Myspace TV Is in Panasonic Viera Connected TV Box [with video]

January 10, 2012

Myspace chose 2012 International CES and Panasonic Viera Connect-enabled HDTVs as its first public initiative to become more than a late-night comedian’s punchline, bringing Justin Timberlake on stage to announce the launch of Myspace TV. Viera Connect is Panasonic’s connected TV platform.

Timberlake is a major investor and co-owner of the social platform, so it makes sense to use his considerable star wattage to light up Myspace chief executive officer Tim Vanderhook as the new over-the-top television service was unveiled. The emphasis of Myspace TV is on connecting people around the programming they collectively choose to watch, which is intended to restore the value of real-time TV as it effects deeper engagement, simplified discovery, and interaction – which at its most basic level creates fan communities to comment, rate, chat and evangelize to friends.

“We’re ready to take television and entertainment to the next step by upgrading it to the social networking experience,” Timberlake said. “Why text or email your friends to talk about your favorite programs after they’ve aired when you could be sharing the experience with real-time interactivity from anywhere across the globe? This is the evolution of one of our greatest inventions, the television. And, we no longer have to crowd around the same one to experience it together.”

Myspace, which apparently has demoted its capital letter S, has a seriously undervalued vault full of music and music video rights. It initially will leverage these for Myspace TV when it launches in the next few months, but promises it will expand to enfold broadcast and on-demand movies, news, sports, unscripted shows and anything else on TV within its social embrace. A companion app will be available on tablets and smartphones. At the moment, Myspace is giving its TV service a workout in invitation-only beta.

Vanderhook’s statement: “Myspace was the first successful social network because it allowed individuals to share their interests, listen to music, express their creativity and connect around the things they love. Historically, TV has been a shared experience, as people gathered together to watch their favorite programs. Our belief was that we could enhance the TV experience by increasing viewers’ ability to connect to both content and each other. By partnering with Panasonic, we’re bringing together the content that people love and a social experience in one service: Myspace TV.”

Joseph Taylor, chairman chief executive officer, Panasonic Corp. of North America: “Year after year, Panasonic’s Viera Connect Smart Viera TV platform has continued to expand rapidly but with a singular focus to deliver to our consumers an extremely robust and interactive connected TV experience that can be customized and enjoyed on their large-screen HDTVs. We are proud to partner with the new Myspace on the debut of Myspace TV on our Viera Connect Smart TV platform. By partnering with a brand like Myspace on the Viera Connect Smart TV platform, we’re taking connected TV to a whole new level of engaging, interactive experiences for consumers.”

Related links:

http://www.myspace.com/tv

http://www.myspace.com/music/blog/2012/1/9/the-new-myspace-tv-will-blow-your-mind

http://shop.panasonic.com/shop/viera-televisions

http://www.justintimberlake.com

Photo shows Justin Timberlake as Sean Parker in “The Social Network”

The Echo Nest Adds Twitter to Its Music Toolkit

digitalmediawi

January 10, 2012

A partnership announced today between The Echo Nest and Twitter makes it simple to incorporate the immediacy of tweets into a recording artist’s app, preserving the all-important data identifiers along the way.

The Echo Nest made this possible by doing a sophisticated cross-reference between artists with Twitter’s Verified Accounts and those in its Rosetta Stone service. As its name implies, the Rosetta Stone platform translates unique music identifiers across various services. If this was as easy as it sounds, that whole story about the Tower of Babel would have had a different ending.

“The Echo Nest’s cutting-edge music data platform will enable thousands of developers to build new ways for music fans and artists to connect on Twitter,” said Glenn Otis Brown, Twitter director of media business development. “The sky’s the limit on the creative Twitter music applications that the Echo Nest’s developers can now build.”

Discovr Music is the first app to incorporate the new capabilities. Developers also could enrich the context by integrating tweets from a currently-playing artist alongside music, lyrics, blog posts, photos or other media. Going further, how about a Coachella app that adds tweets as it plays songs and shows photos of the bands on the music festival’s schedule?

“Twitter is arguably the most important and immediate artist-to-fan communication medium in the world. Until now, there was no simple way for developers to integrate musicians’ tweets directly into their applications,” said Jim Lucchese, chief executive officer of The Echo Nest. “By making it easy for our community of over 10,000 application developers to integrate artists’ tweets into their apps through our API, The Echo Nest hopes to enhance their music apps by extending Twitter to this new terrain while bringing fans closer to the artists they love.”

