New media advertising in virtual worlds like Second Life appears to be dead in the water.

Virtual world technology firm The Electric Sheep Company let go nearly a third of its employees yesterday. The company laid off 22 employees, is scaling back its events staff and cancelling several projects, including the creation of an ad network for use within Second Life.

“We feel that the time is not right to place more bets on that currently,” said CEO Sibley Verbeck of the network. “We felt that large scale advertising to the current Second Life user base by real world companies is not a big opportunity in the short term.”

via Clickz; Image bru76

Apple has quietly released updates to several of its podcasting-related applications:

• GarageBand 4 has been updated to 4.1.1. The update incorporates changes in the September 4.1 update, includes exporting to the iPhone, as well as overall stability fixes.
• QuickTime and QuickTime Broadcaster have also been updated. The latest version of QuickTime, 7.3.1, is a minor update incorporating security enhancements. QuickTime Broadcaster, a live encoding suite designed for online delivery of streaming media, adds several enhancements in version 1.5.2. These include improved performance for streaming 640 x 480 30 FPS video; support for H.264 (MPEG-4 Part 10 video) live broadcasting; the new ability to send live 3G streaming broadcasts to multimedia-enabled cell phones; and expanded standards support, including 3GPP and ISMA.

Pew Internet released an interesting report earlier this week that looks at Teens and Social Media. According to Pew, more teenagers than ever are creating content online.

Here are the highlights:

• 64% of online teenagers ages 12 to 17 engaging in at least one type of content creation, up from 57% of online teens in 2004.
• Girls continue to dominate most elements of content creation. Some 35% of all teen girls blog, compared with 20% of online boys, and 54% of wired girls post photos online compared with 40% of online boys.
• Boys do dominate one area – posting of video content online. Online teen boys are nearly twice as likely as online girls (19% vs. 10%) to have posted a video online.
• Nearly half (47%) of online teens have posted photos where others can see them, and 89% of those teens who post photos say that people comment on the images at least “some of the time.”

The survey found that there is a subset of teens who are super-communicators — teens who have a host of technology options for dealing with family and friends, including traditional landline phones, cell phones, texting, social network sites, instant messaging, and email. They represent about 28% of the entire teen population and they are more likely to be older girls.

Image: singleframe

Portable media player manufactuer Neuros Technology has created the Unlocked Media brand to create a consumer friendly trademark out of the abstract idea of “DRM Free” media.

The concept behind the Unlocked Media trademark is that it be made available for free to any entity that uses media using open standard technology which is available to all on a non-discriminatory basis. Ultimately, Neuros is looking for an independent third party to administer and manage this mark.

‚ÄúThe Unlocked Media definition was chosen very deliberately to stand for a consumer benefit. The point of this mark is not to make a political statement, but to promote the fact that unlike DRM’d media, Unlocked Media can be played and stored virtually anywhere‚Äù said Neuros Outside Counsel Andrew Gray. ‚ÄúAs an example, although controversial, we included patented technologies in the definition because the mark is intended to mean compatibility with existing devices like the iPhone.‚Äù

The controversy over the Richter Scales’ Here Comes Another Bubble appears to be drawing to a close.

The video was taken down from YouTube after photographer Lane Hartwell objected to the unauthorized use of one of her photos in the video. This has led to a great deal of debate over the role of copyright and fair use in Internet videos.

The group has released an updated version of the video that removes Hartwell’s image and gives proper credit for the photos that were used:

We’d like to be able to say that the controversy has ended on a happy note, but it hasn’t.

The re-edited video is still lame and it’s had the viral juice squeezed out of it.

The Richter Scales are unrepentant, taking the opportunity of the updated release to slag on Hartwell.

Hartwell comes across as spiteful in her response. “I will be sending the band an invoice for their use of my image in the first version of the video,” writes Hartwell. “This was the offer I proposed to the Richter Scales that they chose to disregard.”

The only winners in this appear to be the people whose images were used in the video. The Richter Scales have now provided comprehensive credit for the images incorporated in the videos.

Kent Nichols, co-creator of the popular video podcast Ask A Ninja, has started a new blog, and it already looks like it could become essential reading for indie new media content creators.

His first post takes a look at YouTube and why video podcasters and vloggers shouldn’t depend on it:

“YouTube doesn‚Äôt care about any one creator, any one video.

