Broadband approaching mainstream in Venice

The Venice Project, another creation by the founder of Skype, Janus Friis, is in beta. It’s the long-awaited internet TV beginning to sprout! Although systems require gobs of ram (512mb) and good video memory (48MB) and 600 mhz of speed, most PCs can now easily accomodate. The interface is nice and crisp and allows you select channels, programs, etc… with ease. Does this spell the end of the top box? Apple is delivering its own this January (last I heard). If so, Yahoo! (no pun). I once heard the word streaming is outdated–”internet TV” is indeed the cool new term. And it’s getting more real and real close.

For advertisers, this spells a new medium, targeted and affordable. Since Venice is aimed at delivering free TV, advertising is how it will monetize itself and compensate the content producers. 

Question is, how will service providers kick-up their offerings to accomodate internet TV? This is surely a satellite TV killer which bundles unwanted offerings at a high cost.  Now customers can customize their their programming selections with ease.  That’s authentic  one-to-one marketing offering brand relevance  to advertisers as never before. We are in for a luxurious gondola ride in Venice.

Global Blogging System is beautiful

I was touched by how many reknown bloggers including the team at Cnet and Robert Scoble among many, posted and commented throughout the blogosphere in an effort to find James Kim and his family lost in Oregon. This happened long before the networks gotta hold of the story. It is terribly sad that James is deceased but indeed remarkable how many friends he had made in the tech community. As was exclaimed at the conculsion of  ”It’s a wonderful life”, “[James was] the richest man in town”. As grief sets in in this community, the natural process, “shoulda coulda”, will also rear its head. We should use this sad event to improve technology so that someone in Grant’s Pass or in Borneo can use technology effectively for rescue.  With our prowess in technology this is surely preventable. There should be no dead zones. But one thing is clear, the blogosphere’s heart can be beautiful.