Two former newspaper guys debate the future of free newspapers ala Metro, Red Eye and Quick. Can these papers, handed out to commuters, unseat the big guys? What can the big papers do to answer back...we have some ideas.

 

One of the prevailing themes in Mike and my research centers on publishing companies doing the same (or more) with fewer resources. Used to be—back in “the day”—a newspaper would send out a literal army of reporters to cover a single story. That is no longer the case. The NY Times layoffs are the first in what will be a series of similar activities.

 

Doing more with less will force newspapers to take advantage of new outside content providers such as bloggers and Podcasters. In the case of The Times, they probably will leverage the About.com acquisition to accomplish this. What will other newspapers do?

So, Barry Diller told folks at some conference that he is considering re-naming Ask Jeeves....

Hmmm... some suggestions: 1) Ask Barry 2) Ask Diane 3) Ask QVC 4) Search Me 5) You'd better search now, because we only have 3,000 cubic zirconia rings left...

 

No more bad sound! We promise.

Mike and I appreciate your patience as we fiddle with technology to improve the quality of our phone-based MADCasts. We have various new ideas to try to create near-broadcast quality.

Hang in there. Thanks for your interest and support.

 

The programming powers have heard my plea. I complained that the upcoming teledrama, The Girl in the Cafe, written by Richard Curtis (Love Actually, Notting Hill, etc...) was a BBC production only to be aired in the UK.

Looks like HBO will be airing it here in the U.S. on June 25th.

 

 

This is an interesting development in the world of search. Using maps as the foundation, people can the dimension of precise location to their local searches. How to get from the airport to a nearby hotel (as Google demonstrated last week) and get a fly-by driving route? And when I click on that hotel, I can see the going rates and book a room (through a travel partner). And if the hotel wants to offer content, it could pop up when I click on the map.

 

Mike and I discussed this on yesterday’s MADCast. It’s cool. Is it market changing? Hmmm.. not sure. It seems like a feature that might be too advanced for most of today’s average searchers. I agree with the comment in this article from the founder of Mapquest: value added content might be more important to a consumer than whiz-bang technology (just for the sake of technology).

 

Will I use it to find out the route to the local theater? Doubtful—I probably know the way. Will I use it to see my home up close and personal? Maybe…once. Will I use it to go celebrity home spotting? Probably not, unless I can see the celeb in the house in real time (which this does not do).

 

At this point, I am putting this in the cool/nice to have bucket. Will it become must have? Maybe, but it won’t happen overnight. The supporting “reasons” to use it will have to greatly evolve.

Mike and I drivel on about Google and Microsoft's new efforts on viewing earth and its wonderful features from the comfort of your search engine.

Also, Steve Jobs says Apple is getting into Podcasting. Whoa. That's market-changing news.

Apple iPod to catch podcasts
Report: iPod will get recording tools, too By Frank Barnako, MarketWatch
Last Update: 10:03 AM ET May 23, 2005

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) -- Apple Computer's iPod is going to become more podcast-friendly.

Chairman Steve Jobs said Sunday night that support for the radio-like programs downloaded from the Internet will be included in the next version of the iPod software, iTunes, due within 60 days.

Jobs made his announcement at "D3: All Things Digital," a technology conference sponsored by the Wall Street Journal (DJ) in San Diego. His remarks were reported by several technology journalists in the audience.

The Apple (AAPL) chairman was "slightly dismissive of populist programming," said Tim O'Reilly, founder and CEO of O'Reilly Media Inc., a technology publishing company.

"Current plans call for podcasts to be free downloads," wrote Mena Trott, co-founder of Six Apart Inc., and also in the audience. "Users will submit their podcasts and Apple will be hand picking the content it makes available to iTunes users."

Before his speech, Jobs also met with Adam Curry, the former MTV disc jockey who has tirelessly promoted creation of radio-like programs for download. Later in his own podcast, Curry reported he was "able to provide a lot of input," and told Jobs the iPod hardware should also record. "I can guarantee you this is going to happen," Curry said.

Mike and I are in Cupertino, outside Apple, pondering the future of media and wondering who will be left when the dust settles.

One of my favorite neighborhoods anywhere is the Marina District in San Francisco. My family and I lived here for a year, but permanent living was way out of our price range, even in 1993. Now....we're talking millions just as a starting point. Still, a great place to wander.

