While everybody and their tech brothers and sisters are writing about the iPhone 3G launch today — and the launch has overloaded Apple servers — I’ve been thinking about the Samsung Instinct. Turns out they are paying $20 for the first 1,000 YouTube users to upload a video with the Instinct in it.
I surfed YouTube for ‘Samsung Instinct‘ videos and there were 334 as of this writing. You don’t have to actually own an Instinct phone, but do have to feature it in your video. Don’t forget your video camera as you head into the store to check out an Instinct if you’re interested in the deal. There are numerous unboxing videos like the one shown below:
Obvious comparisons are being made to the iPhone and Geek.com reviewed and compared to the iPhone:
Sprint has been aggressively pitching the Instinct, long before its arrival, as an iPhone killer. After using it for more than two weeks, and putting it through its paces, including surfing the Web, sending and receiving texts and e-mails, using it as a GPS navigator, and more, I can say that it’s not an iPhone killer, per se, but does offer a nice challenge to what the iPhone is known for delivering.
I have nothing against Apple or the iPhone, but cannot stand AT&T. I’m not that thrilled about any of the cell phone carriers, but Sprint has treated us ok with our EVDO and two phone accounts for our teenagers. Adding a third account for the Instinct which costs $229 ($129 if you count the $100 mail-in rebate) and switching to their Everything Plan would cost us $40/month more than we’re paying. Not bad.
Any readers try or buy the Instinct yet? Would be curious what your thoughts are as we continue to mull this over.
Being a videoblog/podcast host is a transitory profession. Don’t sign any long leases.
Remember Amanda Congdon who had a popular gig at Rocketboom and then went onto presumably bigger, better things at ABC, only to last less than a year. Enter example two, Veronica Belmont, the initial video host of Jason Calacanis’ current video brainchild: Mahalo Daily. Belmont ditched Mahalo Daily awhile back and is starting June 5 as the new videoblog host for Qore, a paid subscription-based videoblog show which sounds to me like paying to watch commercials for games on the Sony Playstaton 3.
In fairness, let’s review what the official PS3 blog says will be part of the Qore subscription:
Qore has been developed to give PS3 users early access to game related content at a level of quality, interactivity and depth. Everything is filmed in HD. Qore will feature exclusive news, developer interviews, in-depth game previews and behind-the-scenes looks at PlayStation games and special access to game demos, special beta invitations, game add-ons and other downloadable game-related content.
Calacanis was smart enough not to charge viewers for his paid advertorial for Mahalo, what is Sony smoking? Why are they are charging for “special access” to game demos? Some commenters on the PS3 blog post are rightfully complaining while at least one commenter says this is in line with print game magazines which charge too much for information you can usually find on the web already. Nevermind that many of these print game mags are struggling to stay afloat. This is 2008, not 1998.
Shooting the video in all HD is smart and the game add-on part might be worth paying for if they are giving away songs to games like Rock Band and Guitar Hero but my guess is most of these add-ons will be lame things like different characters or backgrounds. Yeah, yeah, maybe it will be only [sarcasm] $24.99 a year for a Qore subscription of 13 episodes, but I’m skeptical that it will be worth $2.99 (single episode price) per episode. For Sony’s and fellow gamer’s sake I hope I’m wrong. I will happily buy in if they put some good exclusive add-on content in there.
Let me throw Sony a bone. Get us access to HOME — for free. Quit delaying and give us more games in the Playstation store. I’ve only been saying this since launch day and doubt any gamers will disagree. Sony could have bought Atari (ATAR stock had been floundering) dirt cheap and put all of their games in the PlayStation store and didn’t do it. No, instead they want to charge us for the privilege of being teased about some bright gaming future (Look at what’s coming in months … years). Advice to Belmont: don’t put all your eggs in the Qore basket. As popular as the Wii is (where can one buy Wii Fit at anyway? Sold out everywhere), she would have been better doing a Nintendo Wii show — perhaps an exercise show to go along with Wii Fit — that was offered for the special price of — drumroll please — free. Strike that, horny gamers would pay $2.99 to see a good looking girl doing Wii Fit workouts.
Mixing Star Wars and politics in a video entitled The Empire Strikes Barack? Funny.
