Get Your Groove on with blinkx Music; blinkx Delivers a Universal Jukebox for Music Videos Online

"SAN FRANCISCO, October 27 /PRNewswire/ -- blinkx, the world's largest video search engine, today announced blinkx Music, a new tool for finding and watching music videos online. Offering music videos of every genre, from Rap to Country to Classical, and featuring a huge and varied constellation of artists, blinkx Music enables users to find their favorite music videos all through a single online gateway. From old favorites like U2, to rising stars on the scene like Lady Gaga, blinkx Music has indexed over 33,000 hours of music video from over 10,000 artists to become the most comprehensive source on the Web..."

from VOIP News

--------------------------------

Comment: Very good news, on the face of it. Let's see what it's worth to Blinkx in terms of revenue and PR. Wouldn't be the first apparently good announcement they've failed to capitalise on on one or both of those fronts...

Cynical? Yes, I am. We're in the middle of a tech rally, and there is one company whose share price is singularly failing to rise...

Chandratillake has a lot to prove. Let's hope the next set of interims shows beyond doubt the company is on track. Otherwise I might not be the only person calling for a change at the top...

How Much Will You Have to Pay for Hulu? Nothing. How Much Will You Pay for “Hulu Plus”? Good Question

"Is Hulu putting up a pay wall around its Web TV site? Nope.

Does Hulu want to charge people to watch Web TV? Yes.

Confused? Don’t be.

It’s pretty straightforward: Hulu, the joint venture between News Corp.’s (NWS) Fox, GE’s (GE) NBC Universal and Disney’s (DIS) ABC, doesn’t plan on charging people to watch the stuff it’s currently airing on the site–a mix of first-run shows from broadcast TV, a limited number of cable TV shows and a smattering of movies. But Hulu is trying to figure out how to create some kind of premium offering where you’ll pay for stuff that isn’t on the site right now..."

from All Things Digital

Nothing to watch...

From New Media Age, 22nd October 20089 edition

Searching for Babylon 5 or Why a New Guide Is Needed in TV's Brave New World

Oct 21, 2009 10:43

Phil Keys, Nikkei Electronics

A while ago, I did an article about how the new world of TV content coming over the Internet necessitates a whole new class of EPGs to help consumers find programs they want to see amongst the upcoming (hopefully) nearly infinite choice of programming open to them. I remember interviewing an exec at then TV Guide-Gemstar (later sold to then Macrovision now Rovi). In the interview, he made an interesting statement something like "What consumers really need is a way to find their favorite shows."

I've now had a chance to find out just how true his words are. As a bit of background, I'm a Science Fiction fan which is something of an occupational disease here in Silicon Valley. I've always tried to catch SF films and TV shows when they look interesting, but when Babylon 5 (anyone remember Babylon 5?) came out, I was out of the US and had only been able to catch a couple of episodes. So, when I got the beta version of Joost (anyone remember Joost?), I was ecstatic to find that episodes of Babylon 5 were available there! However, it turned out Joost only had a few kind of randomly inserted episodes. Still, the show was great and I was hooked.

Then, of course, came Hulu. And Hulu had the episodes in chronological order. I was in SF heaven until I finished the last episode on Hulu and realized they only had the rights to the first two seasons. Luckily, I came across a discussion room post on Hulu mentioning that all of the shows were available on AOL TV. Yeah! So, it was on to AOL and I thought I was all set to enjoy the series at my leisure. Alas, it was not to be. After not having the chance to see the show for a bit, I came back to AOL TV and discovered...gasp...AOL TV no longer had the full episodes available.

Now what to do? In the past I've interviewed the folks responsible for the video search service Blinkx so I figured I would turn to them. And, Blinkx came through! Blinkx has a great service where they list a huge number of TV shows and then show links to where the full episodes are available (you can find it athttp://tv.blinkx.com). After watching the show via low quality streams with lots of advertising a couple of times on some Chinese streaming sites, I finally found that TheWB (I think Warner Bros owns the rights to the show) was now hosting the show on their web site. Since TheWB has for whatever reason decided to create artificial scarcity by cycling through one whole season every month, I'm lucky I was at a point in my viewing where I could follow the show and not have to wait for a few more months...

So, by now I'm sure you're wondering just what the point of all this blathering is. Basically, my whole unhappy experience proved the point my source at now Rovi was trying to make. When you think about it, this was way too much work on my part just so I could enjoy a TV show, and an old one at that. As more and more TV shows make their way to the Internet and given the fluid nature of rights negotiations, I can see the same sort of experience happening over and over again. Given that the devices which can access TV shows being broadcast on the Internet are to increase as well, there really needs to be a better way to find what you want to watch. And whoever can develop that will hold the key to the next generation entertainment experience.

from TechOn

MiniwebBeta2 med

---------

Blinkx logo onscreen at about 4.20...

Sky Interactive Spinoff Miniweb Wants To Launch An IPTV Service

The living room broadband TV market is due to get seriously crowded next year. BSkyB (NYSE: BSY) is putting its content on IPTV devices and the BBC-convened Project Canvas coalition is set to produce a series web TV products, but that’s not putting off Miniweb...

The VC-backed spin-off from BSkyB’s Sky Interactive division, which raised $32 million (now £19.6 million) from US-based investors last year and still provides “red button” services to Sky TV, wants to launch its own IPTV service in the UK in Q1 and is also aiming for international traction.


Miniweb says it already has distribution deals with multiple retailers and ISPs, but it isn’t saying who; a private UK beta begins next month.

paidContent:UK saw the system in action at a work-in-progress demo in central London and heard some details from Miniweb on how the the system will work…

—The hunt for content: Miniweb claims to already have 30 million hours of content to show—40 percent of it will be paid-for premium content such as movies—including its deal with online video search engine Blinkx (and a large amount of adult content). But it needs more than just archive VOD and is pitching to content owners. In its pitch, Miniweb says clips and programmes can appear in a branded menu which content owners themselves control.

“Miniweb is in the centre as a means to get multiple content providers onto multiple devices,” is how business development director Dave Lipp describes it. Miniweb plans some integration with VOD portals like iPlayer and 4OD, as the demo I saw illustrated—but that was just a mock-up and Miniweb is still only in talks with BBC, Channel 4 and others.

—Selling the platform: This isn’t about selling a STB, it’s about selling its platform and all the functionalities and content deals that go with it. So Miniweb’s signed up multiple box manufacturers and multiple ISPs and retailers for distribution, casting its net as wide as possible. The company points out its platform will work with new versions of existing boxes and it’s keen to keep all options open. The platform has two (unnamed) set top box manfacturers in place for its beta launch, but head of business development Mark James stressed that the model will be compatible with a range of boxes

—Subscriptions, micropayments: The company is keeping quiet on the specifics of the business model, but broadly it will be tied to ISP subscriptions or available direct from retailers on a subscription basis. Programmes and films can also be bought either through one-off payments or individual subscriptions and it’s exploring a freemium-style system whereby the amount of pre- and post-roll ads is reduced depending on how much viewers pay.

—Content sharing, recommendation: In keeping with the content sharing and social functionality that Sky and the BBC are working on, Miniweb lets users recommend content to friends while its search feature keeps a profile of users’ viewing habits and suggests relevant content. The platform has two Flash-based games partners and at least one online betting provider.

from paidContent:UK