unmediated: Tracking the tools that decentralize the media. 

Originally from uber tv clippings.reblog by gav reBlogged on Dec 5, 2007, 6:27PM

New technologies go through several distinct stages or inflection points in their growth; price, mass or market adoption, and commoditization. For DVD, the tipping point in cost came in the late 90’s when DVD players finally dropped below $400. Shortly thereafter, the critical mass factor kicked in…20% of homes had a DVD player. And now we have commoditization in that players can be had for $25-$50. And it all snowballed once the price inflection point was hit. I said all that to say this…iTunes movie pricing has been a thorn in the side of major studios for a while now, and it seems they’ve finally gotten Apple to back down.

“…studios such as 20th Century Fox have been successful in convincing Apple to pay a higher wholesale price of $15 per movie—just $3 less than the average price of a brick-and-mortar DVD. What this means for the actual selling price of a movie in the iTunes Store remains to be seen, but this deal apparently secures more studio support for doing things like including an iTunes-optimized copy of the movie on store-bought Enhanced DVDs.”

The good news is you’ll probably have greater selection of digital movies, as it is more attractive for studios to come to the party.. The bad news is that this will make the decision to buy online less clear cut from a monetary standpoint, and quite possibly will limit adoption.

Songza, a music search engine from Humanized, sports a beautiful interface that leaves MusicIP, SeeqPod, and SkreemR scratching in the dust.

The music quality isn't great. It's streamed from YouTube. It may even be illegal. But how can you not love a product that so eloquently integrates a rich, viral feature set with transparent messages and a sinfully delicious pie menu?

Strange Connections

IxDA thread about Songza. Aza Raskin will be speaking at Interaction 08.

Nice list of interface design quotes.

Here comes another bubble.

The IA Institute is hiring an Executive Director. Spread the word!

Moviebeam was a project that utilized un-used TV spectrum to wirelessly beam films to a Moviebeam receiver, with the goal of avoiding the bottlenecks of the Internet. If Moviebeam utilized the web for its service, they'd be pumping out over 10GB worth of data to each user, every week. The system excited a few people early on, including TCP/IP co-creator Vint Cerf. Unfortunately for Moviebeam, the quality of the service was never all that hot -- and they've had significant business problems along the way. Engadget says they're emailing existing customers to say they'll be closing up shop as of December 15.
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Jeff Jarvis ably shreds NY Times editor Bill Keller’s straw men. Sadly, Keller and other major media people are still making this a bloggers against professional journalists question, which is not the question at all, or at least hasn’t been for anyone who actually knows anything about the development of new media.

Sheesh.

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This morning USA Today’s story, “AT&T flings cellphone network wide open,†made it seem that AT&T was doing something new, says Om Malik. He’s skeptical.

According to the USA Today story, AT&T customers can now ditch their AT&T phones and use any wireless phone, device and software application from any maker — think smartphones, e-mail and music downloading. And they don’t have to sign a contract.

“You can use any handset on our network you want,” says Ralph de la Vega, CEO of AT&T’s wireless business. “We don’t prohibit it, or even police it.”

Everything that Google has promised to bring to the wireless market a year from now AT&T is doing today, de la Vega says. “We are the most open wireless company in the industry.”

But Malik spoke with CEO de la Vega following the Google Android announcement, and he made precisely the same statements and said that AT&T was already doing what Verizon was announcing.

Engadget concurs:

Yes, you can take your AT&T SIM, put it in an unlocked device, and run it on their network without much hassle — but that doesn’t make AT&T any more “open” than the final-say testing facility Verizon intends to use in “openly” making approvals (and disapprovals) of devices and software.

AT&T has historically made rates and devices more attractive for approved AT&T products, much like other carriers. With a lower rate, customers sign a 1 or 2 year service contract and accept a device locked to AT&T’s network (like the Apple iPhone). It is easier for AT&T and T-Mobile to provide a more open network. They have SIM cards that consumers can pop into competing GSM phones.

((( Melbourne Digital Fringe getting it's annual mobile projections underway. See live streams on the site for the next few days ... jp )))

Originally from , ReBlogged by jeanpoole on Oct 14, 2007 at 06:54 PM