Zach Posner : The world of Digital Media » cool companies

Wow.

Zach — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 01:17:29 +0000

Interesting Social Media Video.

Los Angeles Volunteer Opportunity

Zach — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 05:18:25 +0000

I have been helping out with Let’s Read LA for the two years- it is a great program where you work with under privileged Elementary school children to help them with basic reading skills. It meets on Saturday mornings from 10:00am to 12:00pm. They are in the process of putting up a page here (Los Angeles Volunteering Opportunities) where you can learn more information if you are interested.

Additional volunteering opportunities in LA through LA Works can be found here.

Free by Chris Anderson – for free!

Zach — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 04:12:01 +0000

FREE (full book) by Chris Anderson

More TED… Impact of Social Media

Zach — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 05:24:23 +0000

Clay Shirky gives some examples of Social Media and user interaction.

Coldplay Fans – Free Download

Zach — Wed, 20 May 2009 02:53:19 +0000

Coldplay is offering its fans a free live concert that you can download here. I have no insight as to when this link will stop working.

Google Chrome Default Search Engine on HP’s

Zach — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 06:11:55 +0000

Interesting that Microsoft’s Live Search product is default when you download Google Chrome to a HP. I would recomend giving Chrome a shot – I have been using it since Beta and feel that it is the quickest browser on the market.

Google Chrome Browser Screen Shot

Shared characteristics of successful ad supported Internet companies

Zach — Sun, 22 Mar 2009 06:17:07 +0000

Below is a draft of a few characteristics that successful advertising supported Internet Companies embody. This is just a simple table – and a start to taking a birds eye view approach for what makes the great companies tick. Thoughts are welcome.

Advertising Supported Internet Industry Overview

Purpose	Connecting with Friends	Consuming Content
Success is Driven By:	- Controlled platforms (you control who you are friends with)	- Current Fads
	- The size of each users network (the bigger the better - to connect, you must be on the platform)	- Respecting Super-Users
	- Users generate their own content (self service platforms)	- Multiple content providers (self service platform)

Sample Companies:	- Facebook / MySpace	- Google / Wikipedia (close to being ad supported))
	- AOL IM / Skype	- Pandora / Digg
	- YouTube / PhotoBucket / Twitter (email / embed functionality)	- YouTube / PhotoBucket / Twitter (destination site)

Thanks to Scott, Adam & Evan for thoughts.

Ad Supported Internet Video on your TV – Round 1

Zach — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 05:22:43 +0000

A few weeks back I started to temporarily (b/c I cannot seem to find a splitter that will allow for simultaneous viewing on my monitor and TV) hook up my mac mini to my TV to test out a new service called Boxee. From what I have seen Boxee is the easiest way to display Ad Supported Internet Video on your TV (assuming that you do not have an Xbox – as I have heard they do a great job). There is no special set top box, just a simple downloadable app that from a mac can be navigated through the remote control (and if you are a PC user, last week they released a windows version). Boxee essentially acts as an aggregator for Internet video services like Hulu, and is used in a similar fashion to Video on Demand – automatically formating the content for a full screen experience and ignoring quality of picture, I would take it over VOD (think about the amount of free ad-supported programming that you it opens you up to).

An unintended side effect is that it takes the ads that are found in and around content and takes the interactive experience away. Most users would not know the difference between watching a TV show via CBS’s Internet offering through Boxee vs. watching it on CBS (with the exception of much shorter and a fewer quantity of commercials), so the user recognizes it as a TV experience, not the Internet experience, where advertisers flock to for the inter-connectivity.

Its a few years off, but it will be interesting to see how the TV experience evolves, as built in wi-fi on TV’s becomes common place (as LG recently announced) will they come with keyboard / mice, and will Boxee become the aggregator of your Internet Video for your TV? With all of the players in the set top box space fighting to figure out who will win the download / streaming of paid content to the television set, I look forward to seeing more entrants focusing on the ad-supported space which is behind the recent surge in online video and will only continue to grow, especially as advertisers shift their budgets to online video.

Here is a quick overview of Boxee:

I titled this post Round 1, as I am sure that there are several more to come!

Posterous – Life Blogging

Zach — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 06:49:24 +0000

The team at Posterous has created a tool that makes it simple to upload media files (Doc, PPT, EXE, MP3, JPG, etc.) to a website. All that the user has to do is email the file to a unique email address and they automatically find a viewer to view or play the content and post to your own domain (there FAQ describes it much better than I can). This gets interesting with the evolution of the smart phones – it instantly allows even the technically slow crew to create a page and share their experiences with friends / family. I plan to try it here, once I get up and going with a new BlackBerry (I have been stuck on the 8700 series with no media capabilities).

Ping me with thoughts.