Video Blogging Tools - Still Room For Improvement
Anick Jesdanun (The Associated Press)
Thursday, November 17, 2005First came words, then came photos. Now, many web journals are incorporating moving images -- and one blogging service aims to make producing and displaying such video easier.
Unlike most of its popular rivals, the TypePad service from Six Apart Ltd. costs money. But with your subscription fee, which starts at $4.95 U.S. a month, you get free tools for creating and hosting your own photo albums -- and now a pair of programs for video.
The simpler of the two video programs comes from VideoEgg Inc. Go to http://typepad.videoegg.com , enter your account information and download a small plug-in for your browser.
You can then drag a video file from your hard drive or produce one with your camcorder or webcam. It's easy, and if you exceed the two-minute limit, a slider lets you choose a shorter segment. You can even send video from your mobile phone to VideoEgg's service.
And because all video is converted by VideoEgg's software to Macromedia Inc.'s Flash, you don't need to worry about what file formats your blog reader can view. Most browsers, even those on Mac computers, already have Flash.
(You need Windows 2000 or XP to produce the video, though. VideoEgg doesn't yet have a Mac version.)
Uploading the video to VideoEgg was slow at times, and larger files caused my browser to freeze. I'll give VideoEgg a little leeway because the software is still formally in a "beta" test. (TypePad itself has been slow of late as well, but Six Apart says it is moving data centers to expand capacity.)
A larger complaint is the lack of integration with TypePad. I had to go to a separate web address and consequently lost some of the features normally available when posting only text and photos.
Plus, VideoEgg reserves the right to eventually charge for the service or display ads with video postings. If it were truly integrated, the service would already be covered by TypePad's regular subscription fees.
The other video program had even less integration. Vlog It from Serious Magic Inc. is a separate download, and TypePad users get a free version with a 90-second video limit.
Alas, the limited edition wasn't available for my deadline, so I tried out a beta of the full version.
The software is impressive. It let me create a professional-looking newscast, customized with my name, title and choice of background graphics. But it was essentially a separate program. It didn't feel a part of TypePad. In fact, I posted my video instead on Google Inc.'s Blogger service.
Serious Magic says its free, limited edition will post only to TypePad; the regular version will sell for $49.95 U.S.
Both video offerings are worth looking at, but I'd wait for better integration before signing up for TypePad solely for these tools.
New Era of Online Dating Begins
Today marks the launch of a new, revolutionary
dating site which takes advantage of the popularity of the iPod.
Poddater.com allows users to create video introductions which can be viewed by iPod users. This means a new era of dating has begun. Now you don't even need your computer! Just hop on your iPod and you're in!
PodDater is the first of it's kind and it is likely to stir up it's fair share of excitement from the iPod crowd. We're confident that this type of service will become increasingly utilized by people "on-the-go", where not even sitting down at a computer is an option.
Great innovation, great site, very exciting.
Podcasting For Profits!
Reported on MSN Money
Upstarts, venture capitalists and media giants are hard at work trying to figure out how to make podcasting pay, BusinessWeek reported.
They're experimenting with advertisements, subscriptions, even with having on-air personalities talk up certain products, according to the magazine. Podcast pioneer Adam Curry is launching a podcast network, with 30 to 50 shows that will split ad revenues.
Our Take:Oh boy, oh boy! Just imagine the fame and fortune. Let's face it, anyone who has started out doing a podcast, and is still with it, is probably doing it for something other than the money. Maybe there s an element of fame involved. God knows, nobody would know about Billy Joe's Patio Podcast (<-- Don't steal that idea, it's mine. Called it!) otherwise.
Is there money to be made? Oh probably, just take a look at iPod sales. I'm pretty sure that we don't need the father of podcasting, Adam Curry, to tell us that. The real question here is, will podcasting benefit by profitibility? Will the roots of podcasting, the pirate radio of the present day, be ruined by commercialism? That remains to be seen.
Apple Picking On The Little Guy (iPodder Lemon)
As reported at
ZDNet.co.uk, publishers of the open source podcasting tool iPodder Lemon have been forced to change the name of their application due to pressure from Apple's legal department.
Apple's legal team asked the company to drop the name as it suggested an affiliation with their iPod device. Since that time the application has been renamed to
Juice.
Scott Grayban, a developer of Juice, expressed his disapproval stating, "It's disappointing to see a large company such as Apple go after a small open source project, and just shortly after we had over 1 million downloads."
A web posting following the change expressed different sentiments. Garth T Kidd indicated, "Fortunately for us, Apple's lawyers were polite almost to the point of being apologetic — and entirely reasonable. It's not appropriate for me to go into the details of our arrangement but I can say I don't feel hard done by. Sure I wouldn't have minded not having to change our name, but that couldn't really be avoided"
Apple has not commented on the incident.
We ask that you continue to support this flexible, open-source application. Check out their new site at
http://juicereceiver.sourceforge.net/index.php
Podcast Directory - Podcast Empire - Grows Again!
We would like to announce that the
PodcastEmpire.com Podcast Directory has added more than 17 Thousand (17 000!) Podcast episodes to its directory!
We are growing quickly and should break 20 thousand episodes in our Podcast Directory within the next few weeks!
We just wanted to let everyone know the good news and send out a Thank you to everyone for their continued support and constructive feedback.
So tell all your friends and check back everyday to see the most popular podcasts of the week, or check out a new episode from something a little less popular!
We wil be expanding again shortly so watch for the changes!!!
Also, we are considering a "friends of PodCast Empire" page, so if you would like us to add a link back to your site, just send us an email at
PodcastEmpire@gmail.comThanks, and talk to you soon.
