Media Bites
- Quividi.com … Company uses face recognition technology to monitor the amount views of a public add. It records age, gender, and length of time that a person looks at the ad. There website claims that “over 30 million people have already be counted by VidiReports!” Quividi also claims that they only record the data and not the actual monitorial video. →Anyone say Minority Report? Can this techniology be used to index every video and photo? Maybe, an giant index of every single person’s image? Privacy? (NPR- On The Media)
- Facebook, in an attempt to become the ultimate social portal is once again opening up several more of its codes to the masses. In what it calls “Facebook Connect”, Facebook is trying to create a single ID management tool for the entire web. This effort is in conjunction with the OpenID movement and they are even holding an OpenID summit soon. Ars Technica, points out the criticism that Facebook is creating a “walled garden” not unlike AOL did back before Netscape made free-range web surfing possible. While Facebook claims they are merely trying to make web surfing seamless and easy as possible, I feel that it is an effort to keep people funneled into the social network for even more time. Facebook, like Google, will only be happy when we need them to do everything online. Perhaps, in the future we will not log on to the Internet, but login to Facebook. Can Facebook become synonymous with the Internet itself? Facebook= The Internet shared. (Ars Technica)
- Amazons.com Kindle 2.0 came out today. This shows how Amazon is in the process of remaking its image as a distributor of digital media (DRM free music downloads as well). Amazon wants to control and profit from the distribution of all media whether in the physical or digital form. As part of the promotion for the new Kindle, Stephen King has written an exclusive story for the devise. (Nytimes)
- Major League Baseball has a enhanced some of their dynamic features on MLB.TV. While the website is turning into its own portal for all-things MLB they are still trying to maintain their current relationship with Network television. A person cannot watch the team in their area through the website, however they can watch the other 29 teams. This way the audience has to still watch the game on broadcast TV. With a half a million users paying $120 each to use the service, I wonder how long it will be until MBL.TV scraps their traditional relationship with broadcasters. (Nytimes)
- According to comScore Americans viewed 14.3 Billion online video clips in December. This is an increase of 13 percent from 2007. (Meda Bistro)
- Google Latitude is a GPS based system that combines GPS with Google maps to create a mash-up social network. Now a person can be track and be tracked by their contacts. This has limitless applications, but seems poised to usher in a new world of social networking. No longer are the social communities purely based online, but now can be accessed in the real world. This new technology offers exciting strategies for Alternative Reality Games and Live Action Role Playing. Oh, and let’s not forget the extreme corporative/government “Big Brother” implications. (Google)
