Visionary: Steve Jobs End of Macworld Dynasty?

Visionary is the celebration of extraordinary individuals, innovations, ideas and events that offer progressive or foretelling insights. Bendrix highlights his thoughts and other lunatic fringe thinking.

January 9, 2009 marks the end of the Macworld Expo 25 year run.

Its Tuesday January 10th, 2006. I wake up at 3AM with the hope to be the first to tell my story. I am tired but energized by the excitement of the day. Steve Jobs is going to present another legendary keynote and this year its going to be big. For the past 3 or 4 years any news Apple puts out becomes an instant industry game changer. That year I really didn’t care about the big news I just wanted a simple way to express my deepest regard to the atmosphere of the festivites. I wanted to share my video experience with my brothers and sisters back in the east. Our beloved Macworld had ended in Boston 2005. I wanted to be the first of several pioneer video producers and podcasters to promote the event on the web.

I take pride in being an 18 year Apple loyalist. It’s not a blind pride but rather a thankful loyalty to a product and service that has kept me employed and has been part of my personal lifestyle since college. I used to be the guy that could predict the products with 87% accuracy. Its not a gloat, its more of a statement that I took it serious about being an expert in the field the main reason I was astute about my Apple passion. Over the years having that passion has served me well with many opportunities that have been presented due to my Apple gear, software and skills.

Its now 4AM Tuesday, January 6, 2009, I am not at Macworld this year and it happens to be the last of a 25 year run. Apple will no longer host the inescapable Macworld Expo and Steve Jobs will apparently not give his Keynote address, which If i can remember correctly has never happened at the San Francisco event since his return back to the company in September 16, 1997.

i think the world media will be watching today very closely, For Steve not to speak Apple had better have some serious announcement or they will see investor confidence in their stock plunge in a major way. I am no longer that kid who can guess with 87% about the products and services, but I will make an attempt at gauging the enormity of what may happen today:

1. Steve is not speaking because he has been unwell and almost did not speak at his last several keynotes do to his health. People have been rumoring that his cancer may be back and it was evident something was wrong with him at the WWDC in 2008. Investors were nervous then and if that was any indication then I am sure they would be less comfortable now. In this market Apple can not afford to freeze their confidence, because it will be the beginning of the end of their current stranglehold of tantalizing the world with goodies. I believe that Steve will pass the mic off to his protege. A protege that has been around for a while shadowing him. Could it be Phil Schiller the senior vice president of worldwide product marketing or Jonathan Ive the genius who brought award winning industrial designs for the original iMac, aluminum PowerBook G4 (and MacBook Pro), iPod and iPhone. Phill has the marketing savvy but not the showmanship of Steve, I have heard Jonathan speak a few times he’s got the charsma but not sure how he would work out as a Keynote guy. He’s never really been on stage to present and maybe this is the reason why. Anyway whom ever this mystical protege is he/she will have to be so dynamic and assuring that it convinces the Apple faithful and their investors. Steve and company are the masters of secrecy and they will keep us all guessing until the last minute. Will Steve actually retire today?

2. Lets look at Hardware. The basic Macbook, Macbook Air, and Macbook Pro models, the Mac Pro, the iPod nano and iTouch), and the iPhone 3G lineups were all updated during or a little after the summer. Thats pretty much everything form hardware except the iMac, the Mac Mini and Apple TV. I believe that the Mini may be getting phased out if it hasn’t already. Apple TV doesn’t really need a design overhaul and it had a firmware update this summer. Which leaves the iMac. It seems way too obvious that this is the one huge announcement that Apple will make. The last release was in April 2008 which means they are way over due. What could Apple possibly do to make it more appealing than it is… umm maybe they could make a touch screen Kiosk, or better yet they may skip the iMac again because April 2008 was not that long ago and they will wow the world with the worlds first successful “TABLET,” something that the PC world has failed miserably since Bill Gates demonstrated the first public prototype of a Tablet PC version of the Windows operating system at Comdex. Its the right time for Apple to release a Tablet with the growing success of the Kindle and the iPhone, its only logical to think that would be the HUGE news for today.

