Zite found in a survey of  more than 330 iPad users that one-third share their iPads with a group of people. We’ve seen similar evidence that iPads are shared devices, with one study finding that even users living alone  share their Apple tablets with other family members. Zite found that of those who share their devices, two-thirds share with one other individual, while a quarter share it with two others.

Zite CTO Mike Klass said in a press release that Sybil is the result of customer feedback. “Time and time again, we have come across multiple people within a family who want to have their own Zite, personalized to them, but only have one iPad,” said. “So, we developed ‘Sybil,’ a solution for people who want to share their iPad with a significant other, sibling, parent or hidden personality.”

You now set up a user profile when first launching Zite.

Kevin Tofel wrote about how users find jailbreak workarounds to get around the lack of system-level account switching on an iPad back in July, but Zite’s app-specific approach might make more sense. After all, sharing info on many apps probably doesn’t hurt and actually could be beneficial, while for personalized content like Zite, multi-profile capabilities are ideal.

After Zite’s recent acquisition by CNN, some wondered whether it would be able to remain competitive as a distinct product and brand on its own. The addition of this great new account switching feature, which gives it an advantage over Flipboard, the biggest player on the block, helps prove that the acquisition is fuelling innovation to improve Zite as a standalone product.

Other recent improvements made by the Zite team include the ability to block specific sources entirely to no longer see their articles, as well as Twitter integration for iOS 5 devices, which allows you to automatically link Zite to your Twitter account. With the addition of Sybil, Zite is definitely making a strong play for the personalized news app crown.

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A Single, Scrollable Button

The scrollable menus would provide contextually-sensitive commands right where a user needs them, and would minimize the amount of screen real estate taken up by menu bars, toolboxes and palettes. Essentially, you’d see a command displayed somewhere on your screen. Tapping that command would execute the function, but scrolling on your trackpad or touchscreen (depending on whether you’re using OS X or iOS) would allow you to cycle through various commands.

So, for example, you could scroll to “Save” and “Print” instead of accessing them through a drop down as you do currently via the OS X menu bar. Menu items could be displayed as either icons or text, and could be nested hierarchically, providing full access to even the most complicated menu systems.

Like Stacks for Menu Commands

The patent also describes other alternate scrolling configurations. Commands could fan out in a semi-circle or column, for example, or some combination of both for multiple levels of menu items. With touch input, it would be incredibly user friendly, while also keeping unnecessary commands out of sight most of the time, giving you as unfettered a view as possible. It’s an implementation that makes a lot of sense in tandem with Apple’s move to full-screen OS X apps, as seen in iLife ’11.

The iOS/OS X Divide Narrows

On iOS, scrollable menus would seems just a logical extension of the technologies already in place. In OS X, it does seem like users who still prefer traditional input devices would feel a little awkward using scrollable menus with a mouse and keyboard. But I wouldn’t be surprised if these new interface elements did make an appearance in OS X Lion, since they seem to be fairly complete in terms of concept and design, and Apple is definitely looking to encourage more iOS feel in its next major OS upgrade, something which a cleaner interface would definitely provide.

Readers who are familiar with AutoDesk’s Sketchbook Pro will recognize a certain similarity between what this new patent describes and the brush menus used in that program. I found it worked great while using a Wacom tablet on a Mac, so I’m looking forward to seeing it applied throughout OS X in general. How about you?

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In a phone call with NewTeeVee, Veoh founder Dmitry Shapiro placed a lot of blame on the Universal Music Group copyright infringement suit, as well as the broader macro-economic situation. The UMG lawsuit might have limited its strategic opportunities or scared off new investors, but Veoh made a number of missteps before its final demise. Here are a few:

Raising too much money

Veoh raised $70 million, including a $30 million round that it brought on after it was clear that the company was having problems. Compare that to Blip.tv, which was founded around the same time and has raised a total of $8.5 million over the last five years.

Getting too big too fast

One of the traps of raising a bunch of money is having to justify it to your shareholders — and that frequently involves spending too much, too fast. According to MediaMemo, Veoh was spending up to $4 million a month on bloated staff and infrastructure costs. In other words, like Joost, it wasn’t acting — or spending its cash — like a startup. The company had about 120 employees at one point, which it cut down to 20 before finally closing down shop this week, but the bigger costs came in bandwidth and infrastructure bills, which it couldn’t really avoid.