AOL and WTBS become the latest partners looking to make I-TV a reality.

Turner Broadcasting System Inc. and America Online Inc. on Wednesday unveiled a three-year agreement to add AOL's instant messaging technology to TBS's upcoming games-on-demand broadband service.

I like this portion of The New York Times’ future strategy. Recognizing the value of bloggers and their power to influence others makes sense. Paying bloggers to keep their blogs up to date as well as develop sites that attract traffic is great incentive.

 

This from clickz.com:

 

 The affiliate model is far from fully-formed, but the NYTimes.com expects it to be in place for the TimesSelect launch. Nisenholtz hopes to "incite the blogosphere to share the revenues of that idea. I don't see why this would be viewed as a negative thing if it creates revenues across the blogosphere." The idea is to sell bloggers TimesSelect and incentivize them to link to content behind the subscription wall by giving them a cut of the revenue gained via new subscribers they refer.

Niesenholtz told the audience that affiliate marketing is central to the Times' vision of online publishing's future. "This is going to be a growing part of the ecosystem of the Web. In the same way Amazon.com made tremendous headway with its affiliates in the book business, we can create a revenue stream down the tail for people who are creating blogs, etc." This information-affiliate program will likely eventually apply to other New York Times-owned properties, including Boston.com and About.com.

I see that some of our MADCasts will be featured today on KYOU radio. Hopefully, the audience will be kind.

 

Boeing Co. (NYSE:BA - news) unit Connexion said Tuesday it will provide about four live television channels to airline passengers using laptop computers on select flights in a bid to expand its in-flight wireless Internet service.

Connexion sets up so-called wireless hotspots in the sky by using satellites to deliver the Internet to planes and extending these links to passenger laptops via Wi-Fi, or short-range wireless links that work on most laptops.

It hopes to popularize this service, which currently works on certain flights for about 11 airlines, by adding live TV news from programers such as the BBC World Service, CNBC, MSNBC, EuroNews and Eurosportnews at no extra charge.

"We believe, based on our business case, we'll see an increase in use of our service that will make up for the additional cost over the life of the contracts," said Connexion's vice president of marketing David Friedman, referring to multi-year programming contracts.

Toronto Star media writer Antonia Zerbisias has launched a blog under her newspaper's banner. It's excellent and quite ascerbic. Looks liek she also has a Podcast as well.

This one is a no brainer. By the end of the year, nearly all labels--indies and the big boys--will have Podcasts. What a great way to circumvent the political process of getting radio/TV airplay.

I believe we talked about this (and predicted it) on a MADcast months ago. Makes great sense. This report from CNN--

Time Warner CEO Dick Parsons said he'd consider spinning off AOL as a separate stock if the division's latest strategy doesn't pan out, according to the latest issue of Fortune magazine.

The New York TImes has announced it will launch a premium content site/business in Sept. It will put its "well known voices" (mostly op-ed) behind a subscription gate as well as some other features such as archives and multimedia. Cost is $49.95 per year but it's free to subscribers.

Hmmm...not sure this will work. I think those who read the paper's op-ed voices online read them as part of an overall scan of varying viewpoints. I am iffy on whether these folks would pay to read the op-edders no matter how important or vital the paper deems them. For the nws junkie, it's additive content.

Also, where is The New York Times getting these podcasts they refer to? If they are going to be sound bites from reporters, it will be interesting to see how these folks are compensated.

I do like the blogging affiliate program.

Should be inetersting.

 

Infinity's Podcasting experiment, KYOU Radio, is now live. We're going to upload a few MADCasts there and see what happens. I have no idea what's in it for Podcasters, but it won't cost us anything other than upload time to find out.

 

Dan Gillmor's new citizen journalism project is called Bayopshere. He's looking for volunteers to contribute their voices, hence citizen journalism. Given Dan's reputation as a tech reporter and commentator, it's bound to be a top spot for Silicon Valley tech news. Whether the spot can evolve to being a well-rounded venue for news and information outside bits and bytes is the question.

Here's hoping he makes it big.

 

A melange of scenes from Arizona's Red Rock Country. Sipping coffee while taking in the breaktaking view, wandering down main street, enjoying some BBQ from Sally's followed by a trip to Sedona Coffee Roasters, and then off to the Tlaquepaque shopping area.

