I have recommended brightcove.tv to a number of people as an additional option to YouTube because they tend to produce better quality videos once encoded into Flash.

It seems they are going to end consumer uploads (the free option) this month.

I can understand that this is obviously not profitable. I would say then that you should stay with YouTube for the best free option.

Dear Brightcove.TV member,

Beginning December 18, 2007, we plan to end support of direct consumer uploads to Brightcove.TV. As a result, you will not be able to upload new videos to Brightcove.TV after December 17, 2007. But videos you have already uploaded to Brightcove.TV will remain available on the site and through your Brightcove.TV channel. Videos you have embedded in other sites and blogs will also continue to play.

If you have a Brightcove Platform or Network account, which means you use the Brightcove Console, then you will still have the option to promote videos on Brightcove.TV.

Brightcove.TV will continue to be a guide to great video from Brightcove media and business partners. The site will have new videos added to it daily from these partners and these videos can be saved as favorite videos in your channel.

If you work for a media company, marketer, non-profit, or business and are looking to purchase the Brightcove platform to publish and distribute video on your own site, please visit the Brightcove Products Overview section of our website.

We appreciate your interest in Brightcove and apologize for any disruption this change may cause you.

Sincerely,

The Brightcove Team

In a meeting last month Katie accused me of having a Crackberry addiction as she watched my eyes flick to my Blackberry when the little red light started blinking to tell me there was a new email message.

She was absolutely right, I loved my Blackberry. So when I got my new iPhone I wasn’t sure I would actually switch to it, as I had played with one the week it was launched and wasn’t sure about the email functionality, which is really my key requirement in a phone.

I could not have been more wrong. I am cured of my Crackberry habit, but it has been substituted with a serious addition to the iPhone. Here are 5 signs you may be addicted to your iPhone.

1. You check the weather on your iPhone rather instead of looking out the window.
2. You choose where you get your coffee based on their WiFi availability. You are even considering drinking Starbucks for this reason.
3. Your index finger is starting to get sore from the touch screen.
4. You nearly drive into the car in front of you because you were too busy checking Facebook on your iPhone.
5. Your data usage costs more than your voice calls on your cell phone bill from all the web browsing.

Technorati Tags: blackberry, crackberry, iphone

No I’m not talking about trophy wives, but how you can use web 2.0 technology to help with marital harmony.

Now my wife is okay with some things web 2.0 but certainly not all. When I first set up Twitter she thought it was the most disturbing, crazy thing that she had ever seen. We use Skype video calling when I’m away on business, which is great. I haven’t managed to get this used as a replacement for toll calls when calling her parents, but I think I need to get one of those Skype handsets for that to happen. She finally got into Facebook last month, but that was essentially so she could show that she had more friends than me.

However, nothing has generated quite such an enthusiastic response as when I set up an online to-do list at Backpack. We both work and sometimes co-ordinating personal stuff is difficult. The idea was that we could share a list of household tasks, shopping lists, reminders, the cooking plans for the week, etc. You can set up automated reminder emails to go out for specific tasks.

So wife is happy, me not so happy as now have very long to do list to work through over the weekend.

This is a fascinating look, by GigaOM, at how Web 2.0 is playing a part in the tragic California Fire Crisis.

Google Analytics is going to get even more features soon.

"First, you’ll be able to use Google Analytics to track site search activity. Simply edit any of your Google Analytics profiles to enable “Site Search” and you can find out what people search for on your site and where these searches lead.

We’ll begin a limited beta test of the new Google Analytics Event Tracking capability. These new reports are designed to help you understand how people use and interact with Ajax, Flash and multimedia on your site without artificially increasing your pageview metrics.

We’ll also initiate a limited beta test in the coming weeks of our new Outbound Link Tracking feature.

Finally, Brett announced the Urchin Software from Google limited beta. Urchin is a software product that you run on your own servers. "

Since Urchin was acquired by Google, they have clearly invested substantial resource in the the product development and in my opinion, have definitely scooped the entire category. The ability to track internal search easily and also handle the complexity of AJAX and Flash applications, which have traditionally been very hard to do with other analytics packages, is a huge advancement. This type of product/service requires continual re-investment in both product development and hosting capacity, and Google obviously have deep enough pockets to do both.

There are still some ongoing questions around the accuracy of the data, but to be honest, every analytics solution I have seen (pretty much all the major ones) in the last 10 years in this industry have had this. It is more that the data is consistent rather than the absolute numbers as really it is about trend analysis.

The other major question is will Google ever start charging for the service? Joel and Tim from our team met with the Analytics guy from Google this morning and he said they have no plans to charge for it, as it is great for them to sell more AdWords.

Technorati Tags: google, googleanalytics, webanalytics

Well not for you, just for me. My esteemed business partner is in the US at the moment and has just picked us up a new Apple iPhone each and it should be in my hands by Tuesday.

Technorati Tags: iphone

Why do politicians think it is their right to change time?

New Zealand has decided that this year Daylight Savings Time (DST) will start earlier than usual. The problem is they don’t seem to have informed the rest of the world, so software companies like Apple and Microsoft don’t seem to have caught up. Today everything seems to be back to normal but for the last week my Blackberry hasn’t synched the correct times for my appointments with my Apple computer which hasn’t had the correct time as the Windows XP virtual machine that I run.

Please, can you just leave time alone? I have enough stuff to deal with without the government screwing with my calendar and appointments.

Andy’s friend has launched a company called Skill-Pill.

They deliver 2 minute video courses to mobile devices such as smartphones, Blackberry and video iPod’s. They have teamed up with education partners such as Pearson Group, or can work with a corporate to adapt and deliver their existing training material.

This video from their site explains it in more detail. I love this concept.

UPDATE: Gerry from Skill-Pill tells me that it is not just new mobile devices and in fact they can support phones going back to the Nokia 6021. Even better.

Technorati Tags: e-learning 2.0, skill-pill, skillpill

Rod and I share the same desire…the perfect home network/backup solution.

I agree with Rod, offsite storage is definitely the answer, but it all comes back to faster, cheaper broadband. I too miss the Briefcase/Offline Files feature of Windows since I moved to Mac. I actually use it in my Parallels Windows XP machine (this allows you run Windows on your Mac simultaneously) to sync with the file servers at the office. There is a great new feature in Parallels 3.0 where you can open a file from Windows in an app on OS X or vice versa. You can also now mount up the drive without booting up the virtual machine. I tried Chronosync, but it just gives you errors without any explanation of what you might do to solve those errors? Also, it corrupts certain files if you have applications open during the sync.

Regarding backup of iTunes and iPhoto, the only solution I have found is to use Chronosync to my firewire drive at home via a network shared drive on the home Mac. There is also the ability to have multiple iTunes/iPhoto libraries, you just hold down the alt/option key when starting the application. This allowed me to have a cut down iTunes library which I use when I’m traveling and leave the massive one with all my video at home.

There should be a simpler solution though. Back up technology is just so disappointing, I just don’t think it has really advanced at all except the type of media you back up onto.

Pretty interested in this business currently in development. Kwari is a first person shooter online game that allows you win cold hard cash, or as they put it:

"first person shooter skill-based cash for kills online gaming"

Technorati Tags: kwari