Business 2.0 :: Online Article :: Converge Sense :: The Three-Screen Problem

Walk into any Silicon Valley gathering and all you’ll hear is one
person after another pontificating on “the three screens that dominate
our digital lives.” The three screens, of course, are television, the
personal computer, and the cell phone, which these same people then
posit will merge.

Interesting article, I hadn’t heard the phrase about 3 screens
before. But more interesting is the conclusion regarding content, that
many players have got it all the wrong way round, when they talk about
streaming existing tv content to mobile phones:

It’s the completely wrong way to treat the wireless platform. Brian
Levin, president of Seattle-based Mobliss, believes that wireless
networks need content that’s made specifically for mobile platforms. I
couldn’t agree more. Want people to watch TV on tiny screens? Think of
new types of content — funny shorts, quick news clips, movie trailers,
the JibJab video, and, of course, Barry Bonds’s 800th home run.

Business 2.0 :: Online Article :: Converge Sense :: The Rise of a New News Network

I think what we are seeing is the rise of a new kind of news network,
thanks in large part to technology. Average Joes and Janes are now
armed to the teeth with technology that can capture and distribute news
almost anywhere. A smartphone like the Nokia 6630 has more processing
power and is more connected to the Internet than a circa-1995 PC. The
high-speed connections, coupled with easy-to-use newsreader software
from startups like FeedDemon maker Bradbury Software, Ranchero
Software, and Videora, make it a breeze to gather and read all the news
in real time.
Already 32 million Americans are reading weblogs. That’s a large enough
number to make even the biggest skeptic believe that this is a real
revolution. How much of an impact will this have on the media giants?
It’s too early to tell. But as my colleagues over at Fortune suggest,
one thing’s for sure: This trend is too big to ignore.

If the BBC can do it, why can’t the ABC? I’m getting tired of these
old arguements ‘we don’t have the budget’, ‘we can’t justify it in a
marketplace this size’.

These are both exactly the types of conditions where innovation should thrive.

It is one of the many successes of the BBC Radio Player, which
will be re-launched tomorrow to make around 95% of the corporation’s
radio output available after it is transmitted, at any time of the day.

http://news.independent.co.uk/media/story.jsp?story=603902

Friendster has been the big boy of the social networking world, looks
like they’re on the way out. Shows how quick fads come and go, with
myspace.com moving up the hit parade, according to this article from
NYT.

“I think Friendster really missed their big opportunity,” said Mark J.
Pincus, who is an investor in Friendster and the founder of Tribe
Networks, a budding social networking Web site that hopes to capture
some of the print classified advertising market. “They weren’t quick to
turn on new functionality, where a company like MySpace kept innovating
and adding new features.”

Friendster, Love and Money

Web logs, or blogs, are being described
as one of the biggest threats facing mainstream news organisations. An
alternative media universe has formed around these online diaries,
numbering in the thousands, some of which attract many readers.

Yes, but Channel 9, 7 et al probably won’t get the point for years
to come. Channel 7’s idea of a blog is putting a video camera in a
shopping centre and inviting story ideas and feedback. Yet in the USA
bloggers were responsible for Dan Rather, the leading news anchor,
resigning.

Read more

Sensis (the mob who own Yellow Pages, White Pages and Trading Post) are about to lunch a new ‘know it all’ service, with the phone number 1234. A pretty brave move, seeing as Vodaphone has had the 123 service for a long time. And if a Vodaphone person dials 1234, they’ll get the opposition – 123. Here’s a cute article about some of the people behind the scenes answering the zillion and one inane questions we come up with each day.

A Sydney team has just sold their online school friends reunion web site for a reputed $2.7 million. schoolfriends.com.au has a million members, many paying an annual subscription fee of $19.95 – you have to pay the fee to be able to actually make contact with someone.

iTunes has continued its globe conquering march – it’s up and running in Europe:

“Music hungry consumers will have more than 700,000 pop, rock, jazz, classical and other tracks to choose from when they log on to iTunes, with each song priced at 99 euro cents ($1.20). “

Now could they please get their skates on and launch in Australia.

Well, I’ll put aside all my drummer jokes for a moment, a Canadian spammer has just agreed to give up his life of crime, and he’s become a drummer in a band.

“Canadian Eric Head, his father and brother had been sued by Yahoo in March as part of a worldwide industry crackdown on hundreds of people sending unsolicited email, or spam.

Yahoo alleged that in one month alone, the three men sent more than 94 million emails to users of Yahoo’s email service. “

Plans in the US to establish a national do-not-email list have stalled, with the government saying it would not work. The idea is based around the do-not-call telephone marketing list, which was launched in the US a few years ago. It has proven overwhelmingly popular, I think half of the US population is now subscribed, and thus preventing having their dinners interupted by phone salespeople.

The government’s opposition to the do-not-email list is fair – spammers operate either illegally, or in a legal grey zone, so are probably not going to take much notice of a list of email addresses they are not supposed to mail. And more importantly:

“The agency said such a registry cannot work because there is no effective system for “authentication,” or verification of the origin of an e-mail message. “

They also point out the obvious security concerns – the do-not-email list would be like gold for any spammer who could hack or steal it.