Full Transcript:

Benjamin Higginbotham: Benjamin Higginbotham and Ed Kohler with technologyevangelist.com. We are going to try something new today, actually for this entire week with the Technology Evangelist Podcasts. We are going to try themes on certain days, so we will have today will be New Media, tomorrow will be Gadgets, Wednesdays will be Web 2.0, Thursday – Search, which would be Ed’s particular area and Friday is Freestyle, doesn’t have to be related to gadgets or technology or anything at all, just whatever the heck we want to talk about.

Ed Kohler: Mixing it up, send us some ideas.

Benjamin Higginbotham: Yeah, absolutely. So, lets start today with New Media on Mondays and lets talk about MoveDigital/Neokast partnership and see how that’s going to affect the market place a little bit. For those who don’t know, Neokast is a peer-to-peer live streaming application.

Ed Kohler: What is a peer-to-peer, Ben?

Benjamin Higginbotham: What is peer-to-peer? I would certainly hope our listeners know what peer-to-peer is, its when you have got a bunch of different peers on a network and instead of having a unicast where you talk direct to your server, you talking amongst all the different peers, so your neighbors or someone else on some other networks, somewhere. So, that’s what that is.

Ed Kohler: OK.

Benjamin Higginbotham: You really didn’t know what peer-to-peer was?

Ed Kohler: No, I thought it would something that not everyone is going to understand, for example a lot of times , I will try to explain to people, what’s different between say a BitTorrent and Napster. Where Napster, you are connecting to one person, I suppose this still peer to peer about how see BitTorrent is different because you are connecting to a large number of people simultaneously, which is more the way that Neokast actually work, right.

Benjamin Higginbotham: Right, you are part of swarm, which is what makes it more powerful, because in traditional streaming there is one server and then a bagillion people connecting that one server and you can very easily overload the bandwidth or the server itself. With a Neokast solution, there is one central super seed that goes out and then everyone connects to everyone else to try to get that live stream and that very cool, because up until today, we have always had to do the server client model, we haven’t been able to really do for live Internet video, we have been able to do peer-to-peer and part of the problem that Neokast is going to have is getting that super seed going, they need to have a really-really good backend to make that happen and MoveDigital and Neokast have partnered up. MoveDigital here, they are the guys who do the bandwidth for the Technology Evangelist High Definition Podcasts, Videocasts and all the different stuff we have got going on. So, they are going to be taking care of the backend for Neokast, while Neokast is going take care of the frontend in all peer-to-peer stuff and MoveDigital is cool, because they add themselves to the swarm when they are needed and as soon as the swarm becomes large enough to become self sustaining and you no longer need a huge CDN and like MoveDigital, they remove themselves automatically and that’s cool. So, we are really excited about that, because that’s just like a really great partnership, I think.

Ed Kohler: Yeah, they looks up pretty well, because as a new say if a file comes online, it becomes very popular. Someone has to have that initial large model bandwidth just to make that stuff happen, but been able to pull themselves out as things take off, it’s a good thing, because the one thing that’s problem with video today is people to become victim of their own success, if they have just tons and tons of bandwidth that they are pushing out there. So, but then eventually of course will get to future down the line where now people have taken the file offline, they have deleted it from their own computers, but then MoveDigital step in back in there, so that’s very cool.

Benjamin Higginbotham: Absolutely. The next topic is 720p viewers in our, we have been watching our own stats internally, we have host 1080p videos, 720p, 480p all the way down to low-end flash video on the website and up until now the stats have been pretty much same, its flash is the most popular by very long shot then 480p, 720p and 1080p trailing way off in the distance. Ever since Apple TV launched, I noticed a very large shift in statistics, its flash and 720p are neck-in-neck, now almost the difference between the two is counted on a single hand. Than a pretty big gap and then we have got 1080p and then 480p is now the least popular feed that we have got from the video statistics standpoint and that is really interesting how one device can change what people are ingesting from media format standpoint.

Ed Kohler: First, I would recommend if people are downloading our content to watch, I would recommend the 720p format, because the 480p isn’t that much different from just watching it in flash. So, if you are going to download it, watch it full screen, go at the 720p, whether you are going to watch it on your computer or on a plasma screen, so that seems to be something worth doing right there, but it makes sense that, I think people are just looking for content for their Apple TV’s now and as we have some content that is going to look great there and also of course content that are early adopters of new technologies would also find interesting. So, if you have gone and bought an Apple TV and haven’t checked out our Technology Evangelist content on that yet, take a look at it and you will probably be impressed with the quality.

Benjamin Higginbotham: As we advertise our own stuff on the podcast.

Ed Kohler: Yeah.

Benjamin Higginbotham: I think the end game that was still going to be 1080p, while Apple TV does 720p today and I am not entirely sure why they stopped at 720p and they didn’t go up to 1080p, its got to be a political decision as opposed to technical decision, I assume. The end game is 1080p though and eventually everyone going to move to 1080p and we have the content available in 1080p, we shoot in 1080p, we distribute in 1080p and I am excited for those devices like the NetGear Digital Entertainer that are coming out that have 1080p and that may actually also explain the increase in our 1080p content as well, because we did see our 1080p go up, the only one that has remained the same is actually 480p, it really hasn’t done anything, its just kind of stayed there. So, its interesting to see that online high definition video is actually starting to take off and people are starting to notice that, I am excited for that, that’s cool stuff.

Ed Kohler: Yeah.

Benjamin Higginbotham: And the next two are for you actually Ed, we have got topix.net , they are changing their business plan, it sounds like.

