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

Web drama to make debut on MySpace

"Prom Queen" is the first show to be produced by a new studio formed by former Walt Disney CEO Michael Eisner. It will consist of 80 episodes, each lasting 90 seconds.

Each episode will appear during a 12-hour window on MySpace before showing elsewhere, including on its own dedicated Web site.

Web drama to make debut on MySpace - Yahoo! News

Twitter: All Trivia, All The Time

Is instant blogging the next big thing or is it the peak before the big drop-off, read on and decide for yourself.

Instant blogging reaches warp speed, but more and more, there are cries of information overload... The service's followers love its quotidian tidbits. Others cry: Enough already!

Twitter: All Trivia, All The Time: "

The Mind-Bending New World Of Work

Motion-capture technology has burst out of Hollywood and into businesses from aerospace to advertising (read on for details).

The Mind-Bending New World Of Work

The New Avatar In Town

A new crop of online multiplayer games is coming, targeting a broader audience with simpler navigation and customization than Second Life. These games also rule out lewd behavior. The companies behind them have a novel way of making money, selling digital goods such as avatars and their outfits. The games themselves are free.

The New Avatar In Town

NBC and News Corps' challenge to YouTube

This has the potential to be really big boost for licensed content. NBC and Fox are both planning to make their hit TV shows and movies available via the new online channel in an ad-supported model. YouTube could take a big hit as a result of this venture, especially considering they are partnering with AOL, MSN, MySpace and Yahoo! which gives them huge exposure.

News Corporation and NBC Universal will launch the largest Internet video distribution network ever assembled with the most sought-after content from television and film, it was announced today by Jeff Zucker, President and Chief Executive Officer, NBC Universal and Peter Chernin, President and Chief Operating Officer, News Corporation. The video-rich site will debut this summer with thousands of hours of full-length programming, movies and clips, representing premium content from at least a dozen networks and two major film studios.

AOL, MSN, MySpace and Yahoo! will be the new site's initial distribution partners. Their users, who represent 96 percent of the monthly U.S. unique users on the Internet, will have unlimited access to the site's vast library of content. This media alliance will offer consumers free long- and short-form video and create a compelling platform for advertisers, targeting the rapidly growing audience of online video consumers.

NBC Universal and News Corp. Announce Deal with Internet Leaders AOL, MSN, MySpace And Yahoo! to Create a Premium Online Video Site with Unprecedented Reach: Financial News - Yahoo! Finance

Think: The changing media environment

KERA's Think has a video podcast on the subject of the challenges traditional media is facing due to today's constantly changing media environment. Very relevant to any Emerging Media student.

Think, March 16, 2007 DALLAS TX (2007-03-16) How does a newspaper editor manage and meet the challenges of today's ever-changing media environment? Watch host Krys Boyd discuss this with Bob Mong, Editor of The Dallas Morning News. Krys then previews the Dallas International Film Festival with Michael Cain, CEO and Artistic Director of the AFI DALLAS International Film Festival.

KERA: Think

YouTube to present video awards

Next week, the online video-sharing Web site YouTube will present awards for best user-generated videos of 2006.

Starting Monday, YouTube members can browse through videos in seven genres at http://www.youtube.com/YTAwards/ and rank their favorite short-form videos. Polling closes on Friday. Trophies will be handed out on March 26.

YouTube to present video awards - Yahoo! News

Socializing online luring an older crowd

This article offers a slightly different view on the growing popularity of social networking websites, different from one of my previous postings. However, I would argue 20-30s is not really an "older crowd" :-)

Teenagers are being joined by more people aged in their 20s and 30s on social networking Web sites as the trend of socializing online continues to expand, according to a survey on Wednesday.

Figures from online intelligence service Hitwise showed visits to the top 20 social networking Web site such as MySpace rose by 11.5 percent from January to February.

Socializing online luring an older crowd: study - Yahoo! News

Free Operating System Developer Challenges Microsoft And Google

In the third quarter, a little-known Swedish software company plans to release a free operating system with the potential to radically alter the economics of software development. If successful, Xcerion could erode the power Microsoft derives from controlling the desktop, beat Google at its software-as-a-service play, and make commodity Linux boxes more viable as a platform for the masses.

"What Skype did for telephony, we want to do for software development," says CEO Daniel Arthursson. "We're enabling the 'long tail' for business software."

For five years, Xcerion has been working on an XML-based Internet operating system, XIOS, that runs inside a Web browser. It's an abstraction layer that sits on top of a true operating system like Linux, Mac OS X, or Windows, just like Transmedia's Flash-based Glide Next media sharing environment.

But XIOS isn't simply an interface for media sharing. Rather, it's a complete XML-based operating system and development platform that replicates the desktop computing experience from inside the browser and adds the benefits of cloud-based computing, making applications and data available over the network.

Watch it in action and you'll see the threat it poses to Windows: Double-click on XIOS and the familiar desktop interface appears inside the browser window. Expand the browser window in full-screen mode and the Windows desktop vanishes beneath it. Of course, the XIOS environment could just as easily look like the Mac OS desktop or something else entirely. This is what Microsoft feared Netscape would do--turn its main asset, the operating system, into middleware.

Small Software Developer Challenges Microsoft And Google With Free Operating System

Open-Sourcing Of College Education

Take advantage of this if you can.

College education has gone open source: A number of top universities are placing their course materials online, free. No course credit is granted, but self learners can have access to all the same materials as those shelling out tens of thousands of dollars annually. That's great news for IT pros who are either unemployed or looking to acquire new skills and knowledge.

The movement includes prestigious universities MIT, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, University of California at Irvine and others.

InformationWeek: The Open-Sourcing Of College Education

Is Social Networking Destined To Go Bust?

This article makes some good points about the eventual decline of social networking sites such as MySpace. Food for thought.

Michael Hirschorn takes an in-depth look at online social networking and predicts that sites like MySpace will soon go bust.

Hirschorn's thesis is that online trends rapidly go from must-have to has-been. And unless the service or trend in question evolves -- like Google or Web browsers -- the trend tends to go flat just as quickly as it spiked into the mainstream...

InformationWeek: Is Social Networking Destined To Go Bust?

