Technology360

PBS launches download pilot

PBS announced today a download-to-own pilot with seven PBS-branded series:  Antiques Roadshow, NOVA, NOW, Scientific American Frontiers, Arthur, Cyberchase, and FETCH! (gosh, do we really need to shout the titles?).  Google Video and Open Media Network are doing the distribution.  I've quoted the PBS/OMN press release in the post continuation area below.  --Dennis

Kazaa, Skype, and now "The Venice Project"

Steve Rosenbush writes:

Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis, the entrepreneurs who created the pioneering Web applications Kazaa and Skype, are working on a new communications venture, BusinessWeek.com has learned. The pair plans to develop software for distributing TV shows and other forms of video over the Web, according to people familiar with the matter. ¶  Working under the code name "The Venice Project," Zennstrom and Friis have assembled teams of top software developers in about a half-dozen cities around the world, including New York, London, and Venice. The teams are currently in negotiations with TV networks, although it's not clear whether any agreements have been reached. A formal announcement of the new venture could come as early as this fall. ...

Link:  BusinessWeek.

Network 2.0

Jeff Jarvis writes:

It's no longer one size fits all, it's one size fits me -- Witness the toppling of the TV tower: this month in the US, primetime viewing of broadcast networks sunk to the lowest level in ratings history: 20.8 million on average. At the same time, the open video-sharing service YouTube revealed that it is delivering 100m shows a day. No wonder BBC director general Mark Thompson just announced a major restructuring, tearing down walls between broadcast and digital for a “360-degree, multiplatform” world. “Much of what we call new media,” he said, “is really present media.” Yes, thanks to the internet, we are watching the end of linear television. ...

Link:  The Guardian.  Good column.  --Dennis

Exploding public media

Jeff Jarvis writes:

... The greatest challenge, I think, is what to do with local affiliates. The large ones that make good programming, like WNYC, will be fine for all the reasons above. But the small ones that are really just channels for distribution out and contributions in are in trouble. I don’t know what the fate of a local affiliate — for commercial or public broadcast — will be when the internet is a better means of distribution. I’m tempted to give them the same advice I give newspapers: Go local. But some of these stations are tiny and don’t have the resources. It’s a hard problem. ...

Link:  BuzzMachine.  His advice is good, and it should actually be easier to do it online where local -- an inherently long-tail body of content -- will find more commodious space online than it has in the broadcast medium.  That's where we're going at the stations I manage.  --Dennis

Folksonomic value proposition

Adrian Chan writes:

... Folksonomic participation sites like digg.com, del.icio.us, and technorati.com seek to create value by aggregating individual participation. Not, in other words, through member to member communication. What one person finds interesting, when she adds it to a tagging site, contributes to shared community knowledge. The more other users submit the same interest and site, and possibly tag identification, the more this loose social system can produce "knowledge." So goes the idea.  ¶  There’s no disputing that value is added during social participation, but there is some debate around what that value is, not to mention how to measure it.

Links:  Part 1, Part 2 in AlwaysOn.

Interview with Second Life's Philip Rosedale

Andrew Keen has an interview (text and audio versions) with Philip Rosedale, founder of Second Life, a online 3-D alternate reality space.  I've never played with the more popular Second Life, but I have spent a little time on Active Worlds, and many who spend time with it  believe it's a strong platform for educational applications.  In fact, Active Worlds encourages them.  With the6 story-telling skills present in most public television stations, think that these online applications present a great opportunity for the creative and adventurous among us.  Link:  AfterTV. 

Update 7/24/2006:
Speaking of Second Life, there's this news from Amanda Michel:

"The Infinite Mind," public radio's weekly health and science program, has announced that it will begin hosting its program through Second Life in August.  ¶  "The Infinite Mind" is the first regularly scheduled program to be broadcast live from a virtual world, complete with live guests both in-studio and in-world. You can check out its new studio space online here. ...

Link:  Berkman Center for Internet & Society. --Dennis

Study: Satellite Radio To Grow -- Slowly

Paul Bond writes:

Satellite radio will boast 19.5 million subscribers by 2010 with about 17% of all U.S. households tuning in to at least one of the two pay radio services, primarily because consumers like commercial-free music and the ability to listen to their favorite channels no matter where in the country they are.  ¶  The projections released July 11 come from Targetbase, a unit of advertising agency giant Omnicom Group, and are significantly lower than other forecasts. PricewaterhouseCoopers estimates that there will be 30 million sat radio subscribers in 2010. ...

Link:  Hollywood Reporter.   Thanks to Mark Ramsey, who comments on this at hear 2.0 here and here.  --Dennis

The importance of the web to radio's future

Mark Ramsey writes: 

... It is shocking that radio pays so little attention to web-related opportunities overall (with Clear Channel being an increasingly obvious exception). It's no wonder online radio listeners prefer dedicated online radio sites to the streams of the terrestrial stations they know and love - if they can even find their favorite terrestrial stations online. The only way to change this is by moving the industry's strategic focus off pointless distractions and onto distribution channels which are almost as ubiquitous as radio and growing rapidly in importance and usage. ...

Link:  hear 2.0.

Also see his, Where's your online community?  Link:  hear 2.0.  --Dennis

The Future of Public Radio - The Innovator's Dilemma

Clayton Christensen's book, The Innovator's Dilemma, has no doubt been the most influential business book I've ever read.  Rob Paterson has a very good summary of it on his weblog.  Link:  Robert Paterson's Weblog.  --Dennis

Eat Your Lunch - Rupert Murdoch and Public Radio

On 7/11/2006, I linked to a Wired story on Rupert Murdoch and MySpace.  Rob Paterson perceptively ties this to public radio (actually, to public television, too) in this posting.  Rob writes:

... Here are some rules that we discovered in NR that are confirmed by Murdoch and My Space.

Participation is not a feature - it is central to the new media ...

Trusted Space is where the particpation happens ...

Peer Power in Marketing and all Opinion - Experts are not trusted only Peers ...

Link:  Robert Paterson's Weblog.  Don't miss this one.  --Dennis