A new iPhone app called Threadlife wants to be the Instagram of video sharing, enabling users to create three-second clips and thread them together in private or public streams to create social video reels.
The service was created by Zappos founder and former CEO Nick Swimrun along with Ken Martin, co-founder and CEO of design company BLITZ Agency. It launches today as invite only.
“What sets Threadlife apart from other video apps, its creators say, is that its three-second limit eliminates any need for editing, a major obstacle for the success of video-sharing,” CNET writes. “It’s much easier to apply filters on photos to make them look better than it is to edit a long video clip. The three-second clips are more like photos that can be strung together, Martin said.”
Public threads can be shared through Facebook, Twitter or the Threadlife network. There’s no limit on the number of clips or “stitches” that can be threaded together; users can sort clips by date or creator. Clips can also be moved to different threads.
The app also allows private threads for personal conversations between friends.
“Eventually, the Threadlife team hopes to incorporate tagging and location-specific information, and adding ways to make money off the service, like inserting video ads into threads or charging for extra storage space,” CNET writes. “Martin said there’s also plans to expand to other devices to desktop.”
In the last 12 months, Apple has sold 5.3 million Apple TV devices while Roku sold 1.4 million set-top boxes. Boxee has lagged behind both its competitors, selling only 120,000 of its devices last year. However, a new deal with Walmart could dramatically boost Boxee’s sales.
“Starting tomorrow, the world’s biggest retailer will exclusively sell the new $98 product, called Boxee TV, in more than 3,000 U.S. locations during the holiday season,” Bloomberg reports. “Walmart will set up displays and send out marketing materials for the device, a small black box with a remote control that can access free TV broadcast channels as well as Internet content.”
Boxee CEO Avner Ronen says the retail partnership is a “big launch” for the company and its products. “There’s a big difference between having your product being carried by retailers, where it sits on the shelf, and getting real marketing behind it,” he says.
Boxee provides access to Internet content like Pandora and Netflix while also capturing over-the-air TV signals.
“You turn on the TV, and it’s a familiar ground,” Ronen says. “We don’t believe the future of the TV is going to be a future filled with apps. When you turn on the TV, you don’t want 60 icons. You just want to watch something.”
“Included in Boxee TV is a service called No Limits DVR,” Bloomberg explains, “which lets customers record unlimited broadcast TV shows to the cloud and access them from the set-top box or from a computer, smartphone or tablet. It will be available in about eight of the largest U.S. cities to start, Ronen said.”
Google signs a deal with Warner Music Group which will bring artists such as Green Day, Madonna, Neil Young, the Red Hot Chili Peppers and hundreds of other acts to its Play store.
“We’re now working with all of the major record labels globally, and all the major U.S. magazine publishers, as well as many independent labels, artists and publishers,” – Andy Rubin, Google’s SVP for mobile and digital content.
Google’s music store will open in Western Europe on Nov. 13 and will introduce a “scan and match” capability which matches songs on a customer’s computer to a master database on Google’s servers eliminating the need to upload every single song. This feature will later come to the U.S.
Warner, which comprises 15 percent of the world’s recorded music market, is the last big music label to be added to Google.
David Carr of the New York Times has written a fascinating piece in which he discusses how he used Twitter during Hurricane Sandy to “see” what was happening around him as it was happening.
“Because my Internet connection was poor, so much of the rich media — amazing videos and pictures documenting the devastation — was lost to me. In true media throwback fashion, Hurricane Sandy was something I experienced as a text event, but I don’t feel as if I missed much. The Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel inundation, the swamping of the Lower East Side, the huge problems at New York hospitals, the stranding of the holdouts in Atlantic City, all became apparent on Twitter in vivid detail.”
There were tweets from Reuters, NPR, the New York Times and many others, as well as, those from friends distant and down the street. There was also misinformation and rumors spread and discounted at Internet speed.
“Margaret Sullivan, the public editor of The New York Times, said in a message on Twitter that whatever the quality of the feed at any given moment, it was riveting: ‘Impossible to tear one’s eyes from, with occasional nuggets of helpfulness amid constant stream of flotsam and jetsam.’”
“It was hard to resist. Twitter not only keeps you in the data stream, but because you can contribute and re-tweet, you feel as if you are adding something even though Mother Nature clearly has the upper hand. The activity of it, the sharing aspect, the feeling that everyone is in the boat and rowing, is far different from consuming mass media.”