NBC to offer on-demand mobile television service

NBC Universal said on Wednesday it will sell prime-time television shows like 'The Office' and 'Heroes' on demand over cell phone networks in the United States.

Viewers will be able to purchase full episodes of top-rated NBC shows starting at $1.99 for a 24-hour period. NBC said it is working with MobiTV to provide the service, part of a mobile television network first created in 2003.

NBC to offer on-demand mobile television service | Reuters.com

Startup to offer the 'personal radio'

Interesting concept that un-tethers online radio from the computer; but it still requires a Wi-Fi connection to update itself. Wonder how they will differentiate themselves from cell-phone based music services that allow the user to listen via subscription.

A new service is taking personal taste in music to another level by combining elements of Internet radio, portable music and satellite distribution.

A startup led by a team of veterans in the digital music arena seeks to offer 'personal radio' that lets users choose the tunes, genres or artists they want, and listen to them on the go.

Slacker Inc., based in San Diego, launched its radio service Wednesday, making its Web site, http://www.slacker.com, available in a beta, or testing, stage.

A separate Wi-Fi-enabled pocketable gadget that will be able to play the personalized selections will be available in the early summer, with models ranging roughly from $150 to $299, the company said. A car kit that will deliver the music via satellite signals will be available later in the year at a price yet to be disclosed.

Startup to offer the 'personal radio' - Yahoo! News

The CEO Guide to Corporate Wikis

Here's a podcast that gives a good overview of how wikis can be used within an organization to increase productivity and collaboration.

A wiki is a Web site that lets visitors easily add, remove and change the content. The first wiki was created in the mid 90s by computer programmer Ward Cunningham who named his invention,'wiki,' after the word for quick in Hawaiian. The best-known wiki is perhaps Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia which is written collaboratively and can be edited by anyone. Wikis are now making their way into corporations where they are used as collaborative software to handle such tasks as project management, tech support, research and development, event planning and customer relationship management.

Download this episode (requires QuickTime 7 or iTunes)

BusinessWeek: Corporate Wikis

Online Video Dos and Dont's

Another good article with guidelines on the "Do's and Dont's" of online corporate videos.

How to adopt online video as an effective corporate marketing tool -- without falling prey to the booby traps.

Tipsheet: CEO Guide to Online Video

Business Goes Straight to Video

This BusinessWeek article discusses the pros and cons of how online video is being used by corporations, how some have used it successfully while other's have failed. A must read for those who are considering video on their own websites; it may also help you avoid making the same mistakes.

A growing number of companies turn to online video, and the word of mouth that accompanies it, for everything from advertising to recruiting.

Business Goes Straight to Video

Matching Sustainability with Profits

Excellent article about why product designers should be thinking more than just the cool factor in the products they design. Read the entire article here.

We live in a society of consumption. Our voracious and seemingly endless appetite for more, better, bigger, and easier is leaving our planet overrun and creating an environment that may not be able to sustain human life.

As designers, are we partially responsible? Are we helping or hurting?

The common and understandable perception is that designers just make more stuff the world doesn't need, but this is unfair. Good designers—conscientious designers—work with sustainability in mind. They know they need to create products, services, and environments that make sense for clients, and work for and with our earth. In other words: Profitable sustainability.

How is it to be done?

A simple—but not sufficient—answer might be to design more environmentally friendly products and processes. This might be called the 'diet chocolate cake' approach: Keep doing what we are good at and giving people what they want, but somehow do it less harmfully. At the other end of the spectrum is the abstinence approach: Plead guilty to the charge that designers spend a lot of time designing 'elegant landfill' and stop doing it. The great designer Dieter Rams, for example, called for a less wasteful approach in his monograph, 'Less But Better.'

Matching Sustainability with Profits

Sony to launch virtual universe

Capitalizing on the popularity of social networks and online worlds, Sony will launch its own virtual universe and another 3-D game built almost entirely by players. 'Home' is a real-time, networked world for the PlayStation 3 in which players create human-looking characters called avatars. They can buy clothing, furniture and videos to play on a virtual flat-screen television in their virtual apartments.

The concept is strikingly similar to Linden Lab's 'Second Life,' a Web-based phenomenon with nearly 4.5 million residents. But Sony's world will feature heavy doses of video games for avatars to play, as well as virtual arcades, music, movies and other Sony-approved media downloads.

Sony to launch virtual universe - Yahoo! News

Rocketboom's Powerful Lift-Off

These are the early days of video blogging. Most of the postings on the Web are rough and tedious -- little more than home movies. But the success of Rocketboom and a few sites like it underscore the potential of video blogs. Cheaper video recorders mean just about anyone can make videos, while the spread of speedy Net service means almost anybody can watch clips posted online. The result? The Internet is coming alive with a mix of video, from the polished parody of Rocketboom to the raw interviews of reporters. As these videos flow into the living room, they will reshape what we think of as television. "TV will be transformed," says Mitchell Kapor, the founder of Lotus Development Corp. (IBM ) and now an investor in Participatory Culture, an online video startup. "People will look at it as historically quaint that you had to watch something that others chose for you."

Rocketboom's Powerful Lift-Off

Is the Web the New Hollywood?

Take Jeff Macpherson, the indie filmmaker in Vancouver who started Tiki Bar with his friends. He's getting plenty of attention from Hollywood types, but instead of trying to parlay Tiki Bar into a gig in big-budget TV or movies, Macpherson wants to raise money to create a series of similar shows for the Web. 'This is the beginning of something big,' Macpherson says. As people spend a growing portion of their lives online, some would-be movie moguls view Internet TV as an end in itself. Some are even finding that they can make money doing it...

The Internet is turning into a breeding ground not just for shows, but also entire networks. ManiaTV, a startup launched 17 months ago to be the MTV for the online set, broadcasts its own live show over the Internet and offers on-demand videos about music and videos. It draws 2 million visitors a month.

KEEP IT SHORT. But as marketing evolves, it will need to adapt to its new environment, ad experts warn. "I don't think that just transposing the 30-second-spot model works in this space," says Mohan Renganathan, associate group director in New York City for ad agency MediaVest Worldwide. "Video over the Web is more about getting content you're interested in seeing that you have searched for."

