Drones on parade, and a few fun facts about 4K
I took a brief tour of the National Association of Broadcasters convention show floor today. Here’s what I saw and learned. Read more »
How to make your mark in professional basketball at 5′ 9″
Vasu Kulkarni isn’t an NBA star; he couldn’t even make an Ivy League basketball team. But Kulkarni’s startup Krossover is trying to change the nature of coaching, scouting and even fandom by testing people’s on-the-field sports intelligence. Read more »
Microsoft’s vision of our future is big screens and big data
photo: Microsoft
Microsoft had a handful of journalists at its new Envisioning Center last week to show off its latest and greatest technology. Here’s what it demonstrated. Read more »
6 ways to watch your own videos from your iPhone or Mac on your TV
A guide for how to watch one of your home movies in the privacy of your own home using the Apple TV, a Mac or an iOS device. Read more »
B&N adds more movies and TV shows to Nook Video, but who’s going to watch?
Barnes & Noble is bringing new movies and TV shows to Nook Video. It’s a good step toward creating a media ecosystem for Nook, but the company is not close to becoming a Netflix, Amazon or iTunes competitor. Read more at paidContent »
What a pig, a goat and an eagle can tell us about the decline of traditional media
photo: Shutterstock/Donskarpo
When news shows rely on “viral” videos for their programming, without bothering to even try and verify whether they are real or not, all they do is push their viewers towards the original source of that content. Read more at paidContent »
Snapchat’s video feature comes to Android
Snapchat has rolled out its video product on Android on Thursday, adding a popular feature to a booming app. The company that allows users to send short-lived photos and videos just raised a Series A funding round led by Benchmark. Read more »
Video: Tag along with a RootMetrics’ tester as he maps Chicago’s mobile networks
photo: Kevin Fitchard
How does RootMetrics know who has the best mobile data network? During a ride-along, Root showed us just how it collects the millions of data-points that go into its detailed coverage maps and performance reports. Read more »
Video: Take a tour of YouTube’s super cool production Space in LA
This is not your father’s YouTube. This is a 41,00 sq. ft. state of the art production facility for content creators. Read more »
Twitter’s Vine app now has a 17+ age rating, user reporting tool
After pornography was found on Vine, Twitter has quietly updated the app with an age-rating warning and a user/content reporting tool. Read more »
Are times getting desperate for Lovefilm?
photo: Shutterstock/Ollyy
With Netflix on a roll, its big European rival — Amazon-owned Lovefilm — seems more and more desperate to staunch the flow of subscribers quitting the service and moving elsewhere. Read more »
Vine is the best we’ve seen in social video, but is it good enough?
When it comes to social video, plenty of people have tried to nail it, but no one’s really succeeded so far. Vine could come closest to making videos easy to upload and share, but will it be the answer to video’s obstacles? Read more »
Live by the platform, die by the platform: Facebook grabs more control of its data
photo: Flickr/spcbrass
It’s always a risk building on top of another technology platform, although building on Facebook’s API has obvious benefits when you’re starting out. But if you pick that route? Be sure to note how quickly the company is changing. Read more »
Simplicity be damned: Is Twitter losing its way by trying to be all things to all people?
photo: Shutterstock / Sam72
Twitter has been expanding the idea of what a tweet consists of for some time now, and has just added the ability to include short video clips. But is the service at risk of losing the simplicity that once made it unique? Read more »
Is Twitter heading toward a future in video?
A tweet from Twitter CEO Dick Costolo Wednesday morning hinted that Twitter could be interested in moving toward a future in shareable video, possibly through Vine, the company Twitter acquired earlier this fall. So where is the company headed with video? Read more »
RIM revamps BlackBerry app store, adding music and video
photo: RIM
BlackBerry App World is becoming simply BlackBerry World as RIM prepares to revamp its mobile storefront. In addition to apps and games, RIM will be selling multimedia. Read more »
SnapChat’s adding video, so sext me, maybe?
Snapchat, the mobile photo app popular with teens for taking self-pics, is adding video on Friday, expanding the app to a new dimension. Snapchat allows a user to take photo, share with a friend, and have the photo automatically delete only seconds later. Read more »
Dick Costolo says Twitter is a reinvention of the town square — but with TV
New forms of media are often disruptive to existing forms, but Twitter CEO Dick Costolo says that his network is complementary to traditional forms like television, because it adds the kind of real-time discussion we associate with the town square or the “pulse of the planet.” Read more »
Online viewers start leaving if video doesn’t play in 2 seconds, says study
Better connection speeds and more content means media companies are turning to video as an important revenue source. But to succeed, they must reach viewers fast. Here are some facts and graphics from a new study that shows how long viewers will wait. Read more »
How video will provide a third act for AOL
AOL has been a basket case for years as it tried to figure out if was a tech or a content company. But today it announced earnings and a strategy that suggest it may finally have found a way forward. Read more at paidContent »
Barnes & Noble launches Nook Video, including UltraViolet support
With the launch of Nook Video, Barnes & Noble will begin selling digital movies and TV episodes across devices. The company plans to release Nook Video apps, and the service will be available in the US and UK. Pricing and other details are unclear. Read more at paidContent »
YouTube still the king of online video (charts)
More people watched video on the Internet through YouTube than any other site by a wide margin during August, as Google continues to enjoy the benefits of having the most engaged online viewers. Still wondering if Google is a media company? Read more »
Netflix CEO Reed Hastings’ response to HBO Nordic: It’s on!
