If you'd like to see our thoughts (Mike and mine) on Google's new video service, click here and you can read all about it on our company's Web site.

A few additional thoughts:

*At launch, it lacks the visual elegance of Apple iTunes.

*It's not easily discernable as to what videos can be downloaded to the iPod.

*There should be some promos or freebies to whet consumers' appetites.

Mike and Allen try a new field-recording kit at a place where both have worn out more than a few shoes: CES in Las Vegas.

In this installment, Allen and Mike discuss commerce and community, two essential forces driving the evolution of podcasting. 

We address these issues through the lens of Podshow, the well-funded venture headed by Adam Curry and Ron Bloom. 

Mike is somewhat circumspect during this discussion as some parts of the Podshow story are still under wraps. 

In this edition of the MADCAST, Allen and Mike discuss tagging and consumer-to-consumer taste sharing and their importance to the next stage of growth in media industries.

Today's contestant is Vsocial; the company appears to be in my nexk of the woods. Great transcoding!

Interesting story. China is selecting MPEG-4 as its offocial IPTV coding standard. No doubt this will persaude software firms to provide better editing tools as well as a reasonable DRM standard.

Being an early adopter sort, I felt compelled to try CNN Pipeline this morning. CNN Pipeline is CNN’s new pay news service delivered via the Web. Being a thrifty sort, I am on the 99 cent “for the day” trial.

Some early thoughts:

1. If you want the desktop player, it’s a funky download requiring some sort of Microsoft runtime to be installed. I am not a big fan of such things, but I figured the collateral damage would be slight.
2. The picture is the size of an index card which is pretty decent. I don’t see a full screen mode anywhere.
3. There are many viewing options including a mini mode that is relatively unobtrusive. I cannot figure how to get the player to persistently stay on the screen no matter what else I am doing (checking email, using Word,, etc..)
4. There is a cool feedback feature that populates an email to allow you to share your thoughts. Gotta figure there will be an AIM client soon (AOL and CNN are both in the TWX family)
5. There are four pipes (channels) running at the same time on varying themes. Right now, there is an international story, something on the White House, weather forecasts and a general news feed. The anchor appears to be dedicated to the Pipeline as opposed to a rebroadcast of an existing feed.
6. There are no commercials
7. There are lots of on-demand feeds and segments on such topics as sports, entertainment, business, etc..

On a 0-10, it gets a solid 7.5 so far. There’s nothing better than watching a live feed of  heavy snow falling in Virginia when it’s sunny and 65 at your home.

Maybe I am prejudiced as a former newspaper reporter, columnist and digital media exec, but I say you can never count the print guys out. Yeah, yeah.. I know I am cheerleading, but take a look at the new TV-video effort from The Virginian-Pilot (a Landmark Communications company). It’s cool and light years ahead of others in their sector. Keep in mind, though, Landmark was way ahead of the pack back in the early ‘90s in the world of newspaper voice and then Internet services. From an innovation standpoint, this effort then is no big surprise.

Today, Allen and Mike return from the holdiday weekend after  extended travels to places like Phoenix Muni and the western suburbs of Chicago (Mike, that is).  What do we have to talk about? TV over the Web which is different than IPTV. Yes, yes it is different. 

Listen and see what we mean.

Allen and Mike take on recent announcements from Microsoft and others that outlined various efforts to digitize and make searchable all the print material that exists, and then some.

It's an end-of-the-week grab-bag. (A marketing person would refer to it as a "synopsis of important industry events." Somebody else, like my mother, might label this 'cast nothing but garden variety rumor mongering.)

In any event, Allen and Mike share their recommendations on how Google could spend the $4 billion they just raised in their secondary offering.  Allen muses on the rumors about Microsoft and AOL.  Mike muses more about the Future of Music Summit in D.C.

Hey, I am the first to slam the telcos (aka former Baby Bells), but I have to say, BellSouth gets huge props for this:

Evacuees to the Houston Astrodome and surrounding Reliant Center facilities will be receiving an important New Orleans product – their local editions of The Real Yellow Pages® from BellSouth.

With the thousands of evacuees who are temporarily located at the Astrodome and surrounding Reliant Centers, BellSouth is having directories delivered to assist evacuees in reaching family, businesses and important resources prior to returning to the New Orleans area.

“The evacuees located in the Houston area are BellSouth customers, neighbors and family.  We hope having a local resource with important numbers including insurance companies, schools and other and resources will be of great assistance to all evacuees,” said Ike Harris, President of BellSouth Advertising & Publishing Corporation.

Approximately 900 directories are scheduled to be delivered on Monday, September 12.   Evacuees who have already found housing in the Houston area, but still want a copy of their local directory can go online to www.realpageslive.com and access any of the more than 500 BellSouth directories, or they can call (800) 422-1955, provide their Louisiana home telephone number and ask for a copy of their local directory.

Over the next few weeks, BellSouth will work with SBC Communications to provide directories to other centers located in Texas and neighboring states hosting Hurricane Katrina Evacuees.

Will UK's digital creators come out of the woodwork for this? It's going to be interesting to watch to see how UK digital media fans flock -- or don't -- to the BBC's Creative Archive license. 

Couldn't think of a better way to kick it off than announcing a contest for the best music video using the archive's video stock.

Wherein Allen and Mike try to understand the effect of Katrina on the NO media. Will papers make a permanent jump to all digital -- or primarily digital -- by necessity?

What madness is this?

Allen and Mike present and then challenge the notion of Google offering a mobile phone of their own.  Whether or not you agree with the notion, we think the assumptions that go into our respective opinions are food for thought.

Mike and I have done two MADCasts on the subject of Widgets. Here’s a piece from Podcasting News on creating a Podcasting Widget.

Sorry for the delay, folks.

In this installment, Allen and Mike expound upon the future of sports TV programming with the ESPN-COMCAST hook-up for hockey games as a discussion point. We follow that up with some chatter on Yahoo Music's (mostly) permanent low-low pricing for music subscriptions; and finally we go after the Oakland A's. We use the adjective "short-sighted" a lot in that last entry.

In today's episode, Allen and Mike admit that the past few days worth of news in the media world have left them slack-jawed at the speed with which world of TV is morphing.

Is it surprising that incumbent media titans shunned "new media" executives at an exclusive media industry gathering? Can Microsoft catch up to Google?

Allen expounds on the possibility of a world without browsers.  Mike listens and learns.

Today's MADCAST finds Allen and Mike musing about Microsoft's ability to rekindle the competitive juices to claw its way back to a leadership position in the digital media world . . .

...Wherein Allen and Mike discuss Microsoft and the challenges it faces.

Editor's note: This is a repost of an entry that was plagued by technical issues. We think those problems have been solved. Mostly...