Viacom's Flux has its first major tenant: ThinkMTV
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MTV's new social activism network debuts quietly, using the distributed community platform that Viacom launched after investing in Tagworld.
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The TC40 conference, which (important caveat) I did not attend, had a big impact on the space I occupy. Sometimes I think we put too much emphasis on Techmeme, but it is important, and for the two days of TC40, most of the top articles had something to do with the conference. Yet most of the people in the TechMeme loop were not there. This makes me wonder if we can do better with these conferences that become the cursor for a few days. And the answer is of course we can. But it may mean reconfiguring the conference to take the emphasis off the people in the room and put it on the people on the net. As Jim Forbes points out, if you wait for hotels to change, you're going to wait a long time. They're not really in the conference business, they're in the bedroom business. So anything that keeps people out of the hotel is likely to stay out of the conference -- like really terrific networking. So that suggests a different approach, one that does not rely on hotels.  I've done four conferences, three of them at universities, and one at CNET in San Francisco. At two of them, we hosted as many people as they did at TC40, because we had multiple tracks, and a very large facility. And the last three were all very much present on the net. The first, not so much. If I do another conference, we'd try to push the envelope on the net side of things, and probably not try to host as many people in person. Instead of 500 to 1000 people, I'd try for 50 to 100 people. Kind of a middle-ground between the experts at the TC40 conf, and the audience. More like a TV studio than a conference. Everyone would be either a blogger or reporter. All would be encouraged to participate. And everyone would lead a chat room, or a blog comment section, or a video track. We could have much more diverse video nowadays, because of services like justin.tv and ustream.tv, and I'm sure many others, who provide outbound bandwidth. All we'd need at the facility is enough bandwidth to connect to these services, and if you're not at a hotel, that's not at all hard these days. You could do it at Stanford or Cal, or even the Hillside Club. If you're not deep inside a building with thick walls, EVDO can serve as a backup. If you can't get on through the LAN, try a WAN instead.  I'd also like to see less of a focus on the interests and success stories of venture capital. Something has really changed, even the VCs seem to know it. Money is undifferentiated, so why pay so much attention to what the money people say. Let's get people with big ideas to contribute them, and to disagree with other people with big ideas. That's not to say I'd exclude the money people. But I would insist that they be people who are participating in the networked conversation, not just at the show, but 24 by 7, on blogs, on Twitter, on whatever. I had this discussion with Loic last week. I didn't think and still don't think that it was a good idea for him to have French politicians speak at LeWeb last year. I didn't think it was a good idea for Chris to invite John Edwards to speak at Gnomedex in 2006. Why? Because these people don't have blogs, they don't understand the net. They want to use it, for sure, to get money and votes, but they don't have a vision for it, beyond that, so what they have to say is uninteresting. "Give me money. Vote for me." That's all they say. If they want to come, great, let them listen and ask questions. And look for politicos (as with the VCs) who are making a difference on the net. People like Fred Wilson or Paul Kedrosky, for example. I'm sure there are many more. And I'd work to develop more ways for the back-channel to participate, to come to the front. That's the key to the future of conferences, how to extend them into the net, so the communication path is every way imaginable, not just from the venue out to the world. I want to feel like I'm in a nerve center, whether I'm at the venue or sitting in my living room in Berkeley. I had that feeling, btw, or an inkling of it, watching the AlwaysOn conference eariler this year, which had excellent presence on the net, real-time. The TC40 conference promoters, amazingly, actively thwarted the back channel. I don't know what their thinking was, but I think it was wrong.  Maybe someday these conferences could host real-time development, where media hackers put together new communication systems and deploy them before the conference is over. The moon mission approach to development, if you want to get something done quickly, make sure you know where you're going and are excited about it. Sometimes it's amazing how quickly these things can bootstrap. I'd also like to see a mix of interviews and debates, and open discussion. Dinners in every major city that wants to have them. The truly great tech conferences of the future will be world wide events, as the web itself is world wide, and will be inclusive, not exclusive, and cost very little to participate in, if not $0. Mundeemo: "Don't forget a row of suicide booths.."
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Here&#39;s the skinny: The EMC Storage Router made its debut at Storage Network World here this week, but only in ballroom demonstrations (see EMC on Virtualization: Wait for Us).
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Software giant releases first software designed specifically to manage virtual machines on a network.
