Nokia Launches 3rd Party App Store

Mobile phone giant Nokia this week announced another round of staff cutbacks, alongside an announcement that it was further opening its technology to mobile application developers.

Another 450 employees of the Finnish company were let go this week, on the heels of layoffs of 1700 staffers in March, and an initial reduction of 320 back in February of this year, according to PC World.

Meanwhile, in more upbeat news, Nokia announced its strategy to reposition its high-end phones, like its just-unveiled N97 touchscreen handsets (pictured at right), to compete head-to-head with the ubiquitous Apple iPhone. The company on April 28 also detailed plans for expanding and streamlining purchase of mobile online software and services.

The company plans a new “App Store,” with better links to its service offerings, and easier customer access with a single sign-in and single billing mechanism.

The company also unveiled an initiative to work with third-party developers to expand Nokia’s offerings of mobile applications. In an upcoming release of their API, Nokia will open up their Ovi Share service, which lets users share content via PCs and mobile phones, to developers. Nokia released technical information for its newest N97 phone at a Nokia event for developers this week.

The best new applications and services developed for the handsets will also be in the running for prize money from Nokia and partner Adobe, which makes the Flash software which runs many of the phone’s applications.

Finally, Nokia also revealed plans to cooperate more closely with social networking sites, photo-sharing sites, and “other outside parties.”

“The world is a mash-up,” Niklas Savander, Nokia executive vice-president for services, was quoted as saying in BusinessWeek. “The consumer at the end is the one who chooses what he or she wants to do.”

If Nokia is using its new app store and third-party developers as a strategy to challenge the Apple iPhone for a larger share of the mobile computing pie, it will likely be an uphill struggle. Nokia makes handsets that are superior in many ways (fantastic 5-Megapixel camera with high-quality Carl Zeiss optics, 16:9 and DVD quality video capture that upload and stream video online, mobile podcasting apps, and 48 GB of storage, including 32 GB of on-board memory), but have yet to capture the mass-market attention of the iPhone.

Reddit Launches Social Video Bookmarking Site

Social bookmarking and news site reddit today announced the launch of reddit.tv, a video sharing and rating service. The new site takes the videos which are recommended and discussed on the main reddit site, and features them in a more video-friendly setting.

The original reddit site, launched in 2005, lets users post links to content on the Internet. Other users may then vote the posted links down or up, causing them to appear more or less prominently on the Reddit home page. The site also allows discussion of individual topics or links. Users who submit articles which turn out to be popular with users like, and who also “vote up” receive “karma” points as a reward for submitting interesting articles.

The new reddit.tv site features its users’ most recommended web videos, with broad categories like “geek” and “happy” for browsing, in the old “most popular” standby (like this “hard drive clock video, at right). They have also partnered with the TED conference to specially feature videotaped talks from that event.

Also, the new video site now has integration with Twitter, to pass along links to videos, “generat[ing] a random sentence to make you look awesome without even trying.”

New Wizzard Alchemy App Tracks Ads Via Streaming or Download

Podcasting network Wizzard Media announced the release of Alchemy 2.1. The advertising-insert application “seamlessly” integrates advertisements into podcasts playing on the Wizzard Media Flash player, while also maintaining advanced tracking and interactive capabilities.

The updated app eliminates the need for separate systems to run (and track) advertisements in downloaded podcasts versus streaming audio or video podcasts. The same ads play whether the podcast is downloaded in iTunes, played through mobile iTunes on the iPhone, or played online through the Flash-based media player.

“By clicking on the ad while it is run in the Flash player, a consumer is automatically transported to the advertiser’s website,” said Chris Spencer, Wizzard CEO. The company calls this new system the “technical foundation” of its advertising monetization plan for content producers. It is also of benefit to the advertisers themselves.

“Now, ad buyers can make one buy across streaming and downloadable media reaching consumers where they consume entertainment on their computer, on their iPods or on their iPhones,” Spencer added.

An example of an active use of the new flash player system can be found at Alaska HDTV.

Technical information:

The Alchemy 2.1 implementation of the Wizzard Media flash player adheres to the IAB VAST (Video Ad Serving Template) standard that allows for simple plug-n-play for third party advertising system integration. The new system works with AOL’s Platform A and ADTECH, and Wizzard plans to expand the capabilities to include DoubleClick and Atlas in the near future. The measurment of advertisements, consumer click-throughs to advertisers’ web sites and audience feedback responses are all tracked using Nielsen//NetRating.

Alchemy 2.1 supports traditional pre, post and mid-roll, in-stream ad units, and also supports overlay static and animated banners in addition to earlug ad units.

Reinvented Software Releases Updated Feeder App With Podcast Support

Mac software developers Reinvented Software released an updated version of their RSS editor application Feeder on Tuesday.

Feeder 2.0 is an RSS editor for creating a variety of news feeds, including podcasts. This latest version adds weblog integration, announcements, editing and preview improvements, live validation, Amazon S3 uploading, iTunes U support, and an improved user interface.

Reinvented says that the updated Feeder interface simplifies the user’s work with RSS, with an e-mail-like editor. For media creators who lack experience (or interest) with coding their own HTML, the app includes ready-made templates and previews. For those who like to do their own tinkering, Feeder also offers HTML editing.

