Two Conflicting Music Opportunites

Posted on April 26, 2010

Phil Leigh

Phil Leigh

The Internet presents the music industry with two potent but conflicting opportunities.

First, it can replace radio as a more effective tool for promoting music while simultaneously avoiding costly disguised forms of payola that continue to linger. This applies not only to new releases, which traditionally have been the industry’s lifeblood, but also to old tracks which often fall into minimal demand.

To play audio podcast  on iPhone, iPod, or iPad click here.
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Year Ahead of Wall Street Journal

Posted on April 19, 2010

Phil Leigh

Phil Leigh

Last week Walt Mossberg of The Wall Street Journal reviewed a couple of new products from Hillcrest Labs. First, is a Web Browser built especially for big monitors such as televisions. Second is a hand-held device designed to control the browser remotely from a comfortable viewing distance as would apply when a TV is used as a computer’s display screen.

To play audio on iPhone, iPod, or iPad click here. (5 Minutes)

The browser, termed Kylo, contains big icons for 128 popular Web video sites. Navigation to other websites is via an onscreen virtual keyboard. Hillcrest characterizes the loop pointer as a remote mouse. About the size of a gymnastics ring the pointer offers gesture-sensitive control much like a similar unit for the Nintendo Wii. In point of fact, Hillcrest claims Nintendo is infringing patents.
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Apple, Occam’s Razor, and Adobe Flash

Posted on April 15, 2010

Phil Leigh

Phil Leigh

In the 14th century William of Ockham originated a logic principle later known as Occam’s Razor. Boiled down, it concludes that the simplest explanation for a phenomenon is usually the valid one. For example, although Ptolemy’s geocentric model predicted planetary locations with reasonable accuracy, it was much more complex than the valid Copernican heliocentric model. By implication the Razor endorsed the Copernican model and even anticipated it by 100 years. Similarly the principle implies that Oswald acted alone, President Harding died of natural causes, and that Special Order 191 was lost through carelessness and not espionage.

To hear podcast on iPhone, iPad, or iPod click here.

Adobe’s Flash format accounts for about 80% of Web video, including YouTube. The only reason we can watch YouTube on our iPhones, iPod Touches, and iPads is because the videos play through a special application. But when we visit websites containing Flash videos and advertisements with such devices, we simply can’t see them unless the hosting websites created special applications enabling them to play. That’s the principal reason a year ago that Inside Digital Media started using the YouTube player to exhibit the videos we record and post at our website. The situation is further complicated by the fact that video podcasts must be in yet another format favored by Apple, because podcasts are downloaded while Flash typically is streamed. Read more…

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Inspiration in the Long Tail

Posted on April 6, 2010

Video Inside Logo

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This article was authored by Phil Leigh and released by Online Video Insider earlier today. (April 6, 2010)

About five years ago Chris Anderson wrote a Wired Magazine article entitled The Long Tail. Basically it concluded that the Internet’s ability to provide a nearly infinite supply of Digital Media would shift consumer interest and spending toward less popular content merely because it makes such content more accessible.  For example, when out-of-print books are hard to find the very fact that they are scarce tends to make them less popular. If we cannot find a copy we cannot inspect it. Moreover, we might not even be aware the title exists.

To play audio on iPhone, iPad, or iPod, click here.

However, when all books are available as Digital Media, there is never a shortage. Similarly, titles are searchable via Google. This enables readers to discover previously rare books they might never otherwise had an opportunity to examine.
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