Mediangle

We're Moving

2006-05-19T08:48:00.000-07:00

Yes, already we've decided to move blogging hosts. The reason is we need categories otherwise the blogs are going to be lost. Please catch up with us on: mediangle.wordpress.com

Narrowstep Accelerates Earnings

2006-05-17T03:22:00.000-07:00

Narrowstep announced recently that earnings had almost doubled over the past twelve months. The company is still losing money but less of it. Annual revenue in the April 2006 announcmenet included $1.5 million from narrowcasting and related activities, compared with $520,000 for fiscal 2005, an increase of 288 percent.

This is how Narrowstep describes itself.

The Narrowstep system, TV Station in a Box(TM), enables comprehensive delivery of video content and television-like programming to mobile, wireless, internet, broadband andbroadcast services.

I've had personal dealings withNarrowstep. I've discussed with them a possible lifestyle channel that I am interested in putting together and I've found them business-like, though as yet I'v made no decision.

Their service is comprehensive - Narrowstep will shoot the video as well as play it out - and offers credit card payment support for click-to-buy opportunities that you might want to put on your IP TV channel. Right now Narrowstep is TV on the Internet but I know there are companies out there looking at migrating Narrowstep channels to pure IP TV plays on managed networks.

I'm surprised that a company whose business has been essentially in the UK, listed in the USA. Seems to me the reporting procedures in the US would be an unwelcome overhead. But Narrowstep believe it has increased the liquidity of shares.

On the channel front they now have about 80, mostly European, and hope to expand their share of US channels in the next 12 months and they've made a start with Massachusets TV. Big pluses include the ITV Local services in the UK (ITV is the biggest independent broadcaster in Britain) and the London TV and Glasgow TV services. From what I can see Narrowstep is blazing a trail in the way it is monetising IP TV.

This is the spec for their new Mbed technology and it should captivate the marketer/advertiser audience

mBed™ is an advanced TV on IP distribution and marketing tool that allows customers to quickly and easily 'mBed' a direct stream from their channel into any partner websites, utilizing the video stream served through Narrowstep's telvOS™ system.

mBed™ has been designed to:
enable viewers to watch a continuous video channel stream on a partner site - no need to 'pop up' or click through;
quickly and easily install on websites to extend reach;
open up the full channel from within the video frame;
track performance of each placement directly;
enable all functions to be controlled through telvOS™ remotely;
be viewed full screen at top quality with a double-click.

Akimbo Opens Up

2006-05-17T02:29:00.000-07:00

I promised yesterday to write about Akimbo, as one of a number of profiles upcoming. Curious, just thinking back to those comments about journalists and PR, when I e-mail people using my journalist hat I get ready responses. When I e-mail saying I want info for the blog there's a tendency to ignore me. That takes some getting used to.

Akimbo though have been great so hat's off (which one?) to them. Akimbo was one of the first into the IP TV space and these are their current fame claims:

10,000 titles on the Akimbo Service and over 100 more added each week
Available on Microsoft Media Center PCs as part of Microsoft Media Center's "Online Spotlight" offerings
Media Center subscribers can also use an XBox game player as a media extender to show Akimbo programming on TV
Available on AT&T's Homezone
First exclusive footage last December from Expedition 360, about a group English explorers who are attempting to circumnavigate the world only by human-powered means

This information came courtesy of Blaise Simpson who works for ar partners, Akimbo's PR people, who's also offered an interview with Akimbo personnel. I'll be taking Blaise up on that in the next few days.

2006-05-16T04:14:00.000-07:00

I've been following the debate in the UK about journalistic standards, blogging and PR. It has been enlivened by two events. The We Media Conference - it took a hammering from Suw Charman on her Strange Attractor blog, and the debate between John Lloyd, FT Magazine editor, and others on the relationship between PR and journalism, that's been taking place on Comment is Free.

This comment comes from Jackie Danicki, and takes up some of the points after a public debate at the London School of Economics.

"What I found somewhat disturbing about Lloyd’s comments later in the panel was his contention that traditional journalism is something of a civic service, and one that we should be very careful to preserve. This sentiment smacks of the current, hysterical cries coming from old media types who are far less aware than John Lloyd - the idea that journalists are the guardians of truth and that, to some extent, we should take a kid glove approach to this most holy of disciplines."

Lloyd in his Comment is Free blog on the other hand contends that journalists need a forum for discussing issues with PR Agencies - he was supporting Julia Hobsbawm, a leading London PR agent, whose company Editorial Intelligence did what Lloyd says is necessary, brought journalists and PR agents together underone corporate umbrella.

Underlying this debate is are the twin assumptions that trained journalists always know when their integrity is about to be compromised and will therefore not let it happen.

Here's my stance on this. I've worked in industry as well as journalism and in both I've found my integrity compromised more easily than I had hoped it would be. Temptation to be first to a story, or to claim credit or to make money plague us, whoever we are. On the other hand if those moments are part of a public discussion I imagine they are harder to give in to so I believe blogging, citizen journalism, citizen media, call it what you want are rational enterprises to engage in as a journalist but also as a citizen.

I don't think I or any journalist is capable of pristine objectivity and it's morally dubious to claim that I, more than others, can rise above temptation and self-interest. I can't, you can't, we can't. Citizen media, and IP TV, which I hope will have a still greater impact than blogging, are necessary.

Browsing the IP TV World

2006-05-16T04:05:00.000-07:00

There's no directory to all those new channels out there and soon the audio-visual space on the World Wide Web will be crowded with videoblogs. Still there's time to find a few favourites.

