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Breaking News
Posted 05 Feb 2010
Posted 02 Feb 2010
Posted 02 Feb 2010
Posted 29 Jan 2010
Posted 29 Jan 2010
News Features
It goes without saying that an online presence is essential for the success of almost any modern media company, whether it's a local institution like a radio or television station or a national brand. Unfortunately, the bewildering array of standards, technologies, and platforms available for content management makes establishing a solid foothold in the digital arena as daunting as it is valuable. With the Oct. 27 release of Spotlight, a video hosting and management platform with social media features, developer Reality Digital is hoping to remove some of that confusion.
Can't find video about the latest news without searching dozens of websites? Are you sick of sitting through 5 minutes of an audio clip just to hear the 30 seconds you're interested in? These problems could be things of the past. Last February, Massachusetts-based EveryZing announced the debut of its ezSEO and ezSEARCH, designed to make audio and video content more searchable on the web. In October the company will launch its new media player, hoping to go a step further and change the way users interact with multimedia content.
In an age when most information is transmitted digitally and most digital information takes the form of words and letters projected on a computer monitor, the visually impaired may often feel hopelessly and helplessly left out in the cold. The National Information Standards Organization (NISO) is taking efforts to ameliorate this all-too-common problem by launching the DAISY Digital Talking Book, a centerpiece for a free, downloadable plug-in to provide feature-rich, structured information for individuals who are blind or print-disabled.
On Tuesday, Automotive News and News Technologies, LLC partnered to launch the TriggerWidget, a webpage-hosted widget designed to help users personalize the content that they receive.
With a nod toward broadcasters and media companies that are looking to deliver and protect Flash video, Adobe Systems Incorporated announced on Wednesday the availability of the Adobe Flash Media Rights Management Server software.
Featured Stories
As we eagerly await each successive advance, we've gotten used to thinking that when it comes to content, richer is always better. More audio, more video, more animation-this is the stuff that makes today's web attractive and exciting, though not necessarily more efficient or more useful. Since most of this eye candy is either part of or is sponsored by advertising, it seems safe to assume that the richness of the content correlates to the outcome desired by advertisers, which is, by and large, to induce us to make some kind of purchase. However, while that assumption makes sense on the surface, it turns out that the reality is more subtle and complex than suggested by the simple proposition that "rich content sells."
The trouble with streaming communications begins when you try to define it: Ask 10 different people, and you'll likely get 10 different answers. Whatever the definition, however, streaming offers teh world of business communication an exciting new medium to deliver its message.
While the use of video in corporate environments for webcasting earnings calls and the like is taking off, and vodcasting—or video distributed via RSS—has gained some traction in the entertainment space, vodcasting in the enterprise has yet to realize widespread adoption. What is holding it back?
In the beginning, there was text search and we had some keywords and a title and it was good. Then we came to expect full-text search. Now, the content that people want to find—inside and outside the enterprise—has grown to include audio and video, and search technologies are struggling to keep up with expectations.
Entertainment content creators today must focus on creating content strategies that can evolve along with consumers' perceptions. This content-flexibility conundrum is one that Hollywood and her siblings are rallying to confront.
Product Reviews
Creative Suite 4 is a significant upgrade to earlier versions of Adobe's content-creation bundles. CS4 provides significant timesaving tools, tightly integrates Adobe Acrobat with Flash for a digital media platform that spans desktop and web, and leverages work done in one program across the entire suite to easily repurpose content without requiring a total re-creation for each medium.
A solid update to a product Adobe acquired. Features from a previous high-end version are consolidated—at less than half its original price.
PodXite is a compelling offering that addresses a new and growing requirement—how to manage the audio files, video files, associated content, and metadata associated with podcasts. Backed by a feature-rich CMS and XML repository, PodXite has the power and flexibility that larger organizations will require.