Twitter became “a great place to laugh, cry, argue, sympathize together.”
U.S. military and intelligence officials have expressed concerns that certain Chinese tech companies could be used for cyber espionage, claims that have mostly stayed under wraps in an effort to maintain foreign relations. A congressional investigation has concluded that telecommunications firm Huawei Technologies Inc. and ZTE are dangerous to the U.S.
“In a report to be released [October 8], the [House intelligence] committee recommends that the U.S. block acquisitions or mergers involving the two companies through the Committee on Foreign Investments in the U.S.,” reports the Wall Street Journal. “It also recommends that the U.S. government avoid using equipment from the firms, and that U.S. companies seek alternative vendors for telecommunications equipment.”
Both companies have worked to allay U.S. concerns with transparency, responding to information requests. The report rebuts these efforts.
“Neither company was willing to provide sufficient evidence to ameliorate the committee’s concerns,” said a draft of the committee’s report. “The risks associated with Huawei’s and ZTE’s provisions of equipment to U.S. critical infrastructure could undermine core U.S. national security interests.”
ZTE is a publicly traded company, with 15.68 percent of the company owned by state enterprises. ZTE denies that it would allow the Chinese government to use its equipment for surveillance, “saying it wouldn’t be in [its] business interests to do so,” notes WSJ.
The article also notes that company spokesman William Plummer claims Huawei is “independent of the Chinese government and that security of its systems remains a top priority.”
Plummer says the U.S. claim “ignores technical and commercial realities, recklessly threatens American jobs and innovation, does nothing to protect national security.”
Entertainment industry reps gathered at the second annual DOE Network Association (DNA) Conference earlier this month at USC.
The DOE industry includes business interests involving theme parks, education and edutainment, retail and mall advertising and enhancement, exergaming and more.
“Many of the attendees are involved in pressing the limits of digital technology and physical design to greatly expand the storytelling and engagement possibilities of out-of-home venues,” reports Phil Lelyveld for ETC@USC (the event was covered as part of the ETC’s service to its membership).
Consultant Randy White of White Hutchinson Leisure explained that 60 percent of arcade dollars have shifted to home entertainment in the last five years.
“Americans go to the movies on average four times per year. But they eat out approximately 167 times per year,” Phil writes. “Dining is a highly social experience. The top 20 percent of income households account for 48 percent of out-of-home spending.”
White suggests that arcades retool facilities to “attract this upscale market with restaurants, Wi-Fi-equipped lounges, and games that allow for more group social and competitive activities.”
Kevin Williams, organizer of the DNA conference, discussed the industry’s need to better embrace technology.
“There is no reason, he argued, why devices could not recognize players when they return to a facility, coordinate communications as they interact with devices throughout the facility, and — if they opt-in — connect them with people who have similar interests and skill levels anywhere on the planet,” notes the post.
“The DOE industry can compete with rapidly improving home and personal entertainment options by offering attractive, safe locations to socialize, access high-end specialized devices, and have location-specific blended physical and virtual experiences.”
Enliken, a new startup with a staff of eight and $200,000 in seed funding, encourages consumers to control how they’re tracked online and then sell that data to advertisers.
“Enliken enables people to control and use their own data. We capture the value created by its use,” says co-founder Marc Guldimann. “We think that letting individuals offer a competing product in the marketplace for consumer data is the most efficient and least destructive way to move the Internet to a privacy-friendly space.”
The proceeds from the data sales goes to a charity of the user’s choice. Enliken takes a ten percent cut of the sales, which comes in around $1 per user per month.
Unlike other services, Enliken offers an all-encompassing view of online behavior and doesn’t require any input from users.
A personal dashboard allows users to customize what information gets captured and sold to advertisers. “The company’s founders hope that, someday, users will be able to earn a wide range of perks — from airline miles to online news subscriptions — in exchange for their information,” reports The New York Times.
Enliken has also unveiled a new feature to entice consumers. Called “Enliken for the People,” the feature shows users which elements of their personal data is harvested by other companies, but they must first install Enliken’s tracking software.
Some argue that people will still shy from tracking. “But as humans get educated about something, they move from a place of fear to a place where they want control over it. When you empower people to control something, you make them feel good,” says Guldimann.
Over the summer, Google applied its new artificial intelligence software to YouTube videos to recognize cats, faces and other objects just as the human brain does. The search giant is now leveraging this technology to improve its speech recognition to rival Apple’s Siri.
