11.29.06
Posted in Social Media at 1:44 pm by
WAAAAaayyyy back in April of 2005 (!) we talked about using Azureus (a pretty fine BitTorrent client) along with an RSS plugin to grab television – something of a cheap and dirty poor man’s PVR (personal video recorder). The process did have some problems: it was highly technical (have you explained RSS to your mother yet?), relied on several different components working in unison (i.e. it was a bit brittle), and you still had to have the right media players with current codecs installed to guarantee playback of whatever format came across the wires.
That third bit, the playback, may just be solved. Let’s back up and state the goals: to have a customized TV ‘channel’ viewable whenever. There needs to be a way for a user to state what their interested in and have content delivered automagically when available. Something new, that has really emerged in just the last year, is to have popular network content side by side with online fair (vblogs, shows, etc.)
First up is the player. Democracy is a multi-platform video player (the new version out is supposed to be zippier and have a smaller memory footprint). It’s built with the idea that you shouldn’t care what format the video is in. Along these lines you can throw divx, quicktime, flash, etc. at it and it doesn’t care – it just plays. It also allows you to subscribe to rss feeds and download them automatically. This means that when new shows are available the player will grab them [through the power of the RSS 2.0 enclosure tab]. It also has built in BitTorrent support so no more opening a seperate app outside your player.
If that’s all there was too it this setup wouldn’t be nearly as clever; get Democracy and you’d be done. However, the problem with many vlog RSS feeds, like WallStrip is that the RSS doesn’t use enclosures – it only contains links back to the original site. The same goes for RSS feeds from sites like TVRss.net – you might get an RSS feed of television shows that appear on BitTorrent networks but its just a list of torrents.
Here is the neat trick, via Jesse Newland’s blog – use Feedburner to turn vanilla RSS feeds into RSS feeds with enclosures. As he describes:
# Search for a show of your choice at TVRss
# Right click on the RSS/XML icon link and select Copy Link URL
# Go to Feedburner, and paste the URL into the text field on the home page, check the “I am a Podcaster!” box, and click next.
1. If you donÂ’t already have a Feedburner account, youÂ’ll be prompted to create one
# Click “Next” to activate the feed
# Copy the URL of the feed provided by Feedburner (it should start with http://feeds.feedburner.com/)
# Open The Democracy Player, click “Add Channel”, and paste the URL of the feed into the field that appears
# Sleep. In the morning, you should have an episode of The Daily Show to watch!
# New episodes will automatically be downloaded as soon as they’re available on Bittorrent – I’ve found this to usually be a day after the show airs
The same also goes for VLogs. I’ve got my Democracy player set up so that ZeFrank’s shows are side by side with Studio 60. I never have to miss an episode because past issues are always grabbed. It’s no longer TV, or vlogs, or YouTube videos or whatever – it’s simply media that I like delivered automatically when new stuff is available.
The big stumbling block for me having a PVR previously was that it seemed pretty silly plugging rabbit ears into a TiVo – I don’t have cable and probably never will. However, with this that barrier is circumvented – the Internet is the medium. I’ve got a video card with an S-Video out and a wireless card, and an unused of Windows XP just lying around – I think I’m going to find an inexpensive mobo and ram and put a box next to the TV – the pieces are all in place now.
If anyone would like to try this and would like to save some time setting up the Feedburner feeds feel free to use mine (right click and copy link location):
Colbert Report
Daily Show
Studio 60
the Show with ZeFrank
WallStrip
… hmmmm…. need to add one for the Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson so I don’t have to stay up late just to watch his monologues.
Wanna try this? Created a show link that’s not mentioned here? Share it and maybe I’ll just try it out. 
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11.28.06
Posted in Social Media at 11:49 am by
As I mentioned as an aside in another post the award winning documentary The Corporation has been released for free. Available via BitTorrent, the DVD quality show is thought provoking, entertaining, and insiteful. If you’re interested in grabbing a great piece of entertainment for free check it out – and don’t forget to leave your torrent client open after the download is finished to help spread this movie to others.
The Corporation Offical Website
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11.26.06
Posted in Social Media at 8:08 pm by
The Journal of Media and Culture has a fantastic overview of the emerging thicket of copyright do’s and don’t in this age. While much is old hat to regular readers of mutednoise it is a great introduction for those new to the issues at hand:
People are revelling in the opportunity to acquire and experience music, movies, TV, books, photos, essays and other materials that they would otherwise have missed out on; and they picking up the creative ball and running with it, making their own version, remixes, mash-ups and derivative works. More importantly than that, people are producing and sharing their own cultural resources, publishing their own original photos, movies, music, writing. You name it, somewhere someone is making it, just for the love of it.
Whilst the creative industries are using copyright law in every way they can to prosecute, shut down, and scare people away from even legitimate uses of cultural materials, the law itself is becoming increasingly inadequate. It can no longer deal with societyÂ’s demands and expectations, nor can it cope with modern forms of collaboration facilitated by technologies that the law makers could never have anticipated.
