Mari Silbey

Mari’s tech career started when she became the default “IT guy” in her first job out of college. Since leaving help-desk duties to the experts, she’s focused on trends in technology as a consultant, writer, reporter, analyst and at-home gadget tinkerer. Her current paid gig is with the non-profit organization US Ignite where she focuses on how networks and digital technologies impact smart cities. All posts on ZNF represent her own opinions and not those of US Ignite. Mari is a sucker for anything in the digital media space and covers interesting happenings in cable, telecom, and whatever else she feels like. Find her on Twitter at @msilbey.

Network DVR Arrives… But Not in the US

Telefonica, the largest phone company in Spain, is planning to debut a network DVR service in November. Called “Past TV”, the service will offer programs from the previous week on-demand. The shows will include commercials, but unlike similar services in the US, viewers will be able to fast forward through them. Cablevision of course has … Read more

Gotuit Good News

I got an email from Gotuit the other day about the latest enhanced video site they’re enabling. In this case the news is about a Luke Bryan video remix site (apparently he’s a singer with EMI’s Capitol Records Nashville), but the press release was highly reminiscent of several other Gotuit announcements. In other words, not very interesting, except for the fact that it piles on one more example of Gotuit’s latest success. In September the company announced a deal with the FOX Reality Channel and with Sports Illustrated for the 2007 Heisman Watch site.

Using the announcement as an excuse to revisit the Gotuit website, I found that behind the scenes they appears to be making changes. The company site has been completely revamped to target business customers only, not consumers. Smart. It’s a lot cleaner and quite slick looking. I don’t know anything about the company’s financials, but focusing on a B2B audience has always seemed its most promising route. Rather than fight the consumer video wars, Gotuit is establishing itself as a trusted content delivery system at a time when the business world is just starting to scratch the service of online video applications. I see huge growth potential.

TV Guide Evolves

Last100 put a post up yesterday on TV Guide’s new online video guide, so I decided to check it out myself. Given all of the video search sites available, I didn’t have high expectations for something novel, but I was suitably impressed. TV Guide’s layout is fantastically simple and gave me exactly the information I … Read more

When an Apple TV Falls Far from the Tree

Seriously, what is up with Apple TV? It’s been such a spectacular commercial failure (in my opinion), that I now have to wonder (in paranoid fashion) if there’s a master plan we the public are simply not aware of. Since the Apple TV launched earlier this year, it’s been heavily eclipsed by other online video … Read more

Another Joost Launch

Joost opens to the public today and NewTeeVee has a video interview with CEO Mike Volpi. The company started handing out beta invites many months ago and brilliantly enlisted the help of tech bloggers (ZNF included) to broaden the invitation process while still making it look exclusive. Then the much-hyped, TV-on-the-Internet application started getting some … Read more

More Photos, More Storage

When I read the news today that Comcast had upgraded free storage for customers to 1 Gig per Comcast.net email address, it happened to be right after reading another stat from a firm called InfoTrends. InfoTrends predicts that Americans will take 50 billion digital photos in 2007 and 60 billion by 2011. Putting the two … Read more

Amazon MP3 Music Store – I’m Having So Much Fun

I should preface effusiveness by saying that there are plenty of things not to like about Amazon’s new digital music store, Amazon MP3. As Om Malik points out, the interface is really not that great, though the downloader application is virtually transparent once you’ve downloaded it. I was also seriously disappointed at not being able to find a lot of the songs I wanted to download. Music that may not be recent, but is relatively mainstream. Bummer.

However…

Wow. Overall I love Amazon MP3. After running through set-up and trying my free download (a song called “Energy” by The Apples), I found and purchased a song by Mike Doughty of former Soul Coughing fame. A click of the mouse and “I Hear the Bells” downloaded to my laptop and transferred automatically into iTunes. Nice touch.

Once I had the song safely on my laptop (for a mere 89 cents) I walked over to my Squeezebox remote. It’s been a long time since I’ve streamed anything from my computer to my Squeezebox since mostly I just listen to Internet stations and podcasts. But that’s because most of my downloaded music is sadly DRM-protected by Apple and can’t be heard through the Squeezebox. Different story with my new Amazon download. A couple of clicks with my remote and my newly purchased song was blasting through my living room speakers. Glorious.

Yes, yes, I know you can get DRM-free music from iTunes, but there’s something great about going to an online store where you know everything available is music that can be moved around to any device. And it’s a bit shocking to pay only 89 cents for some tracks. Dangerous. I see possible addiction ahead.

I can’t wait until Amazon adds more music to its DRM-free catalog. Maybe, just maybe we have an actual iTunes competitor now.

The Pudding Experience

The press has had a field day with Pudding Media’s new VoIP offering. In a nutshell, the company lets you make VoIP calls for free if you let them listen in and provide targeted ads. Since many folks have already written about the horrific Big Brother implications, I thought I’d take a different approach to the news. Here are the “contextual” ads I imagine when I think of the Pudding experience…

Mari on the phone: “My daughter was really cranky yesterday afternoon. She had a massive temper tantrum and threw herself down on the hard floor…” Note: my daughter is a perfect angel and would never actually do this. ;)

Imagined Pudding ads:

Child harness! Easy. Safe. Keeps you in control.

Softest rugs you’ll ever find! 3% off now through Sunday.

Are you having trouble coping? Ask your doctor if Prozac is right for you.