BusinessWeek: Is the Web the New Hollywood?

Second Life Opens For Business

Good article discussing the pros and cons of "doing business" in SL. What companies are doing in this online world, how it is affecting their real world operations and what they can do to improve there presence.

Toyota, Circuit City, Dell, Sears, and Adidas have set up shop in the Second Life virtual world. But their stores are empty. Can businesses find a place with any real-world payback in this fantasyland of overindulgence?

Second Life Opens For Business - InformationWeek

Podcast Bunker

Here's a site that claims to list only the very best podcasts; both the mainstream and the off-beat. They have a weekly top 20 list, as well as a "slew" of RSS feeds. Check out Podcast Bunker.

'Second Life' gets chatty

Second Life is going to get a lot more interesting with this new feature. Wonder what it will do to our real social lives now that users can talk in SL. See this previous posting for the downside of living online.

Linden Lab, the company behind 'Second Life,' says it is implementing voice-over-Internet software that will let the thousands of people online at any given moment talk to each other over their computers' microphones and speakers.

`Second Life' gets chatty - Yahoo! News

Online addict dies after "marathon" session

This is really sad, but the way things are going, the sedentary lives we are leading, we should all take this story as a note of caution. Don't be stuck to your computer screens, online social networks and gaming worlds. Go enjoy and participate in the real world as much as you can, it will do you good.

An obese 26-year-old man in northeastern China died after a 'marathon' online gaming session over the Lunar New Year holiday, state media said on Wednesday.

Online addict dies after "marathon" session - Yahoo! News

Build your own social sites

Pretty interesting concept.

Ning, the latest startup of Netscape co-founder Marc Andreessen, is looking to get a jump ahead of MySpace and Facebook by giving consumers free tools to create and operate specialized online social networks of their own...

"Other social network sites ask you to join their world. We are about people creating their own worlds," said Ning Chief Executive Gina Bianchini, who co-founded Ning with Andreessen.

Build your own social sites

Jyve puts users in charge of answering search queries

Here's an interesting new twist on a search engine, Jyve lets live users answer questions posted by other users. It is a unique approach because it brings in social networking aspects into the utilitarian search engine. By using the "knowledge" in people's heads, you may find some unique answers to a question that cannot be answered by Google.

"Can’t find it on Google? There are many alternatives to the world’s most popular search tool, but a newly created Web site called Jyve offers an approach that acts like an online chat room instead of a typical search engine.

Jyve users ask questions and receive answers from other users, usually within seconds. It’s like a cross between Wikipedia and Ask Jeeves (now known simply as Ask.com)."

Jyve puts users in charge of answering search queries - Network World

Does Your Business Need a Second Life?

A good question to ask for any business. Read on.

Why are companies like Toyota (NYSE:TM) and Dell (NASDAQ:DELL) and Starwood Hotels (NYSE:HOT) getting immersed in this pixilated fairyland? Why did IBM (NYSE:IBM) announce it was going to spend $10 million developing a presence in Second Life and other virtual worlds? One word: research...

Rob Seaver, Vivox's CEO, says he has every intention of making real money in Second Life. But mostly, he thinks Second Life lets him explore the future of the Internet and think about what that might mean for his business. "A lot of what Second Life portrays is the future," Seaver says. "This 3-D virtual realm is a significant part of the evolution of the Internet and more and more activities will be presented in the virtual world."

Does Your Business Need a Second Life?, Inc. Article

How I Did It: Philip Rosedale

Inc Magazine interview with Philip Rosedale, creator of SecondLife, CEO of Linden Labs.

"Second Life was just unfundable," says the man who dreamed up this virtual world. Funny how things change when you give people the ability to fly. Now everyone, including businesses of all sizes, wants a piece.

How I Did It: Philip Rosedale, CEO, Linden Lab

Wicked Productive Wikis

Here's an article that discusses why a Wiki may be a good way to do collaborative work. I think it's a good solution for organizations to track product development or project management. It can also be a good way to maintain a knowledge base for internal use within an organization.

Forget daily status reports. Set up a wiki to collaborate more effectively with your project teams.

Wicked Productive Wikis - Expert Help by PC Magazine

Have I Got A PowerPoint For You

In the beginning, there was MP3 sharing. Then came friend sharing (MySpace), photo sharing (Flickr), and video sharing (YouTube). Now it has come to this: PowerPoint slide sharing.

SlideShare.net offers a place to upload, view, and search for PowerPoint presentations. And since opening up its beta site in October, it has received tens of thousands of files.

Talk Show: Have I Got A PowerPoint For You

Call-in to Create a Free Podcast

Want to try podcasting on the cheap? Gcast offers the chance to try basic podcasting free, by letting you record your podcast over the phone.

Geek Chic: Gcast Podcasting Service - Personal Technology - Network Computing

"Slidy" Show

Here's a way you can be free of the M$ monopoly. Use the open source "Slidy" XHTML presentation to create accessible slide shows with ease. It works across browsers and is operated like PowerPoint.

Check it out.

Another Way to Sell

Here's an article on the trend of advertisers placing 3D ads in games and online worlds.

The line between video games and advertisements is blurring. Just as savvy marketers are bringing Batman billboards and Powerade vending machines to greater numbers of games, those at the bleeding edge continue to find new ways to get advertisers in touch with players. Their latest trick? Three-dimensional branded content.

RED HERRING | Red Herring Software Report

Revver video clips to be on Verizon's FiOS

The deal reflects interest among traditional distributors and the technology industry to make Internet videos easier to watch on television and follows similar offerings from other companies.

Comcast Corp., the top U.S. cable operator, last November said it would make select Internet videos from Ziddio.com available on its on-demand TV service.

Digital video recorder technology company TiVo Inc. landed a deal with online retailer Amazon.com to make movies and shows purchased online viewable on TVs connected to TiVo set-top boxes.

Revver video clips to be on Verizon's FiOS - Yahoo! News

Adobe Brings Video Editing Tools Online

Adobe and Photobucket announced a partnership to integrate Adobe web-based video remix and editing technology directly into the Photobucket user experience, giving 35 million Photobucket users direct, free access to world-class digital video editing tools.