If you or your video violates their TOS, then you’re screwed. Even writing this post, I’m going to cross my fingers and hope they don’t cancel my account.

In this new media world, build your own domain. Create traffic that you can sell your own ads against. Build up your video views through your own site and then monetize them using Revver et. al., and then sell CPM ads as soon as you can.

Kent shared more of his thoughts in an interview with Podcasting News earlier in the year.

The New York Times has an interesting profile of MIT’s Walter H. G. Lewin, 71, a physics professor that has a new generation of fans thanks to his video podcast.

Professor Lewin delivers his lectures with the panache of Julia Child bringing French cooking to amateurs and the zany theatricality of YouTube’s greatest hits. He is part of a new generation of academic stars who hold forth in cyberspace on their college Web sites, via video podcasts and on iTunes U.Professor Lewin’s videotaped physics lectures, free online on the OpenCourseWare of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, have won him fans across the country and beyond who stuff his e-mail in-box with praise.

“Through your inspiring video lectures i have managed to see just how BEAUTIFUL Physics is, both astounding and simple,” a 17-year-old from India e-mailed recently.

Steve Boigon, 62, a florist from San Diego, wrote, “I walk with a new spring in my step and I look at life through physics-colored eyes.”

“I had never taken a course in physics, or calculus, or differential equations,” he wrote to Professor Lewin. “Now I have done all that in order to be able to follow your lectures.”

“I walk down the street analyzing the force of a boy on skateboard or the recoil of a carpenter using a nail gun,” he wrote. “Thank you with all my heart.”

Todd Cochrane, the host of the Geek News Central Podcast, is hosting a live, interactive event that will last 24 hours.

During the 24-hour Podcast Marathon, Todd will stream live from his Hawaii-based studio on Ustream.TV and will have interactive talk via TalkShoe.com.

The marathon gets underway at 11am EST on Friday. Guests are going to be talking about a wide variety of subjects, ranging from podcasting, new media, and technology, which you might expect on a “geek news” show, but the conversation is also expected to include non-techie family and life topics.

The event will be streamed on ustream.tv and will also feature a Talkshoe “talkcast” at the same time, “so anyone is free to jump in on the call,” says Cochrane.

And, “most importantly,” adds Cochrane, the Marathon is “raising money for One Laptop Per Child.”

Podcasting News‘ Publisher Elisabeth McLaury Lewin is scheduled to participate early in the Marathon, 11:30 am – 12:30 pm Eastern (8:30 Pacific) US time. Later in the Marathon, the schedule includes international podcasters from UK and Australia.

And how does the Marathon’s host prepare for 24 hours of live interviews?

Cochrane insists that he’s not worried, that it will be a pleasure, “just to chat about topics that come up. I am sure it will be a rough 24 hours, but it should be fun. I hope the whole community comes out to keep the conversation going.”

The Phone Company Recording Archive is an great collection of old-school phone company messages. The samples include recordings from Bell, US West, AT&T and other sources.

You can preview “Please hang up…” below.

According to a new report, Apple TV leads the market for Internet television devices, but the devices have had difficulty resonating with consumers, largely due to their cost and complexity.

“Vendors of these products have struggled with a number of hurdles that have so far made this market relatively unsuccessful,” says ABI Research director Michael Wolf. “The high cost of these devices, their reliance on the home network, the need for consumer self-installation, and the scarcity of content have all contributed to their lack of commercial success.”
Overall, ABI Research believes that this new breed of devices will see shipments of 1.2 million in 2008.

Nonetheless ABI Research believes that two factors offer new hope for these devices:

• While early examples lacked significant amounts of content, new models such as Vudu‚Äôs video device have significant libraries, including high definition movies.
• Additionally, consumers‚Äô growing hunger for both user-generated and professionally produced content on the Internet could create greater demand for these new devices.

More Compelling Free Internet Video Is Key

Wolf goes on to say that free, ad-supported Internet video may be the key to jump-starting this category.

‚ÄúThere is a possibility of a break-out success among these new entrants if they can create compelling content offerings, make consumer installation and management incredibly easy, and offer both the hardware and content at compelling pricing. We believe one way to achieve this is by incorporating some premium content using advertising support.”