You think you’ve got great Christmas lights eh?
December 20, 2005
Was checking out the picture & video sharing site called Grouper when I came across this amazing video of some guys house Christmas lights display that dance to music….
Unbelieveable!!
2005-12-21 UPDATE: The music"Wizards in Winter" is from the album "The Lost Christmas Eve" by the Trans-Siberian Orchestra which I picked up last night and it is a brilliant Christmas album.
Google the next Amazon.com!?!?
December 16, 2005
Google’s latest service is bringing the Internet beast closer to stomping on Amazon.com’s sacred turf.
Millions of cyber surfers use Amazon.com to search & research for books, CDs, DVDs and the such before either buying online or purchasing from one of those local bricks & mortar equivalent.
Google’s information retrieval dogma is becoming many things to many people. It’s been a library assistant for some time, but now it’s becoming more and more like a mega shopping centre or mall too.
Although this Google’s service does push users to Amazon’s stores for CD & DVD searches, what will happen as this changes people’s habits from going to Amazon first to using only Google?
Googlezon is a lot closer than we think.
I attended the monthly AIMIA Mobile Content Industry Development Group meeting on Tuesday and both Optus Mobile & Hutchison 3G Australia "3" were represented by their heads of content to talk about what is going on with their content strategies.
Overall it looks like the carriers are finding it pretty tough. There was definitely a sense of a "softly softly" approach by both representatives.
The outstanding piece of news is that Optus is releasing a Push content client for their 3G devices. The demo of the product was very impressive. Although the application is in it’s early stages, Australian developer Bullant & Oliver Weidlich of Ideal Interfaces should be highly commended on their work.
Hutchison 3G Australia – Scott Taylor – General Manager Content
- 2006 strategies
- Drive a “usage strategy” – get existing users to use the content & 3G services more
- More marketing rather than adding more products
- Still have “gaps” to fill for mobile content (eg: content for women)
- Will have to start retiring some content so content protal does not become over crowded. (Curertnly have a problem where some customers can’t find things due to too much content)
- 2 main content types are
- MobileTV
- Music (23 000 tracks for download)
- Current 3G technology is not conducive to delivery of MobileTV (very bandwidth intensive). At this stage technologies such as DVB-H are the way forward to deliver
- Currently DRM is a limiting factor in customer experience in delivering multimedia content to users. As DRM standards update then so will the user experience
Optus Mobile – Mark Mulder – Head of Content & Portals
- 2006 Strategies
- Need to address usage of 3rd party content – marketing and portal placement
- Doesn’t see anything innovative or new coming in the next 12 to 18 months.
- Hopes for IM, LBS & content mix products
- Currently have 1.2M mobile users
- Implementing a converged
- Recently revamped their “Zoo Portal”
- Released a new 3G push content user application
- Referred to as the “Relevance Client” by Mulder, it is called “MyZooNow”
- Demo here of it http://www1.optusnet.com.au/offers/3g/?tas=oca
- Can be personalised, presence aware, unified messaging, location services
- Developed by Australian software development house called BullAnt
- Both Symbian Series 60 & Java versions for 3G devices
- Working on a converged integrated music channel (mobile & cable broadband)
- Ability to download a music track and use it on both the mobile device and the PC.
- Using MSN IM service to mobile devices (this is incorporated in the MyZooNow client)
- LBS applications to be launched next year with external partners doing the applications
Q&A Session
Q: What are the carriers doing with advertisement in content delivery?
3: Italy & UK currently are doing this. Currently looking at this but very concerned on effect of the users
O: no plans
3: Italy & UK currently are doing this. Currently looking at this but very concerned on effect of the users
O: no plans
Q: What content do the carriers need?
3: Currently suffering from “Having too much skin” in content. Really need to look at more content for women. Have gaps in “functional content” versus entertainment content.
O: Majority of content is now from local 3rd parties. Plans in place to address its relevance to current customer base
3: Currently suffering from “Having too much skin” in content. Really need to look at more content for women. Have gaps in “functional content” versus entertainment content.
O: Majority of content is now from local 3rd parties. Plans in place to address its relevance to current customer base
Q: How much interest is there in user generated content?
3: Kink community is in this genre. In 2 months it has had 36K SMS/MMS, 450K comments & 1.3M votes. There is also an adult version of the product now
3: Kink community is in this genre. In 2 months it has had 36K SMS/MMS, 450K comments & 1.3M votes. There is also an adult version of the product now
Q: What are the carrier’s plans for Data Revenue sharing?
3: No plans
O: No plans
3: No plans
O: No plans
UK 3G report shows browsing the web a major winner.
December 13, 2005
The guys over at OpenGardens would be happy to see this recent report from Telephia in the UK shows that 3G users are primarily using their devices to browse the Internet.
Internet sites have come around quickly in developing for small screen devices. It was only a year or 2 ago that mobile web sites were the proverbial Loch Ness monster of the Internet.
Within the next 12 months we shall see large scale non-carrier based mobile portals rising from the Internet to embrace the lucky individuals whose mobile data plans allow a cost effective browsing experience.
Although mobile web browsing is the main participation on the device, more than one-third of 3G subscribers use their carriers content portal exclusively. The majority of those would be viewing that content without data costs.
Within 3 years, the majority of Internet browsing (# of people, not Mbs) will be via mobile devices.
If your company is not planning mobile development and integration into your products and services now, you will die trying later.
Get Iconized!
December 7, 2005
Steve Rubel at Micro Persuasion has a post about a unique service where you can get your photo cartooned or "Inconized" as they state it.
Iconize me is a site where you get to choose from 3 different graphic artists (2 of whom at the moment are back logged) to create your image. It costs USD$50 via PayPal.
This is a great idea for professional Bloggers who want to add some artistic bling to ther site.
Nokia N90 user video examples
December 7, 2005
The "This better be in my stocking for Christmas" Nokia N90 is getting great reviews around the traps.
The Gadgets Weblog has some excellent examples posted of the N90 being used to film a band in a night club.
Very impressive quality for a mobile phone especially in that type of low light.
Interested in an Australian Blogging conference?
December 7, 2005
Duncan Reilly over at the Blog Herald is investigating people’s interest in doing an Australian Blogging Conference.
If you are interested in helping out head over to his site to register your interest.
Albert Einstein World Wide Webcast
December 2, 2005
"Beyond Einstein" is a webcast that is currently running about
"A 12 HOUR LIVE WEBCAST ON EINSTEIN’S THEORY OF RELATIVITY…AND BEYOND. "
The webcast is going for 12 hours and includes interviews with some of the world’s greatest scientific minds like Stephen Hawkins
You can also access the archived webcasts on the site if you missed it.
“Nerdvana in a box” – Great review of the XBOX360
November 29, 2005
Found this great very detailed review on the XBOX360 here. Paul Thurrott does a wonderful job of going through all the nerdy details about the XBOX360’s wonderful bits and pieces.
Thurrott reviews the following,
- The core unit
- wireless controllers
- media remote control
- Live headset
- Dashboard & guide
- games backwards compatibility to Xbox 1.x
- playing CDs & DVDs
- Media Center Features & connecting to PC content.
- Xbox live subscriptions
- Accessories available.
Engadget switching off the conversation.
November 23, 2005
The Blog Herald points out that Engadget is switching off their comments due to spam and erroneous comments.
I guess they have reached the level of corporate wisdom where their markets don’t need conversations.
This is a damn shame as Engadget lead the way for many other sites like it.
Universal Convergence 