Comcast Gears Up for Combat
June 27, 2010
Comcast, is getting aggressive in the over-the-top video market. With thePlatform, a Seattle-based Comcast subsidiary, the company announced its not-so-subtle intentions to bring the wealth of online video to several different non-computer formats.
Over-the-top means files come via traditional broadband, but do not require any of the business or technology affiliations with the underlying broadband network. “Unlike other video management systems,” the company recently said. “thePlatform’s mpx Beta allows customers to upload multiple media files simultaneously and easily distribute video to websites, mobile phones and other IP-connected devices with a few simple clicks.”
ThePlatform is already compatible with the Apple iPad, and the company also says it will work with Google TV when that launches. Comcast, who has never really been a contender in the digital video world, clearly sees an opportunity and is taking exciting steps to rise to the top, especially by looking at catching the Google wave. Hopefully, consumers will be equally intrigued.
Patrick Roland, June 27, 2010
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Bing Dinging the Google
June 26, 2010
“Bing’s New Bling: TV, Music from Microsoft Search” does a good job of explaining Microsoft’s consumer search strategy. Microsoft’s angle of attack on Googzilla is to make search solves some specific problems. Here’s the key passage in my opinion:
Microsoft is making a push into entertainment. The company has struck deals with television networks, video Web sites such as Hulu, recording labels, game makers and other content companies. When people search for a show, a song or a casual game on Bing, they’ll often be able to watch, listen or play right from the search results, without having to go to another site.
Google has some formidable rich media capabilities. Microsoft, on the other hand, has some deals in place. If the new services bring smiles to the faces of content partners, Microsoft will be able to get more. Google has not purchased a company to fill in the gaps in its rich media content offerings. Now time may be slipping away. The Google set top box takes a search approach to locating rich media. Microsoft delivers findability and, in some cases, content. Microsoft manages to provide its new service without the sun obscuring flight of legal eagles that now accompany Google wherever the company goes.
Stephen E Arnold, June 26, 2010
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CNN and AP News Shift
June 21, 2010
I read “CNN Drops AP Wire Service.” You may want to check it out as well. I am not sure if I know what to make of the report. Let’s assume the story is accurate. Why would CNN drop a source that many organizations consider “must have”? One view is that AP is no longer a “must have” source. Another view is that CNN wants to innovate with its business model and its vendors have to be sufficiently agile to make CNN comfortable. A few years ago dropping the Associated Press would have been unthinkable. Its state house coverage is tough to duplicate. Maybe CNN wants to cut costs? When i killed a couple of hours between flights last year I realized that CNN is one expensive puppy to keep healthy. With YouTube’s recent news feistiness, CNN may be preparing for battle. If the story is a hoax, the AP is secure. If true, the AP may be showing some signs of losing its magnetism.
Stephen E Arnold, June 22, 2010
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Podcast Interview with Paul Doscher, Part 2: The Exalead Technology
June 21, 2010
Exalead’s Paul Doscher talks about Exalead’s technology on the June 21, 2010, ArnoldIT Beyond Search podcast. Exalead has been growing rapidly, landing blue-chip accounts with the largest technology company in North America, the French postal service, and Canada’s Urbanizer.com. In this podcast, Mr. Doscher talks about Exalead’s technical approach to content processing and the framework that makes search-based applications crack tough problems in information access. You can listen to the podcast on the ArnoldIT.com Web site. More information about Exalead is available from www.exalead.com. The ArnoldIT podcast series extends the Search Wizards Speak series of interview beyond text into rich media. Watch this blog for announcements about other rich media programs from the professionals who move information retrieval beyond search.
Stephen E Arnold, June 21, 2010
Sponsored by Stephen E. Arnold
Free Stock Photo Search
June 11, 2010
Short honk: If you need free stock photos, check out Veezzle.com. We ran some test queries and found usable images. Getting permission or licensing an image is essential for commercial work. We bookmarked the site. Some categories have few images; for example, boxer dog. We found a keeper, however.
Stephen E Arnold, June 11, 2010
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Stunning News: Unfindable Content Does Not Get Used
June 8, 2010
Thump. That was the sound of this plump goose body hitting the ground. I toppled over after reading “Full Text Search for Rich Media Content Improves Productivity.” The main idea of the Network World write up is:
…Much of the [online] training doesn’t get used. Why? Because the people it’s intended for can’t find precisely what they want, when they want it. With thousands of courses, students don’t want to wade through paragraph-long course descriptions and hope to find the training right materials. As a result, important knowledge stays locked up in videos and presentations, rarely to be shared.
Translation: If you can’t find information in electronic form, you can’t use it. If you know it is “there,” you can hunt for the missing video or article. But that takes time. Time is money as law firm partners eager to buy a third house in Belize often say.
Not surprisingly, the “cost” of not finding unfindable content is calculated with one of those quite popular “estimates”. Here’s the passage:
Ted Cocheu, CEO of Altus Learning Systems, says that people spend 20% of their time looking for information and they find what they are looking for less than half of the time. That’s equivalent to spending 10 weeks a year searching for information and remaining ignorant half of that time. Altus Learning increases productivity by helping companies to catalog and share verbal information. The materials are referenceable when someone is ready to consumer it.
My view is that the cost of unfindable content is not known. Guesses are interesting, even fun and certainly easy. The reality is that bone head mistakes can have significant financial implications. My hunch is that if I were to root around in email related to the oil spill, I would be able to pinpoint information that would cast light on the problem before the explosion. Other examples of the cost of unfindable information are easy to locate.
Let’s face it. Creating and information object is valueless unless another person can locate that information object. How many of these situations have you encountered:
- Your pet consultant scrambles to locate an email with an attachment you sent the little eager beaver with the azure pelt. The frantic search takes place in front of you, not in a place where your vision won’t reach.