On a serious note, I would like to see the “battle” if you will between these two end, as it’s getting closer to November and will leave voters minds clouded if this goes on too long. This will give the advantage to McCain who has to want this to continue as long as possible.
I still believe these two are fused at the hip and it will be an Obama-Clinton ticket or Clinton-Obama ticket in November for the Dems, despite what Ted Kennedy said recently about Obama not going to pick Clinton as a running mate if he wins the nomination.
It’s a live video with chat service (pictured above). You can view it below live, maybe, if I’m still broadcasting live when you read this.
One of the things that I like about this service is that it’s easy to setup. I set everything up that you see above in less than five minutes. One of my favorite features is the scripting function for overlays. You can insert RSS feeds which if you click through when it’s still live you’ll see tech headlines from the Google News RSS feed.
Auto-pilot when your show isn’t live
You can also arrange clips that you record live to show in the “auto-pilot” when your show isn’t live. Even if you missed when I was on there live you can see the recorded segment in rotation. I could go in there and add some Hmmcast videos as well. I’m going to play around with this more.
I didn’t like how the embed default code worked onload so I changed the variable on=false. This way you have to implicitly click the “on” button inside the post rather than just visiting the page and having it work.
The following site keeps drawing me back. Imagine if this was a video game; something like the Wii could probably pull this off.
At the Cinekid Festival in the Netherlands kidscan explore the Funky Forest where they can create a virtual tree and then try to divert water to the tree to make it grow.
Funky Forest uses openFrameworks, a C++ library that is “heading towards a public release.”
The Cinekid Festival is an annual event for kids held in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. It’s a Film, Television and New Media Festival. Kids only festival? Heck, this looks like something grown up kids could get into.
Last night my Hulu.com beta invite arrived. Hulu is a joint venture between NBC Universal and News Corp’s online video. Immediately I logged in and created a new password and started poking around. You mean I can use Hulu to legally watch full episodes of shows like The Simpsons? Right on!
As I write this post, I’m watching Treehouse of Horror XVIII from this year’s season, something I can’t do anywhere else online (legally). Offline we don’t have cable, satellite or even an over the air antenna setup, so even the free channels aren’t an option in our household. For the last 500+ days, our only form of television has been through DVDs purchased of seasons. We just finished watching the first seasons of Benson and Silver Spoons, for example.
The two major problems with Joost I have is that the content doesn’t appeal to me and it’s P2P based. I’ve tried a couple different times to get into Joost but it’s like watching most of the channels on TV: there’s a lot of channels but very little of interest to me. Maybe some others reading love all the Joost content and can tell me what I’m missing? Shortly after launching Joost I’m already ready to shut it down.
Not the case for Hulu where I could instantly scan the available choices and start watching.
Hulu offers professional content from: Bravo, E! Entertainment, FOX, IGN, NBC Universal, Sci Fi, FX, Sundance Channel, Sony, USA, Universal Pictures, Comedy Time, MGM, Fight Networks, Ford Models, Fuel TV, G4, GameSpot, Golf Channel, Movieola, WWE, National Geographic, Oxygen, Speed Channel, TVG, TV.com, TV Guide, Versus, X17, LX.TV, Rehearsals, Reveille, Style Network and TVG Horse Racing.
This includes some of our newer favorite shows like: 24, Cops, Las Vegas, Prison Break, My Name is Earl and The Simpsons as well as some classics like The A-Team, Night Gallery and WKRP in Cincinatti. Also there are some new shows we haven’t seen like: Bionic Woman. Some of the shows listed are only clips like Saturday Night Live, which is kind of lame.
The first thing I tried to do was run Hulu on the PS3 through our 1080p HDTV. No dice in the Playstation browser, so my next test will be to see if I can pipe the Hulu video experience through the Xbox 360 and Vista version of Media Center. I’d much prefer to watch this on the TV, even if it’s still in a browser type setup.
Confined by the browser (F11 still doesn’t cut it)
One strength Joost has over Hulu is not being confined to the browser. If there’s a workaround for this, please let me know in the comments. TV and movies are best enjoyed on a television or decent-sized monitor, not in a browser.
