TiVo has announced this year’s top Super Bowl broadcast moments, based on aggregated, anonymous, second-by-second audience measurement data about how TiVo subscribers watched the game.

The company’s analysis shows that viewers were as interested in the ads as the game, with several user-created ads among the top moments of the broadcast.

“Commercials were the big winner with the top spots drawing more viewership than any of the action on the field,” said Todd Juenger, Vice President & General Manager, Audience Research and Measurement, at TiVo.

“The broadcast was a real reflection of the dramatic shift in our media culture; the time was ripe for the best user-generated spots to join the ranks of the best professionally developed spots. Both of the Doritos contest winners ranked among the Top 10 most viewed commercials by TiVo subscribers.”

PodZinger has announced the release of a new, larger video player. For easier viewing, the size of the player has increased to 480 x 425 pixels.

They’ve also introduced ZingLinks, which include:

• The ability to embed audio and video on a user’s page via PodZinger-generated HTML code
• The ability to send audio and video to friends via a PodZinger-generated url that will bring you directly to the content
• The ability to email audio or video to friends directly from the player

An example is provided at the site.

Note: Flash Player 9.0.16.0 or greater is required to use PodZinger.

PBS has introduced a new podcast, the Take One Step podcast, as part of a new health campaign launched to raise awareness of heart disease. The campaign features a wide variety of resources to help inform people about the number one killer in the US.

To accompany the premiere of The Hidden Epidemic: Heart Disease In America documentary and panel discussion (produced by WGBH Boston and airing Wednesday, February 14th on most PBS stations), pbs.org has launched a web site with resources, tips, tools, and ideas to improve your heart’s health, a series of audio podcasts, and extensive information from community and promotion partners. The documentary and web site also coincide with National Heart Month in February.

One component of these partnerships is an eleven-part audio podcast series featuring best-selling author Dr. Michael F. Roizen and Julie Bain, Health Director of Reader’s Digest magazine. The series includes ten easy steps to a healthy heart from Dr. Roizen and, in the eleventh podcast, Dr. Roizen interviews Larry King of CNN’s Larry King Live and the Larry King Cardiac Foundation about King’s own heart attack, how it changed his life, and inspired him to form the foundation.

“Our goal with the Take One Step campaign for heart health is to let Americans know that heart disease is largely preventable,” states Laurie Donnelly, Executive Producer for the PBS documentary. “In addition to the broadcast program, our online resources help show visitors that there are a number of simple steps and actions they can take to reduce their risks for heart disease.”

JupiterResearch reports that 53 percent of online teens watch video on the Internet occasionally and 22 percent of them view video weekly or more frequently.

“Younger consumers tend to be extremely savvy about online media so it’s not surprising that teens are making significant use of Internet video,” said Joe Laszlo, Senior Analyst and Research Director with JupiterResearch. “Moreover, teen frequent video viewers tend to be both active online and socially influential. For example, 47 percent of them buy products and services online, compared with the 33 percent of online teens overall who make such purchases.”

According to Jupiter, teens rely on the recommendations of friends to help them find video on the Internet. Forty-four percent of teen online video viewers usually find the programs they watch based on friends’ recommendations via online or off-line channels. Other popular means of discovering online video include personal blogs and social networking sites like MySpace, as well as search engines.

“Teen-oriented online video services will prove lucrative, but firms offering them must proactively address parental and privacy concerns to be successful,” said David Schatsky, President of JupiterKagan. “Marketers need to balance teens’ propensity to share with the imperative to protect privacy, while offering content of interest to this young audience.”

Irreverent director Kevin Smith (Clerks, Mallrats, Dogma) is podcasting.

The Smodcast is described as “the meandering palaver of a pair of dudes whose voices are so dull, they don’t deserve to be on the radio (and, hence, aren’). Kevin Smith and Scott Mosier are SModcast.”

SModcast features harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Listener discretion is advised.

The guys at Ask A Ninja have posted an interesting take on the way MySpace is limiting what users can do at the site:

Over the last few months there has been a lot of debate over Net Neutrality, which basically boils down to one company blocking access to to another companies servers in order to gain a business advantage. This debate has usually focused on the companies that charge for bandwidth like AT&T, but recently Myspace has pioneered a new form — blocking sites that users link to in their bulletins and profiles.Right now if you link to anything at a site like “http://revver . com” (remove the spaces) Myspace will delete the link. Try it. That sucks right?