The gloves are off between Netflix and HBO – in Northern Europe, anyway: HBO revealed plans for an HBO Nordic offering that can be accessed on the Internet without a TV subscription two weeks after Netflix announced its expansion to Northern Europe. Read more »
Should you use Kindle’s new read-it-later feature?
Amazon launched a “Send to Kindle” extension for Google Chrome that lets users send articles to their Kindle. Other services, like Pocket and Instapaper, can do the same thing. Which one should you use? Read more at paidContent »
Former Lovefilm boss: Netflix could have stormed Europe years ago
As it takes a hammering at home, Netflix is pinning its hopes on getting traction in Europe. But Adam Valkin, the founding CEO of rival video service Lovefilm, says that the US company could have owned the market if it hadn’t pulled out of a European launch in 2004. Read more »
So far, even the Olympics can’t budge our outdated TV models
photo: Shutterstock / Padmayogini
Frustration with a lack of access, editing and the overall confusion about who can see what of the Olympics shows how frustrated consumers are about our outdated TV, but NBC has paid $1.18 billion to broadcast the games. Who is the consumer here? Read more »
Why Twitter’s move into TV could be a recipe for disaster
photo: Flickr user Hans Gerwitz
Twitter is reportedly in talks with Hollywood producers and network executives about creating one or more reality-style TV shows that would be integrated into the network — but if it does decide to do this, the company risks alienating its core users and diluting its fundamental value. Read more »
Video star Dailymotion relaunches white label service
Global No2 video service Dailymotion is expanding its white label streaming service to try and capture a greater share of the market. Can its new features draw in more users and help the company meet its targets? Read more »
Fastest growing segment of piracy? Live TV
photo: Shutterstock / Mehmet Dilsiz
A new study from Google and the UK copyright collection society PRS for Music finds that live TV is the fastest-growing segment of copyright infringement — and a large presence on social networking sites. Read more at paidContent »
Media store wars: iTunes vs Amazon vs Google Play
Google now activates one million Android devices per day and has 400 million devices in the wild, but its media store efforts have lagged. Google Play now has more digital content types, so here’s a look at how it compares to iTunes and Amazon’s digital store. Read more »
Netflix shut out again as Lovefilm signs with Fox
Bad news for Netflix’s international aspirations, as Amazon-owned rival Lovefilm announced a U.K. rights deal to show 20th Century Fox movies on its streaming service. But with antitrust authorities hovering over the movies-on-demand market, things are still up for grabs. Read more at paidContent »
When it comes to big data, don’t forget about video
photo: Pinar Ozger
The term “big data” might conjure images of spreadsheets and numbers, but Rebecca Jacoby, CIO and SVP of Cisco, told audience members at GigaOM’s Structure conference not to forget about one important type of that data — video. Read more »
Wall Street Journal launches new video hub, plans Facebook integration
The Wall Street Journal’s full-throttle video ambitions now extend to a new website that brings together a once disparate series of streams. Read more at paidContent »
Video chat startup Lutebox dumps plan A, goes shopping
What do you do when Google and Sean Parker kill your idea? Change direction. That’s what Ali Ahmed and his videochat startup Lutebox have done, switching from the idea of helping people chat about premium videos to focusing on social shopping. Read more »
Is Condition One the future of video? Mark Cuban thinks so
Danfung Dennis, a war photographer whose company Condition One is set to graduate from TechStars’ New York class today, has created a video technology that lets people create immersive video that can capture 180 degrees of view and can be manipulated with swipes or an accelerometer. Read more »
Video: How does politics change in the age of the real-time social web?
How have blogs and Twitter and other forms of social media changed the nature of the political process and the media reporting of that process? At paidContent 2012, I talked with Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo and Vivian Schiller of NBC News about that question. Read more at paidContent »
Popcornflix rocks Roku with 400,000 app downloads
Movie streaming platform Popcornflix announced 400,000 downloads on Roku today, which puts it right behind the big guys, Amazon, Hulu and Netflix. Popcornflix may not have the biggest blockbusters in its catalog, but it has something else going for it. The price is right: free. Read more »
Swivl turns your iPhone into a self-tracking cameraman
Since I only have two arms, capturing myself on video with an iPhone is basically a non-event. It’s not that I’m narcissistic; I often do reviews on camera or interview folks at trade shows. With Swivl, an intelligent, swiveling tripod base I can use my iPhone. Read more »
When Facebook goes down, the Internet barely blinks
Facebook went down for a few hours last night, causing people to turn to Twitter to complain, quip and mourn. But despite the outsized reactions from the site’s users the web itself barely felt the shock of losing the largest social network on the planet. Read more »
Ambient video and the changing face of communication
Video is becoming more of a casual form of communication, with people leaving video chat services like OoVoo on in the background for hours on end. Video sharing is becoming more immediate with more live broadcasting of your life. Read more »