No strategic focus

In his requiem for Veoh, Shapiro writes that Veoh “was launched in September of 2005 with a bold goal: To make it possible for anyone with a video camera and a computer to broadcast video to the world.” That might have been the plan at the start, but Veoh tried a number of things over its short lifespan: it tried to attract independent producers with an ad split, tried to bring in premium content and even at one point attempted to fund production of its own content before finally focusing on its Video Compass search and discovery technology.

Requiring a client download

When Veoh launched its long-form video service, VeohTV, it made the viewing experience available only through a downloadable application (and later a browser plugin), which optimized viewing through peer-to-peer distribution. As with Joost, that hampered adoption, especially as Veoh’s peers — like Hulu and YouTube — emphasized in-browser video delivered through Adobe Flash. On the phone, Shapiro said this was likely the biggest mistake the company made: “We probably could have had a lot more traction at the time if we had streamed,” he said, but without cash to pay for bandwidth costs, it would have been difficult to get off the ground without the P2P client.

Turning its back on its users

The biggest indicator that Veoh was in trouble came in the summer of 2008, when it blocked access to videos on its site to all but 33 international markets. The explanation was basically that Veoh wasn’t able to monetize videos in those markets, so it was limiting costs from serving them there. But it upset a number of users from around the world who had come to rely on the site for interesting video content.

Related content on GigaOM Pro (subscription required): Not Your Grandfather’s Streaming Video Business

Recently, Apple introduced preview launch pages for its iTunes musical content. The new pages, which replace the boring “iTunes is launching, please wait” dialog that used to appear, provide basically a snapshot of what you’ll find when that iTunes icon eventually stops bouncing and you’re taken to the relevant page on the iTunes store. And now iPhone apps have received the same treatment.

The launch page you now receive when you click App Store links looks pretty much exactly like what you’ll see in iTunes itself. Product description, recommended apps, screenshots and user reviews — it’s all there. Apple also benefits by providing you with the Apple web site’s top navigation bar, so that customers clicking through are now also potentially rerouted towards the company’s other products and offerings.

Is the web preview a good idea? I guess so, especially for Apple’s new customers, who might be confused or put off by links that just open an application on their computer with little or no explanation. And it’s good for Apple, as I’ve just mentioned, since it acts as a kind of light up-selling tool. But as an experienced user who doesn’t appreciate being sold to when I’m already trying to buy something, I see little point in the entire iTunes Preview concept.

Not that it’s completely without merit. In fact, there’s a very simple way to make the whole thing extremely useful and get rid of the annoyance that some feel when inadvertently clicking .itms links. I’m talking about just using iTunes Previews, without the simultaneous opening of iTunes itself. This is one of the few times I will actually advise the implementation of a user interface element that actually adds a step instead of taking one away, but in this case it just makes sense.

The launch pad tells you everything you need to know, since it literally contains all the information available on the item’s iTunes store page. Let us as customers pause there, reflect, perhaps preview songs, etc. and click through to other app previews, and then provide a link to open iTunes. I suspect even just the sense of agency this will allow consumers will help boost actual purchase numbers. And Apple still gets the chance to up sell using the navigation bar. Everybody wins.

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Before I say anything else, it’s my duty to report that Apple is indeed acting within the scope of the agreement it has with developers in requesting the removal of this feature from apps. As of now, USB syncing is still a private API, which means developers shouldn’t technically be using it. To get around this, many have implemented the feature using the iPhone’s Digital Camera Image Management folder, but that also requires the use of private APIs.

Whether or not developers are violating the development agreement isn’t at issue here, though, really. Apple has quietly acquiesced to the use of USB syncing in many apps, not just Stanza, until now. The timing is not inauspicious. Apple’s only begun to enforce this rule following the unveiling of the iPad, and, more to the point, of the iBookstore.

Ars Technica believes this is only a temporary measure. They point to an alternative apparently in the works in iPhone 3.2:

Though users of Stanza, PDF readers, numerous audio editors and sequencers, and other apps will be frustrated, the good news is that Apple has a mechanism planned to address both syncing and file sharing issues. The beta SDK for iPhone OS 3.2 has APIs for accessing an on-device shared storage folder, which will be mounted as a readable and writable disk when plugged in to a computer via USB.