Featured at Tlaquepaque is guitarist Patrick Ki.

 

Less than two hours from Phoenix, Sedona is a stark contrast to one of the country's fastest-growing cities. Here's my first breathtaking view of the red rocks. More to come.

 

To absolutely nobody's surprise, it appears that the MPAA  is refusing to drop the cudgel, to give up the ghost as it were, in its efforts to force the broadcast flag on CE manufacturers and consumers.

So I guess we'll continue to get more and more litigation and legislation and less and less innovation.

Sigh.

 

Well, I guess somebody had to stand up for TV's really old market-release windows.  Bless the MPAA.

Perhaps paying attorneys to chase down these nefarious file-traders really is cheaper than figuring out a quick way to get this TV content to foreign markets in less than 8 months after it is originally broadcast. 

Perhaps, but I really doubt it. 

Then again, maybe this is just a smoke-screen and the networks are really trying to figure out a way to take advantage of P2P technologies to create low-cost, high-velocity distribution networks that can be monetized.

Perhaps.

Either the Seattle rain is finally getting to him or he's not had enough coffee.

 

Everything you wanted to know about the competitive landscape in the world of subscription and download stores currently populating the Web.

TVEyes' Podscope--sm-- Now Searches Video; Indexing All Forms of Audio and Video for Spoken Word Search

FAIRFIELD, Conn.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 11, 2005--TVEyes, the real-time broadcast search provider, today announced that it is accepting all forms of audio and video submissions for indexing by keyword at http://www.podscope.com/submiturl.php. This announcement follows TVEyes' successful launch of Podscope(sm), the first engine to search within a podcast, in early April. In addition to these submissions, Podscope will continue to crawl the Internet for relevant audio and video files to be indexed by the spoken word.

Podscope allows the user to stream and download any video containing keyword search results. Full motion video is immediately available. "The interest in our Podscope launch has been astounding," commented David Ives, CEO of TVEyes, Inc, "TVEyes has been streaming search video results to its professional market for over two years, and we are delighted to put this invaluable experience to such comprehensive use."

After months of complaining about not being able to edit MPEG4 files, I now am in possession of an Apple PowerBook G4 (thanks to the nice folks at Apple). It is brain-dead easy for me to edit the MPEG4 files and create shows, movies, etc... Apple clearly is emerging as the company leading the way in consumer creation tools. I am now officially out of excuses to create a TV show based on some ideas I have been kicking around. Here is my first video

Do you think all these free email providers are offering large multi-gigabyte mailboxes for you to get every piece of junk mail in the cyberworld? Heck, no. It’s so you can use your mailbox as the receiving station for movies, music and TV content. So, by year’s end, you can wake up in the morning to find in your MSN, AOL Yahoo! or gMail accounts the latest episode of “24” or an old favorite from “Cheers” or maybe even my videoblog in your mailbox. This is not to mention the new pre-release song from “The Wallflowers.” At that point, the mailbox becomes your dashboard and you leave the program there, stream it to your TV or stereo system or move it to your phone or protable media player (or maybe even your iPod?).

 

We’re headed her…it’s just an issue of timing.

I picked this one off of Dan Gilmour's Blog. Google now aggregates reviews of movies from various "professional" critics. Not sure if it also includes "regular" filmgoers as well. Yahoo! is better positioned to aggregtaor users' opinions, but this is a fun search feature nonetheless.

Go here for an example on the film "Hitch."

Mike and I drivel on about Arianna Huffington's blog, The Huffington Post, which is proof that you shouldn't quit your day job no matter what sycophants tell you.

Also of note, BMI starts a Podcast (see previous post). Mike explains how it could be a sign of things to come.

 

Move over Casey, performing rights organization BMI takes it directly to the consumer with a new Podcast featuring up and coming stars:

BMI Senior Vice President, Writer/Publisher Relations Phil Graham announced today that the company is launching a podcast series to bring promising new songwriter/artists to the attention of key industry executives including record company A&R staffers and creative executives at music publishing companies. The BMI podcast, entitled "See It Hear First(TM)," will also be available on BMI.com(R) beginning Monday, May 9.