“Google’s learning software is based on simulating groups of connected brain cells that communicate and influence one another,” Technology Review explains.
“When such a neural network, as it’s called, is exposed to data, the relationships between different neurons can change. That causes the network to develop the ability to react in certain ways to incoming data of a particular kind — and the network is said to have learned something.”
This “learning” process allows the software to determine which features of data are relevant to the particular task at hand. In speech recognition, the neural networks allow Google’s Android OS and iOS search app to eliminate errors.
Currently, the software is only applied to U.S. English but will eventually be available for other languages.
“Other Google products will likely improve over time with help from the new learning software,” the article suggests. “The company’s image search tools, for example, could become better able to understand what’s in a photo without relying on surrounding text. And Google’s self-driving cars and mobile computer built into a pair of glasses could benefit from software better able to make sense of more real-world data.”
These neural networks are more flexible in that they can determine the context of data. They also mimic the visual cortex in mammals, which will help the technology to one day come close to human intelligence.
Users of SoundCloud can now offer their tracks for commercial licensing, thanks to a partnership with Getty Images Music.
The partnership “gives ‘media, advertisers, designers and creatives’ a new way to license fresh material — that’s because, in what is being described as ‘sync’ licensing, SoundCloud users can embed the license button immediately after they’ve hit publish, removing much of the friction traditionally associated with licensing music for visual projects,” details TechCrunch.
Commercial users can request a license by clicking the ‘license’ button, at which point the Getty Images Music licensing department takes control. “If the track has never been licensed before, the process is said to take between a few days or a few weeks, dependent on paperwork and the necessary clearance,” writes TechCrunch.
Getty Images Music will curate a SoundCloud collection, consisting of handpicked songs for commercial potential.
“Noteworthy is that Getty Images will be the commercial rights manager of the audio content selected for the SoundCloud collection, ensuring that all tracks are available for safe commercial use by customers — which is an important promise given SoundCloud’s ‘User-Generated’ nature,” notes the post.
At the New York Festival, representatives from AOL, College Humor, YouTube, Blip, MySpace, MSN and others converged in panels to discuss television in the digital age. GigaOM gives a brief overview of the four-hour event that was live-streamed and archived online.
“Research matters” according to folks at CW Digital who have received show pitches from people who have no understanding of the company or its audience.
“The great content creators, according to everyone on the Development panel, understand more than just making content — specifically, how to market that content on a social media level,” GigaOM writes.
To get more draw online, pick up celebrities with strong Twitter followings over celebrities who don’t; also, web celebs can create extra attention online.
Don’t just hire people who are in it for the money – find people who actually understand and care about digital.
At the beginning, avoid exclusivity. Then, as the show develops, look for companies offering good deals with an emphasis on strong promotion to get the necessary push in an increasingly crowded market.
Check out the YouTube Creator Handbook to get more views.
The homegrown web series Lizzie Bennet Diaries from Hank Green and Bernie Su is teaming up with DECA.
Facebook’s decision to remove email addresses from user profiles has made it harder for Mark Malkoff to book celebrities for his Celebrity Sleepovers series. Even with the show’s notable guest list, the iJustine episode has been by far the most viewed segment of the series.
Blip CEO says “YouTube can be a great way to build your audience, but it’s not the only way to build your audience.”
Creators should experiment with various platforms and determine which works best for their content.
MySpace Entertainment president defends keeping the brand name because of past artists’ success on the platform.
Sony debuts two CineAlta pro cameras that will compete directly with RED.
Both cameras feature a new type of 4K Super 35mm image sensor with a 4096 x 2160 resolution.
Both support multi-codecs including Sony’s new XAVC MPEG-4 AVC/H.264 format, the SR codec (MPEG4 SStP) and the industry-standard High Definition XDCAM 50Mbps 4:2:2 codec.
Using the new AXS-R5 RAW recorder, slow-motion imagery can be captured at up to 240fps (PMW- F55) and up to 120fps (PMW- F5) as 4K RAW files on newly developed AXS memory.
The cameras support Sony’s new high-speed, SxS PRO memory cards in 128 and 64 GB capacities.
The new cameras are scheduled to be available in February 2013, with suggested list pricing to be announced.
Power outages throughout the Northeast were the main cause for the loss of more than 20% of cellphone tower sites in 10 states. Restoration is making slow progress down from the 25% rate on Tuesday.
