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Viacom out of YouTube killer talks

Russell Heimlich — Wed, 20 Dec 2006 04:49:39 +0000

Remember all of this talk about big media companies making their own YouTube? Well word got out today from Broadcasting&Cable that Viacom, owners of MTV, Nickelodeon and other big channels has backed out of the talks with NBC Universal, News Corp. and CBS. It looks like the big guys simply can’t agree on anything for their own good. Until Tuesday afternoon, Viacom was a big part of the talks. Why they backed out is unknown at this point, although it could be due to the fact Viacom’s MTV Networks Online and News Corp.’s MySpace are direct rivals to each other.

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A Walkthrough of Tape It Off The Internet

Russell Heimlich — Fri, 15 Dec 2006 20:16:37 +0000

The long-awaited site Tape It Off The Internet (TIOTI) has opened its beta program. Originally I thought the site would be geared to help provide a one-stop-shop of links to TV show downloads on the net, which it kind of does, but the social aspect it adds could bring a new dimension to television viewing.

TIOTI hopes to be the number one resource related to everything and anything about TV shows. If it can get past the inevitable challenges it will face to providing links to pirated material, it might bring social interaction to what is usually a solitary experience.

Functionality-wise, the site has a blend of features resembling those from sites like Wikipedia, Amazon, del.icio.us, and MySpace, with a balanced take on information and social interaction. Let’s take a quick look around to see what TIOTI has to offer.

The first place you are taken to after signing in is your personal home page where you get a quick overview of your favorite TV shows. To the left is a list of the most recent episodes of your favorite TV shows, which like most of the site, can be syndicated via RSS. The middle and right column offer recommendations for TV shows you might like based on the shows you find interesting. Don’t remember which shows you added to your favorites? A little module on the bottom left lets you see at a glance as well as the favorite shows of your friends.

Search results include DVD recommendations via Amazon, and a useful history cache. Show description pages are editable like a wiki to provide tags, external links, and find other fans of the show.

A thoroughly organized episode guide is sorted by season and lets you see the original airing date, comments from other TIOTI users, a rating meter, and a check box so you can mark off if you have watched the episode. Did you miss the latest episode the other night? No sweat. TIOTI will point you to various places where you can download the episode; both legal like the iTunes music store and AOL TV and not so legal like BitTorrent links.

As a member of TIOTI you can join other groups of users who share similar interests in TV shows as you do. Since the site is still in an early beta stage there is not much of a community, but the potential for interaction and discussion is there. Each group has its own message board where group members can start discussions with other members of the community just like Facebook or MySpace groups. It’s easy to imagine that once the site opens up to the public there could be a lot of threads discussing the latest happenings of Lost or 24, adding a new dimension to the TV-watching experience.

Once the site matures it could become a powerful influence in determining the fate of a show as a community grows behind it. Executives who fear the BitTorrent downloads might find TIOTI useful as well offering instant feedback straight from the people who matter most – the viewers.

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French Documentary Maker Sues Google Video

Russell Heimlich — Thu, 30 Nov 2006 17:40:02 +0000

Google and Europe somehow don’t get along. A few weeks back, Google got into a spat with a Belgian company. Now, a French documentary producer has sued Google, both in US and France.

Flach Film, producers of TK, a movie about George Bush and his family connections to Osama bin Laden, are hopping mad over their copyrighted documentary making an appearance on Google Video France, where users could stream and download the entire film for free.

Flach Films in a strange twist, believes that since the movie was viewed 50,000 times, it has been download that many times as well. Google Video does not display the number of downloads.

While their contention of copyright infringement makes absolute sense, their contention that everyone who viewed the film online would have paid for it otherwise is illogical at best. The French have little or no love for Google, and a ruling against Google Video would not be good for the search giant.

Foreign content often makes it way onto Google Video site. In the past, the Indian movie industry has been a vocal critic of Google Video.

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Mobile Orb? Barely

Russell Heimlich — Sat, 18 Nov 2006 01:43:11 +0000

Orb has announced a new free service called MyCasting that would give mobile users access to online video from YouTube, Google Video, Guba, and Daily Motion.

That’s right, mobile video can be yours if 1) your phone has a browser and media player 2) you have a Windows PC with the Orb software on and net connected when you are gone and 3) pick out ahead of time which video you want to watch.

Pick out the videos I want to watch ahead of time? That doesn’t sound very fun. Of course you can add video RSS feeds and Orb will go through and squeeze them down for optimal mobile viewing but you won’t be able to open up that video link you spontaneously found on Digg from your phone.

Orb’s MyCasting service will work for the time being but in the future I don’t want to dedicate my computer to my mobile viewing needs. When can I just click a link and watch the video on my phone just like on the regular web right now? That is when mobile video will really explode.

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TiVo, Now Playing Internet Videos

Russell Heimlich — Sat, 18 Nov 2006 01:21:00 +0000

Tivo customers can already access content from The New York Times, CNET, and Rocketboom via their shiny PVR boxes, but on Tuesday, the company announced it is expanding its web video lineup. CBS Interactive, Reuters Group, and Forbes will be making new content available for streaming straight to the living room television thanks to a new content deal.

Of course it doesn’t stop there. Tivo also announced a new service that would allow any Tivo subscriber to send their home movies to other friends and family who just so happen to have Tivo as well, creating a peer-to-peer based private channel that anyone with right permissions can subscribe to via a season pass. This certainly beats burning and mailing a DVD just to show Aunt Ruthie how the kids are doing.

I think Tivo is going down the right path by making it easy for the non-technical person to receive Internet content from friends and media companies without having to get near a computer. In order to post content, one needs to upload the video to One True Media, but accessing it is as simple as a few button clicks on the Tivo remote. And this will open up a new avenue for content creators who are looking to reach a new audience in search of entertainment from the comfort of the couch instead of the computer chair.

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