3. Lets look at Software. This is a labyrinth of an undertaking. Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard came out in June of 2008 I doubt they will update it this soon its still very new. The iApps will get a push, The Pro Apps will get no push at all, because its a consumer level show not for us uber geeks. What may happen is they will probably make more Mac products windows compatable like iMovie and iPhoto, or they might just make Cloud computing a reality and have these applications for use online just like Google apps. Thats pretty far fetched but its the 25h year anniversary they have to do something that ultra cool like that. OH wait iTunes, could get its big day in the sun, I have always thought of it as a do it all application. I think it will merge with Safari as the media browser of the future. if not this year its coming soon.

4. iPhone enhancements – I think the gaming community has found a new home. I think that the PSP and the Nintendo DS may be in trouble this year. Apple will become a gaming platform in a big way this year starting with the iTouch and iPhone. I do think there will be some cool features of both products but its gonna be mostly about the games.

5. Big announcement that Apple will do some type of big partnership with some cool company, maybe like Google. Shhh you didn’t hear that from me.

Ok its now 5:57 and I’m tired of all this guessing. I just want to post this. Keep in mind I have deliberately avoided chatting with my Mac pals and the Mac rumor forums so I have no idea what they are thinking. I’ve lost my edge a bit. we shall see later on around 12 AM EST. In the meantime Njoy a trip down memory lane, of the videos that I constructed. I woke up at 4AM to tape people who had been waiting on line since 2AM. I bet there are people in line now as i write this at 2AM PST.

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When A Web Business Becomes Transparent – Part 1

What happens when the key words or phrases that directly associate with your company or brand increase your visibility at the top in all search engines? Pretty soon you get email requests from strangers like this: “Hello I Have An Interesting Business Proposal… I found your site really enchanting… and would like to buy a number of text-links on your site.” Now It sounds both flattering and fishy at the same time… Right? My response to this recent request: Please tell me more?

But let me backtrack a bit to provide a frame of reference.

When I was in China I was incapable of tending to our Codedsignal.com website. China blocks all Godaddy servers and Wordpress blogs and this Wordpress blog happens to be hosted on our Godaddy server. Now this is a dilemma for any individual or group wanting to maintain their online presence. Yes there are proxy servers but I decided to wait till I got back to the states to make more sound decisions with my team.

Anyway, since I am the sole blogger for our site, I do have to consult with our internal team when we make decisions for the site. Due to our inactivity, our rankings in Google had significantly dropped in relevance. Since I have been back in the USA, we have strategically added new content to the site and enhanced our SEO (search engine optimization). So within one months time we have now pushed up our visibility on all search engines. Here’s several examples: in Google we rank in the top #5 among search results for “Digital Media Network” | “Media Tips” | “Digital Media“. That’s quite an accomplishment considering we did this all the old fashioned way, hard work and patience and we did it all free with no extra SEO costs.

Now that that’s out of the way. Let me bring you back to the theme of this post. To be continued…

When A Web Business Becomes Transparent – Part 2

Continued from previous post

What happens when you start to get emails from nameless strangers “Hello I Have An interesting Business proposal… and would like to buy a number of text-links on your site.” Well most of the time my team would generally say no thank you. But this one time I decided to play along and see what the offering was. A week later we get an email stating the following:


“I shall pay you a total of $75 for five of your blog pages where you can easily add a small paragraph with links below the post. These links will be on specific pages. Important: I would be paying only a $75 one time fee and the paragraph’s will stay permanent i-e as long as the page stays.”

- bendrix

Digital Media 101: Say Goodbye FTP – Part 2

continued from previous post

Yesterday we talked about the departure from FTP to the web browser. Today I want to discuss some free alternative dedicated media store and share websites that upload directly from the browser.

Rapidshare has a simple Google like interface, it an excellent upload feature, possibly the best that we tested thus far. Megaupload on the other hand is hella confusing. Once you catch your bearings you can navigate pretty easy. For the one time upload they are both solid services and neither require you to login, but you can set up a profile if you wish. On the receiving end; however, as the recipient attempts to download they are met with an obnoxious countdown and bombarding ads strategically posted on the download page. That alone is a HUGE turnoff and a terribly bad decision for their business.

Both FileFactory and Yousendit are also good services, they also offer a simple upload and share feature. The big let downs are that there is no resumed support if disconnected and there are both storage and bandwidth limitations. The biggest issue of all is expiration date of the media media. Yousendit only provides 7 days from the date of upload FileFactory has extended from 7 days to 90 days. Yousendit does have a ton of features for their subscription service along with the ability to create a custom branded download page.