Spotify and Clear Channel’s iHeartRadio are among the services that use The Echo Nest technology, and more than 250 applications have been built on The Echo Nest platform. Twitter will now add even more bits and bytes to the more than 5 billion data points on over 30 million songs in The Echo Nest system.

Related links:

http://the.echonest.com

http://twitter.com/verified/#/music

http://notes.variogr.am/post/10733372290/music-resolving-facebook

http://dmwmedia.wpengine.com/?s=echo+nest

BuzzFeed Raises $15.5 Million for Social Content

digitalmediawi

January 10, 2012

BuzzFeed, which aggregates content being shared socially, has raised $15.5 million in a round led by New Enterprise Associates (NEA) with participation from Lerer Ventures, Hearst Interactive Media, Softbank and RRE.

Patrick Kerins, general partner at NEA will join BuzzFeed’s board, and Lerer Ventures manager Kenneth Lerer will become executive chairman. Additionallly, Criteo president Greg Coleman has joined the company as an active advisor.

Several BuzzFeed names have The Huffington Post on their resume: Lerer was manager and co-founder, Coleman was president, and BuzzFeed’s chief executive officer and co-founder Jonah Peretti also co-founded the Huffington Post.

“The baton has been passed from print to the traditional web and now from the traditional web to social,” Peretti said. “The entire industry is shifting, and we intend to be the leader in social publishing.”

BuzzFeed reports it gets over 25 million monthly unique visitors, which is triple that of a year ago, thanks to closer integration with social sites like Facebook, Twitter and StumbleUpon. Its revenue comes from what it calls social advertising – advertorial items that fit in with the site’s general mix of memes, celebrity quirks and oddball news – which has been used by brands that include GE, Disney and Microsoft.

The site extended itself in an unexpected direction when in January Ben Smith left Politico to serve as editor-in-chief. He quickly brought actual reporters on to his team to handle politics and other election-related coverage, which recently began appearing on BuzzFeed in a designated section of the landing page.

Related links:

http://www.buzzfeed.com

http://www.nea.com

AdWeek – BuzzFeed Lands $15.5 Million to Expand Content

New York Times’ Media Decoder – BuzzFeed Raises $15.5 Million in Financing

Vator News – BuzzFeed gets $15.5M funding, expands original content

Photo by Flickr user epSos.de, used under Creative Commons license

Jay Z Charges Up Duracell Powermat

digitalmediawi

January 10, 2012

Entrepreneur Shawn Carter, better known to his millions of fans as the 13-time Grammy Award winning musician Jay Z, has invested in Duracell Powermat, the joint venture formed in September 2011 by Procter & Gamble’s Duracell brand and Powermat Technologies. He also signed a multi-year global agreement to be the face and voice of the Duracell Powermat JV.

“I believe in the future of wireless energy and I believe that Duracell Powermat is the company to bring on the revolution,” Jay Z said. “I’m partnering with Duracell Powermat because they’re providing the solutions for the future.”

The news was announced at 2012 International CES, where Duracell Powermat is exhibiting its products that let consumers charge their devices wirelessly by placing them on the special surface. Each device individually pairs with the charging mat, which automatically stops sending power once the device is fully charged. Devices need to have a special case or replacement battery door, but the company said it expects to have the receiver built into devices.

“Jay Z is power personified. He inspires millions of people all over the world on a daily basis with his music and his story,” said Ran Poliakine, chief executive officer of Powermat Technologies. “There is no better face or voice that can move people to adopt a new paradigm in power delivery.”

The Duracell Powermat joint venture began operation in January 2012, with P&G’s Ron Rabinowitz as its chief executive officer.

Related links:

http://www.duracellpowermat.us

http://rocnation.com/jayz

Frequency Tailors Sit-Back Channels from Online Video

digitalmediawi

January 10, 2012

Personal video aggregation platform Frequency has made its formal debut, launching its first official consumer products after going live in beta about 18 months ago. In addition to online and on iPad, and perhaps more interestingly, the Frequency app also will come packaged with Samsung’s line of Smart TVs.

Frequency aims to eliminate the need to browse through numerous different social networks, blogs, media sites with real-time news, entertainment and sports, and all of the other places that include video. It does this by aggregating video from those scattered locations into custom channels that are updated in real time, and that continue to refine themselves as they learn what the viewer watches. Viewers alternatively can choose to watch videos from a single source or chosen on different criteria by using Frequency’s virtual tuner interface.