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Posted in Social Media at 6:05 pm by
Well, we’re not a few month into the fall schedule and I can safely say that my entertainment has become a mix of traditional and new media. Here’s my current routine:
Sunday: Football, Football, Amazing Race, and Sunday night Football – Sunday is still very much an evening of conventional media providers.
Monday: Studio 60 – While I never paid attention to other Aaron Sorkin shows (Sports Night, West Wing) I’m absolutely loving this show. While a major network production I often grab a copy off BitTorrent. Having a HD copy for my laptop while I work out is too convenient.
Tuesday: Strong Bad, Ask a Ninja, or whatever else I happened to stumble upon via RSS. I also try and catch Craig Furguson’s monologues whenever I can – whether on CBS or on YouTube.
Wednesday: DiggNation – Kevin and Alex, because of the delay, are often talking about news a week old. However, they’ve got such a rapport that it’s like hanging out with a couple of your geek buds. Again, Craig Furuson is oft sought at 11:30pm.
Thursday: My Name is Earl, The Office. Having bought the UK Office on DVD I initially wasn’t a fan of the US version. However, its definitely grown on me and it makes Thursday another major network night.
Friday: Usually I catch up on the entire week set of WallStrip, an online vlog.
Saturday: belongs to ZeFrank and the vlog shows he posted in the last week.
It is also worth mentioning that Mon-Fri I try to catch the NBC evening news and reruns of the Simpsons over dinner. There is also the occasional online freebie, like the award winning documentary The Corporation that I pick up when its available. My wife and I also have a subscription to Netflix but having burned through our list of ‘must see’ movies the churn has slowed down tremendously.
So, if my veiwing habits are any indication, the major networks aren’t dead as some social media die-hards like to proclaim. However, compared to even five years ago, I’m taking in much more ‘amateur’ and ‘direct distributed’ content.
Is this typical? What does your week in media look like?
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11.24.06
Posted in Social Media at 6:34 pm by
Here’s a Friday Media Minute for you: Ze Frank (the video blogger) on how to get through Thanksgiving. Enjoy!
http://www.zefrank.com/theshow/archives/2006/11/112106.html
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11.22.06
Posted in Social Media at 2:36 am by
Can the wisdom of crowds save you money? A new social aggregator site named Wesabe thinks so. From their frequently asked questions page:
Wesabe is a community of people who share our experiences with our money so we can help each other make better financial decisions. We do this by aggregating and analyzing our community members’ personal financial data, and showing tips — recommendations to get the most from our money. These tips and recommendations come from the collective wisdom of our entire community. When one of us figures out how to make a great decision, we all learn.
Financial info can be a pretty sticky privacy matter. Wesabe avoids this through the use of algorithms; also from the FAQ:
We never share your account data with anyone. What we do is look for patterns in lots of our members’ spending — patterns that would help inform the Wesabe community about good or bad values. For instance, when we see that enough of our members shop at a merchant, we will post the average transaction that they paid — not what each of them paid, and not any information about who shops there, but only the average payment. If too few people make a payment to a particular name, though, we won’t post information about those payments, because those may be private transactions (like splitting a dinner bill). If you decide to post a tip to Wesabe, or sign up for a goal, or make a comment on a tip or a goal, your “public name” will appear on that tip or goal — not your real name or your login name, but a separate name just for participating in the Wesabe community. We never reveal the real name of the person who uses a public name (unless we are compelled to do so by a valid court order).
I’ve signed up but haven’t spent the time to enter any spending data. The have a software application that is supposed to easily automate the process – something that I may just do along with weekend bill paying. How useful this site is will definitely depend on their dataset – the more data, the more opportunities for discovery of something useful.
Stay tuned. And if anyone else signs up let me know – I’d love to compare experiences.
Coverage also on Boing Boing.
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11.21.06
Posted in Social Media at 12:51 am by
There was once a time when a professional launching into a racial tirade during a small club performance would have been nothing more than a forgotten event. Today, however, with the ubiquity of media capturing devices in even the common cell phone, gaffs in personal character come shining through.
Last week on mutednoise we discussed how social media was being used to circulate Faith Hill’s true colors. This week comes Michael Richards (Seinfeld’s Kramer) accosting a heckler with a string of racial epitaphs. The video was captured via a comedy club patron’s cell phone and starts with Richards cursing and ends with patrons walking out. (The term ‘Veek’ is short for ‘Video Peek’ and is increasingly used to describe poor quality but spontaneous video shot with cell phones.)
If you care to watch a career end in an instant you can watch the video (not safe for work).
Tonight (Monday) Seinfeld arranged for his friend to appear on the David Letterman show to explain what happened. From the Hollywood Reporter’s recap:
When pressed by Letterman about why he used racially charged language to respond to the heckler, Richards stressed, “I’m not a racist — that’s what’s so insane about this,” and he cited the “spontaneous” nature of his stand-up work. “I’m a performer. I push the envelope,” Richards said. “I work in a very uncontrolled manner onstage. I do a lot of free association.”
With the ease of capturing, distributing, and promoting events as they happen I can only expect more of these ’spontaneous’ moments to happen. The carefully cultivated veneer of pop culture icons is cracking.