To be fair, the above mentioned services work perfectly fine for most instances and they are free after all. But some clients and people not so tech savvy may find them each to be off putting.

The Codedsignal 1st Pick
There can only be ONE!!!! In the free web sharing market, Mediafire wins convincingly. It has no time limit for hosting uploaded medias. It provides unlimited storage capacity, unlimited simultaneous downloads (that resume if disconnected), unlimited bandwidth to serve any medias under 100MB, Public and private password protected medias, Public and private password protected folders. The interface is user friendly for both the sender and the recipient. Learn more.

The Codedsignal 2nd Pick
Our second choice is Box.net. First off it stands out because it works for mobile. Users can upload and view media medias directly from their mobile phone (if the media is supported). The second thing you notice is that its got one of the most simple utilitarian interfaces of all the hosts mentioned. The biggest obvious drawback is that there is a 10 MB upload capacity. This would be a service for people serving small media medias. It has some great offerings and it plays well with Web 2.0 services, we feel that this is the hosting service to watch out for.

Every media store and share need is different. People are at varied experience levels and each situation is not always met with the same solution. The point of this post is to inform people of the free alternatives to FTP. We suggest our recommendations above but please take the information found in this blog and form your own investigation. We always enjoy feedback and comparisons so feel free to join the discussion.

- bendrix

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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Digital Media 101: Say Goodbye FTP – Part 1

Yesterday it was about FTP (File Transfer Protocol) and web hosting. Today its all about the web browser. Until recently it was impossible to store and share digital media unless you used an FTP client. It is true that applications like Flickr, Youtube and Facebook are a form of media-sharing; but this is not the same as serving large media files (ex. TIF, MPG-2 and AIFF) with the intent to take that media offline and/or transfer that same or altered media back to the web hosting server.

Media sharing is not a new concept, for over a decade people have used P2P (Peer to Peer) programs to transfer media. But what happens when the media is too big for email and your recipient doesn’t use IM, a torrent or an FTP client? What happens if its a time sensitive deadline and the client needs the files immediately? And what happens if someone attempts to download this media in a foreign land that blocks server inquiries from the country hosting the media?

For example, I was in mainland China for 8 months and during my stay I could not access our Wordpress blog nor any of our media hosted on our Godaddy server. Its an obscure reality, considering all the access we have in the USA, but it is something I have been thinking a lot about since I’ve been back in the states.

Its fascinating how less than 7 years ago, serving and storing media online was considered a complicated mundane task done only by geeky web masters and programmers. Now everyone, their mother and their mother’s mother, literally, want to share media. Since the dawn of the internet, FTP has been the method used to remotely transfer data files from your computer (client) and serve it up to a dedicated networking computer (server). Though it is a straightforward simple process, It remains a complicated mundane task for the masses.

An unexpected thing happened in the late 1990’s. The internet adjusted to a new set of rules. P2P applications like AIM, Napster, and Hotline made media sharing fun and accessible. People began to spend enormous amounts of time using P2P tools rather than hanging out on the dysfunctional ad-banner driven internet. People were downloading music, games, photos applications, and chatting. During this time the advertisers, consumers and programmers of the static and temperamental (multimedia) web were at a critical cross road.

Then between 2002-2005, something really exciting happened. Developers and visionaries fused the simplicity and collaboration of P2P culture and created an overlay for the mundane task driven internet. I firmly believe that the combination of portals like online dating sites and niché media sharing sites have helped to save internet culture as we know it. And most certainly they have forever reinvented the way people communicate and express themselves. People no longer need to learn complex programming nor perform data transfer protocols to present their media to the world. Today Its all about filling out profiles and posting, text, photos, audio, and videos through the browser.

Tomorrow we will examine some useful free alternative media storage sites.


- bendrix

Bendrix is the founder and Digital Media Strategist for Codedsignal, Inc. Codedsignal.com is The Digital Media Network featuring the following media properties: Beneath the Beat: Hip Hop | Beneath the Beat: Electronica | Digital Media Tips | Shanxi Nan Lu.

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Gadgets: Whats in a PSP 3000?

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.

