Yahoo! today introduced a new live video conferencing service, Yahoo! Live.

We haven’t seen an official announcement yet; we learned about this from ReadWriteWeb’s Marshall Kirkpatrick via Twitter.

Kirkpatrick’s take:

The service combines many of the best practices developed by early explorers of the medium, tiny startups that must be very worried tonight. Part BlogTV, part Mogulus and just plain better than UStream – below is a live player and some key points of differentiation.

At this point, the service is far from ready for prime time. In testing it out, we got a variety of interesting messages, such as this:

Yahoo! Live also told us “You can continue to surf and chat; video will resume once our servers stop smoking.”

We’re not sure what they were smoking, but it seems to keep them from being able to handle a few hundred beta users.

When we have been able to connect, we found Yahoo! Live to be a buggy video conferencing service. With Yahoo!’s weight and audience behind it, though, it could soon be a video service to contend with.

When Microsoft introduced the 2nd generation Zune portable media players last fall, it was clear that they’d done a lot to catch up with Apple’s iPods.

If Amazon’s sales are any indicator, though, Microsoft’s 2nd Zune sales have tanked since their introduction.

Apple’s iPods continue to dominate the list of top MP3 players at Amazon, holding eight of the top ten places. In fact, as of this writing, Microsoft’s 2nd generation Zunes don’t even make it into Amazon’s top 25.

It looks like Microsoft may be slashing prices on the 2nd generation Zunes in an attempt to generate interest and keep their latest player from becoming another Zunetanic. Microsoft has slashed the Estimated Retail Price for Zune 8 players from $199.99 to 179.99.

The Zune Is Still iPwned

Last October, we noted Five Reasons iPods Still Beat Zunes:

• Zunes are still boring. With the exception of the Zune’s wireless features, its hardware is competitive with iPods – from about two years ago.
• Microsoft still wants you to use the points system to buy stuff. We haven’t used the points system since grade school, where the teachers would take off points if you talked out of turn, acted up, or in any other way failed to conform to the man. Lose too many points, and no recess for you!
• The Zune has no content. The Zune store has about three million songs – or about half of what’s available in the iTunes music store. When it comes to podcast support, Microsoft has a tiny fraction of what’s in Apple’s directory. Other popular iPod features, like games, are missing in action.
• Limited accessories – Zune accessories are hard to come by. This is enough of a liability that Microsoft made a point of releasing its own line of accessories with the new Zunes, mentioning leather cases, sync cables and AC adapters in its announcement. Meanwhile, the iPod has so many bizarre accessories competing for your attention that we had to coin a new word for it all.
• It’s still a Zune. Microsoft’ first generation Zune got a lukewarm reaction, because the hardware was uninspired, the software was buggy and the Zune didn���t have much content. Microsoft’s introduction of the first generation Zune was a debacle, creating a stigmatized platform. You can put lipstick on a pig – but a Zune is still a Zune.

We’d like to see Apple’s iPods get some strong competition, to help drive prices down and move portable media players forward. Microsoft’s Zune isn’t it.

Podcast hosting network Wizzard Media announced this morning that its common shares are set to begin trading today on the American Stock Exchange (“AMEX”) under the ticker symbol ‚ÄúWZE.‚Äù Previously, the company traded as ‚ÄúWIZD‚Äù on the Over-the-Counter Bulletin Board.

Wizzard is based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, with offices in New York, Los Angeles, and Detroit, and was in the headlines last month for its disclosure that it had served up one billion podcast downloads in 2007. Additionally, Wizzard recently completed a major podcast advertising campaign for the U.S. Navy, across 28 of the podcast shows it hosts on its network.

InformationWeek reports that the US Central Intelligence Agency is watching YouTube – and they’re not just trying to figure out the lyrics to Chocolate Rain on their lunch break.

Spies under the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) are looking on YouTube for intelligence; according to the report, spies have become major consumers of social media.

“We’re looking at YouTube, which carries some unique and honest-to-goodness intelligence,” said Doug Naquin, director of the DNI Open Source Center (OSC).

The CIA’s intelligence gathering isn’t limited to YouTube, though.

“We’re looking at chat rooms and things that didn’t exist five years ago, and trying to stay ahead. We have groups looking at what they call ‘Citizens Media’: people taking pictures with their cell phones and posting them on the Internet.”

Howcast Media announced the launch of its new site today, a venue for watching and sharing “instructional how-to” videos. Howcast, founded by veterans of Google and YouTube, also announced a directors’ program for “emerging filmmakers” to pad out video offerings on the site.

Howcast paints itself as a hybrid of “user-generated content with the quality of a professional video studio.” Content includes topics randing from How to Paint a Wall, to How to Get Paid for Donating Plasma, to How Not to Get Mugged, and so on.

“Online video is generally split into two worlds: user-generated content and professional studio content,” said Jason Liebman, CEO and co-founder of Howcast. ‚ÄúWe think there‚Äôs an opportunity to bridge these worlds, and instructional video is a perfect place to start. Our viewers can suggest topics and content for videos on any subject they‚Äôd like to learn about, no matter how unique. Through our [New York-based] Howcast studio and our directors’ program, filmmakers can take all of these great user ideas and turn them into high-quality, engaging videos.”

Howcast.com invites video producers to contribute “what they know and love” by suggesting new video topics, creating and editing how-to text guides, and uploading videos. They also are soliciting “emerging filmmakers” to join their Howcast Directors’ Program, offering them an opportunity to “gain experience, exposure, and income” by creating how-to videos.

