20+ Winter Sports Sites
December 30, 2007
For those of you haven’t looked outside, it’s winter. While I find snow a huge hassle, some people love it and live for those precious white flakes to hit their favorite slope. We’ve gathered together 20+ sites to help you get ready for your next skiing or snowboarding outing. Enjoy the powder, everyone!
Locators & Maps
ActiveTrails.com - A collaborative trail site for people to work together on coming up with skiing and other snow-related activities such as snow shoeing and cross-country skiing.
Alpinaut.com - Helps you locate and trace routes for all sorts of sporting activities including skiing and snowboarding.
Liftopia.com - You can locate resorts by region or name and find discounted lift tickets. (more…)
How Fat is Online Video’s Long Tail?
December 30, 2007
The answer is: it depends.
The question was asked today by Lester Craft over at Usertainment Watch:
How fat will online video’s “tail” be? (That is, the virtually infinite period of time following the burst of views a video gets upon its initial appearance.)Chris Anderson’s notion of the long tail is that it’s typically quite thin or flat, and that it is primarily the extended length of availability (vs. the comparatively short life of products sold in typical brick-and-mortar stores) that enables online offerings to remain profitable as many small sales accumulate over time.
This is a question I’ve seen surface a number of times, recently. It doesn’t seem like a difficult nut to crack, though. Content is content, whether it is displayed and monetized online or off. How fat or thin the tail is depends entirely on the quality and genre of the video in question.
Let’s use some Old Media examples, for a second. Unless it is a particularly historic event, very rarely will you find any replay value in a repeat episode The Daily Show, as we’re finding out during this writer’s strike. On the other hand, it’s been close to two decades, and Seinfeld still plays well in re-runs.
Likewise, in New Media examples, I rather doubt there is much of a long tail or replay value in an old episode of Webb Alert, but Mahalo Daily and Ask A Ninja aren’t current events based, and will have a substantial amount of value in the long tail.
That isn’t to say there isn’t value in the current events based show, but the question is that of tail, and in terms of that, particularly entertaining UGC or produced online video will follow most of the same rules as traditional entertainment.
Is there a tail in news based content at all?
Indeed there is, but the size of the tail is much different, and is based highly on the timeliness and other value factors of the content. For an example of what I mean, I did a podcast earlier this year, in which I revealed some information 
given to me by a contact within Google about what was then termed the gPhone. I teased it a bit on a blog post, but the real meat of the information was contained within an audio podcast. The statistics for that particular podcast far overshadowed any other traffic patterns my podcast experienced, and not only on the day the episode went out.
The show notes for that particular episode remained in the top 20 results for the search term “gPhone” up until Android was actually announced. Any time another gPhone rumor was leaked anywhere in the blogosphere or the mainstream press, downloads of that episode would shoot up into the thousands, despite the fact that it aged several months.
After Android was officially announced, however, the show stopped getting downloads. The tail eventually ended, since the public was no longer hungry for rumor.
That is a rare case in which there is a long tail for news based content. Most of my rich media content I’ve generated over the years does not experience that sort of usage. In statistical terms, about twice a year will one of my podcasts experience a long tail/viral effect like that.
So, I should stay away from current events in my videos?
Not really. Decide what you do. If you’re primarily entertainment based, play the long tail, and don’t tie your stuff down to what’s going on in the world. But news based stuff, for some of us, is easier to produce. Doing a daily one hour audio podcast, for me, is easier than writing one thirty minute comedy per month. Your mileage may vary, but the value in news based content is the higher likelyhood of repeat customers and lower cost of production. Going into news based content, though, one shouldn’t count on the long tail being there for every single episode, as is possible for some entertainment based productions.
GMail: The New Social Network
December 30, 2007
What is the true measure of your social graph? If you ask Google, the answer is found in your contact database. In further moves designed to create a defacto social network, it was discovered by the source code sleuthings of Ionut Alex Chitu of Google Operating System blog that Google intends to push automatic status updates from those in your chat and contact database listings into your GMail interface.
Details are still sketchy as to what will appear exactly where in the interface, but Chitu says “they’re probably the latest important actions of your contacts from different Google services.” Similar functionality, he points out, is also available in Picasa, Orkut and Google Reader.As Matthew Ingram says, “Google is pulling the threads of its social net together,” a move that I was told correctly by an insider to Google would happen (although he had told me that it was part of the Maka-Maka/OpenSocial project). It is, in fact, something I had hoped Google would do for quite some time. I don’t share the fear that some seem to have - that it’ll become an overbearing spammy nuisence. I do, however, see this road to a socially enabled Google suite fraught with pitfalls.
Email is a protocol already gamed heavily, although we call the gaming of email phishing and spamming. By adding layers of complexity to the system, they’re also adding in points of vulnerability for folks to turn the normally spam-free environment of GMail into the spam-laden environment of MySpace (want real estate on the screens of thousands of folks, effortlessly? Start uploading images using Picasa to generate unending status updates).
I’m certain that the long delay from when I originally heard about the initiative to the point we’re starting to see clues of the eventual surfacing of the service means they’re well aware of these pitfalls, but I predict we’ll see at least two or three mini-fiascos on the level of the Google Reader thing, and possibly one large Project Bacn sized fiasco, if they aren’t careful.
The RIAA Will Die in 2008
December 30, 2007
Steven Hodson asks today if 2008 will end up being the death knell of the RIAA:
I realize lots of folks have been predicting the imminent demise of the RIAA and the music industry since the inception of Napster and yet both are still here and still treating legitimate customers as criminals - or at least as potential criminals. Sure individuals have tried to fight the RIAA’s questionable lawsuits and SWAT like tactics but there has yet to be a smack down of any substance to put them in their place.
