Woidboyz MTV Video, I Just Can't Stop Laughing! Many people asked what kind of language the Woidboyz speak, well it's not easy to identify and even most Germans might have a problem with it, however it is German, but with a charming deep Bavarian accent. Funny MTV-Wildboyz-Parodie from Bavaria, must see:

View more clips on my new video channel in the right column.

Labels: entertainment, videos

  ¶ 'Woidboyz MTV Video, I Just Can't Stop Laughing!' posted by eA : 3:35 PM  0 comments links to this post

  First Version of Google Business Apps Google released the first version of Google Apps for Your Domain offering hosted, web-based, free, but ad-supported services including email, talk, calendar, and pages.

'A set of hosted applications for organizations that want to provide high quality communications tools to their users without the hassle of installing and maintaining software or hardware.'

Those applications are already out for a while, however the new thing is a web-based administration interface for creating user accounts and assigning permissions. It targets the small- and medium-sized businesses that want to communicate and share information more effectively while drastically reducing maintenance costs.

Although I'm not using Pages at all, Google Apps are excellent AJAX-based communications tools reducing the amount of friction to interact with eachother and to improve communications. The rapid adoption of broadband has made it possible to move more and more applications to the Web and I think it's a first step to a Web-based collaboration-suite with an option to buy further premium services later on.

Before using Google Apps one should read the terms and conditions carefully and think of questions about privacy, ethics, security and technology support. It might also be interesting what happens in case of an outage or data losses. I would also like to see an integration of Blogger, a tool to instantly take part in a worldwide live-communication. For the instance the service is in beta and this means according to Google:

'Furthermore, organizations that sign up during the beta period will not ever have to pay for users accepted during that period (provided Google continues to offer the service)'.

Labels: productivity

  ¶ 'First Version of Google Business Apps' posted by eA : 8:12 PM  0 comments links to this post

  New Me, My, YoUser Models Share Revenue MySpace, YouTube, iPod, user's most coveted sites have one in common: YoUser-generated content. The new Me-, My-, You-sites give control to the user and benefit from a word-of-mouth spreading through blogs and social networking resulting in an explosive growth. Competition has now generated new models to capitalize on knowledge and popularity: Sharing (ad)revenue.

Shaping a business model based on the idea of a community means to balance the divergent interests of users, artists, the entertainment industry and technology. When I expressed my thoughts about a business model for blogging last year I said:

'I believe, that blogging will have an impact on traditional media in future, we're moving towards broadband blogging like video and audio messaging and as long as marketers need to reach the most coveted audience for media there will be a great chance for new business models...'

Even Google formed several strategic partnerships leveraging network effects, in this case I'm thinking of accessing MySpace's demogarphic user data and combining them with their technology and their latest deal distributing MTV shows through Google Video.

Besides selling one's own products and services current business models for bloggers involve

• Contextual, displayed, targeted and linked advertising
• RSS advertising
• Sponsoring and donations
• Affiliate programs and merchandising

I think that sharing (ad)revenue is a good way to keep communities going. Producing a good video as well as a good site means a lot of work and should be honored.

Labels: networking

  ¶ 'New Me, My, YoUser Models Share Revenue' posted by eA : 3:15 PM  0 comments links to this post

  Home-Made Videos Invading Cyberspace The FIFA World Cup 2006 is over, but the aftermath starts to reach never known heights. Goalie invaded cyberspace and entered the Google Video Top 100 search list this week showing his impressive head-skills.
I think it's just the beginning of a new trend how the Web as a mass media can extend the reach of television and any other media. Distributing TV clips and other forms of video over the Web has become a hot topic. There's been plenty of speculation on the convergence of TV and the Internet and I think it is becoming more and more a reality as new technology evolves.  ¶ 'Home-Made Videos Invading Cyberspace' posted by eA : 9:30 AM  0 comments links to this post

  New Blogger.com Version ads Tagging The list of new and updated features is pretty long, but the long awaited tagging and the integration of Blogger with Google Accounts make Blogger as an easy to use publishing tool a lot more coveted for me. Blogger has been one of the first platforms on the Web offering it's software to a global audience, but nothing has changed since I used it, I think with this new version Blogger is back in competition.