I know the F11 trick in Firefox, but it still leaves remnants of the browser on screen. When you go full screen through Hulu you get large black blocky space around the frame, not truly stretched full screen video as shown in the video screenshot to the right below. In Joost you can get a better true full screen experience than Hulu.
Hulu options available include: a small popout window, full screen (with browser remnants), lower lights which dims frame colors around the viewing area and the ability to rate the shows from 1-5 stars. I’d trade all these options for a single fully stretched, high quality picture. Let me pay a few bucks and get HD and I’ll be reaching for my wallet.
With the new shows you can watch the four most recent episodes which is a bit of a bummer if you’re just now getting invited and the episodes start at #3 or #4. With WKRP in Cincinatti the entire first season was available. Wow, that’s quite a value considering we paid $20 for the DVD! Night Gallery, however only had four episodes from the first season, so not every series is complete. Still, there’s enough content to watch at Hulu to keep one busy for weeks, if not months.
The quality of the video is merely OK. It’s equal to or better than the quality of other TV in browser implementations but it’s not DVD-quality and a far cry from HD quality. When you resize the windows, the video will resize. At full screen you’ll see some pixelation and artifacts.
No, not commercial free like DVDs
At Hulu you will have to endure 30 second commercial breaks that you can’t fast forward through, but these seem less intrusive than commercials on television. In the Simpsons episode I counted three 30 second commercial breaks. No problem.
Summary and grade
With the wide variety and quality content offered through Hulu for free (there are commercials, again), this is easily my favorite TV video site available on the web. Sadly, it’s not available outside the United States at this time but according to a post on the Hulu blog:
Today, the service is a U.S. service only. That said, our intention is to make Hulu’s growing content lineup available worldwide. Given that this requires clearing the rights for each show or film in each specific geography, it will take time. In no uncertain terms, the Hulu team is committed to making great programming available across the globe. I’ve been very encouraged by how many content providers have already been working along these lines so that their programs can be available over the internet to a much larger, global audience.
Hulu doesn’t really compare to user-generated sites like YouTube. You can’t upload your own videos to Hulu and you are kind of an island as far as an individual user (no social features that I can see yet), but you can embed clips from your favorite shows in your site/blog like say Opera Man from Saturday Night Live:
All in all, I’m very impressed and surprised by how much I liked Hulu on a first look. We’ll be spending a good amount of time at Hulu over the next few weeks. If/when they expand this to a global audience and add some more features like videoblogs and user-created content, work on higher quality (yes, even it’s for a fee), they’ll have a serious competitor in the online video sector. They already do with the content alone. Grade: B
Remember Hall & Oates? A variation on the “Kiss is on My list” lyrics represent the badly hacked title.
Hall & Oates sold over 60 million albums and Daryl Hall loves the internet. He was on the Howard Stern show this morning promoting his free webcast Live From Daryl’s House with performances of him with his friends in his living room, “an intimate setting.”
Daryl’s website describes the event as:
“This is straight from me to the audience. It gives me the freedom to allow a glimpse into my creative process and work with different musicians. And I feel more comfortable doing it this way. The Internet is a refreshing opportunity to reach people.”
Now this is the kind of refreshing artist view that the RIAA would be wise to understand and embrace. Assuming it’s not too late, which I think it is. The artists can come directly to their fans.
Daryl Hall is divorced from the Sara in the song “Sara Smile” but played a nice acoustic version of the song with T-Bone on guitar during the Stern show this morning. It sounds like this webcast could be a free every month downloadable deal and available via Bubbleup.net service.
These webcasts won’t be streamed live, which would be taking it even a step further, but hey, I’m suddenly more interested in Daryl Hall than I’ve been since the 80s. I might even go out and buy a Hall & Oates CD or two, imagine that?
You can show support for what Daryl is doing starting at 8pm EST tomorrow, November 15.
Day #1 of 30 in the NaBloPoMo challenge and time to get on the board. Also it’s Thursawday #9 and time to do the month end books at VTOR, so lots to do online today. Tonight I’ll be at Microsoft doing some beta testing. Always look forward to these sessions.