The clear answer to the question, though, is yes. Somehow, a couple bits of news have gone without much notice in 2007 that have to me signaled that the end is near for the music gestapo.
EMI to Cut RIAA Funding
In late November, EMI, in an attempt to figure out ways to save money so that they could return their company to profitability, announced that they’d be “substantially cutting their funding to industry’s trade bodies.”
Warner Music Group Going Belly Up
A couple days after EMI announced their disappointing financial results for the year, Warner Music Group announced that they made less than half the amount of money that Radiohead did for the year. The cause? A significant portion of the proceeds from artist creativity went directly to suing the customers by way of contributions to the RIAA. A couple days before the disappointing financial results were announced, WMG CEO Edgar Bronfman, Jr. finally came to the realization that it was a mistake to go to war with the consumers, and publicly said so.
Prince Sues His Fans
Prince this year was so disappointed by the fact that the RIAA had been unable to stop the piracy of his music by suing 12 year olds that he took to suing them himself.
I’m sure if you’ve turned on a news channel in the last couple of weeks, you heard of the baby getting sued by Prince (the baby danced on YouTube to one of his songs). Despite the fact that suing baby’s is an age-bracket the RIAA hasn’t even targeted yet, this was even was defensible by the online Prince fans; you just don’t put up music belonging to an artist free for download, regardless of whether your cute baby is dancing to it or not.
All the Prince fans are now united - not in support of the artist, but against him. Three sites, housequake.com, princefans.com, and prince.org have banded together give Prince the symbol formerly known as the finger, as he goes around sending cease and desist letters as well as lawsuit threats.
All this adds up to one thing for me: the death of the RIAA is near. Time and time again the industry has shown they have no clue as to how to properly adapt to the digital landscape, and musical acts like Radiohead, Trent Reznor and Madonna have all realized great success selling their music without the aid of a major label.
Not only is the RIAA outmoded, but the entire big label/studio structure is outmoded. As I said before, not only will we see the death of the RIAA in 2008, but probably at least two major record label’s demise as well.
Guns Don’t Kill People, Chuck Norris Kills People
December 30, 2007
In what has to be one of the more brilliant political marketing moves of the century, Governor Mike Huckabee has chosen for the spokesperson for his campaign the legendary fighter Chuck Norris (although some would say that Huckabee didn’t choose Norris, Norris simply told him and America how it was going to be). Regardless, it is clear that Norris has chosen who America is going to have for its next president, and we should all just get used to that.
To further re-inforce the point, Chuck and Mike will be appearing for a live broadcast on UStream January 1st, in preparation for the Iowa Primaries coming up later next week. The event will be exclusive to UStream, and is designed for the candidate (and presumably Norris as well) to answer the questions of the public.
FrostWire Is Open Source For LimeWire Lovers
December 30, 2007
LimeWire has picked up popularity over the years since the death of Napster (the free, arguably illegal version anyhow), and the tendency for KaZaA users to get sued for file sharing. The biggest complaint you’ll hear from users is the constant nagging to upgrade to the Pro version of LimeWire, which makes oodles of sense since you are illegally downloading files anyway, might as well pay someone for nothing.
This is where FrostWire comes in. A completely open source, and free, alternative to LimeWire, it’ll give you all of the features of the original plus a few more. It’ll be an interesting moment if LimeWire claims some sort of infringement, then we can all sit back and enjoy the irony. Yes, there are legal uses for this technology, but … yeah, we’re sure that’s all anyone is doing.
(via DownloadSquad)
SpiralFrog Secures $2 Million in Additional Funds
December 30, 2007
SpiralFrog, the ad-supported music service, has secured $2 million in funding through the private placement of Senior Secured Exchangeable Notes. The Notes bear an interest rate of 12% annually with interest due quarterly commencing on January 1st, 2008. All proceeds from the net profits of the deal will be used to acquire additional content and expand their operations.
Seeing as SpiralFrog’s business plan seems to not be panning out (they lost over $3 million in the third quarter), and this has some bizarre scheme dealing with “Notes”, and paying interest to some unnamed source, this should keep their doors open for a few more months. Considering the company “officially” launched in September of this year, it sounds like time might be running out for SpiralFrog to turn a profit.
Remember when ad-support was going to make everything on the web free? Heady days my friends, heady days.
12 Things To Do Online Before The End Of 2007
December 30, 2007
2007 is quickly coming to a close, and it’s time to do all of those things you’ve been meaning to do all year long. We’ve put together a checklist to help you along, but we can’t do it all for you, so you best get cracking before another year flies by! (more…)
Social Media Crime Blotter: Baseball, Tigers, and Pranks. Oh My!
December 30, 2007
Not that we need a big reprieve from the heavy news cycle this week. It was a pretty easy week, as far as that goes. Still, while the blogosphere might have rested on its laurels, the criminals of the social media space certainly did not. Apparently, it is true: there is no rest for the wicked.
In this issue:
Roger Clemens Discovers YouTubing, Denies Steroid Abuse
Young MySpace User Gets High, Plays With Tiger
SouFla Real Estate Agent Plays a Craigslist Prank on Rival (more…)
MashMeet NYC Insanity Caught on Tape
December 30, 2007
The holiday season is coming to a close and we finally had the opportunity to edit and upload the videos from the extremely popular (and noisy!) second MashMeet in NYC.
We have interviews with VOIS, Zlio, Planet of the Grapes, iRoto, Tilzy TV, Camlink, Nicholas Carlson from Valleywag and many more. Thanks to Stephanie Frasco for interviewing and For Your Imagination for the production.
