Android Computer & Home Phone

Posted on April 7, 2009 by RoMay Allen

T-Mobile is creating an android-powered tablet pc computer and home phone. The phones should be available early next year as reported by MarketingVox. I think it looks interesting but can’t make any predictions until we get some more official announcements about pricing, size, memory, and other specs.

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Learning MySQL

Posted on April 3, 2009 by RoMay Allen

Well, I’m finally taking the time to learn MySQL. I’ve wanted to do it for a long time, but who has the time to learn databases and syntax just because? Now our i.TV statistician has gone to run another business and I am taking over running queries, so at last I have an excuse to learn MySQL. It’s actually kind of fun to see how people are using our application, what actions are taken most often, and finding out the rich source of data mining can be done through our database.

Anyway, I’m sure the next few days will be filled with queries and learning how to efficiently find what we need. If anyone has any great tips, I’d love to hear them.

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Learn how to build iPhone apps

Posted on April 2, 2009 by RoMay Allen

Stanford is planning a new course to teach students how to build iPhone apps, reported by TechCrunch. The course will be available as a podcast through iTunes. This should be a great addition to the Stanford on iTunes U offerings. No matter where you are you can still get benefits of Stanford lectures, courses and interviews.

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YouTube – New Design on April 16

Posted on March 31, 2009 by RoMay Allen

YouTube is planning a big redesign with the aim of separating its revenue-generating premium and long-form programming from the user generated content (UGC) that has made it popular, writes Clickz.

Sources familiar with Google’s plans for YouTube claim that the new design will replace the current navigation scheme containing “videos,” “channels,” and “community” categories, with tabbed navigation that will direct users to the clearly defined sections for professional content.

The new categories are Movies, Music, Shows, and Videos. The first three will offer monetized (displaying in-stream advertising) premium shows, clips, and movies from Google’s network and studio partners, while the Videos channel will continue to house the amateur and semi-pro content that major brand advertisers have shied away from.

YouTube’s video player will also be redesigned to look more like Hulu, the News Corp.- and NBCU-owned video portal. Like Hulu, the player will display visual markers in places where ads are scheduled to play, and users will be able to control the brightness of screen real estate outside the video frame, enabling the dimmed “home theatre” option that many Hulu fans enjoy.

According to one source, Google is not planning to sell whole episodes to a single advertiser or brand – unlike NBC and ABC, both of which offer advertisers exclusive presence on any given episode on their own sites. CBS allows for multiple sponsors within a single episode, and Hulu offers a blend of single-sponsor and multi-sponsor episodes.

The planned launch date for the overhauled site is April 16.

YouTube’s current offerings include mostly older material from partners like CBS, Lions Gate, MGM, and Sony (Beverly Hills 90210, MacGyver, and Star Trek The Original Series), but Google has indicated that it’s working to make available more recent shows and movies.

In February, YouTube started permitting select video publishers to charge users to download videos onto their computers.

That same month, YouTube signed a deal with major Hollywood talent agency William Morris in an effort to add more premium content to the site.

Posted in Hulu, YouTube | Leave a comment

i.TV is the Best Free iPhone App – Review

Posted on March 31, 2009 by RoMay Allen

Review of i.TV (in the news)

“i.TV » This app for the TV lover by entrepreneur and movie producer Brad Pelo is the best available. Not only does it provide an onscreen television grid for listings, but it also has movie listings for local theaters, movie trailers, previews for TV series, episode clips, entertainment news and connectivity to Netflix so users can instantly add DVDs to their rental queue while on the go.

Best of all, there are full episodes of many series, including “Star Trek,” “Desperate Housewives,” “All in the Family” and scores more. And in some cases, there are dozens of episodes of a single series available for streaming. It also works with 3G.
It’s an app that does a lot of things and most of them well. (Free)”

Thanks for the great feedback!

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Twitter to Charge?

Posted on March 26, 2009 by RoMay Allen

Twitter is further solidifying plans to implement a premium account structure for “power” users or companies.

Co-Founder Biz Stone confirmed that the company recently hired a product manager to develop commercial accounts, but reiterated that the service would be “free to use by everyone,” and for-profit services would be add-ons.

In other words, users would pay a small nominal fee for additional services. No launch date has been set, however, on these commercial features.

There was no specificity afforded about the type of features that may be offered for a fee, but sites like Business Insider have a few speculations:

We could see a lot of companies paying $10 or $20 a month for the service, even for simple tools. But we could also see many companies — Comcast, JetBlue, Starbucks, etc. — paying more than one hundred dollars per month for really good, insightful tools.

In an email to the publication, Stone confirmed the trick would be to find services that will “improve the experience.”

“Will it be account verification? Will it be lightweight analytics? Will there be opportunities for introducing customers to businesses on Twitter[?] So many questions. But the key is to understand that Twitter will remain free for all to use—individuals and companies alike,” he persisted.

Recent figures from Nielsen pegged Twitter’s year-on-year growth at an astronomical 1,382%.

Hoping to harness that traffic, a handful of services have tried leveraging the company’s present dearth of a business model. Magpie enables users to sell their “tweets” and Twitter backgrounds as ad space. Each user is paid according to his number of followers. And ExecTweets, a Microsoft-sponsored site launched by Federated Media this month, displays tweets from business executives. Twitter receives a cut of the profit.

