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Natural Gardening Company Wiggles, Podcasts Its Way To Award

Nov 7th, 2008 | By | Category: Audio Podcasting, Making Money with Podcasts, Podcasting

Wiggly Wigglers, a natural gardening mail-order company (which specializes in vermiculture: composting/gardening with earthworms) has won the 2008 Global Dell Small Business Excellence Award. Wiggly Wigglers were chosen to receive this prize for their innovative use of podcasting, wikis, and social media such as Facebook and Twitter.

Along with the recognition and accolades, the Dell Small Business Excellence award carries with it a $50,000 technology prize.

Headquartered on an actual farm in rural Herefordshire, England, Wiggly Wigglers have grown a worldwide customer base they’ve estimated at 90,000 people. Using new and social media to attract new customers and build a sense of participation and community among their established customers, the company has reduced its advertising budget by 80 percent.

Wiggly Wigglers (@Wiggled on Twitter) advocates an environmentally sustainable lifestyle, and engages its followers and customers with a broad mix of new and social media. In addition to the Facebook presence, the company also blogs, and uses wiki input from the community to determine which products will be featured in their catalogue.

Most relevant to readers at Podcasting News, the company also has an entertaining weekly podcast, hosted from the “Wiggly Sofa,” about gardening, sustainable culture, and life on the farm. Shows are typically about half an hour long and topics range from the serious to the sublime (from biodiversity to hedgehogs🙂

Heather Gorringe, founder of Wiggly Wigglers,says, “Small businesses need to realize there are online conversations happening about their brand every day, and they are more likely to be positive and have impact if you’re part of them.”

Read more »

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BusinessWeek: Sarah Palin Pushed Internet Video Mainstream

Nov 7th, 2008 | By | Category: Internet TV, Streaming Video, Video

Sarah Palin may not have reigned in the budget in Wasilla.

Sarah Palin may not have graduated from the first, second, third or fourth college she attended.

Sarah Palin may not said no to “Bridge to Nowhere” pork.

No matter what you think of Palins accomplishments, though, it’s hard to argue with BusinessWeek’s claim that Palin and Saturday Night Live have taken Internet video “to the next level”:

It’s all over but the inauguration. Barack Obama has swept to victory, and Sarah Palin can go back to moose hunting in Alaska. It was an election that broke all kinds of barriers, and few of us will soon forget it. Here’s one barrier smashed you may not have noticed: Online video finally went mainstream, thanks to Tina Fey, Saturday Night Live, and, of course, Sarah Palin.

You had to be living in a cave somewhere south of where Osama Bin Laden is hiding not to know that one of the high points of Election 2008 was the weekly spoof-fest served up by SNL that featured zingers so dead-on that they became watercooler fodder from coast to coast. Ratings for the 33-year-old show jumped by 76% this year, to 9.8 million late-night comedy watchers. But folks who didn’t (or couldn’t) stay up that late could watch the bits on NBC.com (GE), Hulu, or any number of places where videos can be ogled online.

While we gave more credit to Tina Fey when we talked about this last month, there’s no doubt that interest in Palin helped push this over the top.

The SNL Tina Fey Palin videos demonstrated that mainstream video can now attract larger audience online than on TV.

This is a game-changer for mainstream media. It will probably take them a couple of years to react to this shift – but Internet video is rapidly becoming the future of television.

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YouTube Updates Its Embeddable Player

Nov 6th, 2008 | By | Category: Featured Story, Internet TV, Streaming Video, Video

YouTube has announced updates to its embeddable video player, including:

  • High-quality start images (thumbnails) – Before you press play on embedded YouTube videos, the thumbnails for the video will be presented in high-quality. 
  • Search in embeddable player – At the close of an embedded video, along with the usual recommended videos and URLs, a search box will appear. Not only will you be able search from within the embedded player, you will be able to watch videos through the same window. 
  • Integrated video annotations – Annotations enable video producers to incorporate text information into their videos, create choose your own adventure-style stories or add links to any YouTube video. People watching videos through the embedded player can now join the fun.
  • Integrated closed captions – Closed Captions are now available in embedded videos.

These are all welcome updates, especially high-quality start images.

Video search within embeds helps YouTube extend the reach of its site further into the places people have embedded video, but it does it in a way that’s useful to both site owners and end users.

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New Software Turns Your iPhone Into A Four Track Audio Recorder

Nov 6th, 2008 | By | Category: iPhone, iPods & Portable Media Players, Podcasting Software

Sonoma Wire Works has launched FourTrack (App Store link), a multitrack audio recorder for the iPhone and iPod touch (2nd Generation).

FourTrack works with the iPhone built-in microphone, a headset mic or an iPod touch with a third-party mic and headphones.

WiFi sync allows FourTrack recordings to be downloaded to any desktop computer with a browser. Tracks can then be loaded into any recording software (DAW) to continue working on songs….or podcasts!

Note that FourTrack won’t let you record four tracks to the iPhone at the same time. That would require a four-channel audio interface for the iPhone…..which would be awesome.  

FourTrack retails for $9.99. 

