Finding video online

Both Google and Yahoo! have entered into the video arena - each with a different approach. Google attempting to index traditional television shows submitted to them and Yahoo! primarily trying to index all video online already - however suggesting video feeds to Yahoo! is now fee based...
http://video.yahoo.com/

We tried out the Google service by uploading a video to the new search engine:
http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=%22AME+Info%22

- the beauty is that Google will carry all the bandwidth costs - so I guess all we need now is an RSS feed back to our own site and the ability to embed dynamic advertising :-)


Other interesting video services

http://www.blinkx.tv/
http://channel9.msdn.com

Why audit?

As you probably all know by now AME Info is the first website in the Middle East to be audited by ABC ELECTRONIC - but why would you ask ABCE or a similar organisation to certify your data?

• Certified data provides advertisers, sponsors and other investors in your business with independent verification of the claims you are making; this enables you to support your business case with transparent, credible and comparable data.
  
  
• By demonstrating your support for industry agreed standards you associate your online business with ABCE, the recognised media auditing brand, delivering trust that you trade with integrity and professionalism.
  


• To be able to demonstrate to your clients, advertisers and media buyers, the value of investing in your online business, and to provide your sales team with credible data thus delivering a clear competitive advantage that they can use when persuading advertisers to invest in your online business.
  


• ABCE certifies figures based on census measurements which reflect total site activity, rather than simple ratings or sample-based research. As a result, advertisers can benefit from audited data on any site, from the very largest to specialist niche sites.
  


• All other media is accountable through industry agreed measurements. Magazines and newspapers use reach and frequency metrics using the currencies of ABC circulation statistics and NRS research. Electronic media is no different.
  


• Because if you don't, your claims for website traffic could include up to 60% non-human traffic! Technology allows us to view website audience traffic figures quickly and accurately, but it doesn't necessarily discriminate between a visit from a search engine or a real person. The effective way to eliminate these discrepancies is to ensure the data you are using is audited to agreed industry standards.
  

Finally it is a comfort for yourself and your staff to know the real numbers, as for AME Info the readership in May 2005 was 236,238 unique users.

http://www.abce.co.uk/search/ameinfo

TV Commercials 2005

We finally got the next batch of TV commercial ready - you can check them out online or simply watch CNN International :-)

This time we are featuring the following companies:

Dubai Civil Aviation, Emirates, Madinat Jumeirah, Nokia, Shell and Standard Chartered Bank

Hope you like the new design?

Is RSS the next big thing?

In an almost hour long video interview with the Longhorn RSS development team it seems clear that MS are taking RSS very seriously in the upcoming OS as well as the (soon) to be released IE7 that is previewed on a Longhorn platform in the same video feature.

It appears that podcasting was the begining of the new way of using the web - supscription seems to be the way forward in the future. In order for us users to save time, we will simply subscribe to the sources we like and our PC/application/browser/toolbar/... will inform us of any updates as soon as they become available.

We can expect RSS feeds of almost everything with the new - including excel and other office documents, images, video in various formats, calender items, addressbooks and much more.

IE7 has (like Firefox) an RSS button built-in and the browser will automatically detect if a website offers an RSS feed and if so allow the user to subscribe with a single click.

AME Info has already quite a few RSS feeds available including podcasting.


Related sites:
http://www.rssbandit.org/
http://www.syndic8.com
http://www.feedster.com

What is a wiki?

A wiki (what I know is) is a website designed for collaboration. Unlike a traditional website where pages can only be read, in a wiki everyone can edit, update and append pages with new information and without knowing HTML.

The most famous of them all is www.wikipedia.org I suppose - but the concept could be used in most companies as well.

If any of you are interested in setting something up, have a look at:
http://www.jotspot.com/


Cheers
Klaus