The Original Sims

FT.com December 30 2006 01:16

YouTube’s failure to complete a key piece of anti-piracy software as promised could represent a serious obstacle to efforts by Google, its new owner, to forge closer relations with the media and entertainment industry.

The video website, the internet sensation of 2006, promised in September the software would be ready by the end of this year. Known as a “content identification system”, the technology is meant to make it possible to track down copyrighted music or video on YouTube, making it the first line of defence against piracy on the wildly popular website.

YouTube said on Friday the technology would not be formally launched this year and YouTube’s offices were closed until the new year. While providing no further details about when the system would be made formally available, it said tests of the system had been under way with some media companies since October and the system remained “on track”.

MediaGuardian.co.uk

Broadcasters will finally be able to run commercials in programming simulcast on mobile and internet TV services next year, although ads featuring US actors and music will need individual rights clearance.

http://www.longtail.com/the_long_tail/2006/12/what_would_radi.html

http://www.longtail.com/the_long_tail/2006/12/what_would_radi_1.html

The Times reports

Jimmy Wales, the founder of Wikipedia, the online encyclopaedia, is set to launch an internet search engine with amazon.com that he hopes will become a rival to Google and Yahoo!

Mr Wales has begun working on a search engine that exploits the same user-based technology as his open-access encyclopaedia, which was launched in 2003.
 
The project has been dubbed Wikiasari — a combination of wiki, the Hawaiian word for quick, and asari, which is Japanese for “rummaging search”.

Mr Wales told The Times that he was planning to develop a commercial version of the search engine through Wikia Inc, his for-profit company, with a provisional launch date in the first quarter of next year

The New York Times reports

Published: December 25, 2006
While ongoing negotiations to buy the beleaguered radio network Air America have kept its future in a state of limbo, the company had one bit of good news last week.

WXXM-FM, a station in Madison, Wis., owned by Clear Channel Communications, rescinded a decision to drop the liberal network in favor of Fox Sports Radio. The station, known as “the Mic” 92.1, was preparing to switch to a local sports format on Jan. 1. But last Friday, in a surprise statement, the station manager, Jeff Tyler, announced that the station had decided to continue with the progressive talk format of Air America into 2007.

A news release made it clear that public outcry was very directly responsible for the reversal: "We are overwhelmed by the recent outpouring of support for our Progressive Talk format from the public, some of our community leaders and some dedicated local advertisers.”

Soon after the initial announcement to drop Air America was made on Nov. 7, a 28-year-old-student, Valerie Walasek, began an an online petition campaign that gathered more than 5,000 signatures and also organized a large rally. She said she was shocked at the outcome.

“I’m still trying to get used to the idea of it, that it actually worked, that I got big business to change their mind,” she said.

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The Bivings Report list their top You Tube videos of the year.  Coming out on top is this from the Daily Show: .. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HTrIQ-pvPjM

I know William Crawley will likely add this to his blog today.  I’m adding it too. "It" is a wonderful Christmas download from Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip.

The music comes from the Christmas episode - but I won’t mention the context which would spoil the story.  Let’s just say a New Orleans band plays O, Holy Night.

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The band is there in support of The Tipitina’s Foundation

a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization, has worked diligently to uplift the music community of New Orleans. After Hurricane Katrina devastated the city, the Foundation responded by rebuilding New Orleans’ music culture. Initially, the Foundation addressed the immediate needs of our exiled musicians and allowed them to carry on with their lives. Now the foundation is using the legendary music club, Tipitina’s Uptown, as the center of its relief efforts by hosting a newly-opened Music Co-op Office that allows musicians to conduct their business activities during the daytime, free legal and accounting seminars, free music lessons for music students, regular Master Seminars, and help with housing information. An important aspect of the rebuilding process has involved finding replacement instruments for both professionals and music students alike. So far the foundation has given away over $500,000 of new instruments. Through these efforts, the Tipitina’s Foundation is saving the musical traditions of New Orleans.

Happy Christmas - enjoy the music.

From FT.com

At seven years old, Cyworld is a veritable veteran in the world of social networking. A dominant force in South Korea, where up to 90 per cent of under 20s are believed to be Cyworld members, the website is now looking for eyeballs in other parts of the world. Top on the list of new targets is the US, the world’s biggest media market. The American appetite for social networking appears to be just as robust as the Korean. Teenagers spend hours each day sending each other messages, pictures and videos. By some measures, more time is spent making and seeking entertainment on the internet than watching television – at the very least online chats are often done on laptops in front of the television.

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New Media Age today reports:

BBC Worldwide is to make many of its key shows available on a legal file-sharing network after agreeing a deal with US network Azureus, the developer of the BitTorrent software.

The announcement is the first time BBC Worldwide has agreed such a deal, with shows including ‘Little Britain’, ‘Red Dwarf’, ‘Doctor Who and ‘Monty Python’ available as high-quality downloads from Azureus’ new video sharing site Zudeo.

