Rich Media: Video

The video I chose to watch was Dr. Horrible’s Sing Along Blog Act One on:
http://www.hulu.com/watch/28327/dr-horribles-sing-along-blog-act-one.
The technologies and infrastructure needed to create and distribute the program on the Web are a list of different programs. The Hulu website offers streaming video of TV shows and movies from NBC, Fox, and Disney, News Corp. Hulu provides video in Flash Video format, including many films and shows that are available in 360p and the considered high-definition format of 480p. Hulu now has a beta version of Hulu Desktop. This out of browser is a standalone program that allows users to watch Hulu without using their web browser. It is compatible with existing computer remote controls and requires a Flash player and runs on Windows and OS X. The blog has made it to iTunes and to DVD. So the technology needed is to have a Rich media program such as Flash or Sliverlight. Also a restraint would be storage space to save the streaming videos.

Now CBS is going all anti-Hulu on us. http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/entertainmentnewsbuzz/2009/09/cbss-quincy-smith-want-to-make-case-against-hulu.html
They have an argument there is no authentication for consumers to prove they subscribe to a cable or satellite service; although CBS has online video on their site.

Course Blog

This week in the MIT program I was informed about Rich Data media. A rich data media application we overviewed was Silverlight. Silverlight offers cross-domain support for applications. Silverlight plug-in is just a 1MB download and is supported in windows XP and above. Silverlight also has a browser plug-in and is in the same market competing with flash. It may be develop in Windows. And it is compatible with Internet Explorer, Firefox, Opera and Safari. Silverlight allows a webmaster to use code such as PHP, JavaScript and even more advanced coding such as AJAX. This is a good option for multimedia streaming. Microsoft designed Silverlight with the same codec utilized in BlueRay and HD DVDs. Video will be good, even on a graphic heavy website. Some example of sites using Silverlight are http://www.bing.com/visualsearch ; http://silverlight.net/showcase/ . In order to use Silverlight a user will have to install Silverlight unto their PC.
Rich media can allow interactivity, entertainment, repeat visitors, easier understanding, international communication, portability, collaboration, cheaper, and greener. To incorporate Rich Media in the browser the application will have a plug-in and HTML 5. Alternatively outside the browser requires software client, widgets, or rich internet applications.

Twitter Tools

1.
Python Twitter Tools (PTT) includes a Twitter API, command-line tool, and IRC bot. It is developed by Mike Verdone and the Python Twitter Tools developer team. Its methods are directly bound to the Twitter API's URLs. http://mike.verdone.ca/twitter/. It can be used for a business to finding users tweets and setting your own tweet from the safety and security.
2.
TweetSum helps you more efficiently decide whether you should follow someone back once they've followed you on Twitter. http://tweetsum.com. This tool will be helpful to decipher relevant users to follow on twitter.

3.
Qwitter e-mails you when someone stops following you on Twitter with a message like this: John Gruber (gruber) stopped following you on Twitter after you posted this tweet: What's the difference between Arial and Helvetica? http://useqwitter.com/ This is helpful for business to see if users stop following them after a specific tweet.

4.
twInfluence is a simple tool for measuring the combined influence of twitterers and their followers, with a few social network statistics thrown in as bonus. http://twinfluence.com/. This is helpful by allowing a user to know who is following them actively and show their influence on the Twitter community.

5.
TweetBeep is a tool that notifies the user when it is being tweeted about. http://tweetbeep.com/. This is a useful tool for companies to keep its image in check by being on “the lookout” for any potential negativity and any positives about the company, product, or website.

Twitter Uses

Gartner, Inc. an information technology research and advisory company researched Twitter uses. Garnter's research netted in finding four different ways companies are using Twitter. http://www.gartner.com/it/page.jsp?id=920813. These four different ways are direct, indirect, internal, and signaling. Direct consist of companies using Twitter as a marketing or public relations channel, much like an extension to their corporate blogs. This method probably seems to be the easiest way to get started. Some within the Twitter community find this as self-serving, self-promotional tweets. Gartner also warns that responding to comments can be risky when going this route, but, while that's true to a point, when done right responding on Twitter can be of great benefit to the company. Indirect method use Twitter to let their employees tweet instead. As the employees use Twitter to enhance their own personal reputations, the company's reputation is also enhanced by proxy. This can go negatively or positively for the company. Another good reason for having employees tweet instead of the company itself is if the company wants to be seen as employing influential leaders. Internal use of Twitter can be used to share ideas or communicate about what projects they're working on. Lastly signaling represents companies as Twitter "listeners." Using search tools like search.twitter.com or desktop applications like TweetDeck are easy ways to keep track of what's being said about the company, its product names, or even the industry as a whole. Smart companies are tuning in to these micro-conversations to get early warnings of problems and to collect feedback on product issues or ideas.