TecKMagazine - Adobe Brings Video Editing Tools Online

Web 2.0 in just under 5 minutes

Thanks to John Keese for finding this awesome video.

Why Should Businesses Blog?

Good article discussing why businesses should blog. I personally believe a thoughtful, well written blog can be an asset to the business, providing insight into the workings of the company and the vision of its founders.

A blog is a window into your business's people, culture and values. You want your customers to connect to your brand in a way that encourages community, trust, and, of course, repeat sales. In today's crowded marketplace, you should embrace any opportunity to win consumer loyalty.

On a more technical level, a blog is a form of online diary, often focused on a particular topic or theme. For your small business, your blog could cover company culture, industry trends, or even items you find interesting. A blog can also serve as a crisis communications tool, providing your customers with your opinion or defense—instantly.

One of the best ways to increase your readership is to link to other blogs. This enables you to build a community of like-minded people who could be potential customers quickly. You could, for example, use the Web site Technorati to find similar businesses or industry blogs. This site will also show you how many blogs are linking to a particular entry—another way of measuring popularity. But make sure you have something intelligent to say when commenting on other blogs. By contributing thoughtfully, you can create respect for yourself and encourage a community to form around you.

Business Blogging

Bloggers: All Typed Out?

Has the blogging phenomenon peaked or is this just the beginning of the next big wave. PC magazine discusses these issues in the following article.

The blog phenomenon is following a familiar cycle, according to Gartner: We're in the midst of the hype phase, but soon bloggers (and readers) will pass into what Sarner calls a 'trough of disillusionment, where they'll realize that blogging isn't the greatest thing since sliced bread.'

Not everyone agrees with Gartner's prediction. 'I find it hard to fathom that blogging will peak only a few years into this phenomenon, while the technology for creating and aggregating blogs is still the domain of the early adopters,' says Larry Genkin, publisher of the soon-to-be-launched Blogger & Podcaster magazine (coming in March).

Bloggers: All Typed Out?

13 Most Beautiful Avatars

Eva and Franco Mattes have "photographed" the "13 Most Beautiful Avatars" in Second Life, then printed them on large canvases for an exhibition. According to them, they tried to capture the avatars that looked most like real people.

Check out the pictures and their interview.

Brainy Stuff

Here's a pretty cool product for gamers. San Francisco based, Emotiv makes headset that uses a set of sensors to tune into electric signals naturally produced by the brain to detect player thoughts, feelings and expression. It connects wirelessly with all game platforms from consoles to PCs making it possible for games to be controlled and influenced by the player's mind.

In the 1980 film The Empire Strikes Back, Jedi master Yoda uses the mysterious Force to lift Luke Skywalker's star fighter from a swamp by simply thinking about it. But when it comes to playing Star Wars computer games, gamers have to use a clumsier method to move the ship: pushing buttons on a control pad.

San Francisco-based Emotiv wants to give gamers Yoda-like powers. The startup, founded in 2003, is developing a technology that monitors a user's brain activity and interprets it to manipulate a game environment, such as lifting an object and spinning it around...

Download the complete article >

Next Wave: Brainy Stuff
Red Herring Magazine : January 15 | 07
By Brad Howarth
Red Herring Magazine >

Tagging, no longer fun and easy

Interesting article on the issue of tagging blogs, images and websites. Why it may be creating more "noise" than clarity.

"Most people think that tagging on the Web is pretty easy and fun. Give 'em a blog or a Web page and a field named 'tags,' and they'll start stuffing in text with wild abandon in the hopes that their content will be easily found by people who are desperately searching for information and opinion on feline hairball cures or cycling in the Ozarks or whatever their particular hobby is. Alas, all these folks are doing is polluting the Web."

Tagging, no longer fun and easy - Network World

Virtual News Readers for the Virtual World

This is a pretty neat use of Virtual Avatars to present news reports that are automatically combined using images and blogs from all over the world. It's a unique experiment by a couple of Computer Science graduate students at the Northwestern University’s Intelligent Information Laboratory (InfoLab).

News at Seven is an automatic system that crafts daily news shows. It finds the news you are interested in; edits it; finds relevant images, videos, and external opinions; and then presents it all using a virtual news team working in a virtual studio. News at Seven is a uniquely compelling experience that can present traditional news--augmented with supplemental images, videos, and opinions from the blogosphere—all without human intervention.

News at Seven

Clever mobile enhancements on the rise

The founders of Zink Imaging LLC believe they have two great ideas in one absolute show-stopper. They've created a portable device that makes it ultra-convenient to print photos from digital cameras and phones. And they designed it to use no ink.

That's not to say 'hardly any ink,' mind you, but zero ink — shorten that and you get 'Zink.' Instead, the device uses heat to activate minuscule dye crystals embedded in the photo paper.

Not bad for a device roughly the size of an iPod. No wonder founder and CEO Wendy Caswell proclaims that Zink 'delivers a magical user experience.'

Clever mobile enhancements on the rise - Yahoo! News

Want to learn the truth about your business? Hire a blogger.

For BzzAgent, 2006 was shaping up to be an exciting year. The Boston-based word-of-mouth marketing agency had just landed $13.8 million in venture funding and a brand-new board of directors, and it was planning on nearly doubling its staff from 47 to 80. Making room for all those new hires meant moving into new, larger headquarters. Facing this barrage of change, many companies would lie low and wait for the dust to clear. BzzAgent chose a different path. Call it courageous corporate transparency or a temporary lack of judgment, but for president and founder Dave Balter, it seemed the perfect time to start a blog.

And not just any blog. Rather than post himself or ask staffers to contribute, Balter decided to hire an outsider--someone who would function pretty much as an embedded reporter. For 90 days, the blogger would come to the office, attend meetings, interview employees, even go out for after-work drinks with them, and share his thoughts on the company's transformation. The project's name: 90 Days of BzzAgent. (Click the link below to read more.)

