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RSS + Bittorrent distribution for TV and online video
The Norwegian Broadcasting (NRK) has made their most popular TV series available DRM-free via BitTorrent, even better it's available as a subscribe-able RSS feed via software like Miro. Shown here is the subscribe-able feed in Miro the popular open source video aggregater. I just wish the show was available in English. :)  Entire and partial news programs like CNN, ABC and CBS nightly news are already widely available via subscribe-able RSS feed (podcast), and the Daily Show, Colbert Report and other highly popular TV shows have been widely distributed unofficially via similar means on TVRSS.net, but this may be the first TV show to officially embrace this technology pioneered by video bloggers. I expect that this form of distribution (RSS + Bittorrent) will become increasingly popular with TV producers as they realize it does not threaten their traditional advertising supported models. To start with I expect PBS, BBC or other distributors less threatened by peer based distribution (P2P) culture to officially embrace the RSS + bittorrent distribution model. NPR has already widely embraced RSS distribution (aka. podcasting) for audio programing with over 500 subscribe-able channels for their radio shows, and PBS has a dozen or so subscribe-able video podcasts though they are currently just partial shows or show clips. I expect timely news programs such as Frontline will be the first to officially embrace the RSS + bittorrent distribution model as bittorrent scales much better for popular, timely, high definition content, much like the Daily Show and Colbert Report. RSS + bittorrent distribution is a counter point to new proprietary distribution services from content creators like Hulu.com (currently only available via private beta) and NBC.com and which are only currently available by visiting and watching programing on website, have no subscription mechanisms, and are not available beyond desktop computers.... i.e. on your TV or hand held device. There are also alternative systems like Joost and Veoh but while these proprietary 3rd part networks have a high degree of usability and interface polish as is typical of proprietary solutions they lack the flexibility to scale to handle the wide variety of newly available content on the web and the various cellular, hand held and set top box platforms. Of course there are also solutions from Apple, and Tivo for television producers, but these are increasingly complimentary to RSS / Podcasting and perhaps in the future even added bittorent distribution. What makes RSS + bittorrent such a powerful combination is it's increasingly openly accessible to virtually anyone who wishes to distribute media online via various services, and RSS / podcasting is already starting to be adopted by set top box, cellular, and handheld manufacturers like Apple ( AppleTV, iPod & iPhone), Tivo, Nokia, Akimbo and many others. Bittorrent is the final piece of the puzzle allowing extremely rapid scaling for the distribution of high definition content but it may take much longer to popularize do the greater technical requirements in implementation on various hardware platforms. Labels: apple, appletv, bbc, bittorrent, colbert report, daily show, distribution, drm, Frontline, iPhone, Miro, Nokia, NPR, PBS, podcasting, rss, television, tivo, tvrss.net, video blogging
Yahoo Podcasts Joins The Deadpool
Re: Yahoo Podcasts Joins The DeadpoolYahoo Podcasts, a comprehensive podcasting search, directory and listening service that launched in October 2005, is closing at the end of October, a fraction past its second birthday.
There is no official word from Yahoo as to why the site is shutting, aside from a message at the top of Yahoo Podcasts that reads ?Yahoo! apologizes deeply, but we will be closing down the Podcasts site on Oct. 31, 2007.? Other podcast directories have struggled as a medium that years ago held so much promise was surpassed by the rise of video. Odeo was acquired from investors, then sold off, then acquired another podcast directory called FireAnt; and more recently the podcast provider/ directory Podshow is rumored to be closing a third round of funding this week as they run short of money.
Yahoo Podcasts joins the ever growing Yahoo graveyard along with Yahoo Bill Pay (announced in July for Sep/ Oct shutdown) and the hat trick of closures in May of Yahoo Auctions, WebJay and Yahoo Photos. Yahoo Podcasts joins the TechCrunch Deadpool. I think this would be a great time to mention Mefeedia just rolled out OPML import. You can now import all your subscriptions from yahoo podcasting, Fireant, Miro, and of course iTunes. Best of all you can not only use mefeedia with video and audio podcasting aggregators like Fireant, Miro and iTunes but mefeedia's services greatly enhance the experience because you can access, manage, view, and listen to your subscriptions anytime and anyplace, not just when you're at your home computer. Labels: deadpool, fireant, itunes, mefeedia, Miro, odeo, OPML, podcasting, videoblogging, vlogging, webjay, yahoo
Major new Mefeedia release this week
There's a major new release of mefeedia out today. Lots of bug fixes, usability enhancements, and all around improvements like mefeedia playlists and guides! One of my favorite new toys is the "What I'm watching" widget. It shows all the latest videos from your favorite vloggers and provides great link love to their blogs. It's the sweetest blogroll widget around. You'll see mine on the right hand sidebar of my video blog at mmeiser.com/blog and on the left hand sidebar of my mefeedia channel. You can create yours by subscribing to you favorite video blogs and podcasts on mefeedia and copying the code from your own mefeedia channel and pasting it into your own blog or web page. Let us know what you think! We're always looking for ideas for making mefeedia better. I'm really exited about mefeedia's renewed direction and vitality. This is just the start of some great things to come. A special thanks to Frank Sinton the new owner and Devlon who's been helping make Mefeedia great for almost two years now. Great job Frank and Devlon! Below are the details Frank posted to the mefeedia mailing list. Be sure to join up and tell us what you'd like to see. We are very happy today - a new version of Mefeedia has been released! :-) Lots of improvements, bug fixes, and a nicer user interface. This was the work of a lot of people, mainly ideas from videobloggers and brainstorming sessions within the Mefeedia team.