On a side note, George Smyth has been producing the highly entertaining “One Minute How To” podcast for several years, in which he invites guests to distill, in sixty seconds, the essence of how to do something. Topics range widely, from the recent “How To Make a Studio Alien Voodoo Head,” to playing blues harmonica, or one I did on homeschooling.

PodCamp Midwest is coming up next weekend, February 16, 2008, in the Kansas City metro suburb of Overland Park, Kansas.

The PodCamp gatherings, organized by podcasting volunteers around the world, are new media community unconferences. Attendees/ participants set the agenda and self-organize sessions on topics of their choosing. Since the first PodCamp Boston in September 2006, dozens of these unconferences have been organized around the world, with attendance ranging from a few dozen in Copenhagen to hundreds of participants in New York and Boston.

Yesterday, we caught up with PodCamp Midwest co-organizer, Rob Walch, to find out more about the PodCamp in our old hometown. Rob said:

“We are trying something a little different with this PodCamp. This PodCamp is co-sponsored by the KU School of Journalism. It is nice to see one of the top journalism schools in the nation take an active interest in podcasting.

“As far as planned presentations go – John Ong will lead one on How to Podcast using Garageband. There is also a Basic and Advanced session on Podcasting with WordPress and others – We are still looking for more people to sign up to do presentations.

“We’ve organized it into 4 subject-area “tracks”:
1. Podcasting How to’s
2. Education and Journalism issues with regards to Podcasting
3. Misc – open track anything goes.
4. Group discussions – in the spirit of Bar Camp – you enter the room –
you are part of the conversation. No presentations in this track – just discussions.”

All are welcome to register for PodCamp, whether you are an experienced blogger, podcaster, video producer, or just interested in finding out more about creating or enjoying podcasts and new media.

We’ll be at PodCamp Midwest. If you are going to be there, or if you want to set up a time to talk about your particular podcast or new media project please let us know.

RawVoice announced on Tuesday the launch of PodcastFAQ.com, a site that offers, in their words, current and prospective podcasters “comprehensive insight into the field.”

The new site includes history, technology, industry trends and a portal to several online communities and directories. The site also offers a glossary of podcast terminology, support and instruction on how to create a podcast.

“Having gone to conferences, meetups and workshops and sharing the information we’d learned [over the last several years], we realized that we needed to get this stuff out of our heads and make it available to not only the community but the world,” explains Todd Cochrane, CEO and co-founder of RawVoice.

RawVoice’s new PodcastFAQ site will join the media company’s other new media communities, Blubrry.com, Podcasternews.com and TechPodcasts.com, which are powered by the RawVoice Generator platform.

The Association of Downloadable Media’s (ADM) Susan Bratton has announced that the organization will present its Advertising and Sponsorship Standards and Guidelines for Traffic Measurement at the upcoming ad:tech Expo, being held in San Francisco, April 15-17.

The ADM will present the latest numbers in podcasting/vidcasting and downloadable media, case studies of successful programs, new ad units around which our industry can standardize and guidelines for audience traffic measurement. Bratton is also looking for speakers for the event:

“We currently seek panelists for these sessions. If you are an extraordinary speaker who can talk about numbers, case studies, ad standards and audience measurement, please send an email to susan at personal life media.

If you are a brand marketer or agency person or are working with someone on the ‚Äúclient side‚Äù whom you think would be a speaker on one or more of our sessions, please email Susan. This is our top speaker priority.”

ADM members are entitled to a 50% discount on a full conference pass to ad:tech. The Early Bird rate is $1395, so you pay $697.50 if you register before March 14th. You can attend the ADM sessions free, as well as attend ad:tech’s exhibit hall and keynote sessions free, if you pre-register. You must be registered to attend this event.

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Real-time video chat site ooVoo today announced the release of the newest version of its real-time video chat service, ooVoo 1.5. ooVoo 1.5 offers new ways to create and share content including recording a video conversation for friends or colleagues or for posting online.

The video recording services is designed so that you can record conversations to create video “notes” of an online meetings, and so that you can create video interviews to put on your site. The length of a recorded conversation is limited only by the storage capacity available on your hard drive.

ooVoo has also added a suite of visual effects, such as backgrounds and facial overlays of characters and creatures, that you can add to your video messages and live video conversations. In addition, the visual effects package lets you share a desktop and files from their computer, on screen with participants in a conversation.

ooVoo 1.5 also allows ooVoo calls, from anywhere in the world, to a mobile phone or landline in the continental U.S. and Canada. This allows those who are unable to join via a computer meet with up to five others in an ooVoo conversation.

Additional features of ooVoo 1.5 include:

• Import contacts from Yahoo!, Gmail, MSN Hotmail, Windows Live Messenger, AOL Mail, LinkedIn, Mac Mail, ICQMail, Mail.com and Lycos Mail
• ooVoo conversation ‚Äòsidebar‚Äô window allows use of the desktop during ooVoo video calls

ooVoo has also announced plans for My ooVoo Day (which is actually a week), a promotion starting on Feb 10th that will feature popular bloggers in live video chats.

Moby is offering a variety of unreleased tracks for you to use freely in your non-profit video projects at MobyGratis.com.

this portion of moby.com, ‘film music’, is for independent and non-profit filmmakers, film students, and anyone in need of free music for their independent, non-profit film, video, or short.
to use the site you log in(or on?) and are then given a password.

you can then listen to the available music and download whatever you want to use in your film or video or short.

the music is free as long as it’s being used in a non-commercial or non-profit film, video, or short.

if you want to use it in a commercial film or short then you can apply for an easy license, with any money that’s generated being given to the humane society.

Moby’s just added 15 new tracks to the site.

Registration is required to access the tracks.