Ars then goes on to point out that iPhone OS 3.2 is currently only intended for use with the iPad. The same features could later appear in an update for the iPhone, but they may not. We could see an OS forking at this point, and that might mean a significant difference in the available features for each device.

Not to mention that there’s no guarantee the iPhone or the iPad will ever get the same kind of USB syncing functionality back. The iBookstore means that Apple has a monetary reason to prevent other content providers from getting its e-book products onto its devices. And in the meantime, while everyone waits for a potential future solution, Stanza users and others are left completely out in the cold.

The iPad represents many new possibilities for iPhone developers, but at what cost? Will Apple close its iPhone OS platform even further to ensure that it maintains the lion’s share of content control? Will it quietly hamstring legitimate competitors as it extends its power over the media users view on its devices? Not necessarily, but with the advent of a brand new device, we should watch closely to make sure we aren’t losing something irreplaceable in the bargain.

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I don’t like this because it means I have to visit Facebook to do a lot of my communication. Now, though, that no longer applies in all cases. Facebook announced yesterday that you can now reply to some things directly from your email, so long as you have your account set up to receive notifications.

All you have to do in order to use the new feature is put the content of your reply in the body of the email and hit “Reply,” and that message will appear under the wall post, comment, or whatever else. I’m wondering now if an implementation is planned for the messaging feature of Facebook, too, because as of now it doesn’t yet appear to be active.

Even without messaging support, this should definitely help me cut down on my wasted hours during the day. Email is a necessary evil that I have to deal with on the fly anyway, and folding some back and forth Facebook communication into that existing routine should occupy a lot less time than having either to check the site constantly or just having it open all the time, presenting itself as a very tempting distraction indeed. On the other hand, you might not engage with your Facebook friends as much now that you don’t have to go to the site as often.

Let us know whether you think the new email features help your Facebook usage.

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Holiday spending has seen sales of Apple’s Magic Mouse soar. According to a report by NPD and covered today by AppleInsider, last month saw a twofold increase in Apple’s share of domestic mice sales. By the end of November, Apple had captured 10 percent of the market.

NPD analyst Stephen Baker told AppleInsider:

Sales in November were through the roof. The Magic Mouse had the best month for a mouse product from Apple that we’ve ever seen.

It’s the first time Apple’s share of the domestic mouse market has ever reached double digits, and even more impressive considering the data was compiled from standalone sales. Units sold with new iMacs were not counted.

While that’s fantastic news for Apple, I find myself wondering whether those new Magic Mouse owners aren’t going to be feeling somewhat disappointed because, despite its name, the Magic Mouse is anything but magical. For a company that gets so much of its user experience spot-on, it does keep missing the target with its pointing devices.

Andy Ihnatko said it best:

I can’t think of a single good Apple mouse released this millennium. Ideologically, they’ve all been covered with spray-glitter and rainbow stickers.

When I got my Magic Mouse I admired its diminutive form factor and minimalist lines but it was clearly not an ergonomic design. That super slimline, ground-hugging shape took some getting used to. But aesthetic and ergonomic matters aside, I think the thorniest issue isn’t with the hardware at all. The problem, as I see it, is one of user perception.

You see, users accustomed to the touchy-goodness of an iPhone or MacBook trackpad lament the lack of similar functionality in their supposedly ‘magic’ mouse. The major criticism is usually expressed in the form of common questions, like, Why is there no pinch to zoom functionality? Why do we have to click, when we could tap? Why aren’t more swipe-gestures supported?

“It’s just a software fix,” reviewers on popular Apple tech sites have concluded, “Apple will likely add that functionality later in a software update.”

Well, I don’t think so. In fact, I think Apple will intentionally avoid adding further touch functionality to this mouse, and I think I know why.

Be Careful What You Wish For

In the relatively short time since the Magic Mouse was released in late October, several third-party applications have appeared, both free and paid, that (ahem) ‘tap’ into the Magic Mouse software and foist upon the device all that pinching, swiping, multi-touch functionality people think they want. Well, I also thought I wanted those things…until I got them.

