Dembot on Why Video Platforms Fail

There is a great post over on dembot on why video platforms fail. You should read the whole thing, but here is the top ten list: 1. Insubstantial library of content 2. Poor bit rates 3. Lack of innovation (clone platform) 4. No share in content ownership rights 5. No exclusivity of content distribution 6. … Read more

GigaOm Gives Away Zillions Of Joost Invites

Between the two of us, Dave and I managed to give away over 50 Joost invites and probably sacrificed a couple of hours to the cause. However, GigaOm has managed to find a solution to the difficulty of emailing these puppies out one at a time. Working with Joost, they’ve developed a landing page where … Read more

Comcast and Yahoo Deal

Somehow amidst watching his Mavericks squeak out a respectable series against Golden State, Mark Cuban has had the time to write insightful commentary about the revolution in advertising brought on by the recent Comcast/Yahoo deal. The specific point Cuban makes is that Comcast can entirely bypass the Internet with this set-up, which also means bypassing … Read more

Ready, Set… Joost

Joost has gotten more hype pre-launch than any start-up company I can remember, and here I am contributing to it. Officially Joost may have made its commercial launch announcement earlier this week, but isn’t actually be available to everyone yet. If you’re still looking for an invite, I too now have 999 available in my … Read more

Battlestar Galactica Video Contest

Dave and I are having a disagreement about the plot twist in the season finale of Battlestar Galactica (I liked it; he didn’t). Fortunately, BSG now has something of a choose-your-own-adventure option. Fans are being encouraged to create their own BSG video clips online. The Sci Fi Channel site gives you visual effects, sounds and … Read more

Mochila Adds Video

No, it’s not a new Starbucks flavor. Mochila is a multimedia syndication service that just launched its video player and video content today. It’s an interesting business model and I got a full briefing on it from the CEO earlier in the week. Unfortunately, time has been running shorter than usual and I haven’t had … Read more

Staten Island Residents Get PhotoShowTV

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Time Warner Cable quietly launched PhotoShowTV in Staten Island last week. I say quietly because it appears there was very little press coverage. Granted the service was already operating in Hawaii, but this is the first time PhotoShowTV has been available on the mainland, so to speak. And it’s a very cool service.

SimpleStar’s PhotoShow has been around for quite a while as a simple tool for creating photo slideshows with music, graphics and even some animations. (Comcast subscribers can download the Deluxe version on Comcast.net) The TV part comes in with the combination of PhotoShow and Time Warner’s VOD service. Staten Island TWC subscribers can now create PhotoShows online and then submit them for public viewing on a local VOD station. In other words, what you create in your living room can be watched on Grandma’s TV screen across town.

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Drool-Worthy Camera?

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A press release crossed my inbox today with the announcement of a new camera by DXG USA. Now I have a great digital camera, but this release promised multimedia nirvana in one little device, all for just $199.

Before I get to the catch, here are some of the features of the DXG-589V. It’s a combination 5 megapixel camera, VGA camcorder, video game player, digital music player and video recorder that takes input from TVs and DVD players. Video is MPEG-4 with 30 frames per second at a 640×480 resolution. For gaming, the device has a flip screen and 20 built-in, full-color games. Not particularly exciting for a real gamer, but for someone like me who just likes to have something handy to do while waiting in line, it sounds great.

So why the second thoughts?

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