Revver is not the only site. There are dozens of smaller video and photo sharing sites that they are doing this to.

Why should you care?

Ask A Ninja was created because we were in control of where we posted the videos. That’s a big deal because if we’re forced to put them on MySpace video then FOX could take the episodes and make money off of them without paying Douglas or me anything. Which isn’t fair and takes away the incentive to create cool shows for you to watch.

Why is this against Net Neutrality? Because videos from Myspace Video and Youtube are not effected. It’s only these smaller, more innovative companies that haven’t been sold for billions of dollars.

The issue highlights the importance of establishing your own space on the Web, not MySpace, but your own Internet presence. Can a podcaster, blogger or anyone putting content on the Web be indie if they depend on the whims of a major site?

Digg The Ninja

Apple and The Beatles’ company Apple Corps announced today that the parties have entered into a new agreement concerning the use of the name “Apple” and apple logos which replaces their 1991 Agreement.

Under the new agreement, Apple Inc. will own all of the trademarks related to “Apple” and will license certain of those trademarks back to Apple Corps for their continued use. In addition, the ongoing trademark lawsuit between the companies will end, with each party bearing its own legal costs, and Apple Inc. will continue using its name and logos on iTunes. The terms of settlement are confidential.

Commenting on the settlement, Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO said, “We love the Beatles, and it has been painful being at odds with them over these trademarks. It feels great to resolve this in a positive manner, and in a way that should remove the potential of further disagreements in the future.”

Commenting on the settlement on behalf of the shareholders of Apple Corps, Neil Aspinall, manager of Apple Corps said, “It is great to put this dispute behind us and move on. The years ahead are going to be very exciting times for us. We wish Apple Inc. every success and look forward to many years of peaceful co-operation with them.”

The companies made no mention of whether or not the Beatles’ music would be coming to iTunes anytime soon.

YouTube has begun removing more than 100,000 unauthorized clips belonging to Viacom. The clips include everything from snippets of Jon Stewarts “The Daily Show” to Nickelodeons “SpongeBob SquarePants.”

The purge comes after Viacom demanded that YouTube take down the material, accusing the site of violating its copyrights. Viacom says its the largest order to delete videos it has ever made.

The situation highlights the growing challenges that YouTube will have to face to secure a viable future. Google’s $1.65 billion acquisition of YouTube showed that there was value in YouTube’s collection of user-submitted videos. It also made it clear to copyright owners that there was money to be made online from their content.

The recent “pigsteria” over breastfeeding blogger Jennifer Laycock’s controversial pro-breastfeeding “the other white milk” t-shirts appears to have come to a happy resolution.

Earlier in the week, we reported on how Laycock was being threated by The National Pork Board over the shirt, because they felt it infringed on their trademark and campaign “The other white meat.”
Laycock was surprised by the Boards threats, and she wrote an impassioned blog post to get her concerns off of her chest. “I don’t have a lot of tolerance for bullies.” Her post resulted in an outpouring of support across the Internet, and a lot of bad-publicity for the Pork Board.

It looks like the Pork Board realized that hassling an activist blogger over a t-shirt that parodied their branding in the name of a good cause would probably hurt their brand more than it would ever protect it. Laycock reports that “I have received an apology from Steve Murphy, the CEO of the National Pork Board and we are currently working toward a resolution.”

True science: Researchers have discovered that the music on your iPod can reveal whether you’re intelligent, creative or outgoing.

Psychologists Jason Rentfrow of the University of Cambridge in England and Sam Gosling at the University of Texas at Austin, have found tha strangers can accurately assess another person’s level of creativity, open-mindedness and extroversion after listening to his or her top 10 favorite songs.

According to Rentfrow, personality clues are conveyed in the music’s tempo, rhythm and lyrics.

Does the music on your iPod tell people that you’re smart and creative, or that you’re a pathetic, lonely freak with a bizarre obsession with riding the Oscar-Mayer Wienermobile?