- Your boss asks you for a document needed for that afternoon’s meeting. You have zero clue where the original is, so you make phone calls to people whom you hope have the information. Unlike the azure chip maven, you make the call from outside the boss’s office.
- You have your credit card in hand and the person at the automobile repair check out says, “When did you drop off that car? I can’t seem to locate your vehicle?”
You get the idea. Search is broken for much textual content. Search is downright crappy for rich media. Try to locate a specific video on Google with only a date and the name of the person in the video. Try Nicole Scherzinger the finals of Dancing with the Stars. Doesn’t work too well does it?
We know the unfindable is costly. Data, please. Not anecdotes.
Stephen E Arnold, June 8, 2010
Barcodes Go Content Crazy
June 3, 2010
With pundits predicting that search is now apps and that metadata will index apps which are really content, I turn to more mundane topics. A case in point is “StickyBits: Attach Unlimited Content to Barcodes On Any Product (iPhone + Android).” I found the write up fascinating. I don’t think too much about barcodes unless I am at the self check out trying to get the barcode reader to recognize blue codes on a blue background.
For me the core of the article was:
StickyBits allows people to attach digital content to barcodes. When those barcodes are scanned (via our iPhone or Android apps), you’ll see all the content that has been attached. What makes us unique is that all this is done in a social and fully open read/write way. Imagine putting a barcode on your business card that when scanned showed your resume. Or put a StickyBits sticker into a birthday card and record a personal video. Then when your friend scans it, they’ll see the video. Take that one step further and have all your friends attach videos to the same card. You’ll also get notified when it gets scanned. It doesn’t just stop there. Something unique and strange is happening with the barcodes all around you. People are scanning soda cans, cereal boxes, beer bottles, etc. and adding digital content to them. Since each unique product shares a barcode, little communities are popping up around each of these products.
The notion of information becoming objects has a barcode bedfellow. And about search? Another challenge it seems. More information about StickyBits is available at http://www.stickybits.com.
Stephen E Arnold, June 3, 2010
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Video World Cup Final: Google versus Viacom
June 1, 2010
Short honk: “Viacom, YouTube Suit Attracts More Heavyweights” does a good job of explaining the teams for the Google versus Viacom match. Google’s line up includes Yahoo, Facebook and eBay. Impressive in terms of Internet traffic. The Viacom team includes Warner Bros., NBC Universal, Disney, the Screen Actors Guild and the Directors Guild of America. The referees may determine the outcome of the match. Coming to a pay per view outlet near you.
Stephen E Arnold, June 1, 2010
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WebM Fancy Dancing
May 30, 2010
Short honk: If you are tracking Google’s video encoder WebM, you will want to read “Google Asks for Delay in WebM License Consideration.” One tip. Perch your open source legal eagle on your shoulder to get some color for the Google request. You will want to tuck the WebM FAQ link in your bookmarks folder. Interesting stuff. Fire, Ready, Aim?
Stephen E Arnold, May 30, 2010
Freebie almost like WebM maybe?
Free and Quality: Google and Its Open Video Codec
May 21, 2010
I am not too interested in video. Too old. Eyes bad. Brain does not process short ADD-shaded outputs. Nevertheless, I know a couple of my two or three readers are into digital video. A couple of the goslings watch Netflix stuff on the iPads. Seems like a waste of time to me, but to each goose his own paddling area. If you are a video lover, you probably think about the visual experience. Fuzzy video is annoying to many people, but I think fuzzy video improves many of the programs I have seen.
The author of “Diary of an x264 Developer” is a person deeply interested in video in general and its deeper gears and wheels. In fact, the write up provides considerable detail about the differences between Google’s free video codec and the not free H.264. The issues boil down to “quality”, which is a difficult concept in information. There are, after all, azure chip consultants, who know about “real” and “quality”, two notions I avoid like the Ohio River. The write up said in Addendum C: Summary for the Lazy”, which is definitely this goose:
VP8, as a spec, should be a bit better than H.264 Baseline Profile and VC-1. It’s not even close to competitive with H.264 Main or High Profile. If Google is willing to revise the spec, this can probably be improved. VP8, as an encoder, is somewhere between Xvid and Microsoft’s VC-1 in terms of visual quality. This can definitely be improved a lot, but not via conventional means. VP8, as a decoder, decodes even slower than ffmpeg’s H.264. This probably can’t be improved that much. With regard to patents, VP8 copies way too much from H.264 for anyone sane to be comfortable with it, no matter whose word is behind the claim of being patent-free. VP8 is definitely better compression-wise than Theora and Dirac, so if its claim to being patent-free does stand up, it’s an upgrade with regard to patent-free video formats. VP8 is not ready for prime-time; the spec is a pile of copy-pasted C code and the encoder’s interface is lacking in features and buggy. They aren’t even ready to finalize the bitstream format, let alone switch the world over to VP8. With the lack of a real spec, the VP8 software basically is the spec–and with the spec being “final”, any bugs are now set in stone. Such bugs have already been found and Google has rejected fixes. Google made the right decision to pick Matroska and Vorbis for its HTML5 video proposal.
Fascinating but not germane to the goose. However, for those who want a piece of the big Internet video file, the Diary’s author suggests that Google’s marketing is a little ahead of the code analyzed by the author of the write up.
With Amazon, Apple, Netflix, and probably your mom getting into digital video, Google may have to take even more bold steps to create a viable revenue stream from its investments in its digital video push. Casting a shadow over the YouTube.com footprint is Google’s nemesis, Viacom. Fascinating business situation with legalities, technology, and other issues mashed up.
Stephen E Arnold, May 21, 2010
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