Tag Archive for: television

Microformats: The Future of Microcasting?

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I’ve been around long enough to come from the cable TV daze when narrowcasting was a revolution. When I was at USA Network, MTV, CNN, ESPN etc were breakthroughs as channels for what we now call vertical audiences. I like to call the web’s quantum leap into far more finely defined audiences “microcasting.”

Technorati‘s Chairman, Peter Hirshberg (shown here) thinks that the organized tag technology called Microformats will provide important accessbility to the millions of video clips on the web… via tagged indexing. As you might expect, there’s a video clip to explain it.

What do you think?

TV on the Web Works Better Than TV on TV

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Reuters reports that Disney says ABC free web TV a hit with consumers. Perhaps more significant than the 11 million program-views (like web pageviews) is the fact that there was better commercial recall (in fact, twice as much recall) for the same programs when shown FREE on the web, as is typical for broadcast television.

The revolution continues…

On-Demand is the Defining Trend of the Media Future

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Beyond the hot, hot online video explosion is the fundamental disruptive concept of the digital media revolution: consumer empowerment… also known as on-demand media… essentially consumer-controlled media from Tivo-style personal video recorders (PVR’s) to podcasts to anything downloadable. In a nutshell, (as I’ve written for years), it’s the ability to watch or listen to what you want, when you want to (and in the case of podcasts, wherever you are). No longer are we slaves to the broadcasters’ schedules.

One of the things I like to do in this blog is to link to well-articulated perspectives that help people to understand the rapidly evolving media spaces. For example, today I am recommending ClickZ Network’s Sean Carton’s “Welcome to the On-Demand Future” which inspired the regurgitation above…

Broadcasting’s Downloads, Convergence Continues

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Leave it to TechCrunch to deliver the state-of-the-art overview (with best of breed links) of “Download Your TV — The Current Options”.

And leave it to a blog to have great links in the comments. Like USA Today’s perspective and overview of “ethnic” broadcast audiences.

And, the fact that the Saddam trial is being carried live on the Web. Who knew?

Tivo Makes a Convergence Connection with iPods and Sony PSP to Play Video

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The promise of digital video providing a convergence of all kinds of video sources has remained mostly that, a promise. But, finally, with Tivo’s announcement today that it will be providing customers with the ability to playback programs recorded on it’s devices on Apple iPod and Sony PSP portable video players, maybe we’re finally starting to see real video convergence… Stay tuned.

Technographics: Techonology “Optimists” Watch Less TV

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Forrester Research is reporting, in what may be one of the most comprehensive studies yet on the subject, that among those who feel good about technology (about 1/2 the market which they call “technology optimists”), there’s significantly less TV watching. They also say broadband will continue to grow rapidly (duh), more than doubling by 2010, etc. This is the first I’ve heard of this relatively intuitive distinction between the techno-optimists and pessimists. They also have a category called “tenured nomadic networkers.” Read the Hollywood Reporter summary of the study.

CBS News Commits to New Net Services as “Cable News Bypass”

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Calling the revamping of its CBSNews.com web site an “extreme makeover,” the relatively new president of the relatively new division, CBS Digital Media, Larry Kramer (a true Net Vet as well as founder and former CEO of CBSMarketwatch.com) announced a “seismic change” (new Web attitude) at the old network’s news organization. He said in an online video that new initiatives or “investments” would include podcasts, a blog called “Public Eye” (which will provide feedback and criticism as well as public praise for CBS newscasts), and lots of custom “web-only” video content on an on-going basis.

This new commitment to new content in some ways reflects what other networks are doing with their cable news sister networks. As reported by the New York Times, Kramer calls this a “cable news bypass.” He said in the online video announcement, “On the web, daytime is prime time,” and pointed to larger audience opportunities online than even cable can provide.

We’ll see if they can get traction (build a powerful/viable audience), but Kramer “gets the Web” and should be able to provide the necessary leadership. Certainly, this CBS initiative couldn’t hurt; and it will most probably inspire other news organizations to get more serious (and hopefully more transparent) about the importance of their organization’s web presence. Let’s hope so.

Blogs, Jeff Gannon, TV Clips from Bill Maher & Daily Show

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Bill Maher The Blogosphere is starting to get to me… And I agree with some of the serious, yet humorous commentary below that the question of how a male prostitute got a White House Press Pass DOES deserve investigation…

It’s also somewhat fascination to me that I found these video clips via the Bloglines Top Links, and thanks to the web site OneGoodMove.org for capturing these video clips and linking them up. Nice to have a kind of video that I enjoy, rather than the dribble that’s on TV most of the time, made so readily available on the web!

Certainly the “news” is best reported by those with a sense of humor these days. (FYI, these are VIDEO clips in QuickTime format. Broadband recommended.):

> Daily Show with Jon Stewart on the Blogs & the Media

> Bill Maher (Leslie Stall, Robin Williams & others) on a Male Prostitute with a Press Pass in the White House