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Blockbuster OnDemand to be on TiVo

Posted on March 25, 2009 by RoMay Allen

Today Blockbuster is expected to announce a partnership with TiVo, whereby the former’s digital movie library can be ported directly to the televisions of TiVo users.

The service, Blockbuster On-Demand, will be accessible to the 800,000 users with broadband internet connected to their TiVo units.

“Ultimately, our vision is to work with TiVo so that their subscribers can access movies not only through our On Demand service but also from our stores and through our by-mail service as well,” said CEO Jim Keyes of Blockbuster.

TiVo struck similar deals with YouTube, Amazon and Netflix, an online DVD rental/film-streaming service with which Blockbuster struggles to compete in the digital space.

Netflix avails about 12,000 film and TV programs on the web to most of its subscribers, but most titles are several years old. In contrast, Blockbuster plans to offer a smaller selection — 5,000 to 10,000 titles — digitally at any given time, but the titles will be fresher. Films like “The Dark Knight,” for example, can be rented for $3.99, to watch within 24 hours upon payment.

A relationship with Blockbuster is of additional real-world value to TiVo: the company agreed to sell TiVo units at a number of its 4,000 brick-and-mortar locations in the States, in exchange for a retailer’s cut.

The pair will work in tandem to promote its liaison in the second half of the year. SVP-Digital Kevin Lewis of Blockbuster said the TiVo deal marks “the first of many” that the firm plans to announce with major consumer electronics firms.

Last week Blockbuster finalized agreements with two major lenders to extend its revolving credit line through 2010 — which will likely precipitate such liaisons. In December 2008, Blockbuster also inked a deal to serve films on mobile devices powered by Microsoft.

Posted in Entertainment, TiVo | Leave a comment

Optimizing Images in Social Media

Posted on March 25, 2009 by RoMay Allen

Images are among the most powerful tools in social media: they are easily consumed, and offer more stimulating information than text.

And since most people are busy and increasingly tightfisted with time, mastering the image — which takes little effort to scan — has a lot of appeal.

As reported on MarketingVOX:

A few of the tips:

  • Use groups of images for targeted groups to add content.

  • Mark your images with a non-intrusive personal stamp, like your URL – these images are then easily copied, thus ensuring higher overall exposure.

  • Use large images, preferably of the same size when presented in group, and be sure to categorize them.

  • Host your images on services like Amazon’s S3 and Flickr Pro to prevent your server from being overburdened.

  • Go ahead and use funny pictures, but never mix them with news/information images: Users don’t appreciate this.

  • Use high quality photography and high resolution design-related content (e.g., digital art, graffiti, web design, fonts).

  • Informative images (charts, graphs, screen shots, how-to’s, maps) that are easy to understand and comprehensive are extremely eye-grabbing and helpful.

  • Look for unbelievable shots that are still believable, like action shots caught on film.

  • Use breaking news photos and exclusive shots. (The Hudson plane landing is a good example of this.)

In all, images are a powerful conveyor of messages, and because they are so prime for social media consumption, it merits paying attention to detail when choosing which images to use.

Search engines, too, are recognizing their importance. Image search is the fastest-growing vertical in the search arena today.

Posted in SEO Tools, Social Media, Websites | Leave a comment

Perspective in times of Stress

Posted on March 24, 2009 by RoMay Allen

“A pebble held close to the eye appears to be a gigantic obstacle. Cast on the ground, it is seen in perspective. Likewise, problems or trials in our lives need to be viewed in the perspective of scriptural doctrine. Otherwise they can easily overtake our vision, absorb our energy, and deprive us of the joy and beauty the Lord intends us to receive here on earth.” — Richard G. Scott, “Finding Joy in Life”, Ensign May 1996

I love the idea of taking a step back during times of stress, economic or otherwise, to truly see the big picture. It’s hard to remember sometimes that truly turning our lives over to the Lord is really the only important thing. We think that work or money or entertainment is more important than our relationship with God.

But I believe the stresses remind us – to depend on God and He will help us. Psalms 55:22 “Cast thy burden upon the Lord, and he shall sustain thee: he shall never suffer the righteous to be moved.”

Just my thoughts over the past few weeks… and I thought I’d share.

Posted in Goals, LDS, Quotes | Leave a comment

iTunes to offer HD movies and rentals

Posted on March 20, 2009 by RoMay Allen

This week Apple announced it will offer high-definition movie sales and rentals via iTunes.

Recent box office titles, including “Quantum of Solace” and “Twilight,” and be downloaded for $19.99 in HD; rentals are available 30 days after release for $4.99. The offering is Mac and PC compatible; widescreen and Apple TVs can also partake, but iPhone and iPod with video will continue to support only standard-definition versions.

Prior to this announcement, and after January 2008, Apple offered HD movie rentals exclusively via Apple TV. In September, support for HD TV shows was incorporated into iTunes.

To promote the new offering, a dedicated HD Movies page was added to the iTunes storefront.

Online video gross media spend is expected to grow 22.5% between 2008 and 2010. YouTube, which aspires to both monetize its offerings and compete with iTunes and Hulu in terms of providing premium content, continues to fuel audience traffic toward online video. In February it began testing a charge-to-download program that, if successful, may put it in iTunes’ arena.

Posted in Apple, Current News, Entertainment, iTunes | Leave a comment