"The podcast is a natural evolution of our long tradition of promotional CDs and our nationwide series of live showcases promoting new songwriter/artists," said Graham. "Our close collaboration with creative executives at record companies and music publishers has shown a lot of excitement for this new format because of its immediacy and its portability. In addition, the availability of the podcast on BMI.com, which reaches almost a million visitors each month, should be an excellent way of letting new talent reach its audience."

Simultaneously, BMI Licensing Vice President Richard Conlon, who oversees the company's new media area, announced that BMI had been licensing podcasters for nearly a year covering the public performance rights to the BMI repertoire. BMI's licensing website has been expanded to provide a clear path for podcasters to get more information on licensing music for their programs and to obtain BMI licenses 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Podcasters including Coverville.com and Keener13.com have already signed on to the BMI agreement. BMI plans on rolling out additional licensing programs for this new medium as it grows.

I can see where Craigslist feels it has the base in place to take a run at Citizen Journalism. I cannot envision the company and its vast legions of loyal followers being a serious force…well..at least at this point.

 

In order for early Citizen Journalism project to become successful, they will need seasoned newspaper people involved. This is not to say newspapers will make a serious attempt to move into this space, but folks from the newspaper ranks will be key employees in the better (and eventually successful) Citizen Journalism projects. Only a true “newspaper person” can understand the zen of what it takes to put a product out every day or even every week. Without newspaper talent (editors, designers, etc...) in place, these early Citizen Journalism sites will be disorganized and a mishmash of clips with strange layouts.

 

It’s why I like what Backfence is doing. Mark Potts is a newspaper guy. He knows what it takes to do this.

The project that launched this blog/Website—to explore new media content and distribution opportunities and ideas—is about to kick into high gear. I am about to receive some products on loan from the nice folks at Apple that will take my creativity to the next level. For starters, I can graduate from video clips to shows and movies. Should be cool.

 

Stay tuned.

Villapiano's, for those who have not seen the movie, "The Thing That You Do," is the fictional pizza joint in Erie, PA, where The Wonders (nee Oneders) performed after winning the Mercyhurst Talent Show.

In that spirit, here's "The Band You Came Here to See" (another "Thing You Do" reference) performing in a courtyard at Desert Ridge Marketplace.We didn't catch their name.

Looks like networks and content providers can't rely on the FCC to force hardware manufacturers to include software (the "broadcast flag") preventing what content providers deem to be illegal "copying" and "redistribution" of digital TV content.

Anybody for developing new business models? Anybody for innovation over litigation?

You can feel the momentum change. It’s palpable. The acceptance of Podcasting is growing by the day as major media companies see the opportunity. It’s so easy and effective; the Media Giants are shaking their heads and wondering “what’s the catch?” There is none. It’s personal and timely and portable. Money can be made, directly from the ‘casts themselves (by inserting ads) or by tying back to other assets in the brand.

 

WMAQ, Chicago, is the latest to join the Podcasting phenomenon. The lightning speed at which Podcasting is making an impact is unprecedented because of the buzz that transfers from user to user to non-user. Once media players have imbedded tools to manage Podcasts, this trend goes to the next level. Products such as Ipodder and Doppler need to be pre-loaded in iPods, I-rivers, etc… A story for another day.

 

Who’s next to join the Podcasting parade? A better question is, who wants to be left behind?

The reason you cannot count newspapers out is that many still have a spirit of entreprenurial behavior. Many times, it's a bottoms up/skunkworks effort, but it's still there!

From Podcastingnews.com:

May 03, 2005

The Denver Post has launched a podcast project this week, making highlights of the newspaper available for listening as well as reading.

The Post's podcast service excerpts key news, business and sports stories of the day at DenverPost.com

The Post is one of only a handful of U.S. newspapers to date to have launched a podcast version.

What will the radio market look like over the next few years? Can anyone be a radio star?

Also, we ponder why we haven't heard anything on the Podcasting front from Mark Cuban, founder of broadcasting.com.

And, as an extra bonus, we sing the theme to "Have Gun Will Travel."

Note: We're working on a theme song--well, more of an intro--for show.

 

Why wouldn’t the makers of this technology include some sort of Wi Fi/Wimax capability? Seems to me this is a golden opportunity for grocery stores and other retailers to use technology to deliver customized content to shoppers for them to download while they shop—go beyond the experience of content they view while shopping. Advertisers would go wild over this opportunity. Another option is to allow consumers to plug their devices (iPods, PDAs…) into the cart to download content on the fly for later usage. This is one of the elements behind Mike and my notion of “content foraging.”

