It seems like everyone is jumping into the independent media fray these days:

Infinity plans to convert San Francisco’s 1550 KYCY, an AM station, to listener-submitted content. The station, previously devoted to a talk-radio format, will be renamed KYOURadio.

Infinity, one of the country’s largest radio operators with more than 183 stations around the country, will invite do-it-yourselfers to upload digital audio files for broadcast consideration by way of the KYOURadio.com website.

“I’m excited,” said Infinity Broadcasting CEO Joel Hollander. “We’re creating a new way to let a lot of people participate personally in radio—sharing their feelings on music, news, politics, whatever matters to them.

“I also think this is going to be a really interesting way to develop new talent,” he added.

The station’s producers will screen submitted content to ensure it meets quality standards and does not violate FCC broadcast guidelines. Approved podcasts will be simultaneously broadcast over the AM airwaves and streamed online at KYOURadio.com.

Yet another story to pile onto the ol’ death of traditional media meme:

Netscape pioneers Mike Homer and Marc Andreessen are back on the start-up scene, launching a TiVo-like online network for distributing and viewing public TV, radio and grassroots media.

The free service, called the Open Media Network, is aimed initially at letting traditional public broadcasters and independent filmmakers distribute their work on the Net. But it will also allow ordinary computer users to publish their files.

Part TiVo, part BitTorrent file swapping, the network puts publishers’ content into a peer-to-peer distribution network that could help lower bandwidth costs substantially. The service then creates a TV-like program directory that potential viewers can use to find and subscribe to automatic downloads of individual shows.

Since broadband has such pathetic speed and penetration in the US it will be a while before alternate distribution methods catch on. BitTorrent has caught on like wildfire in other countries where broadband is more affordable so hope continues to live. Unfortunately, Homer and Andreessen are still stuck in “web portal” thinking which is kind of missing the whole point of alternate distribution. Why should anyone even have to bother uploading their movies to his site?

A lot of people are pretty skeptical when they hear BBB talking about the death of TV. TV is such a quintessential American pasttime that it is inconceivable to people that it could ever die. Well, to our skeptics, here is another nail in the coffin:

Television’s share of global advertising spending is expected to slip by 2007 as more ad dollars are diverted to the Internet, according to an industry forecast released on Monday.

Television’s share is expected to peak in 2006 at 37.9 percent of global ad spending, before slipping to 37.8 percent by 2007, according to a new study by ZenithOptimedia, a division of French advertising group Publicis.

Despite all the bumps in the road with carriers and Apple, Motorola is finally starting to release the new audio technologies for cell phones:

The No. 2 maker of mobile telephones is set to unveil a service called iRadio that will let users download pre-selected audio content from a range of providers on their home computers, dump it on their cell phones and listen to it on their car stereos.

https://upload.video.google.com/

Your work deserves to be seen.

You’ve made a great video. Now who will watch it?

Whether you produce hundreds of titles a year or just a few, you can give your videos the recognition and visibility they deserve by promoting them on Google - for free. Signing up for the Google Video Upload Program will connect your work with users who are most likely to want to view them.
Sign up and upload…

We’re accepting digital video files of any length and size. Simply sign up for an account and upload your videos using our Video Uploader (please be sure you own the rights to the works you upload), and, pending our approval process and the launch of this new service, we’ll include your video in Google Video, where users will be able to search, preview, purchase and play it. Find out more here.
For major producers…

If you’re from a TV station or production facility, we have a separate process to help you join the Google Video Upload Program.

They are certainly not the first to launch an internet TV platform but they certainly seem to be one of the most well thought out:

Announcing a new platform for internet television and video. Anyone can broadcast full-screen video to thousands of people at virtually no cost, using BitTorrent technology. Viewers get intuitive, elegant software to subscribe to channels, watch video, and organize their video library. The project is non-profit, open source, and built on open standards. Today we’re announcing the project and releasing our current sourcecode. The software is launching in June.

This article sounds like the plot to a really bad Sci-Fi screenplay:

Qatar plans to start using robots as riders in popular camel races after international criticism of the use of child jockeys, the Gulf Arab state’s official QNA news agency reported on Wednesday.

