With the latest update, the Microsoft Zune now offers the ability to subscribe and unsubscribe to podcasts directly on the Zune itself.

This is a useful new feature, especially combined with the Zune’s ability to wirelessly sync.

via Zune-Online

You may want to check out Pop Art’s iPhone snow globe.

It offers seconds of mindless fun.

Thanks to bloggers everywhere for making Podcasting News the #1 site for iCrap. We’ll figure out how to monetize that real soon…..

In the meantime, here’s something that’s even more useless than an dog jacket that transforms your pooch into a doggie boombox – an iPod gramophone.

Through passive amplification alone, the Phonofone II “transform any personal music player + earbuds into a sculptural audio console.” The Phonofone exploits the virtues of horn acoustics to boost the audio output of standard earphones to up to 55 decibles, about the maximum volume of laptop speakers.

The Phonofone II will set you back about $900.

There are tons of digital photo picture frames on the market and none have them have really wowed me.

Mustek has come up with something original, though, with the PF-i700, a 7-inch color digital photo frame with an integrated Apple iPod docking station. In addition to doing the usual digital picture frame duties, it can play your iPod files.

The screen is about three times the size of the iPod’s screen, has a 480×234 resolution and a widescreen 16:9 aspect ratio for playback of movies in MPEG format, Xvid and motion-JPEG formats.

The frame can be used in both portrait and landscape positions, and a removable stand design allows for wall mounting.

The PF- i700 also has stereo speakers plus a headphone jac. It incorporates a card reader for SD, xD, MMC, MemoryStick and MemoryStick Pro cards and a USB 2.0 port for thumb drives or connecting to a PC.

The Mustek PF-i700 is expected to be available in March 2008 with an MSRP of $129.99 (U.S).

Just a reminder that Todd Cochrane, the man behind Geek News Central, Blubrry, and Raw Voice, is conducting an all-day Podcast Marathon now through 10 am (Central US time) Saturday, Dec. 22. The marathon is a fundraiser for the One Laptop Per Child initiative.
The Marathon is being streamed by Ustream.tv and TalkShoe, and listeners/viewers are invited to participate by voice and text at those sites.  Guests include Roxanne Darling of Beach Walks With Rox; Anna Farmery of Podcast Sisters and The Engaging Brand; Susan Bratton, Vice President of the Association for Downloadable Media and CEO of Personal Life Media; Andy McCaskey of Slashdot Review, and Raw Voice metrics expert Angelo Mandato, among many others.

A full schedule is here: http://www.geeknewscentral.com/ .

Callers can call in and participate in the marathon by calling talk shoe at¬† +1 724‚Äì444‚Äì7444.¬† The “Talkcast” ID is 10832.

Podcasting News’ Elisabeth McLaury Lewin helped kick off the marathon with an hour long talk earlier today.

Actor, writer, and former Python John Cleese has published an enhanced podcast, his own unique interpretation (parody, really) of Clement Moore’s famous poem, The Night Before Christmas.

Quoth the John Cleese podcast blog:

“Assembled around a blazing fire, families eat themselves sick, drink themselves silly, and fight for their entertainment options with unaccustomed ferocity. So, in order to leaven this dark time, we bring you John Cleese’s Very Own Version of:

The Night Before Christmas.

With lots of festive love from all the Podcast Reindeer.”

Canada’s CBC is looking for proposals for original online content. This is an open call, so you don‚Äôt have to work at the CBC to submit a proposal.

Here are some of the factors consider when putting together your pitch:

• Potential impact – There is much competition for limited resources and success in the new media area is uncertain; the CBC wants to concentrate its efforts on fewer projects that have larger potential impact, while offering public value.
• New business models/approaches – The CBC is interested in proposals that help them understand different business models and relationships or technological approaches-they hope to create ‚Äúlow-to-no cost‚Äù alternative distribution ‚Äúchannels.‚Äù
• Audience appeal – The CBC is interested in ideas that resonate with and attract a large number of viewers/audiences in genres they already serve well via radio and television.
• Content – They have particular interest in shorter form video or audio-in either comedy or music-that can be delivered to broadband or wireless.