FourTrack Features:

  • Track Count – 4
  • Track Length – unlimited
  • Recording Quality – 16 bit, 44.1 kHz
  • Calibrated Meters – accurately monitor record and playback levels
  • Recording Clip Lights – ensure input levels do not cause distortion
  • Calibrated Faders – accurately adjust playback level of each track
  • Pan Control – move tracks from left to right
  • Time Line – seek to anywhere in your song instantly
  • Shuttle Wheel – accurately move within your song
  • Slide-to-Record – prevents over-writing your tracks
  • Latency Compensation – accurate to within 1ms
  • Compressor-Limiter – automatically fattens sound of the output mix
  • Song List – unlimited song count
  • WiFi Sync – copy recordings to a desktop computer

Requirements:

Compatible with iPhone and iPod touch (2nd Generation). Requires iPhone 2.0 software update. iPod touch requires third party microphone (see developer website for recommendations).

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Podcast Downloads Coming To iPhone 2.2 Firmware

Nov 6th, 2008 | By | Category: iPhone, iPods & Portable Media Players, Podcasting Software

German blog Schimanke.com has published new screenshots that show wireless podcast downloads enabled in Apple’s upcoming iPhone 2.2 firmware update. 

Check out the screen capture, right. 

It shows that much of the podcast find functionality of iTunes will be migrating to the iPhone. Users will be able to search for podcasts directly from the iPhone, browse featured podcasts, browse by category, and queue up podcasts for download. 

The new iTunes Store screenshots confirm that Apple will be delivering over-the-air downloads for both video and audio podcasts. According to Schimanke, podcast downloads will be limited to episodes less than 10MB in size when using the cellular network.

While this is still rumor, we’ve seen this reported independently from several sources, so it’s fair to say that support for podcasts on the iPhone is going to take a big leap very soon. 

You can view the original article in Googlish here.

via MacRumors

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Hulu One Of The Top Inventions Of 2008

Nov 5th, 2008 | By | Category: Internet TV, Streaming Video, Video

Time has selected its picks for the top inventions of 2008 and Internet video startup Hulu made the list, at #4. 

About Hulu, Time notes:

When cable eventually dies, websites like Hulu will be held responsible.

Unlike YouTube and other amateur-video-upload sites, Hulu is a hub for network TV shows and movies: Hulu offers shows from nbc, Fox, pbs and other channels, including free full episodes of SNL, The Daily Show, The Office and other hits the TiVo-less masses often miss, plus films like Ghostbusters, The Fifth Element and Lost in Translation.

Created as a network-approved alternative to YouTube’s grab bag, Hulu was at first roundly mocked as a ham-fisted corporate knockoff of the grass-roots glory that is YouTube. (It was also mocked for its weird name.) Instead it proved that suits can play in the Internet video space too and that studio content can coexist online with the user-generated kind. In doing so, it delivered the final blow that untethered TV from that box in your living room.

Hulu’s a great site, and it challenges many of the assumptions people in new media had about Internet video. 

Hulu is a tightly controlled, ad-filled, DRM’d Internet version of television – everything user-generated media isn’t.

And it’s a hit with both viewers and advertisers.

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How Barack Obama Beat John McCain With New Media

Nov 5th, 2008 | By | Category: Featured Story, General, Podcasting Events

Two years ago, we predicted that the next President of the United States would be a podcaster. 

Why?

People are steadily moving their attention to new media and newspapers and old media are dying. We knew that no candidate could win the 2008 election without getting their message in front of people on their computer, on their iPods, on their cell phones and anywhere else people listen to, read and watch new media.

Barack Obama has soundly beaten John McCain and it’s clear that Obama’s new media strategy played a big part in this win.

While McCain pulled back from new media and focused his attention on core supporters via old media, Obama got his message out anywhere people were listening. 

 Let’s review some of the top new media contests of this election:

YouTube Presence

When it comes to YouTube, there was no contest: Obama blew away McCain.

Here’s a chart of the top political channels on YouTube:

Obama’s official YouTube channel has received 4 times as many views as McCain’s, 97 million vs 24 million. 

But Obama didn’t just get more views. He’s made much better use of YouTube, populating it with nearly 2,000 videos and attracting over 117,000 subscribers. That’s about 5 times as many videos as McCain, and about 4 times as many subscribers.

By making efficient use of YouTube, Obama beat McCain at getting his message in front of fans of Internet video.

Obama did just as well in the world of podcasting

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A Reminder From Bruce Springsteen On Why You Should Vote

Nov 4th, 2008 | By | Category: Video

Just about the greatest song ever written about America, courtesy The Boss.

If you live in the US, vote today.

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The Best Political Attack Ads Yet: Star Wars Campaign Ads

Nov 4th, 2008 | By | Category: Internet TV, Strange, Video

See more funny videos at Funny or Die

Attack ads from the bitter Palpatine-Calrissian presidential race.

via Neatorama

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Watch The Elections Online

Nov 4th, 2008 | By | Category: Streaming Video, Video, Video Podcasts

Silicon Alley Insider has a great post highlighting the ways that you can watch the elections online.

While you probably expected each of the major networks to provide live streams, you can also get live streams coming from the candidates themselves:

John McCain’s Live Ustream Channel

Barack Obama’s Live Ustream Channel

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