“The crisis is not over,” Julius Genachowski, chairman of the F.C.C., said Wednesday. “Over all, the condition of our communications networks is improving, but serious outages remain, particularly in New York, New Jersey, and other hard-hit areas.”
The New York Times reported that 6 percent of Verizon Wireless’ cell sites remained down in storm-affected areas, but its switching and data centers “are functioning normally.” T-Mobile has roughly 20 percent of its network in New York City and 10 percent of its network in Washington that are out of service.
AT&T and T-Mobile customers will be able to use the networks of both companies in the affected areas of New York and New Jersey at no additional charge as their networks use similar technologies, so switching between them will be seamless.
When people shop at the International Finance Center Mall in Seoul, South Korea, they’re being watched as they approach any of the 26 informational kiosks.
“Just above each kiosk’s LCD touchscreen sit two cameras and a motion detector,” reports the Wall Street Journal. “As a visitor is recorded, facial-identity software estimates the person’s gender and age.”
SK Marketing & Co., which is running the system, plans to allow advertisers to tailor interactive ads to the attributes calculated by the software.
“Advertisers in big public spaces only have a general idea of who they’re reaching and they can only target ads at big audience segments,” explains Ahn Jae-heon, a senior planner for SK M&C. “This can offer more focus and customization for them.”
“The system, which is in data-collection phase now and will begin full operation early next year, is the first of its kind in South Korea and one of the first in the world,” according to WSJ.
Executives have said that no interactions will be recorded nor information stored. “They also won’t ask for any personal information from people as they use it,” adds the article.
“Where’s My Water?” started as a $1 iPhone-only game with just 80 levels. It has since expanded to multiple operating systems, added around 500 levels and seen more than 100 million downloads worldwide.
The game’s protagonist Swampy has become a merchandise sensation and will star in the upcoming animated series “Swampy’s Underground Adventures.” Bart Decrem, SVP and GM of Disney Mobile Games, talks about the game’s evolution into transmedia.
“We put out the simplest version of the game, with just enough levels to gauge players’ response,” he explains. “This allowed us to get to market very quickly, but one of the happy side effects was that it forced us to really focus on nailing the core of ‘Where’s My Water?’ — which led to a better experience for the players.”
“We then used community feedback and analytics to get a really deep understanding of what was working for our gamers, where they got stuck, and to keep refining the gameplay.”
“This is such an important platform for the company,” Decrem adds. “A whole new generation of Disney guests is growing up with their iPhones, iPads or Android devices as a primary screen — not to mention huge new markets like China and India opening up for the company. We have a huge opportunity to bring existing Disney characters and stories to life on this magical new canvas, but also to create new Disney characters here — characters that hopefully will stand the test of time.”
The game has had spinoffs with other Disney characters like Phineas and Ferb.
The upcoming “Swampy’s Underground Adventures” series follows Swampy the alligator “in his quest for acceptance, friendship, and adventure outside of the bathtub,” Decrem explains. “We created 12 episodes that are launching weekly on Disney.com and Disney’s Network on YouTube. There are also plans to premiere the shorts on Disney Channel beginning in November.”
Unlike tablets, which are well suited for news consumption, “the phone is dramatically different,” says Matt Galligan, CEO of mobile news app Circa. “You’re in line waiting for the subway or you’re in line for coffee and it’s kind of ‘gap time.’ Lengthy articles are very time intensive and attention intensive, and they are tough to consume on the phone.”
Circa was launched by Cheezburger Network CEO Ben Huh and co-founder Galligan with a goal to rethink the production of news in today’s fast-paced mobile society.
“The main idea is that the traditional article or story format that newspapers and other news outlets have produced for so many years no longer fits with the way we produce or consume information now,” writes GigaOM. “The standard ‘inverted pyramid’-style article was designed for the days when people might only see one report about a news event, printed on dead trees and without links, so it had to include virtually everything.”
“Now, however,” the article continues, “the news has become more of a process than an artifact, with multiple reports from different sources, updates, social links and other elements added over time. But news-reading formats remain more or less the same as they have always been.”
Circa looks to take advantage of that “gap time” by condensing news stories into small easily-consumed bits.
Galligan explains that Circa breaks news down into its “atomic units” rather than offering the entire news article. The units typically consist of facts, background information and other elements such as photos and quotes. The user has the option of what to read at any given time.
These “atomic units” allow articles to be updated with incoming information and users can “follow” a topic to be alerted about developments.