Proposals will be evaluated against the following criteria:

• Cost – Is the approach of the project in line with resource realities? What is the bottom-line cost to the CBC to approve this project?
• Building community or audience – Does the project have the potential to attract a significant audience or build online community?
• Use of the medium – Does the project make full use of the unique characteristics of the online world?
• Innovation – Does this project take the CBC somewhere new? Is it an innovative idea or concept?
• Revenue potential – What is the potential to generate revenue? Is the proposal creative in the way it looks at potential revenue sources or partners?
• Reflection of Canada – How does the project further the CBC’s mandate as the nation‚Äôs public broadcaster?
• Rights – Is the project feasible within CBC‚Äôs current rights framework? Is it possible to complete the project using existing talent agreements? Are there limitations on distribution?

Your proposal should outline the full scope of your proposed project, including the creative approach. Identify your intended audience, as well as the tone, perspective and style for how you intend to reach them.

Jeremy Allaire and Adam Berrey from the Internet television startup brightcove have posted an interesting take on the state of Internet video. They take a look back at what happened in 2007, but also offer their vision for what will happen in 2008.

Here are the highlights:

• Branded Destinations – Media companies with established brands and new start-ups will continue to build successful branded destinations so they can control the access to audiences. Think The Daily Show site.
• Audience Networks – Because of the power of big aggregators to reach new audiences, content owners will continue to develop distribution strategies that place elements of their content library into wide distribution, in most cases with advertising attached. An example would be putting promos onto YouTube.
• Audience Monetization – To date the advertising focus in the Internet TV market has been on monetizing video streams. But this focus is both shortsighted and not nearly as effective as thinking about how to monetize audience. Content owners will look for new ways to blend ad formats, insertion policies, and targeting tactics across pages, short-form video clips, long-form shows, and open distribution.
• Contextual Publishing – One of the key insights from the last two years is that short-form online video does best when it’s placed in a context. The context could be created by pages in a website, comments from users, line-ups in a player, etc. Regardless of how it’s done, getting the context right means you can put the right video clips in front of a viewer, which makes everyone happy. We expect that contextual in-page video publishing will grow, and that it will be extended to slideshows and audio content as more and more rich media is brought out of silos and into the core of websites.
• High-Quality Video – High-quality video will push Internet TV closer to traditional broadcast TV, and create new opportunities for brand marketers.

2007 validated that there was an audience for Internet video. 2008 will see an explosion of experimentation as networks try to figure out how to get people hooked on high-quality Internet video.

The biggest limit to growth in Internet video in 2008 probably won’t be a lack of content, but a lack of standard ways to view the content on a variety of devices.

The Sex:Tech Conference wants you to create a video that answers the question “Why is sex so interesting and sex ed so boring?”

They want you to make a video on one of these ideas:

• Theme 1. Share your sex ed experience so far. Show us how and why it sucked or rocked.
• Theme 2. Redesign how sex ed could be delivered. Imagine that anything is possible.

Make a video with either theme and submit it through DoGooderTV by January 7, 2008.

First place wins a $3500 scholarship to the educational institution of your choice (or cash equivalent); second place wins $1000 cash; and third prize is your choice of a Nikon P5000, a Nintendo Wii or an iPhone.

So-called iPod killers are not just failing to compete with Apple’s popular media players, they’re failing to hold onto what market share thy have.

Sales of portable music players, besides the iPod, declined during the first three weeks of the holiday shopping season, according to the NPD Group.  Manufacturers face a market in which there are fewer first-time buyers, and most sales are for upgrades and replacements.

“The market is in a position where most of the people who want an MP3 player have one,” said NPD analyst Stephen Baker.