 

New Computers Make Grocery Carts Smarter

By LIBBY QUAID, Associated Press WriterWed May 4, 7:34 AM ET

New supermarket carts equipped with touch screens will guide you to the tomatoes or toothpicks, let you order deli meat without standing in line and keep a running tally of your purchases.

What they won't do is tell you how many fat grams or calories are in your cart. The idea is to make it easier for consumers to buy, not induce second thoughts that maybe you should put something back on the shelf.

The touch-screen devices are on display at the supermarket industry's annual con

Just after I slammed the local paper, I give it thumbs up for its distribution partnership with local the local NBC affiliate. The 12 News I-Cast is a well-produced, quick and dirty video summary of the news headlines. It’s quite up to date and is original content crated for the Web. It’s a money-making scheme as it features a short commercial for a local car dealership (hey guys, make the ad clickable, meaning you can click inside the ad for more information).

I just read this in the newspaper (not kidding). But by the same token, the paper didn’t have the final score of the Diamondbacks-Giants game which forced me to go online to see who won. 1.9 % drop? Seems like only the beginning.

 

One note: some of the drop is due to changes in how circulation is counted. This came after some misrepresentation last year.

More evidence that our endless prattling on and spilling of digital ink about consumers-as-content-creators is on the mark.  Admittedly, this story details a slight variation on the theme, but still . . .

Why shouldn't an "underpaid radio producer/DJ" get some love by creating a cool mash-up? His station owners should be beside themselves with joy at the the major branding campaign he's done -- alone.

Why should record labels go after this guy? (We don't think they should but they might, being record labels and all.) Heck, it might even lead to greater sales of Oasis albums. (Not that I'll ever change my mind about Oasis.)

Mike and I are now calling our agent...Just imagine if our MADCasts actually sounded professional. Does being number three mean we try even harder?

May 02, 2005

For the third straight month, Science@NASA was the top podcast at Podcasting News. The NASA podcast discusses everything from the weather on Saturn to going to the bathroom in space.

The NASA podcast led The Seanachai, a weekly show of off-center storytelling and commentary, and What's on Tonight?, a look at the future of media, to get the top spot. The podcasts have swapped places on the Top 10 list since March.

"The Top 10 list demonstrates the quality and diversity of content available through podcasting," notes Podcasting News' Elle Webb. "Podcast listeners can enjoy news, comedy, storytelling and a variety of music shows, whenever and wherever they want to."

Backfence, a high profile citizen journalism site, launched today. It's focused on Reston and McLean, Virginia but hopefully coming to a city or town near you.

Take a look.

Mike and I talk about Adam Curry's move to replicate his MTV success on satellite radio with a new show about Podcasting. Sound curious? We think so.

Also, more drivel on baseball blogs.

 

I had the chance to sneak a peak at one or two of the baseball blogs that are being run by/sponsored by the league. In addition to their ugly uniformity, which makes them lack visual elegance, they are rather dull and aimed at the middle-class casual fan. Hey guys, there's a reason why the different teams wear different uniforms...Also, let's see something that pushs the technology here!

You want to see a good baseball blog--check out McCovey Chronicles. Boof is the man.

Am I missing something? Talking about Podcasting without hearing individual Podcasts seems as exciting as watching paint dry. Even if the show featured clips from Podcasts, I am not sure if Podcasters would submut their air checks without compensation.

Also from the Sun Festival, an organic co-op in Arizona called Boxed Greens. They specialize in the sort of exotic veggies that were important to us when we lived in Northern Calfornia.

I admit, I don't what this is, but the sign said, "Chicken Tractor." Maybe it was a joke, but it was outside at the Sun Festival and was worth a video clip.

This weekend's big event was a visit to the Sun Festival, held at Westworld. The festival was a collection of vendors showing off their alternative energy, organic food and cause-related products. There were some food stands and events (such as peformers, speakers, book signings, etc...) tossed in for good measure. Food writer Mollie Katzen was here yesterday, but that coincided with a music festival also held at Westworld, so we chose to come when it would be less crowded.

Here are a few highlights:

Show overview:

A company that makes products out of recycled tires: