von Roland Hachmann | Aug. 26, 2005 | Blog, Digital Culture
Via Darren I found this vlog that tries to be a news show: Rocketboom
It’s a nice vlog, with a presenter that has obviously not worked in this industry before. She’s nice looking, but not a TV anchorwoman, that’s for sure.
However, I guess, that we will see much more of these kind of personal newscasts. As it is easier than ever before to record digital movies and easily edit them, we’ll have more of this. I am even contemplating posting daily movies of my next vacation on this blog.
von Roland Hachmann | Aug. 26, 2005 | Blog, Digital News
Jon Aquino has written a software that will probably cause a big uproar in the digital community. I have not read about something like this before, which is surprising because it seems like such an obvious application:
Instead of downloading podcasts using RSS, have a piece of software that downloads your usuall RSS feeds and reads them out to you.
The big advantage here:
-
you don’t have to rely on only those sites, that have podcasts (which aren’t the majority sofar, because )
- people might not like podcasting themselves, they rather write. And if they do podcast, it might be a terrible listening experience
Like many others, I have been disappointed with the quality of the content of today’s podcasts (to be fair, podcasting is still in its early days), especially with so much good textual content on the web. For example, I wished that there was a podcast of biographies of great lives — after all, there are numerous websites on the subject. Then it struck me: What if I used text-to-speech to convert these textual webpages to podcasts that I could listen to during my daily commute? Thus Audiolicious was born.
This little piece of software converts your usual RSS feeds into an audio file you can listen to on your iPod (but also on anything else, of course).
I have tried a sample from Jon’s website, and admittingly, it sounds terrible. But keep in mind: these kind of things usually improve rapidly (and unfortunately for Jon, they might also be picked up quickly by the big players, like Google or Apple).
Secondly, I got used to it rather quickly. It’s like looking at a monochrome screen in the 80s. Back then we were also happy with it, even though we new from the television, what coloured pictures could be like.
It’s a fantastic application and just a matter of time until this becomes a regular in the blogging/RSS community, I am sure of that.
Darren Barefoot writes some more about the fact, why podcasting, as trendy as it might seem, might also never take off big scale. Same goes with vlogs, but for this, it will be much harder to write a substitute like Jon did. How do you make a video out of a text-blog?
(thanks)
von Roland Hachmann | Aug. 26, 2005 | Blog, Digital Marketing, Mobile Marketing
Adage writes, that Kraft offers recipes for iPods to download. Somehow I have heard similar stuff before. Can’t find it now, but there was a company in Japan, that sends recipes to mobile devices especially during the evening rush hours, so that commuters could read them while they’re on their way home.
What I could find just now, is a service for restaurants. Not quite the same, but similar idea…
Should try to find that other article, but unfortunately, that’s more than a year ago…
von Roland Hachmann | Aug. 25, 2005 | Blog, Digital Marketing
Business Week mentiones a new form of interactive billboards (thanks).
Mirage’s „interactive motion panels“ play „video“ clips — albeit without the use of any electronics or moving parts — on seemingly standard advertising light boxes. Walk by, and the picture moves. Stop, and it stops with you.
This should bring outdoor advertising to a whole new level! Interactive billboards is certainly something that many advertisers dream about. Digital interactivity where you don’t expect it – that should get everybodys attention. As the examples in the article of business week demonstrate.
von Roland Hachmann | Aug. 25, 2005 | Blog, SEO / SEA
The New York Times has an article about the recent developments of Google, how it leaves puberty, appears to be more like one of those establishment companies (and not much longer like a rebellious Silicon Valley company) and turns rather arrogant and hungry for control, power and money. Sort of like what Microsoft used to go through and now is…
Some nice quotes:
It was not that long ago that Google reigned here as the upstart computer company that could do no wrong. Now some working in the technology field are starting to draw comparisons between Google and Microsoft, the company in Redmond, Wash., that Silicon Valley loves most to hate.
Google is at that inflection point where it’s starting to act like an establishment company, and Silicon Valley is a rebel culture
Google is the new evil empire, because they’re in such a powerful position in terms of control. They have potential monopolistic control over access to information.
I have already raised some doubts about Google here and here .
It’s going to be interesting over the next 2-5 years how Google will shape and embrace the world of information…
Wo ich sonst so bin...