Web navigation systems have conceptually shifted from traditional forms of classification using fixed taxonomies to distributed classification schemes using flexible taxonomies (folksonomies), electronic publishing has become more and more individual and shows that the Internet is shifting to a medium that is genuinely more and more peer-to-peer structured with a decentralized authority.


The new version addresses current trends providing an AJAX style drag-and-drop layout manager which tremendously improves usability and makes it a lot easier for non-technical users to chose a new page element, to integrate new features and functionality into their blog and to change it even after publishing with a click of the mouse. I also think that the option of adding an element, including 3rd party JavaScript will make workarounds and funny 'Edit me' links in the side-bar obsolete.

With 3rd party JavaScript and a few clicks it's even possible now to turn a Blogger blog into a state-of-the art business model.  ¶ 'New Blogger.com Version ads Tagging' posted by eA : 5:09 PM  0 comments links to this post

  Most Coveted: YoUser-Generated Videos Global digitization of media makes release cycle times for new videos shorter but success also more and more unpredictable. I don't know yet how many videos are streamed by Google Video, but YouTube streams more than 100,000,000 video views and receives 65,000 new videos a month on an international level and most of them are user-generated.


Funny entertaining clips, international TV shows, Zidane-related videos and home-made amateur star videos currently dominate the needs of an international audience. Astonishing is that even in the monthly charts new videos drop in and others fall out on a daily base, means that break trough hits are facing much shorter success windows.

When I expressed my thoughts last year about New Streams of Revenue enabled by digital video distribution I was aware that it would become a reality quickly. The technology behind the recent success of digital video distribution, the use of Flash which allows users to easily embed videos onto their own web pages complements that of blogging, forums, or web-pages.

To take worldwide advantage of the business opportunities in media and entertainment industries transforming the traditional creative and business processes enabled by digital technology means to conduct a proper approach to managing risk and change as well as applying a lot of pragmatism and establishing a roadmap and toolkit.

I'm exited how the Top100 will look like by the end of the month. I'm expecting the most viewed videos between 6 and 8 mio. views.  ¶ 'Most Coveted: YoUser-Generated Videos' posted by eA : 2:57 PM  0 comments links to this post

  Winning OpenSource Frameworks in Web 2.0 When I started computing more than a decade ago I remember it took me weeks to learn a new program for self-expression, calculation or collaboration. Today it's fun, it takes me about five minutes total, it doesn't require any skills and within seconds I can take part in a worldwide distributed live-communication.

In an enterprise employees usually are organized in different roles around issues. Issues are identified during meetings, in conferences and discussions, then resolved between the meetings. Complex workgroups often require more than just a blog, they require customizations, document storage, discussion groups, conference scheduling, session management, security, ease of use and beyond.

The open source community provides various tools that offer a useful environment for complex Web 2.0 applications and can help an organization to

• take advantage of the new social and workplace trends
• lower costs and improve functionality
• embrace innovative new products, services and applications
• increase knowledge and capability

I found one of the finest frameworks in Drupal based on LAMP made to meet today's real world customer needs and to interact with other software tools such as MySQL, PHP, CSS and AJAX tools like DOJO, PROTOTYPE, RICO or SCRIPTACULOUS. Most of them are industry supported and are recommended because they usually provide a higher quality than your own, offer established developer and user communities and are supported by IDE's. Here's a video about what's new in Drupal 4.7, provided by a Drupal community member:

Labels: opensource

  ¶ 'Winning OpenSource Frameworks in Web 2.0' posted by eA : 4:09 PM  0 comments links to this post

  Holiday in Greece?

A single-masted sailing boat, taken from 220m above the sea level near Zakynthos, Ionian Islands, Greece, mmh... looks fantastic!

