Apple Launches Movie Service at Showtime

But, surprisingly, it only contains movies from The Walt Disney Co., where Steve Jobs is a board member. Contrast this to Amazon which launched it’s service with 7 studios, but not Disney. Jobs also introduced a device to help people watch movies downloaded online to a connected tv set. It’s called the iTV, who would’ve guessed, and it will cost $299.

At a media event Tuesday, Jobs also showed off a compact gadget, dubbed iTV, that will allow consumers to watch movies purchased online — as well as other digital content stored on a computer — on a connected television set. It will sell for $299 and be available early next year.

He said more than 75 films will be available from Walt Disney Pictures, Pixar, Touchstone Pictures and Miramax. New releases will be priced at $12.99, when pre-ordered and during the first week of sale, or $14.99 afterward. Library titles will be sold for $9.99 each.

Jobs also announced a new iPod nano with a 24-hour battery life and new games for the portable media player. The new iPods will come in five colors, and will sell for between $149 and $249. Source: Yahoo

Lots of stuff on techmeme concerning Apple, some of the announcements at the Apple Showtime event include:

Games like Zuma, Texas Holden, Mini Golf, Cubis 2, PacMan, Tetris!, More Tetris! Mah-jong, Bejeweled are going to be available for $4.99 and are made to use the wheel, so they are much better.

Better longer lasting iPods, 30GB, 7,500 songs, 40 hrs video, $249. 80GB, 20,000 songs, 100 hrs video, $349. Today, we’re going to introduce an all new nano. It’s made out of aluminum, and it’s even thinner than the previous ipod nano. Maybe the most obvious feature is we’re bringing back colors: Blue, Pink, Green, Silver, and Black. Battery life: 24 hours.

The iPod shuffle will be the worlds smallest MP3 player for only $79 for the 1GB version.

iTunes is adding the NFL network. They’re bringing the whole 2006 NFL season highlights to iTunes today. $1.99 per game or $24.99 for a season pass.

More info and comments at Engadget.

Posted by Jimmy Daniels Posted in: Apple, iTV, iTunes No Comments » September 2006

Businesses Jumping on the YouTube Wagon

It appears several websites are jumping on the YouTube wagon. No, they are not promoting YouTube, they want some of the content YouTube has been getting, user submitted videos, such as the ones mentioned in this article, Pentagon Watching Youtube Closely, where members of the armed forces are uploading videos so everyone can see what they are going through and what is going on over there.

From News.com, CNN wants some of the clips finding their way onto popular video-sharing sites, such as YouTube, to make an appearance on the cable news channel.

As part of CNN’s coverage of the fighting in Lebanon earlier this month, the cable channel showed clips that it found on YouTube. The videos were taken by citizens as they rushed into bomb shelters or witnessed rockets crashing into buildings.

“User-generated content has the potential to play a pivotal role in journalism whether it’s online or offline,” Mitch Gelman, senior vice president and executive producer for CNN.com, said in a statement. “With CNN Exchange, we’ve essentially created a one-stop shop for CNN.com users to share their contributions with other Internet users.”

From the New York Times, AOL is looking to replace some of the users it is loosing through it online dialup services by attracting them to it’s video portal, by adding new programs and by selling commercial free downloads to compete it iTunes and Google Video. They noted they have already sold over a million episodes of South Park through iTunes.

For now, AOL does not have agreements to sell programs from the major broadcast networks. But it will sell downloads from other large programmers, including MTV Networks, A&E Networks and Warner Brothers.

MTV, for example, will sell full-length programs like “Pimp My Ride,” “South Park” and “SpongeBob SquarePants,” which will be available for $1.99 the day after they are broadcast. MTV, which is owned by Viacom, said recently that it had sold more than 1 million “South Park” episodes through Apple’s service. Two other popular Viacom programs, “The Daily Show” and “The Colbert Report,” will not be offered until the fall, when AOL expects to introduce software that will allow it to sell subscriptions to video programming.

New free programs on AOL will include movies from Turner’s TNT network, stand-up routines from Comedy Time and classic soap operas like “Another World” presented by Procter & Gamble. The site will also feature free programming from Lime, a health and spiritualism network backed by Stephen M. Case, AOL’s longtime chief executive, who left the company two years after its merger with Time Warner.

“Of all the portals, AOL has been the most active in launching video programming on the Internet,” he said. “They have significant media skills.”

Sites like AOL and CNN will be better able to monetinize traffic looking for video, as they already have advertising options in place. Could be bad news for YouTube someday.

Posted by Jimmy Daniels Posted in: Social Networks, TV, Video Blogging, YouTube, iTunes No Comments » July 2006