Here's one IP TV service that is working well in the United States. Akimbo has been running for about eighteen months and one of its more exciting new initiatives is to take on video blogs. Vblogs need aggregators and Akimbo, like any media company, will be able to carve out a role there for ambitious media citizens with a webcam and an interesting story. I'll be making contact with Akimbo later and will report back on what they have to say about IP TV USA.

Selling Programmes/ Missing Ads

2006-05-15T07:47:00.000-07:00

This is from the Guardian, UK reporting a story from the Wall St Journal....

"The Fox network is to sell episodes of hit drama 24 via MySpace, the News Corporation-owned social networking website. From next week, users of MySpace will be able to buy episodes from the first two series of the cult thriller at $1.99 (£1) apiece, the Wall Street Journal said."

Strange to see a paper doing that rather than go to the source. Still, selling TV programmes over the Internet.... This is a temporary adjustment to your picture. Companies like News Corp are clearly wondering what a world without ads, or at least with a dramatically reduced ad revenue stream, will feel like.

Longer term, old media won't make money out of selling downloads because IP TV channels will be attractive enough to corner your time and because people who download episodes of 24 and Desperate Housewives will be considered sad, given that there will be no need. IP TV offers video-on-demand.

Ads/brands will gradually raise their game and either become social institutions supporting good causes and allying themselves with are soft aspirations or they will become all out rebels, anarchically allying themselves with the disaffected (and well off). The changes we're going to see are bigger than ad/no ad. As Terry Leahy of Tesco said last week - brands have to become good neighbours.

The BBC Shouldn't Need to Ask

2006-05-15T04:48:00.000-07:00

What is it about big media organisations that they can't do democracy? A recent conference in London called We Media (it was pretentously styled a Global Forum) in part organised by the BBC was designed to allow big media companies to understand better how democratised media works.

The next day the BBC held an internal seminar with Citizen Media advocate Dan Gillmor attending:

Then he asked the panel: what is it about participatory media that really changes the relationship between the BBC, say, and its audience?Gillmor: It's a shift from lecture mode to a conversation/seminar. The BBC can bring former audience/participants into the journalism itself, engaging them in your conversation. It's necessary, but not easy.

Well, actually the emphasis should be the other way round. An orgnisation funded by a special tax on every household should not find conversation difficult. It has several million obligations to deliver on.

The emphasis is important. Organisations like the BBC don't exactly face an un certain future. They have revenues of over £2 billion a year but they are still in the old IBM phase, rigid with conformity.

When Will the Broadcasters Pay?

2006-05-15T04:30:00.000-07:00

This post from digital lifestyles caught my eye perhaps because it shows that now aspect of the future will be free from the camera. Reporter Gerard Tubb and producer Jon Gripton are doing video reports from the slopes of Everest as a team of soldiers tackle the toughest ascent. SKY TV in the UK are broadcasting the peices as a videoblog.

This kind of hybrid or regular TV and modern technology is bound to become more common and it raises a really interesting question. Right now professional broadcasters tend not to pay for citizen media content. Once it starts to become an obvious economic factor in the life of a profitable media enterprise, how long can the SKY, BBC, ABC or NBC and other media conglomerates hang on without ponying up a realistic price?

I'd say in future content will be a home business, a spare cash generator for thousands of people. Much more interesting than licking envelopes.

What Does it Mean, IP TV?

2006-05-15T03:52:00.000-07:00

Literally? It means television delivered through the Internet Protocol but there've been some false starts with delivering moving images over the web. Remember a few years back Windows Media and Real Player became the duopoly for Windows-based web media delivery? Then there was Apple's Quick Time? And there's always been atom there providing short movies and animation.... All very interesting but in 2006 we're talking full play out of television programmes over broadband with next to no delay.

Progress in programme delivery means you don't have to compromise your standards to enjoy watching TV over the Internet but better still this multi-channel universe is heading to your TV set. That means many of the computing tricks and flix will be there in your living room, or bedroom if you need privacy!

Take personal TV. Microsoft and Alcatel are working on a buddy system that will allow you to alert one of your buddies (anywhere on the network) to what you happen to be watching. Got Clooney on screen? Tell your girlfriends what they're missing with an IM type message through the TV. Better still IP TV on your telco's network will allow you to record and then show your girls friends. The recording takes place in the network so you don't have to set up a TiVO or other device.

These are hang on to your hat applications that will become available later this year. Meanwhile, what's going on now. One of my favourite channels is cycling.tv. I happen to be luke warm on cycling though for the past few years try to catch the Tour de France. Cycling.tv is for cylcing nuts, people who would spend the whole day with a race commenary in their ear. It's a small operation run out of London and that's the best of it. People with an obsession who become integral to that obsession, TV magnates in their specialised world. By the way it is very professionally done.

For French viewers there is l'equippe.fr, a specialist sports channel that covers the range of popular sports, 24/7 on the web.

Is IP TV only about sports? Certainlynot. The Baby Channel does what it says on teh box, brings you information about the health and well being of small children and women during preganancy. Yes, it is also a bit of a shopping channel but so what? There's a European Affairs channel too, bit heavy handed on the propoganda for my taste. And more shopping.... Then there's travel, learning and real estate. Much more of course.

Hello

2006-05-15T03:21:00.000-07:00

This is post number 1. So why a blog on IP TV? First for the under-initiated IP TV is one of the most exciting developments in information broadcasting, ever! Some of the IP TV stations out there are two person operations. TV for two. It's a great moment in the democratisation of media and the Blog is a way of drawing attention to it.

Who are the players in IP TV? Clearly the big names will dominate press coverage. Microsoft and Alcatel are big on the infrastructure side. BT, Swisscom, France Telecom and the likes will be big on service provision. But there are other names we could mention and will.

Coming up - the channels.