Monday, March 21, 2005
It's Spring and Multi-Media Options are Blooming !
Check out these two new multi-media options : Sony hopes to give us all portable multimedia entertainment on a $250 hardware device. But you don't have to settle for just getting your media content from big providers; you can create and share your own freely with Ourmedia services. Maybe it's spring euphoria, but these blooms have the fragrance of opportunity for us living in rural areas at the end of the long global economic tail.
This CNET reviewer calls the Sony PSP: no one-trick pony, claiming it:
"could be one of the first limited-scale victories for "convergence," the oft-touted notion of combining numerous media functions into a single device. ...... The PSP takes a new path in the quest for an all-in-one gadget. It's being sold primarily as a portable game machine, a market where it can capitalize on the huge PlayStation brand, yet it can also play movies and music, display digital photos and potentially perform a host of Internet tasks through its built-in wireless networking. The result, analysts and industry observers say, isn't the "iPod killer" many have imagined, but a device that could give Sony a head start in the next phase of the digital-media era."
Others agree that the wireless connections could offer attractive new ways to get content onto the PSP, including real-time TV and web-based downloading and messaging; but also note that on-board storage and legal access to proprietary content are likely to be major inhibitors. The key is to get a few millions units into consumer hands now using the game machine draw. Sony is already working on the PSP-X and future versions. As one analyst puts it : "This is the first move in a very long game."
JD Lasica announces on his blog New Media Musings: That Ourmedia is here!!. Well at least in alpha version, this new grassroots media organization is operating from Ourmedia Homepage . Ourmedia is a global community and learning center where you can gain visibility for your works of personal media. And they offer to host your media forever — for free. Their message about Ourmedia is: "Create. Share. Get noticed".
They see a great surge in grassroots creativity due to newly ubiquitous digital tools.
"Just as weblogs let millions of people become part of "the media," so too are new tools empowering individuals to create video, audio, playlists and other works of personal media and to share them with a global audience.
The personal media revolution is turning multimedia. Digital stories, video diaries, documentary journalism, home-brew political ads, music videos, fan films, Flash animations, student films – all kinds of short multimedia works have begun to flower. Alas, the most compelling ones are scattered across the Web or hidden away on thousands of PCs, laptops and closed networks. These works deserve a wider audience.
Indeed they do ! And, perhaps, this will be especially helpful to creative folks in rural areas.
This CNET reviewer calls the Sony PSP: no one-trick pony, claiming it:
"could be one of the first limited-scale victories for "convergence," the oft-touted notion of combining numerous media functions into a single device. ...... The PSP takes a new path in the quest for an all-in-one gadget. It's being sold primarily as a portable game machine, a market where it can capitalize on the huge PlayStation brand, yet it can also play movies and music, display digital photos and potentially perform a host of Internet tasks through its built-in wireless networking. The result, analysts and industry observers say, isn't the "iPod killer" many have imagined, but a device that could give Sony a head start in the next phase of the digital-media era."
Others agree that the wireless connections could offer attractive new ways to get content onto the PSP, including real-time TV and web-based downloading and messaging; but also note that on-board storage and legal access to proprietary content are likely to be major inhibitors. The key is to get a few millions units into consumer hands now using the game machine draw. Sony is already working on the PSP-X and future versions. As one analyst puts it : "This is the first move in a very long game."
JD Lasica announces on his blog New Media Musings: That Ourmedia is here!!. Well at least in alpha version, this new grassroots media organization is operating from Ourmedia Homepage . Ourmedia is a global community and learning center where you can gain visibility for your works of personal media. And they offer to host your media forever — for free. Their message about Ourmedia is: "Create. Share. Get noticed".
They see a great surge in grassroots creativity due to newly ubiquitous digital tools.
"Just as weblogs let millions of people become part of "the media," so too are new tools empowering individuals to create video, audio, playlists and other works of personal media and to share them with a global audience.
The personal media revolution is turning multimedia. Digital stories, video diaries, documentary journalism, home-brew political ads, music videos, fan films, Flash animations, student films – all kinds of short multimedia works have begun to flower. Alas, the most compelling ones are scattered across the Web or hidden away on thousands of PCs, laptops and closed networks. These works deserve a wider audience.
Indeed they do ! And, perhaps, this will be especially helpful to creative folks in rural areas.
