by Andy Brudtkuhl on May 23, 2006
In my second installment (read 1st) of Real Life Software I introduce Presto. I stumbled upon Presto through SiliconBeat and it looks like a very promising entrant to the photo web services realm. Now this isn’t just your latest installment of a web 2.0 photo swapping service. It’s real life software that helps real people use technology, not just us geeks.
From their latest news clip:
“Presto Services Inc. today announced plans to develop a new digital delivery service to help families and friends stay connected by making it easier to share digital content. Presto’s debut offering will include the Presto Service and a printing mailbox, developed by HP, designed primarily for the country’s 78 million baby boomers and their parents. Presto will allow those who do not use computers, or who are light computer users, to receive photos, email and more from their families and friends. To fuel this market push, Presto has secured $10 million in venture funding from Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and Clearstone Venture Partners.”
Essentially it lets you, a geek, help your non-geek family and friends share digital photos. By partnering with HP printing the two companies have developed an intersting content delivery mechanism that allows your grandmother to print from an inbox she does not even know about. You set everything up, they push a button on a printer. Now that’s easy.
tags: tools, real life software, internet, web, photos
by Andy Brudtkuhl on May 23, 2006
I am surprised it took this long but IngBox Software has done – tagging for Microsoft Outlook.
“Taglocity allows you to tag your content from within Microsoft Outlook. Tagging helps you find things more easily, organize a lot of information and to communicate more clearly to others – all without complex rules or a new way of working.”
Too bad Google has gotten me completely away from outlook. This add on may have kept me around.
Taglocity
by Andy Brudtkuhl on May 23, 2006
by Andy Brudtkuhl on May 23, 2006
I have been deliberating in my head content delivery for some time knowing (obviously) that the future of media lies in mastering this medium. But, a recent article by Jeff Jarvis on Tivo really made the point clear to me. He said, “Proving the point that the future of media is not distribution, it’s aggregation…”. This is an excellent statement. The distribution model really is the same regardless of the medium used. Granted, different mediums offer their respective differentiation factors but at their core it is a model for delivering content from point A to point B. Thus aggregation of media is where we should look to for innovation. We have seen it with content distribution on the net as we went from blogs -> RSS distribution -> RSS readers -> meme trackers -> opml. Aggregation models have been built on top of aggregation models which can be distinguished as independent distribution models.
So, consider aggregation as a layer to be built on top of distribution models. I think ‘big media’ needs to look into aggregation rather than delivery and maybe they can be creative in the creation of a new advertising revenue model for video. Jeff is right, everybody is a network. Sounds like an interesting model.
tags: media, advertising
by Andy Brudtkuhl on May 23, 2006
AdRants reports CBS and AOL’s intentions of running a contest to limit the amount of DVR usage. In this scam creatively named ‘Gold Rush’ CBS will place clues throughout episodes, commercials, and AOL sites to give viewers a chance to win $2 million in gold.
This is a poor effort that will probably result in annoying product placements (an effort to appease advertisers) in shows to keep a dying advertising model afloat. The networks have proven a viable online model that should be fully embraced as a secondary revenue model to balance what is lost through DVR technology.
Now, is there a way to beat DVR? I don’t know it’s a tough one. We’re going to see a lot of product placement, and that just sucks. I really think the way to beat DVR is to move your primary broadcast medium to the net. Granted this is years out but the market that has bought into DVR as it has gone mainstream will be the same market that adopts IPTV. There are far more creative ways to do advertising in an interactive medium.
And, now that Google has entered the video advertising arena they may have answered the prayers of big media by using an evidence based advertising model and applying it to video. Watch for partnerships like that of CBS and AOL right after AOL’s purchase of Lightningcast which ironically is a targeted video ad distribution model (Google copying?).
Mike Arrington doesn’t think this model will work. I agree and disagree. Google’s current implementation of this model will not work but it took them two years to fine tune the AdWords model into the giant that it is. So, I would say they are getting in on video advertising at the right time and just might have it tweaked to perfection by the time online broadcasting becomes a mainstream medium.
tags: google,media, sem, marketing, AdWords, tv