"This will be a very different experience from traditional file-sharing networks," said Gilles BianRosa, Azureus CEO. "Once you have watched a show, you can rate it, comment on it and recommend it to a friend."

I was asked if I had found all the people missing from London on Monday.  On my way back home on Tuesday I found them all in the Departures area of Heathrow Airport all tryingto be somewhere else.  With a mixture of Christmas exodus and a fogbound airport (and fogbound UK) the place was heaving.

Getting back home 4 hours late (via Belfast International rather than George Best Belfast City Airport - yes the name is longer than the runway) wasn’t as bad as it could have been.

Back to London on the 0845 out of Belfast — The George Best Belfast City Airport, that is. The airport was relly very quiet considering it is the last week before Christmas, although the flight was pretty full.  When I got to Paddington I was astonished - the platform was almost empty and now at BBC Media Centre, the place is really quiet.  Have people started their holidays early?

Two meetings today - one with the Moderation Group - BBC Message Board and Blog moderation - and a meeting on Standards and excellence on the forthcoming BBC Web 2.0 exercise.

US TV giants to set up YouTube rival?

Launched today the website for a project I have been shepherding for just about a year, now. The idea sprung from Your Place and Mine which was – and is – a popular place for people to post their stories and for BBC web producers to develop content with the audience and the users. It’s probably though of as old web (1.0?), but it’s more fundamental than that.

It is a place where people can be introduced to digital media and with a BBC producer can co-develop content. The next phase is Storyfinders. This isn’t intended to be as advanced as citizen journalism – but one has ambitions. It’s a way to introduce people to digital media and to bring writing and ideas to an audience.

From Dervock we plan to launch in two other centres quite soon and three more there after, all the while building partnerships with other organisations and groups.

Even though SoftScan have a product to promote, the figures from their website today are fairly grim.

I have several email accounts; davy001(at) gmail.com and davy001(at)hotmail.com are the two published accounts.  I had to abandon the Hotmail account a few years ago as a practical option even though I had opened it well before Microsoft owned it and long before Spam became the problem that it is.  Interestingly davy_sims@yahoo.com which I have never published (until now) is only junk - mainly from people who want me to open bank accounts on their behalf and offer me a good cut of ther percentage.  Well, that’s what I think they want, because I don’t open them.  They tend to have the subject line "Dear Sims" or similar . 

Another account which I don’t use much - and only three or four people know is the "other" gmail account which does fantastically well at getting spam - almost always sorted into the Bulk Mail box. I have two other accounts; one operated by my employer which is pretty good at catching spam and an other which has never had spam and only a few people - friends only - know about that one.

So these figures did not really surprise me.  With the exclusion of my employers email, my mail to spam ratio is about 1:500 - at least most of the Bulk Mail boxes operate fairly well. So that’s pretty appalling, really. Even if I did want a product I was being spammed about, I would not, yea, never, never buy of a spammer.  It’s internet abuse, plain amd simple.

SoftScan announced today that the torrent of spam over the past month has not decreased, the final percentage of emails stopped by SoftScan as spam during November was 89.73%, marginally up from last month’s 89.07%. Image spam, reportedly on the increase, is also becoming more sophisticated in an attempt to confuse scanners. Viruses remained low, accounting for just 0.42% of all email scanned.

The list below shows the top five global zones that spam originated from, according to SoftScan’s statistics. The most prolific country was Poland, which accounted for 15.3% of all junk mail sent from Europe.

 

1 Europe: 61.89%

2 Far East: 11.93%

3 North America: 10.26%

4 South America: 5.36%

5 South East Asia: 4.73%

MediaGuardian.co.uk

As companies around the world wake up to the potential reputation damage that can be inflicted by blogs, marketing services group Creston is hoping to sign them up to a brand management product.

Creston, which owns advertising agency DLKW, today unveiled details of what it claims is a unique product that scans blogs and gives companies a strategy on how to protect their brand.

Channel 4 has launched an on-demand service that lets viewers catch up with their favourite programmes online.

Viewers can now download most of the channel’s current schedule for up to 30 days after transmission or choose programmes from its archives.

Charges start at 99p each with monthly subscriptions planned for the new year.

Channel 4 says it is the first major broadcaster in the world to offer all its "home-grown" programming for viewers on demand.

Its service is available on cable and personal computers, onto which viewers can download all Channel 4 programmes made in this country and a few imported shows, such as Desperate Housewives.

From Media Guardian

Ten Alps, the independent TV producer co-founded by Bob Geldof, today launched a website it hopes will become the "YouTube of the public sector".

The company unveiled the Public TV website, which hosts video material about government, professional training and business.

Users can access the site free of charge and search for content including Ten Alps’ recently acquired 400-strong stable of niche magazines, which currently make £28m in advertising revenues.

Public TV will make its money entirely through advertising sold from a newly established office in Manchester.

Public TV