Those of you that read my blog know that I am a media and gadget geek. I am in Hong Kong right now and on the eve of purchasing my first PSP on my long flight back to the USA. There are some reliable rumors surfacing that there will be PSP 3000 released soon. Most PSP owners are not sold on upgrading but seeing this will be my first PSP should I wait or just go for it?

With regard to the iPhone, I don’t really focus on the phone features. I am personally interested in its media capabilities as it applies to my research. The same goes for the PSP, the gaming experience is cool and interfacing is always important, but whats most important to me is the video, RSS, and media sharing capabilities. I do enjoy gaming particularly games like Soul Caliber, and Street Fighter, when I have time for such things. I think an 8 GB or 4 GB along with battery pack will be my top accessory priorities. For once I am looking for feedback before my purchase. Should I wait for this PSP 3000 or do I get the PSP slim? If anyone has any suggestions or comments please post them here or email me at codedsignal@gmail.com

- Bendrix

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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Visionary: Brian Maffitt baffles After Effects Group

Visionary is the celebration of extraordinary individuals, innovations, ideas and events that offer progressive or foretelling insights. Bendrix highlights his thoughts and other lunatic fringe thinking.

iPhone Photo taken by Bendrix

On Thursday September 27th, the New York City After Effects (AE) meet-up group was treated to a master session from the master of motion graphics. The legendary Brian Maffitt graced the stage and presented a 45 minute demo on a filter called “Vanishing Point.” For those of you that don’t know, Brian is a pioneer and the original trainer for the AE Total Training DVDs and since the mid-90s he’s been one of the leading world authorities. His alpha tests and contributions over the years have helped to make the AE environment a powerful and more easily understood application for the rest of us mere mortals.

More on Brian in a bit… SO!!! Back to this demo… Vanishing Point is a filter found in Photoshop that maps out a perspective grid within a the selected Photoshop window. An example would be a newly opened file like a PSD, TIFF, JPG, or PICT. Basically the key or ideal photo should be high resolution with lots of pixel information and there should be some kind of perspective object relationship between the foreground and its background. Once this photo is selected >>> go to the filter section and select “Vanishing Point” >>> it will bring up a special window pane that provides tools to map out a grid on this flat surface plane. Once a perspective grid is mapped out on the various foreground and background planes within this photograph >>> “export for After Effects CS” and it will create a series of PNG files, where ever its chosen to export.

Next open After Effects and import this series of multiple PNG files >>> Create a Composition window. When the imported PNGs recompile in this composition window a 3 dimensional texture map is generated onto a 3D plane allowing for each of the elements to be operated within the various x, y, z axis. For the astute pixel pusher and effects whiz, its absolute eye candy. It tricks the eye into believing that one is navigating within a 3D space. Due to the mathematical averages of this filter effect, there is a limit to the distance the image position can be zoomed into before the background pixels start to wash out and loose their resolution. The ultimate goal is to subtly create a 3D experience using a mere photograph. Brian then went a step further to show us how to animate text on a 3D path. That was a killer tip that everyone was also fawning over. Yes there were lots of “I can’t believe its!!!” and people doing Lord of the Rings jigs in the lobby afterwards.

I cannot stress how meaningful it is to witness Brian’s mastery of AE. His value to the motion graphics community is immeasurable. If I were to equate his parallel I would say that Brian is to AE what Jonathan Ives and his engineering teem is to Apple. The whole look and interfacing of an iPod, iPhone, and many other product innovations from Apple in the past 11 years are all Johnathans doing… Actually this is how I equate Brian in the realm of AE. If you are into motion graphics and want learn more about After Effects, go to the totaltraining website, do a tour, check out the online demos. From novices to intermediates to the pros everyone that uses or wants to learn AE can benefit from these tutorials.

Even though I generally do not post tutorial segments, I think this demo was so enchanting and inspirational, that I had to write about it. I did ask Brian to see if he could release an example or two for my blog so I could post it up and show these undisclosed demo’s to the rest of you. To be honest I totally did not do it any justice with this post. This is something you just have to see in motion. Whenever I get these samples I will be sure to post them up on the blog. Till soon…

- Bendrix

Gadgets: iPod-Touch? OR! iPhone-Upgrade?