The Outsider

Painless Podcasting: How You Can Do It

Source: PC Magazine

A podcast is an audio file (typically MP3) served from a Web site and combined with an RSS feed that lets subscribers automatically download new content directly to their PCs or mobile devices. Podcasts are an invaluable way to share your expertise and promote your business. Don't be afraid of podcasts; this stuff isn't very complicated as long as you stay organized... If you're just getting started, though, you can always podcast yourself. Here's how:

1. Plan the format. Most podcasts are structured like radio shows, with hosts interviewing guests or speaking about topics of interest. You can interview clients about how great your products/services are, increasing customer loyalty and driving new sales. Asking someone to be a guest on your podcast can open doors, creating a relationship that you can later make the most of for sales purposes. You can use your podcast to establish your reputation as an expert within your field, perhaps by ­recording how-to segments.
   
   
2. Record your podcast. You can use a portable voice recorder (digital, if possible, so you can simply copy the audio file to your computer), hire a service that records phone interviews, make a VoIP call from your computer and record it, or simply ­attach a microphone to your PC and record.
   
   
3. Edit your podcast. You may want to cut out parts of an interview or add some music. Audacity is an excellent freeware audio recorder and editor...
   
   
4. Host your podcast. The next step is to ­upload your podcast to a server. If you have enough space on your current Web host, simple create a new directory and store your podcasts there. Or you can use a service such as Podblaze or HipCast to store it. Either way, you'll simply link to the audio file from your blog or Web site.
   
   
5. Serve the RSS feed. Your feed is a file that's updated every time you add a podcast. Subscribers to your feed can then automatically download your new content. Podcasts require an RSS feed formatted in a certain way. You can use FeedBurner... to serve an enhanced feed, or FeedForAll for a simple feed.
   
   
6. Promote your podcast. No one will ever find your podcast if you don't promote it, not just on your own site but also on the major podcast directories and search engines, such as iTunes. [Click for instructions on how to submit your podcasts to iTunes (techspecs), Yahoo! Podcasts, and Podcast Alley.]

PC Magazine: Painless Podcasting (ARTICLE DATE: 01.10.07)

Goodbye User Manuals, Hello Screencasts: The End of the Traditional User Guide?

... this is a growing phenomenon, and an excellent one too. It has long been a problem with software that it takes time and effort to get to know an application properly. With large professional Applications you are often willing to put in the time and effort to learn it regardless, but when trying out shareware or smaller pieces of software, I find that if an Application doesn’t grab my attention quickly I will often abandon it for something that does. I know this sounds like laziness, but sometimes you are just too busy to invest the time. By using simple quicktime videos, a developer can give a much better overview to an application and allow the potential user to get into the software much quicker. More than that though, it is a great boon for end users to quickly see what a software product can do and immerse themselves in the features without having to go through pages of documentation first. I hope more software developers realize this in the future and we start to see the traditional user manual replaced with a more media rich and easier to follow alternative.

Goodbye User Manuals, Hello Screencasts: The End of the Traditional User Guide? at thomas fitzgerald.net

The 20 Most Popular Websites

Source: Complete.com

• myspace.com - 11.9%
• yahoo.com - 8.5%
• msn.com - 3.7%
• ebay.com - 3.7%
• google.com - 2.1%
• aol.com - 1.7%
• pogo.com - 1.6%
• facebook.com - 1.0%
• amazon.com - 0.7%
• craigslist.com - 0.6%
• go.com - 0.6%
• youtube.com - 0.6%
• live.com - 0.5%
• bankofamerica.com - 0.4%
• wikipedia.org - 0.4%
• walmart.com - 0.3%
• mapquest.com - 0.3%
• neopets.com - 0.3%
• adultfriendfinder.co - 0.2%
• aim.com - 0.2%

Read on for more info and charts, and graphs.
The 20 Most Popular Websites: Financial News - Yahoo! Finance

Popularity of Web brands signals power shift

A consumer poll on Friday exposed the worst kept secret in the business world: Internet companies are becoming more important to people than firms that operate in the real world.

Google retained its title as the world's most influential brand, and video-sharing site YouTube and online encyclopedia
Wikipedia were catapulted into the top five at the No. 3 and 4 spots, according to the annual survey by online branding magazine brandchannel.com.

Popularity of Web brands signals power shift - Yahoo! News

Internet to revolutionize TV in 5 years: Gates

"The rise of high-speed Internet and the popularity of video sites like Google Inc.'s YouTube has already led to a worldwide decline in the number hours spent by young people in front of a TV set.

In the years ahead, more and more viewers will hanker after the flexibility offered by online video and abandon conventional broadcast television, with its fixed program slots and advertisements that interrupt shows, Gates said."

Internet to revolutionize TV in 5 years: Gates - Yahoo! News

YouTube to share revenue with users

Chad Hurley, co-founder of YouTube, said Saturday that the wildly successful site will start sharing revenue with its millions of users...

"We are getting an audience large enough where we have an opportunity to support creativity, to foster creativity through sharing revenue with our users," Hurley said at the World Economic Forum. "So in the coming months, we are going to be opening that up."

YouTube to share revenue with users - Yahoo! News

Corporate Blogging Pays for GM

General Motors' auto business hasn't been great of late, but its blogging strategy is paying off handsomely.

In 2006, the company's FastLane blog delivered an estimated $410,470 worth of customer insight and marketing at an approximate cost of $255,675 -- a return of investment of 67% -- according to a newly released report from Forrester Research.

Read on for more.
Corporate Blogging Pays for GM - News by InformationWeek

Video Blogs in the 2008 Presidential Campaign

For any modern politician, video blogging has to be part of a comprehensive Internet campaign strategy, along with podcasting and text blogging. But video blogging has advantages over text, says Robert Scoble, VP of media development for PodTech.net, an audio and video podcast network. Scoble is the author of the popular Scobleizer blog and says video and audio are more authentic than text. "In text blogs, I don't know who's writing. It could be the campaign staff," he says. "But when I see someone talking into a video camera, or hear their voice on a podcast, I'm pretty sure I'm getting them."

InformationWeek: 'Macaca' Moments May Define 2008 Presidential Campaign

Wikileaks

And now for something pretty unique, yet inevitable considering the direction the web is going in, connecting people and offering everyone a chance to voice their opinions and air their grievances. Wikileaks is offering an open forum for leakers to leak sensitive information and for the entire world to analyze and comment on it.