Remember how, with the Mighty Mouse, you had to handle it with care because those side-buttons could be way too sensitive? They were so sensitive, in fact, many people disabled those buttons entirely because they proved such a nuisance. Turns out, having multifunctional touch-sensitive controls all across the surface of the Magic Mouse turns the thing into a far greater nuisance than its “mighty” predecessor ever was.

I swiftly discovered that controls I wanted to trigger (say, a three-finger-tap) often wouldn’t register. I’d spend an inordinate amount of time obsessive-compulsively tapping the mouse with minimal success. Pinching and zooming was literally painful, transforming my hand into a deformed claw of knotted knuckles and cramp. Yet, for all my efforts, it still never zoomed in a controlled, predictable manner.

Worse still, functions I didn’t intentionally invoke would trigger while I was doing something else entirely. It got to the point where simply moving the pointer across the screen — an action so natural and normal I normally give it no conscious thought — was now an event demanding deliberate care and attention. I tried two of the most popular apps and got the same results each time.

In short , it’s not a software problem, but rather, a limitation imposed by the very form factor of the mouse. As long as Apple wants its flagship pointing device to be small, svelte and sexy, it’s just not going to be the right shape and size for full-fledged multi-touch controls.

Software like MagicPrefs introduces hugely varied additional functionality

Apple, I’m sure, did a lot of R&D to determine what were the most appropriate default touch controls for the Magic Mouse. Therefore, a feature’s absence is a deliberate choice. It makes perfect sense. One of the most celebrated aspects of Apple’s user-experience is its consistency; across all Macs the user experience is predictable and dependable. There are rarely unexpected (or unwelcome) surprises. Much of the time, that’s made possible by Apple’s minimalist, ‘less-is-more’ approach to interface design.

That is why so many people disliked the Mighty Mouse. In trying to do so much it was just too unpredictable and ruined the user experience. And that is why the Magic Mouse is so limited. It’s better this way.

I just wonder if all those new Magic Mouse owners will agree?

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It means you get instant access to stuff that’s happening as it happens, including up-to-the-minute results from Yahoo! Answers, news and blog posts, and Twitter content. Real-time results are accessible on mobile platforms like the iPhone and Android devices, too, making it even more useful.

Google made an official announcement regarding the service today, posting images of and detailing the new real-time results, but it has yet to implement the new features in all areas. I couldn’t access the real-time searching, for instance, though other recent improvements like the super-clean redesigned home page were active.

The results don’t overrule or occlude the more established type of content you’re used to seeing in Google searches. Instead, they sit alongside sites which contain general information and context related to your query. Judging by the screenshots and preview videos, it’s an elegant marriage of the two types of information, and, best of all, you don’t have to go to a separate site or do any kind of special settings changes to enable the new real-time searching.

If you do want to focus your search on only the most current information, however, you can select “Latest” from the search options menu to view an entire page full of tweets, new blog posts, and fresh news content related to the topic you’re searching. Finally, you can check out “hot topics” on Google Trends to see a list akin to the trending topics on Twitter, except covering all the types of publications instead.

This development has huge implications for web workers. Web research can now speak to the immediate present as well as information that’s had time to percolate. Obviously, that has both good and bad sides. On the one hand, you can better handle major industry shifts as a subject-matter expert, and impress clients with your currency. On the other, people will have to be much more dependent on their own common sense, since real-time information is much more vulnerable to the dissemination of falsehoods, intentional or otherwise.

Check out the following video for more about the new addition to Google’s arsenal:

Let us know when Google gets updated in your area as real-time search rolls out worldwide.

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Twittelator Pro is the first iPhone client to use the new Lists API. Using the app, you can now create or edit your own lists, view the lists of other users, and follow or unfollow lists. It’s a nice alternative to client-based groups, and it’s especially convenient on the iPhone platform, since it makes Twitter’s information glut a little more digestible.

The update also brings some more list-centric new discovery tools, like suggestions, featured, random, and list searching so that you can explore beyond your own network. It’s actually got me looking around at lists, which is more than I’ve done since Twitter implemented the feature. As a way of finding new people to follow, or of locating good thematically grouped news sources all in one place, the search function is especially helpful.