Labels: photos, travel

  ¶ 'Holiday in Greece?' posted by eA : 8:44 PM  0 comments links to this post

  Solid Business Model for MySpace.com More and more videos, blogs and networks created by amateurs shape the new media landscape today and make the the gravity shift to self-expression and collaboration, participating in a social network centered on user-generated content has become one of the most exiting trends today.
From Google Press:

'News Corporation's Fox Interactive Media and Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) today announced a multi-year search technology and services agreement whereby Google will be the exclusive search and keyword targeted advertising sales provider for Fox Interactive Media's growing network of web properties including MySpace.com (http://www.myspace.com)'.

Forming a strategic partnership based on complementing each other' s services usually leads to an effective monetization leveraging network effects, in this case I'm thinking of accessing MySpace's demogarphic user data and combining them with Google technology. Most prominent MySpace members capitalize on their knowledge and popularity requiring a lot of activities. Beside selling their own content, products and services, there is several other business models involved like

• Contextual, displayed, targeted and linked advertising
• RSS advertising
• Sponsoring and donations
• Affiliate programs and merchandising

The WSJ reports:

'Then there's Christine Dolce, whose MySpace page boasts nearly one million friends -- making her arguably one of the most connected people on the Internet. A 24-year-old cosmetologist who until a few months ago worked at a makeup counter in a mall, she now has a manager and a start-up jeans company and has won promotional deals for two mainstream consumer brands'.

Labels: networking

  ¶ 'Solid Business Model for MySpace.com' posted by eA : 7:18 PM  0 comments links to this post

  Google Distributing MTV Shows. What? As NYTimes reports Google is a distributor of content from one of the world's largest traditional media companies now, MTV.

'Viacom, one of the biggest creators of television programming, is giving a significant endorsement to Google’s ambitious plan to become a big player in video advertising'.

While traditional media have content embedded making it only consumable at a certain time new media enhance the customer experience distributing TV clips and other forms of video over the Web anywhere and anytime.

Users want Internet-based clips and videos so they can view, listen, interact and participate when, what and how they want.

Exploiting the limits of TV the widespread popularity through the process of Internet sharing has produced a video phenomenon with technologies standing out by an intuitive and natural user interaction reducing the amount of friction for people to interact with rich media online.

'An executive involved in the deal said Viacom would receive more than two-thirds of the revenue'.

With that deal Google gets in competition with companies like Brightcove and Revver, which share already advertising revenue in a similar model.

I think the more we zap TV ads, the more important it becomes for brands to integrate products and services into the programming and deliver an emotional outstanding experience for the audience.  ¶ 'Google Distributing MTV Shows. What?' posted by eA : 4:22 PM  0 comments links to this post

  Channeling Audio-Visual Experiences via IPTV Having a passion for sports, commerce and new media I did a bit of research on niche TV channels based on IPTV technology, which offer an enjoyable and complete broadband TV experience presenting their highlights with sophisticated functionality, fresh content, a stylish design and individual control to the audience.

• Niche TV Channels

A broadband TV channel delivered anytime, anyplace, anywhere can be deployed to

• deliver a service that did not exist before the Internet
  
• differentiate yourself in a very competitive marketplace
• optimize value for an on-demand world

Commercial possibilities cover crucial to success models such as advertising and sponsorship, pay per view, subscription and content sharing models such as content syndication.

Nich TV channels are attractive, hype and innovative because they represent a service that would not make a commercial sense from a traditional media point of view, in other words before the Internet they did hardly exist in the media landscape.

As media landscape is changing, moving products or services from suppliers to end users involves experimenting with video to discover what works, and what not. A Look around showed, that even major news companies still have either very poor online video feeds or they don't load at all, are slow, or aren't supporting Firefox or any other browser beyond IE.

The potential of niche TV channels is to reach audiences not bounded to a single geographical region and thus to broaden reach and to attract the attention of markets that did not exist before.  ¶ 'Channeling Audio-Visual Experiences via IPTV' posted by eA : 12:05 PM  0 comments links to this post