Ed Kohler: Yeah, well first they are changing their domain name, I refer to the company topix.net, but I guess technically just Topix, which is by itself is tough for people to understand what you are talking about? So, topix.net is often what you hear refer to…

Benjamin Higginbotham: You are talking about Topics?

Ed Kohler: Yes, what type of topics? So, now there are going to be Topix, that is T-O-P-I-X.com and it’s the site that aggregates news content. So, they will find stuff from AP wire writers from local news papers including, now really local news papers like the free weekly that drop to your house and stuff like that, they will aggregate as much of their content as they can. So, if you do a search site for your zip code, you can create a custom news paper based on all the content they found and they have geo tagged, to your location and that’s new and pretty well for them and they have also a community site to where people basically discuss the news and that’s been doing quite well as well, but their new venture is in to create in to creating more custom news where they are going to start promoting people as editors to create new stories of their own on the site where, its going to be combination of moblogging, where people can send in photos or edit stories that have come online or write stories directly into the site or just tag additional stories into the system. So, I think it’s a good direction for them to go because no one has done a great job like that yet, but may be though we will be able to pull it off because they already have a community that helps.

Benjamin Higginbotham: So, this is more citizen journalism then?

Ed Kohler: Yeah.

Benjamin Higginbotham: They are enabling the citizen journalist, they have already got the traditional media that they are aggregating through AP news and I am thinking E&R  and that’s totally wrong,

Ed Kohler: But who ever,

Benjamin Higginbotham: Yeah exactly and so are they going to continue that as well or they are just basically dumping that moving strictly to a citizen journalism stand perspective?

Ed Kohler: They are keeping what they have been doing today, I think they have changed the way other side a bit to make it look more like a blog and I think its going to just take a little bit more of a casual feel, at least on their own property, but they are probably owned by a large number of media companies such as Tribune and Gannett . So, those companies are probably looking for some fresh content that’s local, where they can syndicate that in from topix.net, for example. So, there could be some upward pressures saying “we don’t need you to aggregate this stuff, we can get this stuff ourselves but if it create some new types of content for us, that’s very valuable to us." So, I think that might be the motivation behind it.

Benjamin Higginbotham: Well, that’s good from a citizen journalism standpoint, I mean it really helps get that out there and allow empower this sole citizen to, you know what I am trying to say…

Ed Kohler: Yeah, I think it is, because I see a local person who is just passionate about some aspect of the local news, whether it’s school board meetings or park board or just anything that’s going on in local crime, for example.

Benjamin Higginbotham: Shoefiti.

Ed Kohler: Right, though shoes on power lines, the one way shoefidi is, but the problem at the local journalism for a lot of people is, if they say, create their own blog, they really might not have a big audience for that content, but if they instead went to a site like Topix and publish the same content there, Topix already has an audience, of course they might built that, multiply that further or amplify it by pushing it out on to USAToday for example. So, someone searched so that going up on and some small town in Minnesota and their school board meeting, next thing you will stay there and actually have that content.

Benjamin Higginbotham: Moving into the next subject outside.in

Ed Kohler: Yeah, outside.in is actually a similar play, they don’t do the wire story type stuff, but they are trying to aggregate as much information they can from say local journalists. So, if you have a blog on a specific location, you can add your blog to outside.in and your content, which even you have post go on, it will show up on outside.in. So, people can create a custom look on a outside.in based on a search for a city or a zip code, for example. They can save that subscribe to that search and they will get a feel for what’s going on in the city.

Benjamin Higginbotham: Do you use it now?

Ed Kohler: Yeah, I use it now and I actually had a post on Technology Evangelist about the other day, because on my personal blog I write about local issues from time-to-time, but one problem is, I don’t always write about local issues, I mixed up, I could write about anything. So, I figured out I hacked to the system where , if I had created categories for Minneapolis or St. Paul, or Eden Prairie, Minnesota are just some of the different cities we are on here and then tag stories with appropriate categories, those sub-categories could then be syndicated in the outside.in. So, in the sense I have, I think three blogs in outside.in, now, where its just a way to hack the system a little bit, but they are very subtle to it, its now like a violating their system, I am just trying to figure out a way to get content, but I am writing into their system that would be of interest to their audience. So, it’s come along, they do have features where there is a bookmark where you can get for your browser where if you are say reading the New York Times, there is a story about Green Bay, Wisconsin or something, you could click the outside.in button and that store into that system. So, I am quiet figure out what motivation someone has to use that, but it’s something you can do.

Benjamin Higginbotham: Cool, all right well this will wrap up our first new podcast. I am not sure how they are going quite right, because we have done podcast before, but we have not and this is a brand new studio for us which is exciting and we are doing in pretty new format. We are trying to find our voice still and you hear say that quite a bit and we are always look far of voice trying to find, our nitch in the market and we do appreciate comments and suggestions. You can find our contact details on the Technology Evangelist website at technologyevangelist.com. Tomorrow, Tuesday will be Gadgets, we will be doing this around the same time, we would like to thank all of the listeners on talkshoe, if you like to join the podcast live, you may do so at talkshoe.com at the time of our recording. We may try to standardize at 12 noon central daylight time, that would be 1 o’clock eastern or 10 o’clock Pacific, I believe.

Ed Kohler: Yeah and also if you have a question, you just like to ask us but not go on the air specifically, you can leave us a voice mail on Skype and we could work that into a future podcast or send us an email and know it, we think that things were interesting if we hear from you.

Benjamin Higginbotham: Absolutely, like said, all of our contact details are on the Technology Evangelist website at technologyevangelist.com, my specific information is at technologyevangelist.com/ben.html and Ed is /ed.html. Thank you so much for listening and we will talk with you tomorrow.