"Wikileaks is developing an uncensorable Wikipedia for untraceable mass document leaking and analysis. Our primary interests are oppressive regimes in Asia, the former Soviet bloc, Sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East, but we also expect to be of assistance to those in the west who wish to reveal unethical behavior in their own governments and corporations. We aim for maximum political impact; this means our interface is identical to Wikipedia and usable by non-technical people. We have received over 1.2 million documents so far from dissident communities and anonymous sources."

wikileaks.org

Clinton campaign shows Web power in White House race

The following article illustrates the growing power of the web in every aspect of our lives including Politics. It just goes to show how important "net presence" has become in order to establish oneself as a key player in whatever field we are in.

[Sen. Clinton is] banking that in an era of the popular video-viewing YouTube and the networking myspace.com, the Internet will be an influential and critical component of the modern race, experts say.

"These campaigns are not going to be about who has the best television commercials or who has the greatest direct mail or who can make the most phone calls," said political strategist Hank Sheinkopf.

"You're going to see greater use of the Net than ever before," he said. "You get your news out when you want to."

Clinton campaign shows Web power in White House race - Yahoo! News

Startup hopes 'Tubes' metaphor has legs

A powerful U.S. senator endured ridicule last year for his assertion that the Internet is 'a series of tubes.' But one Web startup hopes to bring that metaphor to life with a new service that makes it easy for people to share videos, songs, pictures and other big files.

After downloading the Tubes application from Adesso Systems Inc., Windows computer users can create dozens of such tubes and fill each one with up to 2 gigabytes of content — room for about a few hundred songs, for example.

Tube creators then invite others to join a Tube (the recipients must also download Adesso's application to their PCs) and can grant those partners varying privilege levels. Those include locking them into a read-only mode or letting them add or remove files of their own.

An e-mail, a Web link, a presentation, a video or any other file can be put into a Tube simply by dragging it from the desktop and dropping it into the Tubes application on the side of the screen. Once in a Tube, files automatically get placed on recipients' PC hard drives.

Adesso executives believe the system is far less cumbersome than sending e-mail attachments around, which should appeal to far-flung groups of friends and relatives, not to mention individuals who use multiple computers and want to have the same files on all of them. It also could aid co-workers who need an easy way to synchronize collaborative projects.

"It's like instant-messaging for your stuff," said Adesso's director of marketing, Steve Chazin.

Startup hopes 'Tubes' metaphor has legs - Yahoo! News

Skype founders unveil TV service details

The co-founders of the Internet telephone service Skype unveiled the brand name and details of their latest project Tuesday: a new Internet-based television service called Joost.

Entrepreneurs Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis, who sold Skype for $2.6 billion to eBay Inc. in 2005, said the new project combines aspects of file-sharing software and regular broadcast television.

Joost — pronounced 'juiced' — may eventually try to move onto television sets, but it will initially focus on making it easier and more fun to watch TV on a computer.

Joost, like Skype, requires users to download free software. In this case, the program will help them browse the Internet for channels and clips they're interested in, rather than make phone calls.

Skype founders unveil TV service details - Yahoo! News

Netflix to be delivered on the Internet

Netflix Inc. will start showing movies and TV episodes over the Internet this week, providing its subscribers with more instant gratification as the DVD-by-mail service prepares for a looming technology shift threatening its survival.

The Los Gatos-based company plans to unveil the new 'Watch Now' feature Tuesday, but only a small number of its more than 6 million subscribers will get immediate access to the service, which is being offered at no additional charge.

Netflix to be delivered on the Internet - Yahoo! News

Wild African lions kill buffalo live on Internet

Nature lovers worried growing hordes of tourists might spoil a safari to Africa can now watch the continent's wildlife live and in the raw on the Internet...

"The majestic beauty of these animals is rarely seen by the general public. Now we're able to share it with everyone, without harming these animals," said Infotec BSI Chief Executive Arthur Griffiths in a statement.

The Nkorho stream, shown at www.africam.com and www.wavelit.com, films a watering hole in the upscale Sabi Sands reserve on the edge of Kruger Park -- one of the world's top game reserves -- 24 hours a day.

Wild African lions kill buffalo live on Internet - Yahoo! News

TV 'time-shifting' goes international with Sky

Sky said an analysis of audience habits showed that just 12.2 percent of viewing in Sky Plus homes was 'time-shifted.' But channels that show movies or entertainment, rather than news or sports, are more heavily affected. Between 9 p.m. and 10 p.m., when British broadcasters generally schedule their most popular dramas, 22 percent of shows were time-shifted, as viewers watched them later or recorded a second program as they watched their first choice 'live.

TV 'time-shifting' goes international with Sky - International Herald Tribune

"Avatar" to feature virtual characters

James Cameron is set to direct 'Avatar,' his first dramatic feature since the Oscar-winning blockbuster 'Titanic' in 1997...

Partly through its work on six documentary features including "Ghosts of the Abyss," Cameron's Lightstorm Entertainment team has researched a potentially groundbreaking mix of live-action cinematography and virtual photorealistic production techniques for "Avatar," which will feature virtual characters.

"Titanic" director sets sci-fi epic for '09 - Yahoo! News

Wikipedia Founder's Google Killer

Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales is planning to launch a new search engine that he hopes can compete with top search engines Google and Yahoo.

Mr. Wales plans to launch the new search engine, currently dubbed “wikiasari,” in early 2007, he wrote on a Wikia page devoted to the project. The name combines the words “wiki”—a Hawaiian word meaning quick, and “asari,” Japanese for “rummaging search.”

RED HERRING | Wikipedia Founder's Google Killer

Jaxtr Tests Social Network Calling

Startup Jaxtr on Thursday launched a test version of its calling application for social networks and blogs.

The test comes after Palo Alto, California-based Jaxtr last week brought in LinkedIn co-founder Konstantin Guericke, who was vice president of marketing at the social-networking site for professionals.

Jaxtr’s service will allow people to connect phone calls via social networks or blogs through installation of its web-based widgets. The heavy interest in social networks has brought a need for startups creating such applications, Mr. Guericke said.

RED HERRING | Jaxtr Tests Social Network Calling

Visiting the 'Second Life' World: Virtual Hype?

