEST

PAH-FEST, which stands for “PROJECT ACCESSIBLE HOLLYWOOD,” is a new kind of digital media festival that celebrates the stories and voices of everyday people. PAH-Fest invites people from all walks of life to tell their digital stories using today’s latest technology and pro-sumer equipment. All movies created during the festival are available in the Online Theater.

PAH-FEST

At Last, an Online Art House

Jaman has an eclectic catalog of easy-to-download movies, including a wide selection of foreign films. The cost is low, the quality good...

At Last, an Online Art House

Panning for Video Gold

Video discovery startups generally cull and curate video from around the web, use social networking principles to make personalized recommendations, and allow users to create personal playback lists. Magnify.net, for example, lets users create personalized video blogs around certain topics. Network2.tv, founded by conference organizer Jeff Pulver, rates and recommends videos.

The brand new Divvio suggests videos based on personal viewing habits. Dabble, meanwhile, allows users to link to others with similar tastes. These sites avoid tricky licensing deals by leaving the video hosting to others.

RED HERRING | Panning for Video Gold

Examining the Move to Reanimate HTML

When it comes to the technologies that make up the World Wide Web, one thing is certain: HTML clearly represents the past. HTML, you did a great job in building the foundation of the Web, but, today, the future of the Web belongs to XML, XHTML and multiple scripting languages. So long, HTML!

Wait a second. What's that? The World Wide Web Consortium has announced the formation of a new HTML working group chartered to create the next HTML standard...

Examining the Move to Reanimate HTML

The Ins and Outs of Virtual Worlds

Some of the biggest names in high tech are convinced that Second Life and other virtual worlds are the future of the Net. Are they fooling themselves?

The Ins and Outs of Virtual Worlds - Review by PC Magazine

Virtual Reality Goes Mobile

When will virtual reality hit cell phones? It already has. In October, the California company Gemini Mobile Technologies unveiled a new service called eXplo, the world's first '3D Mobile Social Community Platform.' In much the same way that Second Life streams an alternate universe to your PC desktop, eXplo serves one up to your wireless handheld. Even as you're moving across town in the real world, you can walk your 3D avatar through an online virtual world.

The Ins and Outs of Virtual Worlds: Virtual Reality Goes Mobile - Review by PC Magazine

Big Spenders of Second Life

Virtual world residents shell out real dollars for nonexistent clothes, cars, and real estate. Will real-world luxury brands capitalize?

Big Spenders of Second Life

The Virtual Meeting Room

Intel, Raytheon, and other companies are dabbling in technology that enables 3D conferencing, but will employees take to avatar exchanges?

The Virtual Meeting Room

Microsoft Aims to Outshine Adobe's Flash

In a bid to capitalize on the burgeoning online video market, the tech titan is launching Silverlight, its new video-player software...

Microsoft Aims to Outshine Adobe's Flash

The Coming Virtual Web

In the future, the Internet is almost certain to look more realistic, interactive, and social—a lot like a virtual world...

The Coming Virtual Web

Designing the Perfect Presentation

The design firm behind Al Gore's Oscar-winning An Inconvenient Truth offers insights on improving a presentation...

"In the accompanying slide show, I offer seven keys I learned from Duarte that can be applied to any presentation."

Designing the Perfect Presentation

What’s New and Next in Video Games

David Perry, a 20-year veteran of the video game industry and BusinessWeek.com columnist, discusses the latest trends in the world of video games – and where savvy investors and designers should look for the Next Big Thing

Download this episode (requires QuickTime 7 or iTunes)

What’s New and Next in Video Games

How Second Life Changes Customer Service

The virtual world could become the first point of contact between companies and customers and could transform the whole experience...

Since it began hosting the likes of Adidas, Dell, Reuters and Toyota, Second Life has become technology's equivalent of India or China - everyone needs an office and a strategy involving it to keep their shareholders happy. But beyond opening a shiny new building in the virtual world, what can such companies do with their remote real estate?

Rather than a simple showcase, some believe Second Life could one day become a first point of contact for customers.

How Second Life Changes Customer Service

Personal portals show the Web world what you watch

While scores of companies allow Web users to create personalized pages, most rotate in the orbit of one of the major Internet players, such as Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, or Time Warner's AOL.

By contrast, Netvibes lets users pull in information from almost any modern Web site -- Microsoft e-mail can sit next to Yahoo photos and Google search on a user's home page, alongside the latest cool features from tiny start-ups.

Personal portals show the Web world what you watch - Yahoo! News

Make Internet TV

The site covers shooting, editing, licensing, publishing and promoting video on the internet; it illustrates these topics with screenshots, photos, screencasts, graphics, text and more. It's essentially a free online book about video creation and publishing.

[They've] also started the MITV Wiki http://mitvwiki.org - a connected site where anyone can add resources, links and experiences that are related to creating online video.