Lots of leftover candy or get wiped out? We were only home for an hour of trick or treaters and then retreated to the store to shop. Picked up a new 500GB Firewire drive for the Mac (now let’s see if we run out of music and video space). Installed Leopard yesterday and like what I see there. Also picked up the new Eagles studio CD and have been listening to that. Wal-mart had some good deals on AC DC cds, I picked up For Those About To Rock for $6.88, nice.
Speaking of Halloween, and this should be my last post on it for awhile, but the following video of this Bioshock costume and the little girl is great. The best costume I’ve seen.
In 1998 a university professor from North Carolina created a site that focused on providing exhaustive descriptions of how stuff works.
Nine years later, Discovery, the folks behind Animal Planet and Discovery Channel are paying $250 million for all those juicy Google search results.
Acquiring HowStuffWorks will give Discovery the online firepower it has been lacking, Mr. Zaslav says. He wants to make the site, which draws about 3.8 million unique U.S. users a month, according to comScore Media Metrix, the foundation of Discovery’s digital push. HowStuffWorks says it has 11 million users globally.
A search query at this blog for ‘howstuffworks.com’ results in two links, the most recent link in February on how beer goggles work (pictured) and the first link in August 2003 showing how mood rings work. HowStuffWorks is a good site with solid content. It’s nice to see a payday for a site with good content.
IP Democracy digs deeper into Discovery’s plans, which will focus on video specifically:
HowStuffWorks is planning to embed videos from Discovery’s various channels as well as serve as an oulet for the display of new short-form videos that could very well turn into long-form series for Discovery’s cable networks if they prove to be popular or sticky enough.
I think the relationship will work better using HowStuffWorks content on the TV shows than trying to focus on video content from the TV show. Here’s an even better idea: take user submitted how stuff works like content and put it on TV — now that would be good for both. At the least Discovery needs to make it easy to embed in websites a la YouTube rather than forcing people to view only at HowStuffWorks. The ironic thing is Google and other search engines still don’t provide good search of the content inside videos.
Last night for whatever strange reason — I’d blame it on a full moon if there was one — I collected 13 different Bohemian Rhapsody videos at YouTube. Some of these are funny, some impressive and showing talent, some bizarre and some are stupid. All Hmm-inspiring in a unique way? As always, you will be the judge.
1. A hand farting version of Bohemian Rhapsody, are you kidding? Nope.
3. And now for some real humor talent: Rick Miller performing Bohemian Rhapsody as many different artists like Bon Jovi, Aaron Neville, AC DC, Axl Rose, Ozzy Osbourne and more.
4. Star Trek retrospective video. See how many scenes you can identify with which version of Star Trek (STOS, STNG, Voyager, etc) with the classic Queen song in the background.
5. No Bohemian Rhapsody video roundup would be complete with a version played on a ukulele. This one by Ukulele Bart.
6. Stop animation LEGO version. Gotta love the LEGO piano.
8. A bunch of Navy personnel singing along to Bohemian Rhapsody. Only you don’t actually hear any of them singing, just moving their lips to the real song. Over 18,000 views and 111 favorites.
9. Marginally funny Fast Forward Bohemian Rhapsody spoof.
10. And speaking of spoofs and parodies, let’s not forget the master, Weird Al’s polka version. Not an official Weird Al video though, it was posted by halflifeman and is more machinima-like.
11. Speed up Bohemian Rhapsody and video a couple dudes — one wearing a shirt with a naked guy — with glittery hair and you’ve got a helium-induced version. Bizarre.
12. Bo-Heman Rhapsody. Nice title and use of the He-man and Masters of the Universe cartoon.
13. Unfortunately a little too much background noise for this live version of Rhett Butler playing Bohemian Rhapsody at the Dallas Guitar Show (April 21, 2007) in the Sewell Amp booth to fully enjoy and appreciate the piece. Nice two-hand fret work, Rhett.
At the Cinekid Festival in the Netherlands kidscan explore the 
Hulu options available include: a small popout window, full screen (with browser remnants), lower lights which dims frame colors around the viewing area and the ability to rate the shows from 1-5 stars. I’d trade all these options for a single fully stretched, high quality picture. Let me pay a few bucks and get HD and I’ll be reaching for my wallet.