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(InfoWorld) - SAN DIEGO -- Anyone who's ever seen the TV show "Mission: Impossible" will remember the familiar "this message will self-destruct" bit that began episodes. Now, a company exhibiting at the Demofall '06 Conference is offering something that can be seen as a variation on that theme. Void Communications' VaporStream is a Web-based hosted message service that eliminates all traces of a message once it has been read; readers can't even print it out or do a screen capture, said Joseph Collins Jr., CEO at Void. Users can reclaim the privacy that can be lost with e-mail, which can be redistributed. "The user now actually has real control" over a message, Collins said. Void has 100 users already signed up since debuting on Monday, he said. "The idea is we want to make a recordless message system" for the Web and for mobile systems, said Amit Shah, CTO at Void. "You want to be able to send private and confidential information to people electronically" and have closed-door conversations, Shah said. While Void does not see its system replacing corporate e-mail systems, the company does see uses such as corresponding with a lawyer about intellectual property, or to discuss personnel matters, said Shah. The service costs $39.99 per user. Demofall on Wednesday featured a multitude of enterprise-level and consumer applications. Koral showed its Web 2.0-based content collaboration system for managing company information included in e-mails, Web pages, documents, and folders. RingCube showed its MojoPac technology, which transforms an iPod or other USB storage device into a portable PC. Users can link the iPod to any PC available and begin working on their applications. Â It is priced at $49.95. "It allows you to create a PC-like environment on your iPod," said Katya Falakshahi, vice president of business development at RingCube. Genius.com promoted its SalesGenius service for tracking Web site usage. A prospect's site visit can be replayed. And the company has a new service, Genius Interactive, that adds instant chat to the service. ThinkFree showed its online office suite, which features multiple office applications accessible via the Web. And MindTouch displayed its DekiBox device, which helps disseminate marketing materials while improving collaboration.
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Entertainment giant Viacom is to provide  TV programmes and films to much-hyped online video service Joost.
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As I said above I'm glued to the TV, but I'm also on Twitter, and blogging, and email, and IM and I'm subscribed to hundreds of RSS feeds, and I've been noticing that slowly the TV news organizations are integrating new Internet services with their TV offerings. They're all getting started, and eventually I'm pretty sure they'll be where Yahoo is now. The thing is, it works. For example, newmediajim is a cameraman for NBC News and he's on Twitter and sometimes I'm watching the other side of his camera on MSNBC and twittering with him before and after. A guy named creepsleepy is a radio guy in Manchester, interviewing presidential candidates, wouldn't it be great if I could listen to his interviews while he twitters his progress? Well, there's no doubt that soon we'll be doing that. We're finally really at the convergence so many have predicted for so long. With the help of a few members of the community Yahoo can get there first. BTW, I read on the NY Times site that Yahoo is going to open up more to developers. Hmmm. If you want to impress end-users and shareholders run it in MSM. If you want to get through to developers, use the developer blogs. Let us have the story first, otherwise you don't seem very serious about it.
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It's been a real thrill to watch Loic Le Meur roll out his new video community tool called Seesmic. He's got the French touch, a bit self-deprecating, he's good at seduction, keeps his ego in the background and puts the focus on the users, where it should be.  As he's been seeding people one by one, they create videos which then appear on Twitter (heh) so people who don't have Seesmic get an idea what it's like through the eyes of people they know. This immediately creates a feeling of envy, but if you beg Loic he gives you an activation code, and off you go -- ready to become his next evangelist. Feeling priviledged to be his next evangelist. It's like Tom Sawyer and the fence. He reminds me so much of Jean-Louis Gassee in his prime, when he had all the Mac developers wrapped around his finger, and loving it.  I have an idea of where Loic wants to go with this, and it's going to be big. It'll be a fun ride, and fun to watch a master promoter at work. PS: Here's my latest Seesmic video, a demo of FlickrRiver. You may have to turn up the audio to understand what I'm saying, or use headphones. We're going to do something fun with the people at Le Web 3 and FlickrRivr. Thanks to Loic for also having a curious mind.  PPS: Beware the exclusive.
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NEW YORK  - A new hub for Comedy  Central's "The Daily Show With Jon Stewart" headlines a slate  of two-dozen targeted Web sites that Viacom's MTV Networks will  launch by the first quarter.
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First TVs, new printers, long-lasting inks, and projectors are targeted \
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Under the broad partnership, Viacom's TV and movie content will find its way on to Xbox and MSN, while Microsoft will be able to server ads to Viacom's U.S. web sites.
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Macromedia is looking to bring Web conferencing to the masses by making its Breeze Live hosted service available on a pay-as-you go basis instead of requiring a subscription.
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Online TV service Joost has struck a content licensing deal with Viacom.
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By Jon Swartz  SAN FRANCISCO -- Days after clashing with Google's YouTube in a public spat over copyright protection, Viacom has found a new partner to air its content online.
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TiVo exec to step down in time of fast ups and hard downs. Also: Google unveils mini search engine for small companies to scour intranet and web & hellip;.  Sony's Creation Box might be the photoshop of video & hellip;. and more.
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Metaplace builds a different architecture for virtual worlds.
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You won't find clips of comedian Jon  Stewart's "Daily Show" and MTV's "Pimp My Ride" on YouTube any  more, but Viacom Inc. is laying the groundwork for its videos  to be available to hundreds of thousands of other sites.