Frequency’s tuner is a watchband-style guide that shows branded channels, smart channels, trending topics, and videos being shared on the user’s social networks. The channels synch themselves across the cloud, so it’s always up to date regardless of which of the consumer’s screens it’s accessed on.

“Frequency brings together, in one powerful and easy-to-use experience, all the great internet video that people want to watch,” founder and chief executive officer Blair Harrison said in a statement. “For the first time, every online video a user wants to see is available in one place, and accessible on any device. Frequency is a real time solution that keeps you updated with video news, entertainment, what your friends are sharing and your interests, anytime and anywhere.”

Frequency today also announced a partnership with global cloud content services firm Brightcove that includes integration between Brightcove’s Video Cloud online video platform and Frequency’s global services platform.

Besides snagging a good URL, Harrison brings considerable experience in online entertainment to Frequency. He was chief executive officer of iFilm, a pioneer of user generated content that was sold to Viacom in 2005 and subsequently became part of Spike. Before that he was founder and chief technology officer of FasTV, which as early as 1999 offered viewers current and archived video clips from more than 30 content partners including CNN, Bloomberg, New Line Cinema and the American Film Institute.

Related links:

http://www.frequency.com

http://www.samsung.com/us/smarttv

AllThingsD – Frequency, a TV Guide for Web Video, Tries a New Look

Frequency and Brightcove – press release

Code Factory's Mobile Accessibility Free to Sprint Customers [with demo video]

digitalmediawi

January 10, 2012

Sprint is offering Code Factory’s Mobile Accessibility suite free of charge to customers who are blind, visually impaired, or otherwise cannot read smartphone screens. The apps, which normally sell for $99, are available in English and Spanish.

Mobile Accessibility features a simplified user interface for Android phones. It also uses voice synthesis to read textual information aloud, and users can input using either the virtual keyboard or speech recognition. Sound and vibration cues can be set to suit the user’s preferences.

Some of the basic but essential functions it enables are: phone, including hearing caller ID, missed calls, call logs, and date and time; contacts; SMS, with a much larger virtual keyboard and optional sounding of each letter; alarms; calendar; email; and a dedicated key that uses GPS to inform the user about their current location.

“Having the ability to gain greater access to information on smartphones through the use of a free suite of applications is a very positive development in the blind community’s quest for more affordable choices,” said Mitch Pomerantz, president of the American Council of the Blind. “The American Council of the Blind commends Sprint for its willingness to take another positive step toward full product accessibility.”

http://www.sprint.com/landings/accessibility

Akamai Delivers on UltraViolet and Secure HD

digitalmediawi

January 9, 2012

Akamai introduced the latest advances in its delivery platform today, while the media’s attention is drawn to the intersection of entertainment and technology by 2012 International CES. Among other things, it now provides full support for UltraViolet and other emerging business models that require security for premium content combined with ease of use and a seamless consumer experience.

The Akamai for UltraViolet solution provides high quality video streaming using adaptive bitrate technologies delivered to all types of Internet-connected computers and devices with Akamai SecureHD content management. It also features the UltraViolet Coordinator to handle access code redemption, account management and stream management.

Akamai is an UltraViolet licensee, acting as an integration point between the movie studios, technology providers, consumer device makers, entertainment retailers and video service providers that are part of the Digital Entertainment Content Ecosystem (DECE).

“B2B service providers like Akamai are utilizing UltraViolet’s open-specs design ability to accelerate retailers’ and other service providers’ deployment, with premium-quality enablement and delivery on a rapid-deployment and cost-efficient basis,” Mark Teitell, general manager of DECE, said in a statement. “Akamai is helping the deployment of UltraViolet move to the next phase as we continue to seek to provide consumers with access to their favorite movies and TV shows in ways never thought possible. Congratulations to Akamai for bringing this suite of solutions to market.”

The Akamai HD Network, the company’s broadcast solution, offers advanced monetization capabilities, business model flexibility and simplified workflow to reach the growing number of assorted devices and access points consumers are choosing to use from wherever they happen to be.

