The Washington Post has an interesting take on the growing importance of podcasting, video podcasting and other Internet media in the world of politics.

Not long ago, an anonymous video on the Internet would have elicited little more than amusement from the candidate under attack. But the 2006 campaign, in which then-Sen. George Allen (R-Va.) saw his hopes for reelection, not to mention the White House, torpedoed by his now-infamous “macaca” moment captured on a widely seen video, changed the rules.

But if last year’s midterms were the year of the rogue videographers, the already-underway 2008 presidential campaign is likely to be remembered as the point where Web video became central to the communications strategy of every serious presidential candidate.

We’ve previously highlighted how Hillary Clinton, John Edwards and Barack Obama have used podcasts and Internet video to announce their presidential intentions.

Playing defense is only one use of Web video. Equally important, the candidates and their staffs see Web-based video as an inexpensive and potentially significant tool for telling their campaign story without the filters of the traditional media.

Call it the YouTube effect, and it is only growing. The video-sharing site, which less than a year after its founding was bought by Google for $1.65 billion, has revolutionized the transfer of information via video, spawned a number of imitators and forced candidates to recalibrate choices, from their announcement strategies to their staffing decisions.

While the article emphasizes YouTube, the site is actually a small part of candidate’s Internet media strategies. Candidates are using multiple other video sharing sites, creating audio podcasts and appearing in video podcasts such as Rocketboom.

NexTune, a Redmond WA. based music software company, has announced the release of its new desktop music player, online music recognition service, and Music Store. According to the company, NexTune’s digital music software is the first desktop application capable of playing multiple digital music formats, including songs purchased from Apple’s iTunes Music Store and from download stores featuring Microsoft’s DRM (digital rights management).

NexTune is also introducing the first music application with a built-in CD music store. Users not only can buy new and used CDs at discount prices, they can also sell their CDs from within the nexTune software application and get instant credit to buy additional music.

“All the noise about digital music technology has frustrated and confused the traditional music buyer, and even driven them away from buying music,” said Michael DuKane, NexTune founder and CEO. “We wanted to bring back simple enjoyment of the personal music experience. We set out to develop a digital music application that was easy to use, that related to music consumers in a way that mirrored a CD collection, and most of all, gave them playlisting tools never before available to the general public.”

According to reports in Forbes and elsewhere, German and French consumer groups have joined a Nordic-led drive to force Apple to make its iTunes online store compatible with digital music players made by rival companies.

Currently, song purchased and downloaded through iTunes will only work with iPods and iTunes. Likewise, iPods generally can’t play copy-protected music sold through non-Apple stores.

Last June, consumer agencies in Norway, Denmark and Sweden claimed that Apple was violating contract and copyright laws in their countries. Norwegian Consumer Ombudsman Bjoern Erik Thon said French consumer lobby UFC-Que Choisir and its German counterpart, Ferbraucherzentralen, joined the effort late last year, and other European countries are considering it. Finland’s Kuluttajavirasto consumer group is also part of the effort.

“This is important because Germany and France are European giants,” Thon said. “Germany, in particular, is a big market for digital music.”

In a written response to earlier meetings, Apple said it “is working to address the concerns we’ve heard from several agencies in Europe, and we hope to resolve these issues as quickly as possible.”

The major music labels agreed to support a new music service, Ruckus Network, that will offer free music downloads, with some substantial restrictions, to any college student.

Though it offers free music, the service has struggled to generate interest with students and to find a way to pay for the service because the free songs are delivered with Microsoft’s PlaysForSure DRM, making tracks incompatible with both iPods and Zunes.

The service, from Ruckus Network, will be supported by advertising on its Web site and in the software used to download and play songs. The four major record labels and several independent labels agreed to license their music to Ruckus at reduced rates on the theory that college students would rather steal songs than pay the $10 to $15 a month that such services normally charge.

Phil Leigh, president of Inside Digital Media, a research firm, said that the move also represented a way for labels to experiment with advertising-supported music, a model that he said might be better for the labels than radio, because they could share in the advertising revenue. Music publishers, which represent the composers, are paid by radio stations, but the labels, which represent performing artists, are not.

At the 2007 Winter NAMM show, Alesis introduced their USB Mic Podcasting Kit.

According to the company, the USB Mic Podcasting Kit allows even the most inexperienced users to quickly record audio into the computer and have their podcast heard on the Internet. Just plug the USB microphone into your computer – the microphone is a plug-and-play device, so there are no drivers to install.