Three main areas of focus for this release were:
Reliability / Bug Fixes - this was our#1 focus. Mefeedia has been very strong on creating great tools for videobloggers. We want to make those even better - not by adding more bells and whistles, but instead by making sure the current features work GREAT. Here is a list of some of the fixes (not comprehensive, but a good sampling):
- RSS - tons of fixes to account for special characters and others special cases. Your Queue, Guides, Favs, Tags, and other RSS feeds coming out of Mefeedia are now working very reliably. :)
- When adding a video to a playlist, the playlist uses the thumb from the playlist post.
- Each folder in a Playlist can now be exported via RSS and JSON formats directly from the playlist start/"Home" page.
- "Add to Queue" from a Playlist is working again.
- Adding individual videos to your Queue is woking again! This broke back when the new database schema was implemented. It is fixed now - add any video on Mefeedia.com to your queue now without having to subscribe to the entire feed.
- Your feed page - removed a number of broken links and overall, a bunch of clean-up.
Usability / UI Update - really, making it easier for users to use Mefeedia!
- Home page - "latest/last 24 hours" theme
- Header change
- Navigation change (Guides and Playlists now get prominent placement in the nav).
- Sign-up on home page is now only shown on clicking the "yea baby."
- Full registration validation (with AJAX unique username and email lookup)
- Visibility and Rollover effect (rollover effect only on Firefox for now) when cruising through entries (favs, feeds page, etc.)
- Centering of "Entry" / Watch your video page - just nicer in general.
- Site-wide style sheet changes (non-underlined, nice blue for non-visited links, grey underlined for visited links, among others).
New Features
- "What I'm Watching" widget - put your Queue on your website or blog. :) Mine is on this blog in the right sidebar. To use your "What I'm Watching" widget, just login and click on the "My Channel" navigation link, and copy and paste the code from the left column textarea box. Looking for inputs on this? lots of cool widgets are possible with the use of great thumbs, so let us know what you would like to see with this widget and other possible widgets (maybe a "Who's vlogging" widget?).
- "Latest from [feed name here]" widget - see an example here: http://www.mefeedia.com/feed_promote.php?id=6988 - lots of linky love. All thumbs link directly to your vlog post!
- Videos, feeds, and websites count on the home page.
- Latest Tags (24 hours) on Home Page and Tags page
So, check out Mefeedia and let us know what you think! Enjoy. As always, use this forum to post suggestions, ideas, issues, and thoughts. :)
http://www.mefeedia.com
Thanks,
-Frank Labels: guides, json, media, mefeedia, playlists, podcasting, releases, rss, videoblogging, web2.0, widgets
Customer relations podcasting
Looks like I'm going to re-blog my friend Jan twice today. She's oh so on topic. Re: The Faux Press :: Politics, Law, Media & Marketing: Bill Marriott's Got a Podcast :: Why Smoke-Free Hotels In a recent podcast, Marriott defends the decision to eliminate smoking rooms in all his hotels.
In another (one of his first, the podcast enclosed herewith), he addresses new Federal regulations requiring U.S. citizens to show a passport when re-entering the country from Canada, Mexico and a bunch of other places.
The big guys continue to buy into the blog / vlog / podcast fray. Hey, even the President and the Department of Homeland Security have RSS feeds.
Excellent.
The show notes for the smoking piece are:
"We really received a lot of comments on the blog about Marriott's decision last year to take all our hotels in North America 100 percent smoke free. That includes Ritz-Carlton, JW Marriott, Marriott Hotels, Renaissance, Courtyard, Residence Inn, SpringHill Suites, our Fairfield Inns, and even our TownePlace Suites.
"One of our very best customers who smokes blogged back to me and said, "I'll never come back to a Marriott." Well, that's a tough pill for us to swallow. But we made this decision because we knew it's what our customers wanted. And it certainly is what our associates deserved."
This is precisely the kind of issue that is best addressed by the head honcho.
Well done, Mr. Marriott, though a more conversational tone might lend more credibility and warmth to your show.
Thanks to Joho Blog for the heads' up. What I love about Jan is she always speaks straight to you. In this case she's speaking straight to Bill Marriott. Bill could learn a few things from Jan. I don't really have much to add except that I agree with Jan. The biggest issue I have is staying "on topic". While smoking in hotels is absolutely a great topic for a podcast I really question wether the discussion of homeland security passport policy is an appropriate topic when representing a hotel in a podcast. Although, I must say, in this case I really love that Bill has the grit to discuss such an issue, and I have to acknolege that he is not any employee, he's Bill Mariott and it's his hotel he's representing so it's his right if he wants to potentially alienate customers over issues outside of the scope of his hotel chain. Labels: bill-mariott, FauxPress, homeland-security, hotel-industry, JohoBlog, Mariott, marketing, podcasting, PR, public-relations, smoking
mmeiser blog » February 2005 » January 2005 » December 2004
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