HTTP Echoes is about insightful blog posts and web related ventures. We echo these insights and offer our thoughts on how it relates to web culture.

Two days ago I went to the Video 2.0 Meetup group hosted at For Your Imagination Studio on 27th and Broadway NYC. It was the first time we met in that space something like 200+ members attended, a great turn out. As far as I can tell its the largest tech related meetup group in NYC. The topic of discussion was on Web 2.0 start up companies. This is great because I’m always looking for new web technologies to make my world a lil easier and efficient. Plus I love spreading the word about whats up and coming.

The first presenter Ben Weinberger CEO of Digitalsmiths in Durham, N.C. You can call them an ad insertion company or “digital deal makers,” but the goal of Digitalsmiths is to be the Google AdSense for video. I watched the presentation and thought it reminded me of those MTV pop up trivia videos. In theory pop up ad insertion is an interesting idea and I can see how it could be very useful in some niche markets. For mass video consumption I think it would be intrusive and annoy the hell out of people. I have a bunch of ideas on how they could proceed with this, but this is not consultant corner … Those of you looking to bring in advertising dollars its worth a look

Next up was Rami Rinot visionary of Chic.tv. The company was created to address the needs of the “chic and savvy consumer who wishes to access lifestyle information in a new form of media, primarily, video on the internet, iPod and cellphone.” Basically its a 24-7 lifestyle video magazine focused on recipe’s, dining, art, books … in New York City. The presentation was quite incoherent and I was having a hard time following; however, I did learn a lot by going to the site. It appears to have a bunch of content that will be interesting to the chic and hip minded individuals.

Max Haot, Founder and CEO of Mogulus gave one of the most outstanding and efficient 10 minute tech presentations I’ve ever seen. Mogulus provides users with the “power to create live, original television programming, all done on their own broadcasting channel.” Its like a virtual TV station based on the .flv video spec. You can do real-time collaborative remote video publishing or mashups using hard media (like DVD’s or tape), Youtube, or other video sources. I really thought the remote collaborative was an excellent feature, I can see a lot of potential with this.

The last presentation was by Yuxt, a video bookmarking widget based application. Yuxt is an indexing service like delicious but exclusively for video. You can call up Youtube, Metacafe, Crackle (formally known as Grouper) … videos by typing in the search field for whatever you are seeking and it will pull up the video files. From there you can drag the video files into a custom folder that you create and drag it to the specified folder. Actually, sites like delicious could learn a thing or two from Yuxt with regards to organization and ease of use. This site is primarily for people seeking a user friendly solution for video bookmarking.

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Portable Pixels reviews the portability of digital media in gadgets, software and related resources. We celebrate cutting edge technology but we mostly focus on practical applications & functionality.

Because I blog and podcast about technology I always get on the mailing lists of these up and coming products that are just hitting the market. Yesterday I received an email from the SheieldZone Corp. Last year I did a review of their product, the Invisible Shield.

The Invisible Shield is a thin protective covering that you carefully stick on your iPod, cell phone or other techie device. They claimed that with this protective covering that the device would not get scratched. I naturally was skeptical. They took an iPod with the shield on it… and dropped it in a box full of nails and bolts and shook it up really hard… I shook it up really hard. Not a scratch, actually the only parts that were scratched were the areas that they intentionally left open to show the effectiveness of the product. Lets just say I was astonished at how well it worked and purchased one on spot. I currently have an invisible shield on a standby iPod that I take on the road, it gets handled a lot and its held up beautifully.

Now that you know the story … back to the email:

“Recently, we changed our name to ZAGG. Today, we change the way you listen to music. To all of our loyal invisibleSHIELD customers we’re proud to introduce the RockStic. The RockStic is a powerful iPod speaker system. It is compact, versatile, functional and is compatible with other MP3 players. Despite its small size, its speakers pack a punch, making it ideal for parties and travel. The RockStic charges your iPod too! The RockStic is available in black, silver, and vibrant pink. Order yours today and save $20 with our introductory price.”

That was the email and here is a link to the Zagg website. It looks pretty slick and cool. I am creating a new category for Products in my del.icio.us bookmarks.

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HTTP Echoes is about insightful blog posts and web related ventures. We echo these insights and offer our thoughts on how it relates to web culture.

Earlier today I read a message in my Pownce account from my buddy Casey McKinnon. The post read, “My first published article EVER!” I was excited to hear the news but even more impressed that she was getting featured in The Gaurdian Unlimited, a prestigious UK newspaper. Cassey and Rudy Jahchan produce the hugely popular online show(s) Galacticast and A Comicbook Orange. For those of you who don’t know, Galacticast is a weekly comedy that parody’s sci-fi, fantasy, horror, comics, and video-games. Let me just say that the shows are hilarious and they do a great job green screening and making entertaining fun episodes. The shows have the professionalism and entertainment value of a short form television skit on Comedy Central or the Sci-Fi Channel, but the reality is that Rudy and Cassey do it all from their humble apartment.

Back to the article… Cassey eloquently touches on the topic of the television networks and media industry buying into and not providing credit to the new content produced online. She highlights the decrease in big budgets and the audience moving away from mainstream TV and how independent producers are being edged out of their intellectual properties. “Like any company, we need a lawyer to look over our contracts to make sure that we retain our rights,” says Cassey. I am not doing her article justice by taking pieces from it, I feel its an important read. I strongly suggest checking out this “Give us credit” article and pass it along to your colleagues and friends. I just had to create a del.icio.us bookmark for it. Keep doing your think Casey, you and Rudy are a true leaders.

Codedsignal.com is a Digital Media Network featuring: Beneath the Beat: Hip Hop | Beneath the Beat: Electronica | Shanxi Nan Lu: Travel | Digital Media Tips: Web Culture - and hosts a variety of other related media properties.

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