This guide has step-by-step instructions for creating video feeds that can be easily subscribed to and have the potential to be watched by millions.

Make Internet TV

SpeedBit's Incredible Shrinking Download

The Israeli company says its new accelerator can download a film inside 20 minutes. If true, this could revolutionize the online video industry...

SpeedBit's Incredible Shrinking Download

Twittered-out

Read one person's experience with Twitter and the conclusion she came to. Unless it evolves into something useful, I wonder if this is one of those fads that will soon go the way of the dodo.

"In the end, though, Twitter was just too much communication for me. The company plans a digest feature for sending compiled updates every so often, the way you can get messages on some mailing lists in batches."

Review: Twitter takes e-chat to extremes - Yahoo! News

Jib Jab: What We Call The News

What We Call the News | Send To Friends | Funny Animations at JibJab

Media Moguls Make Their Move Online

Former media titans such as Eisner and Bochco are finding lots to like as they produce new shows aimed at social networking's explosive growth...

Media Moguls Make Their Move Online

Japan Goes for Animation in a Flash

Web Flash animation programs have opened new worlds, and better connections, to amateur animators equipped only with a PC and a dream...

Japan Goes for Animation in a Flash

Online Backup Services Keep Your Data Safe

If you are a producer of digital data, trust me you are, you need a backup system. Here's a review from Information week of "Five Online Backup Services Keep Your Data Safe."

Hint: You can Mozy up and try a free service to get 2GB of storage for your critical files.

Review: Five Online Backup Services Keep Your Data Safe

Is the 'Web OS' just a geek's dream?

Technically, so-called Web OS software still relies on an underlying operating system, like Windows or Linux, to translate a user's actions to hardware functions. But proponents of the Web OS or 'Webtops' are bringing more end user computing into the Web browser, arguably making the choice of operating system less important.

Some sites mentioned in the article: Laszlo Systems, Goowy, YourMinis, Desktoptwo, TransMedia's Glide OS

Is the 'Web OS' just a geek's dream? | CNET News.com

Does email have a future?

Interesting article on the long-term future of email. Although junk-mail and spam are a huge problem, I think email is here to stay at-least in the foreseeable future, especially in the business world. Email affords us to archive and retrieve messages easily, a feature not easily available in instant messaging and text messaging. One possible alternative to email could be a Wiki, when it comes to tracking project development and serving as a knowledge-base, within organizations. Read on.

The days of email as a mission-critical application appear to be limited, according to an IDC report.

IDC said it is projecting that 97 billion emails will be sent worldwide in 2007 and more than 40 billion of those will be spam. That 40 billion spam mark means that junk email will surpass person-to-person email. Overall, email volume in 2007 will approach 5 exabytes, doubling the amount over the past two years.

» Does email have a future? | Between the Lines | ZDNet.com

Yahoo wants a piece of iPod

Just as Apple announced it has sold it's 100 millionth iPod, here comes news from yet another competitor looking to take a bite out.

Yahoo has teamed up with Sandisk and start-up Zing to promote a new digital music player with wireless connectivity, reports the Wall Street Journal. The new digital music player will essentially be a special edition of previously announced Sansa Connect that allows consumers to download music wirelessly and without requiring a PC.

GigaOM » And now Yahoo wants a piece of iPod

Spam-Free Marketing

>> Do's and don'ts for e-mail marketing.
>> Tips for Writing Effective Promotional E-mail

Direct e-mail marketing is the same as any other kind of marketing: You'll waste time, effort, and money trying to get the attention of people who have no use for your product or service.

Spam-Free Marketing: How You Can Do It, Too

The Digital Road to the White House

When it comes to campaigning, the Internet has mushroomed from a political backwater in 2000 to become a pivotal part of the making of the president in 2008. This year's crop of candidates has learned from both Howard Dean's Web-fueled rise and fall and former senator George Allen's (R-VA) catastrophic failure in 2006, when his YouTubed 'macaca' comment helped cost him reelection to the Senate (the deciding race in giving the Democrats control of both houses) and a presidential bid.

The Digital Road to the White House - Review by PC Magazine

Google lets users create own maps

One particular thing to note for emerging media professionals is the ability to attach photos and videos to map locations. This could start a whole new wave of location based videos posted by users, so keep those cameras handy :-)

The Web search leader, which set off an explosion of creative map-making among professional programmers after introducing Google Maps two years ago, is now offering MyMaps, tools for everyday users to create maps in a few mouse clicks.

Let your imagination run wild, spatially speaking: Pinpoint your favorite restaurant locations. Return from a world tour and plot out landmarks along the way. Take photos from a recent hike and use MyMaps to illustrate locations along the trail.

"Who better to create maps than local experts?" Jessica Lee, product manager for Google Maps, said in an interview. "MyMaps makes map-making universally accessible to anyone."

Google lets users create own maps - Yahoo! News