For podcasters, Feeder includes full support for the iTunes RSS podcasting extensions, drag-and-drop episode creation, an iTunes Store preview and the ability to tag all popular podcast media files. Feeder can publish feeds and associated files via FTP, SFTP, MobileMe and now, Amazon S3. The app also adds support for iTunes U podcasts.

For podcasters who use Feeder alongside their blog, the new Feeder 2.0 adds blog integration, to post updates when the feed is published. Feeder 2.0 can also automatically announce new content on Twitter and Facebook. This may not be a big deal for people who use podcasting plug-ins for blogging platforms like WordPress, but for those who use a feed editor alongside their blog, this could streamline the process a great deal.

Feeder 2.0 retails for $39, or $14.95 to upgrade from version 1.x. The upgrade is free if you purchased Feeder in the past six months. The app requires Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard or later, and is available as a 15-day trial that can be unlocked upon purchase.

Swine Flu Podcasts

Collections of Swine Flu Podcasts:

CDC Swine Flu Podcasts
Johns Hopkins Swine Flu Podcast
NPR Swine Flu Podcast
National Institute of Health Podcast

Online Video Viewing Jumps 11 Percent In March

Internet information provider comScore released March 2009 data for online video consumption. Their report indicates that U.S. Internet users viewed 14.5 billion online videos during the month, a jump of 11 percent over February 2009.

In March, comScore’s report says, 77.8 percent of the total U.S. Internet audience viewed online video. Google Sites, (parent of video powerhouse YouTube) once again garnered the lion’s share of online video-watching: 5.9 billion videos viewed, representing a huge 40.9 percent online video market share. No surprise, YouTube.com accounted for more than 99 percent of all videos viewed at Google sites. 99.7 million viewers watched 5.9 billion videos on YouTube.com (59.1 videos per viewer).

Fox Interactive Media, which owns social networking site MySpace ranked second last month with 437 million videos viewed (3.0 percent). 47.4 million viewers watched 349 million videos on MySpace.com (7.4 videos per viewer).

Breaking into the Top 3 ranking of videos viewed, Hulu chalked up 380 million video-views (2.6 percent). Yahoo! Sites tallied 335 million videos viewed last month (2.3 percent). Hulu accounted for only 2.6 percent of the online videos viewed, but 4.9 percent of all minutes spent watching online video.

comScore’s March 2009 report also showed that nearly 150 million U.S. Internet users watched an average of 97 videos per viewer during that month. Google Sites (with their huge YouTube.com site) surpassed the 100 million online video viewer threshold again, after first achieving that milestone in December 2008. Fox Interactive (parent of MySpace.com) ranked second with 55.2 million viewers, followed by Yahoo! Sites (42.5 million) and Hulu (41.6 million).

The average online video viewer watched 327 minutes of video, or nearly 5.5 hours. The duration of the average online video was 3.4 minutes.

YANC-ON (Yet Another Controller – Or Not)

One of the things I helped "show off" at the Expo conference was a new controller that I ran across. Actually, *I* didn't run across it - my friend Gregory Taylor did, and had one sent to me. It is the Manta controller...

Podcasting and Videocasting Tutorials

Two tutorials to create podcasts and videocasts. Easily go through the process of producing media rich podcasts.

ProfCast Educational Podcasting Solution Updated

Humble Daisy’s ProfCast 2.5.0 - a lecture recording and podcast creation solution - has been updated with new functionality and bug fixes.

Among the most significant additions to ProfCast is the ability to export recordings in the .m4v format.

“A lot of users have requested the the ability to share their recordings in the .m4v format.” explained Dave Chmura, president of Humble Daisy. MPEG4 video (.m4v) files are commonly used in online file sharing and social networking sites such as YouTube and Facebook.

2.5.0 is a free upgrade for registered ProfCast users.

ProfCast supports live presentation recording, synchronization of slides with audio, Keynote and PowerPoint support, RSS generation and publishing support. All elements of a presentation, including slide timings, bullet point builds and voice narration are recorded. ProfCast allows users to record their presentation as they give it, and also helps publish recorded presentations as enhanced podcasts, complete with RSS.

Feature highlights include:

• Records Live Presentations
• Supports Multiple File Formats
• ID3 Tags for iTunes U
• Integrated Podcast Manager
• Export to GarageBand
• Share to iWeb
• URL Linking
• Audio Playthrough Support

Minimum Requirements:

• Mac OS X Version 10.4 Tiger or later (10.5 Leopard Compatible)
• Universal Binary for PowerPC and Intel
• 500 MB Hard Drive space
• PowerPC G4 667MHz or greater
• Keynote 2.0 or later
• Microsoft PowerPoint 2004 or Microsoft PowerPoint 2008
• Integration with GarageBand and iWeb requires iLife ‘06 or later
• Integration with GarageBand on Mac OS X 10.5 requires iLife ‘08
• Internet connection (required for online publishing)

Pricing and Availability:

ProfCast 2.5.0 is priced at $59.95 (USD) for a single-user license. A full-featured, 15-day demo is available. Educational discounts are available.

Creative Ways to Incorporate Podcasts Into Business Strategies

Podcasting content comes in a wide variety of shapes and sizes. Businesses are finding many different and creative ways of incorporating podcasts into their business strategies and marketing plans.

Creative Ways to Incorporate Podcasts Into Business Strategies

Next Page »