“Cloud computing, ubiquitous connectivity, and the increasing consumption of IP video are driving content providers to move more content to the cloud and users to expect access to content on multiple devices,” said Bill Wheaton, senior vice president of Digital Media at Akamai. “Akamai is committed to reducing the complexities of the hyperconnected world by providing a platform that delivers the best user experience, securely, for any device type. By helping our customers solve the business challenges across security, multi-device delivery and analytics, we’re continuing to enable them to focus on their core business strategies.”

Related links:

http://www.akamai.com/ultraviolet

http://www.akamai.com/html/solutions/hdnetwork.html

Photo courtesy of Akamai

Serious Games Spreads 'The Plague' to iPads

digitalmediawi

January 9, 2012

Serious Games Interactive brought the plague to the iPad, but it’s not a computer virus. The company’s award-winning educational game Playing History: The Plague has spread off of the PC and on to the more portable tablet where the company hopes even more students can learn from it.

The idea is to change how children think about history by having them uncover key concepts and facts. By exploring via an interactive environment, young people will have fun while gaining an understanding of important historical events.

Players in The Plague are part of a family in 14th century Florence, Italy, and they must save their mother from the usually fatal illness sweeping the city. Doing this requires journeys through the city, investigating how people live, talking to religious, science and other people of the time, and discovering ways to cure the disease as well as to prevent it from spreading – especially to the player. Another in the series, Playing History: Slave Trade, will be available for iPad early 2012.

“We have worked towards finding the right balance between play and learning and we believe we managed that with Playing History.” Mikkel Lucas Overby, commercial director at Serious Games Interactive, said in a statement. “For many children, our past is unknown territory. Games may be today’s dominant entertainment medium but, as we’re demonstrating with Playing History that they’re also a powerful tool to develop and expand children’s knowledge and competences.”

Related link:

http://www.playinghistory.eu

App Development Costs Exceed Earnings [with chart]

digitalmediawi

January 9, 2012

According to mobile research and consultancy firm research2guidance, 2011 saw application download revenues of $ 6.8 billion. Meanwhile, the market for mobile app development services reached $20.5 billion during the same period.

The recently released report found that most app project revenue comes from the fundamentals: concept creation, design and coding. Additional services like app libraries, white label solutions and multiplatform app development tools are growing in popularity but still don’t match the market share spent on the basics.

Prices to get the work done vary widely, with U.K. developers charging an average $626 per day while their competitors in India charge an average daily rate of $138.

That daily rate isn’t everything, however. “App development partners using price as the main criteria for selection will not be lead to an optimal solution as most of the price differences are offset by the additional time needed by offshore app developers,” research2guidance said.

Related links:

Report – “The Market for Mobile Application Development Services (2010-2015) – Selling the Spades to the App Gold Diggers”

research2guidance blog post – http://tinyurl.com/6nrs5jo

Photo by Flickr user JD Hancock, used under Creative Commons license

Trapit Gets $6.2 Million for Personal Web Curation

digitalmediawi

January 9, 2012

Trapit, which delivers relevant content dynamically tailored to each individual user, has closed a $6.2 million Series A round of venture funding led by returning investor Horizon Ventures of Hong Kong. Additionally, Rob Majteles, who is founder and managing partner of Treehouse Capital and a venture partner with Oak Investment Partners, has joined the board of directors.

Users can choose a pre-curated “trap” of content or start their own. Collected content includes news, blogs posts, reviews, videos and more, and the heuristic technology more accurately tailors content to users over time, like a digital personal assistant for search results. It currently delivers nearly 4 million articles to users each day.

Trapit is currently in public beta. The funding will go toward development and research, and will support expansion to mobile platforms.

“We’re proud to announce our Series A led by Horizon Ventures, as well as the addition of Rob Majteles to the board,” Gary Griffiths, chief executive officer and co-founder at Trapit, said in a statement. “There is an enormous opportunity in front of us as the continued growth of content on the web outstrips traditional search and demands new technologies that enable discovery and personalization.”

SRI International’s CALO Project (“Cognitive Assistant that Learns and Organizes”) forms the foundation of Trapit, as it does Apple’s Siri personal assistant.

Trapit was founded in 2009 and is based in Palo Alto, California. In addition to Majteles and Griffiths, Trapit’s board includes: Henry Nothhaft, Jr., co-founder and chief product officer of Trapit; Steve Ciesinski, SRI representative; and Frank Meehan, Horizons Ventures representative.

Related links:

http://trap.it

http://blog.trap.it

https://pal.sri.com/Plone/framework