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11.19.06
Posted in Social Media at 11:50 pm by
MySpace is a hodgepodge of youth (and youth-wannabes). Spend much time drifting about the Fox-Interactive property and you’ll find videos of kids lip-syncing to top 40 tracks, streaming playlists, clips from movies, etc. Universal Music has cast its fiery eye about the net and decided to condemn the entire lot. From FindLaw:
Universal Music Group filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against social networking website MySpace, charging that much of MySpaceÂ’s content “is the ‘user-stolen’ intellectual property of others, and MySpace is a willing partner in that theft.” The lawsuit alleges that “[n]o intellectual property is safe in the MySpace world of infringement — not Plaintiffs’ videos, not Plaintiff’ songs, not even songs from [an] unreleased albumÂ…” Universal maintains that MySpace “knowingly and intentionally” encourages copyright violation, and that the internet company became “one of the most prominent and valuable websites on the Internet through rampant copyright infringement.”
The music industry has been looking for excuses not to find a new business model for quite awhile and a lawsuit is nothing new. What is different, however, is the downright cranky tone on display. Also worth noting is that YouTube shares a number of similar copyright indiscretions (music videos, lip syncing, etc.) However. YouTube and Universal inked a deal in the 11th hour before YouTube got Google’s cash. Part of the conspiracy rumors is that, in addition to the agreement not to sue, the major labels were to then turn around and attack YouTube rivals – in this case, MySpace.
So is this corporate behavior par-for-the-course now? Conglomerates waging war on each other in the court room? And how, exactly, do all these legal scuffles create a better experience for the user?
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Posted in miscellaneous at 4:28 pm by
We’re getting much closer to moving off phpbb. Over this weekend I sucessfully completed a sample migration from phpbb to BBPress. While the Akismet spam filtering would be very nice on that new system I don’t think that’s the right way to go; BBPress is still very young and doesn’t have a visual theme management or plugin systems yet. I’m still keen on getting the board moved to WordPress in the very near future.
As for spammers, as Shaarn noticed yesterday, they are still getting through. The scenario is to sign up for the site, confirm the email, dig up an old post, and post a link to a questionable video. I’ve exhausted about all that phpbb can let me do – in a last ditch attempt I’m monitoring for certain keywords and replacing it with ‘SPAM’ just to make it painfully obvious that those posts need to be removed. It’s a headache we hopefully don’t have to worry about much longer.
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11.16.06
Posted in Social Media at 1:51 am by
If you have spent any time in the Second Life world recently you have probably heard that the sky is falling. The reason? CopyBot, which allows perfect copies of prims (the building block shapes used to build the world) and textures (what makes them pretty). No, big deal, right? Wrong, according to a typical outcry on SecondLifeInsider.com:
As with previous copying devices, it doesn’t seem to cross the feeble brains of these people that other people’s livelihoods in RL might depend upon their SL income. Those people who are living the dream that is promoted in every article, of earning a RL income from SL creations, are now living a nightmare in which their source of income may soon be worthless.
That’s not to speak of big commercial companies who have paid anything up to 1,000,000 dollars to have their product reproduced in loving detail, who will discover that every Tom, Dick or Harriet may rip off their creation for nothing – and then sell it as their own.
These folks seem to be late to the digital reality that most online publishers deal with; probably because they’ve been in a semi-protected proprietary bubble. Trying to recreate an artificial scarcity on goods to mimic the 1st world doesn’t work well in the 2nd. Yet, that’s what scads of virtual shirt, car, and building vendors have built their business models around – the idea that there is a cost to recreating a digital object. Its extremely short sighted. It’s an entire business built around limiting access to 1’s and 0’s.
There are two ways companies built on Second Life can succeed:
1) What advantage does SL have in information transfer have that other mediums don’t? Interaction and experience. Yes, the avatar emotes are clunky as your grandma doing the robot. Yes, the system is extremely hurting for a Skype or TeamSpeak like auditory communications add-on. But the interchange between people at events causes society and culture: things of value that can be monetized. Do you think the sex dens are worried about CopyBot? No. Because even though you can grab a copy of the avatar working the pole it is the interaction which makes those locations, and Second Life as a whole, valuable.
2) Despite the advantages of digital media there is two scarcities that still exit: time and attention (although both are tightly intertwined). Think about many of the ‘Web 2.0′ companies that so much has been written about: Digg, Del.icio.us, NewsVine, etc. They’re all about making that massive amounts of information on the net manageable; in other words, finding the good stuff in less time. Those that can create ways of saving people time to do what they want to do in Second Life will make money.
We haven’t talked about ad networks – then again, given the outrage about the CopyBot I highly doubt the suggestion of trading attention for ad revenue would be well received.
Second Life has had a great run mimicking first life. However, to be successful, creators in game must begin approaching the platform in ways not found in the ‘real world’.
While I’m on the topic of Second Life, there is currently a contest for the best Second Life business plan. The winner gets and island, some virtual cash (around $1300), and advise from some major in-game players. I really hope the winner isn’t just another T-shirt boutique.
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