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.

purchased an iPod-Touch (iTouch) last Friday on September 21, 2007. I boasted that it would be ‘the’ ultimate portable media experience. I thought it would be the ‘end all device’ of all devices, but boy was I sooooooooo wrong. I posted a blog a few days ago titled “The iPod-Touch my 17 year quest.” Basically its my personal 17 year journey exploring different ways to minimize my physical carrying load. The post started out talking about how I used to carry two book-bags and a portfolio case. It moved on to discuss about how I wanted to maximize my mobility by optimizing all my media and organizational data into a pocket sized device. I really thought the iTouch was my answer, but within 24 hours I capitulated and upgraded to an iPhone.

Let me backtrack for a bit… before we get into the iPhone, I want to talk about the differences between the iTouch and the iPod Classic. In a nutshell the iTouch is a touch screen mini computer. Its an entirely new kind of device experience. I guess the only thing you can equate it to is a pocket sized Tablet PC. Hmmm did I hear someone say Tablet Mac???

All iPods to date have a 320×240 viewable screen, but this new iTouch has a 480×240 viewable area. You can surf the web off of any available WIFI network, which in my city New York, thats pretty much any block. The iTouch has innovative tactile navigation feature’s, a lot of double tapping, pinch resizing, and scroll pushing with your fingers. It also offers a single physical ‘home’ button that gets you back to your main setup. This is truly something yet to be experienced in the mass computing market. Its so refreshing, that even the non techies seem to be geeking out over its futuristic qualities.

The iTouch has everything I need, video, audio, internet and easy to access data. As a portable media strategist these are the key features I need to test, access and showcase my content. The iTouch is truly a remarkable device and will please a bunch of people, but for my personal tastes, I feel its a dud.

First of all there is a $389 price tag with Apple Care and It has an 8 GIG media capacity, far below what most people have come to expect for that cost. Other tidbits: no email client, no bluetooth, no ability to take photos, no SMS, no ability to type notes, and no application hacks. On top of all of that, its 3 months behind the iPhone with consumer and expert testing. Other things Ive discovered, the video playback is not as crisp or clear as the iPhone and an active iTouch will need to be charged more frequently than an equally active iPhone. The iTouch has been striped of numerous features unnecessarily, to accommodate a slimmer and a slightly lighter feel, as a result there were no external protective iTouch cases on the market at the time of this writing (in other words its too small for an iPhone case). I have been waiting for Apple to create this all in one phoneless PDA internet device for about seven years now. Though I am terribly disappointed, I do think that if you want to see a proper upgrade of this product wait till the annual Mac World Expo in January 2008.

As I was saying earlier in this post, I took back my iTouch the next day and purchased an iPhone (btw It was a $30 restocking fee). Actually I’ve mentioned many aspects of the iPhone in this post, if you want a more comprehensive breakdown of the device check out this iPhone website link. One thing that I forgot to mention is that there are some external extras on the iPhone, that the iTouch lacks. There is a volume control in the upper left side, a silent/vibrator switch and on the back in the upper right corner there is a camera.

I have tons of geeky pals that also have iPhones. I have seen some of them use no protective case and it looks practically new. Others like me have hard core cases. I personally have a Crystal Jacket Set that comes with a film protector for the touch screen area. I have also read articles about how you should maximize the battery’s life span. For the past 3 days I have been putting my iPhone to the test and I must say that I am so overwhelmed with geek lust that I feel the need to retract a statement I made referring to the iPhone, back on June 29th, 2007

Being a tech and mac geek I tend to have a first round adopter mentality but a second round adopter practicality. I think I am going to have to sit this one out.

I really really really tried hard to fight the iPhone craze, but I can’t deny that Its a shockingly functional device and I’m excited to say that I actually do need it for my work. As prices come down and other mobile carriers come on board, people will swarm over to iPhones just as they have with iPods. People want an all in one user friendly lifestyle device to help entertain, capture and manage parts of their lives. Oh lets not forget that they also want to connect and communicate with others.

Apple has already shook up the entire music industry and the major media networks. Now they are taking on the cell phone market. The telecoms should be nervous because they will no longer be able to push off half assed inferior technology and services. Apple has raised the bar and now the the manufactures will feel the pressure to meet or exceed the Apple standard. The fact is Apple is preparing to double their iPhone shipment for the fourth quarter. Already there have been numerous reports of over 1 million iPhones sold in less than 3 months. I believe that this device will take a HUGE chunk out of the cell phone market in the next 3-5 years. But hey what do I know… all I know is that I no longer have to carry 2 bookbags and a portfolio case and thats plenty to celebrate about.