The kit includes Audacity for recording your audio and is compatible with both Windows and Mac operating systems. Once you have finished recording your podcast, the custom Alesis Podcast website allows you to upload your audio and will host your podcasts for free for 30 days.

The USB Mic Podcasting Kit provides 16 bit / 44.1-48kHz audio. A desktop microphone stand and headphones are also included in the kit.

The guys from the Inside Home Recording, Paul Garay and Derek K. Miller, are at the Winter NAMM show and podcasting their take on the most interesting gear introductions of the year.

The Winter NAMM show is a huge trade show, held annually in Annaheim, California, that covers recording technology and music gear.

Hillary Rodham Clinton has announced her presidential ambitions, joining Barack Obama and John Edwards not only in the presidential race, but in making her announcement using an Internet video.

Clinton appears to be embracing the use of Internet media as a tool for presenting her message to the public, and also to allow for more interaction with potential voters.

“I’m not just starting a campaign,” said Clinton, “I’m beginning a conversation with you, with America.”

“Let’s talk,” adds Clinton. “The conversation in Washington has been just a little one-sided lately, don’t you think?”

Clinton, who was re-elected to a second term last November, said she will spend the next two years “doing everything in my power to limit the damage George W Bush can do. But only a new president will be able to undo Bush’s mistakes and restore our hope and optimism.”.

BePodder, a media aggregator and podcast client for BeOS, has been updated to version 1.2.

New in this version are Atom and RDF support for example and a new “lite” version, with some limitations, and an unlimited Pro version. The Pro version costs 15 euro. 20% of each copy sold gets donated to the Haiku OpenBeOS project.

New in 1.2:

• Added RDF and Atom support
• Better multilanguage support
• Added bittorrentfeeds and Internationalfeeds built-in OPML directories
• Extended podcat OPML list from 3000 podcast to more than 10000 podcast
• Zeta (multilanguage) and BeOS R5 (english only)
• Better player integration with a new Auto option
• Online opml directory

Zune articles. Archived stories from Zunerama’s Zune blog.
Some Zune users are starting to get upset with the limitations imposed on the device’s wireless sharing technology:

Zune’s wireless sharing is described by Microsoft with a footnote – indicating that “the Zune to Zune sharing feature may not be available for all audio files on your device”.

Curious about this, I conducted a test of my own. I pulled down the top 50 songs downloaded from Zune Marketplace, using my Zune Pass subscription. I then created a playlist of those 50 songs, and attempted to wirelessly send the whole playlist to my wife’s Zune.

When the transfer completed, a message appeared on my player: “Can’t send some songs because of rights restrictions. 29 of 50 songs sent to Carrie’s Zune”.
zune graphic

29 out of 50..! Yikes. Click on the song list graphic to view the sync results for each of the top 50 songs.

The wireless transfer took 5 minutes, 2 seconds to send the 29 songs – or about 10 seconds per song. Pretty respectable, for what amounts to two hours of music. But I don’t like having 50-50 odds that I’ll actually be able to share a given song wirelessly. This assumes, of course, that my Top 50 sampling is representative of Marketplace as a whole.

Unfortunately for Microsoft and Zune users, the Zune’s wireless song sharing, something that has the potential to be a killer feature, is nearly useless. There’s no rhyme or reason (from a user’s perspective) to what can be shared, there’s no one to share songs with and once they are shared they are limited in use.

iPod users, of course, can wirelessly share 0% of their songs. Based on sales, though, it seems that no wireless features are better in many users’ minds than clunky wireless features.

Wireless capabilities will eventually be a killer feature, but Microsoft will need to find more practical uses than limited song-sharing.

Sundance Channel today announced a strategic relationship with YouTube which will make excerpts from Sundance Channel content available on YouTube in 2007. The arrangement will kick off with content from the 2007 Sundance Film Festival and will continue throughout 2007 with original series, films and documentaries.

Sundance Channel’s coverage of the 2007 Film Festival will include a branded area on YouTube that will host a range of video clips including “Festival Dailies” (a daily wrap-up show from the Festival), profiles of filmmakers in competition at the Festival, archival video clips from past Festivals and in-depth coverage of the Festival by YouTube users Arin Crumley and Susan Buice.

New content will be published each day of the Sundance Film Festival and will be featured prominently on YouTube. The content will also be featured on Sundance Channel’s website in a revamped minisite dedicated to the Sundance Film Festival.

“We are thrilled to announce this relationship with YouTube to extend the reach of Sundance Channel video content. Sundance Channel’s coverage of the Sundance Film Festival is a great way to start things off and we hope to build a community of YouTube fans throughout 2007,” commented Barry.