Virtual appearances in Second Life have generated a real world business for Giff Constable, Vice President of Electric Sheep Company. The 35-person startup helps other companies create social events inside Second Life.

For example, they produced a recent appearance by musician Ben Folds for Sony. Constable believes this is just the beginning.

"Right now everybody has email," Constable says. "You know, 10 years ago, I think a lot of people would have found that a surprising thought. I think 10 years from now, everyone is going to have an avatar."

NPR : Visiting the 'Second Life' World: Virtual Hype?

Google upgrades Blogger for some users

"Google is offering some Blogger users access to a new version of the service which enables user-definable templates, tagging of posts, multiple authors, and faster publication of new posts.

The company said the service upgrade will also integrate use of the blogging service more closely with its other services through changes to the account log-in process.

The new features bring Blogger service closer to that offered by competing blog-hosting services such as Six Apart's TypePad and Automattic's Wordpress."

Google upgrades Blogger for some users - Digital Lifestyle - Macworld UK

Mogopop lets users create, download content for iPods

Mogopop has been announced as a new free online service and website that lets users create, publish and download content for iPods. “Mogopop is a free web-based service where members and visitors can create, publish and download multimedia content for iPod,” the company explains. “This content that can incorporate audio, video, pictures, podcasts, text—whatever our members’ minds can imagine, they can create. Mogopop downloads are like mini-Websites for iPod that anyone can enjoy.”

Gartner: Blogging to peak in 2007

Could blogging be near the peak of its popularity? The technology gurus at Gartner Inc. believe so.

One of the research company's top 10 predictions for 2007 is that the number of bloggers will level off in the first half of next year at roughly 100 million worldwide. The reason: Most people who would ever dabble with Web journals already have. Those who love it are committed to keeping it up, while others have gotten bored and moved on, said Daryl Plummer, chief Gartner fellow.

Gartner: Blogging to peak in 2007 - Yahoo! News

Lulu: The Long Tail of publishing

In one area at least, the new economy is delivering on its promise.

Unlike expensive vanity publishing of the past, today an author need not part with a penny to see their words in print and can even make money.

In just three years, Canadian Internet entrepreneur Bob Young's Lulu (http://lulu.com) has gone from nothing to a turnover of $16 million and is now publishing 2,500 new titles a week by unknown authors from across the globe.

Online vanity publisher is a Lulu - Yahoo! News

Wikipedia founder remakes Web publishing economics

Wikia Inc., is ready to give away -- for free -- all the software, computing, storage and network access that Web site builders need to create community collaboration sites.

Wikia, a commercial counterpart to the non-profit Wikipedia, will go even further to provide customers -- bloggers or other operators who meet its criteria for popular Web sites -- 100 percent of any advertising revenue from the sites they build.

Wikipedia founder remakes Web publishing economics - Yahoo! News

By 2010, movies-over-the-web will be Hollywood’s ‘new box office’

Movies-over-the-web are going to be a big part of Hollywood’s “new box office,” according to the Research and Markets research firm. And Apple is in a good position to capitalize on the trend. In fact, the research firm says that the iPod is also laying the foundation for Apple’s “Television 2.0” business expansion, with the advent of video capability and the sale of video programming on iTunes.

By 2010, movies-over-the-web will be Hollywood’s ‘new box office’

The eBay Model Goes To The Movies

How can independent filmmakers and small film libraries, whose titles are languishing unseen in storage, connect with the new venues for video that are sprouting up? The traditional methods of licensing films--attending film festivals and markets or meeting with distributors--are too expensive, exclusive, and inefficient for almost everyone but major players.

Here's one possible solution: inDplay, a Silicon Valley startup backed by Google Chief Executive Eric Schmidt and Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers venture capitalist William R. Hearst that aims to connect films with professional buyers through an online marketplace.

The eBay Model Goes To The Movies

You Oughta Be In Webcasts

Scripted Web shows are piquing the interest of Mad Ave and giving filmmakers a new venue...

Welcome to the new wave of Web video. Far from the land of dogs on skateboards and Webcam yakkers on YouTube (GOOG ), this online genre of scripted programs is attracting small but passionate groups of fans. The networks and talent agencies are watching closely, and the phenomenon is giving indie filmmakers new ways to get their works seen. At the same time, this emerging ecosystem is creating a tempting--albeit challenging--play for advertisers looking to cut through the chaotic mass of Web pages on YouTube and MySpace.

You Oughta Be In Webcasts

Verizon Wireless to feature YouTube videos

YouTube videos will be viewable on cell phones for the first time under a deal with Verizon Wireless, which will also allow users to upload videos shot with their camera phones.

The partnership to be announced Tuesday marks the first big distribution deal for YouTube since the young video-sharing Web site was acquired earlier this month by Google Inc.

Verizon Wireless to feature YouTube videos - Yahoo! News

Internet Video - How To Monetize Your Independent Video Content

Good resource for information on How To Monetize Your Independent Video.

Online video pays itself. The opportunities to monetize online video are rapidly increasing. You need not find anymore a distribution house to make your video- or film-making passion pay back for your hard work.

Internet Video - How To Monetize Your Independent Video Content - Robin Good's Latest News

Hunting Incident

176 Newspapers to Partner With Yahoo

Interesting turn of events as "Big Media" turns to Yahoo!, one of the webs' early pioneers, in a deal that could ultimately benefit both to fend off competition from Google, who they fear will take over the world ;-)

“There has been a big question asked for a while as to how newspapers will navigate the online future,” said William Dean Singleton, vice chairman and chief executive of MediaNews Group, one of the members of the consortium. “I think this is the answer to that question.”

176 Newspapers to Form a Partnership With Yahoo - New York Times

The Secret Life of 'LonelyGirl15'

For those who are still curious about the Lonely Girl phenomenon, here's ABC News Nightline's take on it with interviews of its creators and the actress who played the character. The creators also talk about how they plan to continue the saga in the same vein as TVs Lost series. There's also a video interview available on the site and a link to a new report in Wired magazine.

"She was the girl-next-door with depth and enough warm vulnerability to push atop the clutter of YouTube. And the moment she appeared, thousands reached out just to be her friend."