- Bendrix

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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Visionary: The iPod-Touch my 17 year quest

Visionary is the celebration of extraordinary individuals, innovations, ideas and events that offer progressive or foretelling insights. Bendrix highlights his thoughts and other lunatic fringe thinking.

In the 1990 my freshman year at college I used to carry 2 book-bags and a portfolio case. In one book bag I carried my books and a Kinkos Customized Notebook that included my To Do List, Calendar, and Notes. In the other book-bag I carried music cassettes. Yep you heard it cassettes not CD’s!!! In the portfolio case I carried all of my graphic art work. It was all ridiculously heavy and I began to gripe about my mobility. I wanted a more compact mobile lifestyle.

In November 1999, I was among the first to get a Handspring Visor. Negating from Apple’s Newton it was the worlds first official multi-platform PDA on the market. It was 2 MB and I was absolutely geeked to finally get rid of my custom Kinkos notebook and manage my To Do List, Calendar, and Notes. I was finally able to micro-organize my life. Since 1999 I have gone through 5 Handsprings and 2 Palms.

On August 16, 2002 I was among the first to purchase the worlds first ever 20 Gig iPod. I specifically held out for the 20 GIG because I was looking for a pocket sized device to store my files and applications. Not to mention listen to my 150+ GIG’s of music. Since 2002 I have gone through 3 iPods.

On July 7, 2005 I was among the first to purchase the Palm LifeDrive Mobile Manager. It was the first of its kind. I was specifically looking for three things with this device: 1). It was the largest PDA on the market, 4 GIGs 2). I wanted to play music 3). I was looking to showcase my video portfolio and visual art graphics. The photo and video capabilities was key because it took 15 years for Palm to create my ultimate dream device. Alas the PDA was buggy and eventually died within the year. Foolishly I did not have the extended warrantee. Even worse lack of support that Palm provided. Three months later the video iPod came out and lacked some of the major features that the Lifedrive had. I was disgruntled once again and that was the last device I purchased until now …

On September 21, 2007 at approximately 7PM, yet again I am among the first to purchase the worlds first iPod-Touch. I somehow avoided the long line brewing at the Apple store on 5th Ave and got there 1 hour after it went on sale. It is now 9PM. For the past 17 years I have been searching for this very Apple specific pocket sized device: PDA, Video, Photo, 8 GIG Storage, Bluetooth, Wifi/Web capable dream machine. I believe I’ve met my match.

I admit that I am a gadget geek, I admit that I love being on the bleeding edge, but first and foremost I aim to make my life simple and efficient. No longer do I have to carry 2 bookbags and a portfolio case, everything is at my fingertips. I am a digital lifestyle junkie and I wish to communicate to the world as I open the box and unleash it from its plastic underpinnings … Stay tuned!!! I will have a full report sometime next week.

- Bendrix

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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Web Culture: Video 2.0 Meetup – Web 2.0 StartUPs

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.

- Bendrix

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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Gadgets: ZAGG Inc. introduces the RockStic

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.

- Bendrix

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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Web Culture: Casey McKinnon of Galactcast

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.

- Bendrix

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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Visionary: Google Acquires Grandcentral

Visionary is the celebration of extraordinary individuals, innovations, ideas and events that offer progressive or foretelling insights. Bendrix highlights his thoughts and other lunatic fringe thinking.

On Monday July 2nd, I received a phone message about a new Google offering. I ignored it… On Wednesday July 4th I got that same message but this time in the form of an email… Still ignored it. So earlier today I finally checked both of these messages and it appears that I am a little late with the news, but I certainly won’t be the last to blog about it.

You see I have this huge Google fetish and I love it whenever they come out with a new beta application or acquire a new company. Well there happens to be this company called Grandcentral and it was acquired by Google sometime within the past week or so. This is truly awesome news because I have been testing out Grandcentral since November 14, 2006. I absolutely love the service and brag about it to friends and colleagues all the time; but don’t take my word for it, because once Google gives the stamp of approval to something then you know its got to have some value.