Here’s a list of some of the other new features introduced in version 3.4:

• Reply All – Tap the user avatar next to the tweet to reply to all mentioned.
• What the Trend? – Provides an explanation for why a topic is trending.
• Search Nearby shows avatars on map pins
• Emailing a link uses the web page title as the message subject by default
• Much faster download times

Twittelator Pro sells for $4.99 in the App Store. It’s a very feature-rich piece of software, but a little too busy for my tastes. If you’re a TweetDeck desktop user, it’ll probably be more to your liking.

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While video production may involve location-specific elements where you need to go out to capture visuals and sounds, you can still make it a career where you can work anywhere you want.

Is video production the career for you?

Video Production Careers

In video production, some stick to just one task, while others do several things, or even do all the jobs to take a video from start to finish. Here are a few video-related jobs:

Producer: Video businesses vary in the area of production based on the type of videos they create and the topics they cover. Producers may specialize in one or several different types of video. The title “producer” has many meanings, but a producer often oversees the entire video production process.

Post-production: Folks in post-production work with existing video to enhance it, edit it and add to it. These tasks could involve animation, audio, voice-overs, DVD menus, music and graphics.

Editor: Editors compile audio and video to create the final product that meets project requirements. “The editor is much like a cook. We take raw ingredients and combine them artfully into a video that meets the clients’ goals,” says Ed McNichol of EDcetera.

How to Qualify

Video producers and editors are a diverse lot when it comes to how they first entered the video business and gained experience. Tim Clark started on Ken Burns’ documentaries in the editing room. Jack Dever, director of post production at PACSAT,  literally started on the bottom floor by sweeping in a studio before and after shoots. After that, he climbed to assistant video editor, editor, producer, director and supervisor. Many folks in video started at the bottom and worked into jobs in the field.

Kim Brame, executive producer with creative illusions Productions, took every job available to her after college to build a network and learn the craft. Her coworkers have degrees and training in audio engineering, programming, graphic design and animation.

Steve Mann, owner of MannMade Digital Video, lost his job in the dot-com bust. “Over 50 and no higher degree made me virtually invisible in the collapsed high-tech job market. Since my passion was always photography and more recently videography, doing what I enjoy seemed like the best career move,” Mann says.

Vicky Poole didn’t start at the bottom. Rather, she started in a different job as a secretary working for a post-production company. Her boss gave her opportunities to work with equipment and on smaller projects.

A handful of folks say they received a college degree in mass communications, media, film production or something similar. But these same people say that job experience is what really matters. In terms of gaining skills, many say they just learned how to use the software and practice often. No matter where you are in your video career, everyone has benefited from attending seminars and trade shows. Jeff Davis of JD Savage Productions says, “Do what you love, and never stop learning new stuff.”

“There is a balance of technical aptitude and creativity,” says Tom Hinchey of HincheyStudios LLC. Not only do video producers need to know the technical side of things, but also how to create the message the video must communicate.

A person who knows how to use all the video production equipment and tools doesn’t always have the knowledge and skills to be a full-fledged video producer. “You need to first know how to be a storyteller. This is one of the key components that people don’t understand with video,” says David Spark of Spark Media Solutions.

Video Production Tools

Video production involves a long list of tools. After all, you can’t capture sound and visuals without cameras and microsphones, or put all the footage together to tell a good story without apps.

The following popular tools are a smattering of what the professionals use: Final Cut Pro, Photoshop, HD cameras (especially Sony and Canon), AVID, Adobe Creative Suite, Affect Effects and Premiere. Some also use mics, lighting, DVD authoring and scripting tools. Of course, many use a Mac computer to do their work. They often post their videos on web-based video services like YouTube and Vimeo.

Find Clients

Word-of-mouth and happy current clients rule the roost as the best way to get business. Networking both in person and on social network sites works well. Some do formal marketing or post on craigslist. Video producers create a portfolio for their web sites. “Gone are the days of DVD reels. If a client wants instant access to your portfolio, your website can help you lock in that client instantly,” says Kico Velarde.

Crystal Pyramid Productions’ Patty Mooney not only uses a web site and networks, but also finds clients through the Chamber of Commerce, search engine optimization (SEO) and advertising in online and print directories. Another way to break in the field is to volunteer to get experience and build your portfolio.

Thomas Hoebbel took the old fashioned approach by connecting with organizations that could benefit from his work, and they hired him. Some people like Clint Till of Parc Entertainment, Inc. hand out demo reels on DVD and make cold calls.

Would you consider a video production career?

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