ABC News: The Secret Life of 'LonelyGirl15'

Yahoo Memo Urges Wake-Up Call: Enough of the "Peanut Butter" Strategy!

Here's a great memo written by a senior VP at Yahoo that could very well apply to any business that's struggling for a vision and a direction. It's urging them to go back to their core strengths instead of spending their energies half-heartedly on a multitude of competing ventures. It's definitely worth a read for budding entrepreneurs.

This critical, internal Yahoo (NASDAQ: YHOO - News) memo was being forwarded all over the place late Friday, and made the WSJ Saturday morning. The author is allegedly Brad Garlinghouse, a Yahoo senior V.P.

Yahoo Memo Urges Wake-Up Call: Enough of the "Peanut Butter" Strategy!

NPR Fresh Air: Exploring the Online Gaming World

Audio for this story is available at NPR.

Fresh Air from WHYY, November 15, 2006 · Journalist Julian Dibbell talks about his book Play Money: Or, How I Quit My Day Job and Made Millions Trading Virtual Loot. He explores the world of online role-playing games, where hundreds of thousands of players log on to operate fantasy characters in virtual environments. One of the most popular games, World of Warcraft, has six million subscribers.

NPR : Exploring the Online Gaming World

Apple in deal to let iPod videos play on planes

Apple Computer Inc. said on Tuesday six major airlines will let passengers play video and music from their iPod digital devices on in-flight entertainment systems beginning in mid-2007.

Air France, Continental Airlines, Delta Air Lines, Emirates, KLM and United Airlines will begin offering their passengers iPod seat connections, which power and charge iPods during flight and allow the video content on the devices to be viewed on seat-back displays, Apple said.

Apple in deal to let iPod videos play on planes | Reuters.com

MP3.com returns to music sharing with new features

MP3.com, the once massive music download site that settled copyright infringement suits with major record labels, said on Monday it is allowing the sharing of music and videos but this time with the authorization of independent artists.

MP3.com returns to music sharing with new features - Yahoo! News

Lycos seeks rebirth as "virtual living room"

Looks like a Lycos is building social networking site around watching online movies.

Lycos said it is using proprietary technology to enable viewers to watch synchronized videos on the Web. The company compared its ability to offer such a service with massive, never-ending online games such as Warcraft and Second Life, which host hundreds of thousands of players.

Lycos users will be able to watch films and create public chatrooms to invite other potential viewers. Viewers in any one particular viewing room can type comments on the window, while watching the movies that are streamed at the same time.

Kalinowski said its service differs from others as it offers feature length films, unlike YouTube, which limits uploaded videos to about 10 minutes.

Lycos seeks rebirth as "virtual living room" - Yahoo! News

Web 3.0 to be Guided by Common Sense

Good article in NY Times that discuses the basis for Web 3.0, which according to the writer, will be based on common sense and intelligence. He cites del.icio.us, Flickr and Digg as early examples of the next phase in the evolution of the Internet.

[In] the future, more powerful systems could act as personal advisers in areas as diverse as financial planning, with an intelligent system mapping out a retirement plan for a couple, for instance, or educational consulting, with the Web helping a high school student identify the right college.

The projects aimed at creating Web 3.0 all take advantage of increasingly powerful computers that can quickly and completely scour the Web.

“I call it the World Wide Database,” said Nova Spivack, the founder of a start-up firm whose technology detects relationships between nuggets of information by mining the World Wide Web. “We are going from a Web of connected documents to a Web of connected data.”

Entrepreneurs See a Web Guided by Common Sense - New York Times

Second Life is a preview of the Internet of the future

Is it a game? No. Is it a marketing opportunity? Yes, but who cares? What matters most is that it may point to the future of the Net, says Fortune's David Kirkpatrick.

Second Life is a preview of the Internet of the future - Nov. 10, 2006

Another video host that let's you monetize video

Good thing about Blip.tv is that they

• Have an open advertising marketplace where you can pick the video advertising company that works best for you. They share everything 50/50.
• They support every video format: Flash 8, Quicktime, DivX and 3gp (for cell phones).
• The videos can be posted to personal websites, blogs, MySpace, Yahoo! Video and iTunes (which other's don't offer).
  
• They are also working on sending top shows directly to the television set with Internet video on demand.

Verizon near content deal with YouTube

Verizon Communications Inc., the No. 2 U.S. telecommunications company, is in advanced talks with YouTube Inc. to bring the Web site's videos to cellphones and television sets, the Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday.

Verizon near content deal with YouTube: Reuters.com

What’s on tonight? Just tape it off the internet

A social network site built around TV shows. Pretty interesting. Check-out the article.

It seems TIOTI’s aim to be the first TV-based “social media aggregator” may prove more popular than that convoluted name suggests. Already it seems to be tapping into a pent-up desire among users to share and discover TV shows, employing several Web 2.0 techniques like tagging and user ratings.

TechCrunch UK » What’s on tonight? Just tape it off the internet

BrightRoll Launches DIY Video Ad Network

One more site to help video producers monetize their video.

Video ad network BrightRoll... now offers direct access to the ad insertion process for consumer video producers. The company’s technology serves up ads in multiple formats, monitors click throughs to determine which format is most effective and switches ad formats dynamically for the best results. Video publishers can choose to insert the most lucrative format, preroll ads, or allow BrightRoll to switch between video, banner or text post roll ads.

Techcrunch

YouTube hopes to be on mobile devices in 2007

Going forward, video is going to be increasingly an important offering from all the major web players due to the fact that the tools are getting easier and a visual medium is preferred by the emerging generation who have grown up with the Internet, Digital Cameras and Cell Phones for most of their lives.

Chad Hurley, YouTube chief executive and co-founder, told an advertising conference that offering video services on mobile phones was a key opportunity for the company.

"Within the next year we hope to have something on a mobile device, it's going to be a huge market, especially for the video mind-set we're dealing with, it's a natural transition," said Hurley.

Already many of the clips seen on YouTube are captured by users with their cellphones. A new mobile service could enable users to share videos with others in the YouTube community directly via their phones.

YouTube hopes to be on mobile devices in 2007 - Yahoo! News