Technology360

Online news consumers become their own editors

J.D. Lasica used to visit 20 to 30 websites for his daily fix of news. Now, he's down to three -- yet he consumes more news online than ever.  ¶  Lasica is among a growing breed of information consumers who use the latest Internet technologies to completely bypass the home pages of news sites and jump directly to articles that interest them. He can scan 200 Web journals and traditional news sites -- all without actually going out and visiting them.  ¶  Online news consumers are increasingly taking charge, getting their news a la carte from a variety of outlets. Rarely do they depend on a single news organization's vision of the day's top stories. ...  Link:  Associated Press via The Boston Globe. RSS rules!  Paste this link into your newsreader to read this weblog.  Thanks to David Liroff for the tip.  --Dennis

DirecTV, Echostar Outline Interactive Strategies

... DirecTV Inc. and Echostar Communications Corp. are at the forefront of the interactive revolution in the United States. The two operators, who combined have more than 25 million subscribers, are ramping up their interactivity development efforts and the United States is likely to be one of the most vibrant interactive markets. Already this year, Echostar launched nationwide interactive sporting and karaoke channels for its Dish Network Service. DirecTV announced in January that it will launch a number of new advanced television services that offer viewers more control throughout their viewing experience. ...  Link:  Satellilte News via Telecomweb.

The Bits And Bytes Of HD Multicasting

Billboard Radio Monitor has an interview with iBiquity Digital CEO Bob Struble  "who admits that HD radio's current selling point—improved fidelity and interference-free reception—might be fanciful to some listeners but will not compel a lot of them to invest in new radios. But the ability to program additional, finely targeted channels would allow the radio industry to address challenges from satellite and terrestrial competitors. ..."  --Dennis

Reflections on a Decade of Metadata Consensus Building

Stuart L. Weibel, until June part of the Dublin Core Metadata Initiative management team, writes:  "... There is much talk of taxonomies, their strengths, and deficiencies these days and in fact the emergence of 'folksonomies' hints at a sea change in the use of vocabularies to improve organization and discovery. The Dublin Core community has struggled with the role of controlled vocabularies, how to declare and use them, and how important (or impotent?) they might be. The notion that uncontrolled vocabularies – community-based, emergent vocabularies – might play an important role in aggregation and discovery occasions a certain discomfort for those schooled in formal information management. Whether it is just the latest fad, or an important emerging trend, remains to be seen. ..."  Link:  D-Lib Magazine.

Reinventing Radio: Enriching Broadcast with Social Software

At the 2005 O'Reilly Emerging Technology Conference Matt Biddulph, Paul Hammond, Tom Coates and Matt Webb -- all from the BBC -- gave an interesting presentation with this title available as an MP3 download at ITConversations.  "...So you've got a broadcast network and you've got a web presence, each with very different models of interaction. How can these two models coexist in a useful and meaningful way? In the second part of the presentation Tom Coates and Matt Webb show us how radio can be enhanced using techniques from social software like flickr and del.icio.us to create a hybrid of the broadcast and network models. They wonder why we treat network computers as dumb receivers for broadcast content when they could be much more social and allow for interaction with both broadcasters and other listeners. 'Phonetags' bring folksonomies to radio, allowing listeners to tag songs with a cellphone as they listen. They also explore how techniques as simple as group listening can add to the social experience of radio."  Running time about 41 minutes.  --Dennis

Dislocation of Media and Entertainment

Most relevant session for public media types at the AlwaysOn conference was this one (Link: AlwaysOn -- requires Flash7 to view).  Moderated by Roger McNamee (Elevation Partners), Mark Cuban (HDNet), David Goldberg (Yahoo! Music), Jordon Greenhall (DivX), Mike Homer (Kontiki and Open Media Network), and Michael Weiss, StreamCast Networks.  Go Mike!  Thanks to Steve Gillmor for the tip.  --Dennis

Microsoft asks the FCC to put the brakes on HD Radio - for now

Inside Radio is reporting that, in response to the FCC's Public Notice on the subject, Microsoft (along with Broadcast Signal Lab and Impulse Radio) has asked "the FCC to hold off adopting the recommendations in the NRSC-5 report.  Link:  FCC.gov.  It wasn't alone.  According to Radio Magazine, as of 7/14 10 of the first 11 comments expressed objections or concerns.

Writing for Radio World Online in a "Big Picture" column titled Under Construction: Radio Rules (6/8/2005),  Skip Pizzi comments, "... Several important items are not included in the standard. First, there is no audio codec specified for IBOC, and no method delineated by which a transmission can specify any particular codec(s) in use on the channel. Second, there are no specifications for IBOC datacasting in the standard - although the NRSC is continuing work in this area, and a datacasting update to the standard might be forthcoming at some point in the future. ..." --Dennis

Brands: Think People, Not Products

Chris Anderson writes:  "... This would lead to a classic "tyranny of choice" problem were it not for the fact that at the same time there's been a parallel explosion of information about those abundant products. That information, ranging from product reviews to "rank by bestselling", also helps us choose wisely. In a sense, information is increasingly serving the same role as a brand, bringing order and structure to a chaotic marketplace. More importantly, information can scale with massive variety in the way that brands can't. So what does this mean for brands?  ¶  The short answer is radical change. ..."  Link:  The Long Tail weblog.

Anderson also refers to and comments on John Hagel's Restoring the Power of Brands.  Hagel, in turn, responds to Anderson's comments in a posting of the same name on his weblog and in another titled Brands and Advisors.  All good reading.  --Dennis

How Finely Can You Slice Aggregation?

Chris Anderson writes:  "... In a sense, Google is a classic Long Tail aggregator, one that uses great filtering (its PageRank algorithms) to improve the s/n ratio of the tail. And not just one tail. They aggregate the tail of information, the tail of advertisers and the tail of publishers (see this post for more). But is plain old Google enough for all of this? Or is there something more appropriate for many needs than one-size-fits-all search?  ¶  The question can be generalized to this: how finely can you slice aggregation? The answer, in the case of search, turns out to be quite finely indeed. The rise of the "vertical search" market is simply a case of slicing aggregation into niches, optimized for different needs. ..."  Link:  The Long Tail weblog.

Digital Video Recorders Will be in Nearly Half of All U.S. Households Within Five Years

JupiterResearch ... [7/21/2005] released its annual digital television (DTV) forecast entitled, "U.S. DTV Forecast, 2005-2010," which presents JupiterResearch's latest projections of the growth of digital television, including HDTV, in U.S. households.  ¶  According to the JupiterResearch report, digital video recorders (DVRs) will grow from an installed base of 7 million households at the end of 2004 to 55 million by 2010. Though not yet as ubiquitous as the VCR or the DVD, DVRs will be in 47% of U.S. households in the next five years. ...¶... The report also addresses the HDTV marketplace. JupiterResearch predicts that HDTV monitors will grow from an installed base of 13 million in 2004 to 74 million by 2010. However, JupiterResearch also estimates that less than 4 million HDTV households were receiving high-definition television service at the end of last year, a number that will grow to 69 million by 2010. ...  Link:  Jupitermedia press release.