Grandcentral is this online application that allows you to input phone contacts and keep that information hosted on their server. Why is this cool? Suppose you loose your phone or your computer dies or you loose your little black book? If you don’t have a backup plan, then you’re out of luck. Several months ago both my computer and my cell phone died around the same time and I lost all my contact info (well I still had the business cards).

Another good reason to join, free phone forwarding. When you first sign up for the service you must choose a city and a virtual phone number… This virtual number can be linked to your home, cell, work, or any other phone you choose (up to 7 numbers). If someone calls you, you can send them directly to your virtual voicemail. You can be listen to messages on your phone, through your Grandcentral web page, or via. email. Another reason why this feature is cool is because you are no longer tied to your home or business office. Lets say you have several employees who all have cell phones, all you have to do is input all their numbers at the Grandcentral site and elect to access that number. That number can represent your main office number and any one of your employees can either answer the call or let it go to voicemail. There can be many ways to implement the technology in the home, the office, or among groups, this is just one example.

Another awesome feature is that you can record your conversations. The average person may find this an unnecessary feature, but to a podcaster or a video blogger this could be the killer interview application they have been looking for. Its an all in one solution, no extra’s or burdensome instructions. You just inform the party on the other end that you are about to record them… when they consent… just press the number “3″ button on your phone… talk, talk, talk… and when you’re done, just hit the “3″ button again. Its that easy and the audio files reside on your Grandcentral profile page in the form of a downloadable MP3 or you can listen to the steam from the page itself.

Go see for yourself. My prediction: Grandcentral will be among ‘the’ hot new web technologies for 2007.

- Bendrix

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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Web Culture: iPhone Debut video featured on Epic-fu

Webbiz reviews and spotlights stuff related to online entertainment and web culture. This is part of the Beneath the Beat Webbiz Podcast.

On Monday July 1st, I was sending a clip to Zadi Diaz to show her the madness over at the 5th Avenue Mac Store in Manhattan, and she wrote back… “that’s insane! Hey — if you’d like, we can probably feature a part of it on Jetset this Monday.”

Actually its no longer called The Jetset Show, its now called Epic-Fu, but in the spirit of preserving an archived memory lets just refer to it as The Jetset Show. Jetset happens to be one of the few shows that I check out regularly. For those of you who do not know, Jetset is a show created by Zadi Diaz and Steve Woolf. They conduct interviews and showcase whats hip and cool on both online and offline. For me I watch to see coverage of the newest online applications and to see what is interesting on the web. They also touch on the music scene and there are some very funny skits throughout the 5 min episodes. Oh did I mention that Zadi is a real hottie, (oh and yeah Steve is a dashing young devil as well). But Jetset is so much more because they are an “Internet and pop culture show for young adults featuring cool, weird, fun, geeky, underground, true-to-life, curious, quirky things and people found online and off.” I also wanted to mention that Jetset has accumulated rave reviews from the online community by winning Vloggie and a Webby awards and they just have a growing number of fans world wide.

I highly recommend the Jetset Show and hope you will watch the clip below and go to the following links to support the Jetset movement: website, youtube, mix.jetset

- Bendrix

Visionary: Apple Store 5th Ave iPhone Debut

Visionary is the celebration of extraordinary individuals, innovations, ideas and events that offer progressive or foretelling insights. Bendrix highlights his thoughts and other lunatic fringe thinking.

On Friday June 29th I traveled to the Apple Store on 5th Avenue in New York City to witness the pandemonium over the iPhone. I have been present at both the SOHO and 5th Ave Apple Store grand openings, about 9 Mac World Expo’s, and a slew of Apple product release events. Let me just say that this was a crowd that stretched a full city block and the largest police presence and gathering of news teams that I’ve ever witnessed at an Apple event. So why all the madness and what exactly is the value of this product?

Some people are interested but think the $600 price tag is steep. Others ask what’s the big deal over a stooooopid gadget that is nothing more than an indulgence. Others are griping about the exclusivity with AT&T.

The significance of this event and this device marks the beginning of a Telecom revolution. Just like the iPod+iTunes and now AppleTV are revolutionizing digital downloads and the way we view our entertainment – the iPhone will do the same. Apple will make the cellular networks and device makers step up their game – forcing them to offer services and innovations long over due. I will be blogging more on this topic over the next few weeks… stay tuned and check out the mayhem on the video clip below.

- Bendrix