Twitter Account

Twitter does have some limitations on published content. The limitations include impersonation, trademark, privacy, violence or threats, copyright. For impersonation rules no one may impersonate intended to confuse, deceive or mislead users. A good example is the guy impersonating Shaq. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/20/sports/basketball/20shaq.html?_r=2 . Trademark infringement is another limitation. Twitter reserve the right to reclaim user names on behalf of businesses or individuals that hold legal claim or trademark on those user names. They disable accounts showing indication of trademark infringements. If anyone imposes on others privacy Twitter disable those account also. Privacy includes people's private and confidential information, such as credit card numbers, street address or Social Security/National Identity numbers, without their express authorization and permission. No threats maybe published against others. Twitter may not be used for illegal activites. Twitter may not be used to promote illegal activities. For International users, they must comply with all local laws regarding conduct and content. Twitter also blocks name squatting. So no one maybe protect a name in order to sell it later. In the same regard a user must have an agreement with Twitter to reproduce, duplicate, copy, sell, trade or resell the Services for any purpose. Lastly pornography is not allowed.

Opera

Opera started in 1994 as a research project inside Norway’s largest telecom company, Telenor. Opera Software is a Norwegian corporation, primarily known for its Opera family of web browsers. Opera Software is also involved in promoting Web standards through participation in the W3C. The company has its headquarters in Oslo, Norway, and is listed on Oslo Stock Exchange. The company also has offices in Sweden, China, India, Japan, Korea, Poland, Czech Republic and the USA. Within a year, it branched out into an independent development company named Opera Software ASA. Opera Web browser is a multi-platform product for a wide range of platforms, operating systems and embedded Internet products. Opera is operational on Mac, PC and Linux computers, mobile phones and PDAs, game consoles, and other devices. According to Opera’s website their vision is to deliver the best Internet experience on any device and their business objective is to earn global leadership in the market for PC/desktops and embedded products. Their business strategy is to provide a browser that operates across devices, platforms and operating systems, and can deliver a faster, more stable and flexible Internet experience than its competitors. Opera's mobile browsers are Opera Mini and Opera Mobile. Opera first developed a mobile browser in 1998. In 2005, Opera Mini was released as the first browser that could work on any phone with Java.

Course Blog

Class today was very interesting again. We overviewed client /server Network. The client software can be considered the web browser. The browser sends a http request which is sent to the server. The server processes the request and sends the http response back to the client. The server side consists of a web server software, application server, data server, and database. The next type of network we covered was Peer-to-Peer and BitTorrent.



BitTorrent is a protocol that offloads some of the file tracking work to a central server. This means that in order to receive files, you have to give them. With BitTorrent, the more files you share with others, the faster your downloads are. But you are vulnerable to viruses.
Next we overviewed Master/Slave network. This is usally used with Print server. The Master/Slave helps reduce bandwidth because the Slave blocks unauthorized request before it gets to the Master for processing.
Lastly it was cool to hear from Chuck Hudson, founder Aduci. He overviewed the creation of Apple program apps. He spoke about the business model of getting Apple to approve an app. Things considered are the app price, lead generator, Lite vs premium, Ads, Packages product, External license, External commission, and Paid content. There are a couple of hoops to jump through for the approval process. As the app developer you have to plan on 1-4 week approval, don’t submit until ready, make it easy for Apple to test and market externally.

Wikipedia Page Editing

The process of editing Wikipedia was fun. It was actually more restricted than I thought it would be to edit a Wiki page. I actually tried to edit T-Pain’s wiki page to update it about his iPhone app. It is a little difficult to edit because his page is semi-protected. I did request for the page to be edited but was rejected because “Not done:I am inclined to Oppose or Decline this request, because it seems to be non-encyclopædic and/or promotional in nature. Intelligentsium 23:28, 11 September 2009 (UTC) If you would rewrite this in a non-promotional tone and indicate how this is appropriate for inclusion in an encyclopædia, I would be glad to make the edit. Intelligentsium 23:31, 11 September 2009 (UTC)”. So I tried again to edit the page about the Apple iTunes application.
To see the page please go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T-Pain

9/3 Blog

In class we focused on business strategy. It was very interesting learning about Michael Porter's, from Harvard Business School, Five Forces model. The five forces are degree of rivalry, threat of substitute, barrier of entry, buyer power, and supplier power. In addition to the five forces there is also a Six Forces Model, which is Five Forces model plus Complementary products. Then in the business world there are Blue Ocean and Red Ocean. The red ocean is cut throat every going after each other giving the ocean its hue of red while the unknown Blue Ocean is a vast unknown new market awaiting for discovery.

The Five Forces model interests me the most. Before anyone decides on going into a new business field they should consider this model. The rivalry aspect is about competition. They should research the degree of rivalry, any exit barriers, industry concentration, and industry growth. Next a business should be concern about threat of substitute. A substitute can vary switching cost, buyer inclination to substitute, and price performance tradeoff of substitutes. For any company going into a new market always have a barrier of entry. This barrier attributes can list from absolute cost advantage, proprietary learning curve, access to raw materials/inputs, and Government regulation to name a few. The next two forces are buyer power and supplier power. Both forces include threats of integration with each other. So the business should find a way to make themselves indispensable to the buyer and supplier.