Great news! Just discovered the iTunes Music Store has added our Bible Podcasts. Ligia and I are recording them simultaneously in both English and Romanian. I submitted them about 1 1/2 weeks ago. Went frantic this evening making sure my RSS files are spiffed up and work with multiple readers. I’m also using FeedBurner to publish the feeds. You can access the pages for the English and Romanian podcasts by clicking on each language.
Yearly Archives: 2005
The next media player
I sat down to breakfast this morning and kept thinking about my media and the problems I face when trying to get things properly cataloged, and realized the tools still aren’t out there to do things correctly.
Current media players (such as iTunes, Windows Media Player, Winamp, etc.) are good for playing music, or for playing video, and are fairly good when it comes to cataloging audio, but they have a ways to go when it comes to cataloging video or – and this is the most important thing – cataloging MEDIA.
Let me explain myself. Audio files are one type of media. Video files are another. Writings are yet another. So are photos or graphics. Web pages can use all types, and they can be though of as another media type as well, a hybrid, so to speak. There isn’t a media player out there that combines the ability to play and properly catalog ALL of these different types of media, and in particular, to correlate them in meaningful and flexible ways. Here’s are a few example that illustrate the current shortcomings:
- I have a song by a certain artist, but I also have his or her music video for that particular song. They are seen as different files by the media player, and they come up as two different search results, when really, a common container should be created for that particular piece, and within it, the two pieces should be displayed together. While playing the song, I should be able to switch seamlessly between the audio version and the video version, without having to restart the song. The lyrics should also be stored as a third piece within that container, and if I want to, I should be able to display the lyrics onscreen for either the audio or the video version of the song.
- If I have a video file, I should be able to properly catalog it within the media player, but I have yet to find a player that will do it right. iTunes has recently started to offer the ability to view and store videos within its library. It also happens to be my favorite player. Skipping right over the misnomer inherent in the name of the software – Tunes means songs, not videos – it doesn’t allow me to catalog the videos correctly. I can enter tags for the videos, just like I can for the songs, but the same fields that apply to songs (Artist, Composer, Album, etc.) are provided as tags for the videos. That’s wrong. Appropriate, but parallel tags should be provided, such as Actor, Director, Studio, Series, etc.
- Lyrics can be entered for songs, but they cannot be entered for videos. That’s a clear shortcoming. What if I have a video interview. A transcript is also provided for that interview, in text format. I should be able to store that transcript right alongside the video, so I can access it as needed.
- Let’s look at books. The audio and written version of books should be stored in the same container in my media player. I should be able to switch between both. Also, if a movie was made of the book, and I have that movie in my library, it should be stored in that same container as well. If I’m reading a paragraph in the book, I should be able to switch directly to the movie scene that deals with that subject if I want to do so. If I want to access a list of the photos (provided with the book), I should be able to browse just the photos.
- Similarly, if I have an album by an artist, I should be able to see all of the cover art and photos for that album by switching to it while I’m playing the song.
- In my photo library, I should be able to store audio narration for a single photo or group of photos that I have taken, or have received through email from one of my friends, or have purchased or downloaded from the Internet.
- These containers that store the different media types for a piece of information, should be easily importable and exportable as a whole or in pieces. If I have two computers at home, I shouldn’t have to re-create each container by combining the pieces. If I want to copy a container from one computer to the other, I should be able to do so without problems, even if one of the computers is Macintosh and the other is Windows or Linux, as long as the media player was written for each of these operating systems.
The good news is that we can do this with the current technology. This isn’t some fairy tale. It should only take about 6 months to 1 1/2 years or so to develop the product. Yes, some of the media types will have to be re-tooled to allow for syncing of text and audio/video, but this CAN be done, and an amazing product awaits at the end of the tunnel.
Google Print launched today
Google Print just launched its first set of scanned books today. Go to http://print.google.com to search the materials. You’ll need a Google account to get access to all of the search results.
Using recycled plastic to minimize collision impact
My wife told me about the difficulties with recycling plastic, and that so little of it can be re-used for the same purpose. Most of it can unfortunately only be used for utility purposes such as benches, garbage cans, etc. Immediately I thought of its potential use to minimize collission impact on our roads. We’ve all seen how concrete pillars are wrapped in collapsible plastic so that head-on collisions will be somewhat dampened. We’ve also seen big plastic containers filled with sand or water and placed in front of highway bifurcations, so that high speed head-on collision impact will be somewhat dissipated by the sand or water. Well, how about these next uses for low grade recycled plastic?
- Instead of using sand or water, this low-grade, non-tensile strength recycled plastic, made from grocery bags and other cheap recycled materials, could be used instead of the sand or plastic. It would be naturally porous and somewhat elastic. I think it would work well to dissipate the impact and reduce the deceleration force encountered by a vehicle.
- Different iterations of it could be used inside vehicle bumpers as well – instead of the foam or polystyrene currently used.
- It could also be used in highway railguards, not to replace the steel bumpers but to bolster them and reduce damage on a car, should it bounce off the rails.
Audience-inclusive advertising
After the new video iPod launched, and the possibility to purchase and download ad-free TV shows came to light, I realized that the advertising industry would have to come up with some clever ways to keep their audience if they were to maintain revenues. The following ideas sprung to mind:
- A site can be set up and maintained by a consortium of advertising agencies and brand owners or a neutral body, that would either track viewer product preferences through data mining and random surveys, or would actively encourage users to register and provide product preferences. Alternately, existing user data could be compiled from various databases.
- Advertising during TV shows that certain user groups watch could be more closely targeted to those groups by ad personalization. Users could register for the chance to have an ad dedicated to them. For example, a sample user we’ll call Jane could indicate that she likes the MINI Cooper, and so when an ad for the Cooper runs during a show that she likes to watch, names can be selected at random from the database of users, and if her name comes up, that ad could say: “This goes out to Jane” before it runs, and end with a “Thanks, Jane!” Quite simple, really, but it serves to capture the audience, since people will stay tuned during the ads just to see if their name will come up.
- This concept can be expanded to include groups of users, perhaps up to 3-5 identifiable users per ad.
- Through the medium of the website, brand owners can also take a cue from the users about the kind of products they need to advertise, this time in a more direct way, through hard data. Even more, they can more easily survey the users about the kind of new products they want to see.
- Another way to keep the audience is to offer prizes for watching the ads and picking through clues that are weaved through both the ads and the shows. Entries can then be registered on the show’s site or at this main site for a chance to win something, perhaps even products featured on the show, or something as banal as an actor’s coat, or the actual bottle of perfume used by an actress on the show. These aren’t things that cost much but mean a lot to the audience.
- People are making a big deal about product placement, but I think that reaches a saturation point very quickly. You can’t plaster products all over the screen and detract from the value of the story or the entertainment. Product placements works when it’s subtle, weaved into the story, and reinforced through the regular ads.
Raoul Pop 