It said the robot, developed by an unnamed Swiss company, had been tested successfully and that the energy-rich country was considering setting up a factory to build them.

Sheikh Abdullah bin Saud al-Thani, the official in charge of the project, referred to United Nations concern over child jockeys and said Qatar was determined to save camel racing, which is popular among Arabs of Bedouin origin.

Nearby United Arab Emirates has also announced plans to introduce remote-controlled robots, which can be light enough to use as jockeys in the lucrative sport.

Rights groups say several thousand boys, some as young as four, work as camel jockeys in the oil-rich Gulf, many after being abducted or sold by their families mainly from the Indian subcontinent.

They say the boys are kept in prison-like conditions and underfed to keep them light so the camels run faster.

Of course, in the third act, the robots, child-slave-jockeys and camels will all join forces to overthrow their evil oil-baron masters.

NPR has a great 10 minute segment investigating the growing chaos taking place in traditional media. Highlights include quotes from the head of Procter & Gamble’s advertising division stating that they want to take their $5.5 Billion underwriting away from TV…

“The collapse is coming.”

Over at the Long Tail blog, there is some fascinating analysis of the death of mainstream “mass” culture:

* Music: sales last year were down 21% from their peak in 1999
* Television: network TV’s audience share has fallen by a third since 1985
* Radio: listenership is at a 27-year low
* Newspapers: circulation peaked in 1987, and the decline is accelerating
* Magazines: total circulation peaked in 2000 and is now back to 1994 levels (but a few premier titles are bucking the trend!)
* Books: sales growth is lagging the economy as whole

Sony has just been granted a patent for a new invention to directly beam data into your brain:

The U.S. patent, granted to Sony researcher Thomas Dawson, describes a technique for aiming ultrasonic pulses at specific areas of the brain to induce “sensory experiences” such as smells, sounds and images.

Just what we all wanted, yet another way to watch MTV:

MTV Networks, home to raucous pop culture television hits like “The Osbournes” and “Punk’d,” on Wednesday launched a free Web-based “channel” that places many of its popular programs on the Internet.

MTV, a unit of media conglomerate Viacom Inc., debuted “MTV Overdrive,” a web site where viewers watch full length music video on demand, extended versions of programs that have aired on MTV’s television network and original video updates from its MTV News operation.

But why would MTV want to cannibalize its own young audience by allowing them to stay on the computer rather than watch TV?

Van Toffler, President of MTV Networks Group said he is not concerned that putting the shows on the Web will draw viewers away from the MTV television franchise.

“The TV experience is still great. Our ratings are moving higher and we don’t fear that (losing viewers),” he said at a press conference. “(Also) we are capturing money that is going to new media.”

Stay tuned. The channel supposedly launches on April 25th.

We’d thought you should have this to chew on:

Google Inc. plans to put out a call for personal video clips as it moves to further expand the reach of its Web search business, company co-founder Larry Page said on Monday.

“We’re going to start taking video submissions from people,” Page said at the annual cable industry convention in San Francisco.

So is Google going to hire people to sit around and look at millions of incoming video clips to make sure none of them are copyrighted or hardcore porn? Or is this some free-for-all like 2GB inboxes for Gmail users?

We will take a wait-and-see approach on how ‘personal’ Google allows the videos to be…

It’s always amusing when one form of media begins to note their own demise:

Twenty-nine percent of U.S. adults who own MP3 players like Apple Computer Inc.’s iPod say they have downloaded podcast programs from the Internet, the Pew Internet and American Life Project found.

That means more than 6 million people are listening to a form of communication that emerged only last year, according to the nonprofit group.

It’s only a matter of time now…

Barrie M Osborne, the legendary producer of Hollywood blockbusters like “The Lord of the Rings” and “The Matrix” is set to co-found a visual effects studio in India which will cater to the global feature film industry. Osborne will partnering N Madhusudhanan, another visual effects veteran in the Indian movie industry for the studio. The studio will be on the lines of the famous Weta Digital in New Zealand which recently shot to fame for its path-breaking work for “The Lord of the Rings.”