Adobe now owns Macromedia and, with it, the venerable Studio software suite. That fact is bound to leave consumers uneasy while trying to figure out which products will survive the merger. For now, know that Macromedia is making a graceful transformation with some sound enhancements to cornerstone programs Dreamweaver 8 and Flash Professional 8. The suite now also includes Contribute 3, a move that makes perfect sense for enterprise users who need a more complete workflow between content contributors and Web site developers.
The TriCaster is a gem. NewTek has put together an incredibly powerful little package at an almost unbelievable price point. The live switching alone is probably worth the price of admission, but when you throw in video capture and editing, all in a portable form factor, you’ve got an incredibly useful Webcasting tool at your disposal. While it will best be mastered by a video pro, it is easy enough for almost anyone in an organization to use and provides a practical all-in-one solution for folks that can’t afford a production team, but want to produce relatively high-quality content.
Columns
Is anyone making money on web video?" The publisher of one of the most popular and long-running video shows online recently posed that question to one of his peers and me. The other publisher, who is responsible for hundreds of hours of video content on her suite of branded media sites, just shook her head. "And anyone who tells you he is making money on video is lying," she contended.
Keeping with years of tradition, I always like to mark the EContent 100 issue with brash predictions about where publishers will start seeing some money or investment in the coming days. For 2007 my prognostications focused on the rising importance of content merchandising, the ad-supported mobile media model, increased emphasis on ad-targeting, and the possible (possible, mind you) revival of micro-payments. Boy, am I glad I hedged my bets.
The old paradigms are dead and so is the audience. "Generation C" wants to generate its own content, not consume someone else's.
The problem of video search has been waiting in the wings for a number of years now. True believers like Blinkx and Truveo (now part of AOL) were patiently experimenting with ways of indexing and tagging video assets long before the broadband penetration rates and usage curves supported it. During the last year, at YouTube, the dam has broken. People are starting to look for video in the same way they hunt for text.
Years ago, the CEO of a then-young video search firm insisted that some day soon everyone would need a query box to navigate the video records of their own lives. Video camera technology was becoming so cheap and light that many people would take to recording every moment and then dump it onto those equally cheap multi-terabyte hard drives at home. Facial recognition algorithms and speech-to-text operations would help you index everyday video so that you could query footage of grandma at your kid’s fourth birthday just as effectively as Googling a keyword to find articles.
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EContent BEST PRACTICES
Technology providers who not only recognize the necessity and difficulty of the local and global content marketplace, but are there to help: From analytics to location awareness, content management to translation management, translation services to language specific search solutions, there are a range of solutions that will enable organizations to adapt to the needs of the new consumer.
Appropriate and effective content management solutions not only enable ease of use, effective interactive communication, and dynamic marketing experiences, they deliver what all organizations seek: measurable return on investment.
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CONFERENCES |
| Buying & Selling eContent 2010 April 18 -20th 2010, Marriott's Camelback Inn in Scottsdale, AZ |
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| Buying & Selling eContent, the content industry's premier conference and networking event, returns to the Marriott's Camelback Inn in Scottsdale, AZ from April 18-20. Register now to hear and take part in discussions with leading content execs.
Every registrant who signs up before December 31 will receive a FREE iPod Touch*! |
| Search Engine Meeting, April 26-27, 2010 • Hyatt Regency Boston • Boston, MA |
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| Join your colleagues at the cutting edge of search!
Search Engine Meeting, now in its 15th year, brings together people interested in the domain of search and retrieval. It attracts those with a professional interest in search engines—such as search engine developers and designers—and those interested in applying search engines in their own work environments. |
| WebSearch University, April 26-27, 2010 • Hyatt Regency Boston • Boston, MA |
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| WebSearch University will be co-located with Search Engine Meeting in Boston this spring! Join your colleagues at this unique educational opportunity. Bring your search skills to the next level. WSU is where searchers learn the latest developments that affect their internet research activities. The curriculum is packed with information on search techniques, collaborative technologies, mobile search, personalization, alternative search engines, and current awareness tools. This year we’re adding sessions on rich resources for specific topics such as sci-tech, competitive intelligence, international, and legal. WSU will also have some new faces on its faculty. |
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