Allen Weiner

As I walked through the Austin Farmers Market on November 22, a local organization was handing out flyers telling locals about the February 17, 2009 deadline for the analog to digital transition, the point at which time local broadcasters would cease analog transmissions. In short, death to rabbit ears. Now, here’s the irony: Nov. 22 [...]

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I had the opportunity to stop by Pluck’s Austin headquarters and talk with Eric Newman, SVP & General Manager of the company about Pluck on Demand, a new offering that allows publishers to add contextually relevant content to their sites…and possibly earn a cut of ad revenue.

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In one of the more anticlimactic business moves in the brief history of the web, Yahoo! CEO and co-founder Jerry Yang announced he will step down once a replacement is found for the top spot at the iconic portal. For many, this will be a milestone in the drama that has surrounded Yahoo! in its [...]

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As previously stated, I am a video guy. Back in the day, I was an A/V nerd and even worked after school to repair broken educational films by resplicing them when they cracked as they were wont to do. So, when the online consumer video craze began to surface about five years ago, I became [...]

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Here’s some food for thought: as NBC and Fox plan to share resources, would it make sense for News Corp to spin off Fox Broadcasting and for GE to spin off NBCU and create a new combined network? Imagine the efficiencies. Heck, I’d call the new network Hulu (the name of their online joint venture) [...]

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Gartner issued a press release on a report I authored on protail video, a concept the Media IAS team began writing about a year ago. The concept–video that lives between professional network content and general UGC–has evolved a great deal since my first report and will undoubtedly have subsegments of its own, especially as new [...]

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I was not surprised to see the Hollywood Reporter and other sources note that Blockbuster, the former 500 pound Gorilla in the video rental business, is looking to develop or partner in a set-top box implementation that would stream movies to the home. That original idea has been implemented by Nextflix/Roku, Vudu, Apple TV, Xbox, [...]

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I had a great chat today with Jim Kennedy, vice president and strategy director for the Associated Press, regarding the AP’s outstanding live coverage of Election Night which was “broadcasted” via its member newspapers and broadcast affiliates…. Sorry, faithful followers, the analysis and take-aways from that conversation will be part of an upcoming report available [...]

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With the 2008 election behind us, it’s interesting to take a look back at how candidates have used TV to deliver their message. Hulu offers a selection of political advertisements (some older than me) that show you how little has changed despite advances in technology and increased candidate spending.

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In case you were watching another network or perhaps getting your election video fix via Associated Press’ live streaming coverage (via PC or Mac), you missed CNN’s freaky holograms. I saw it twice, once with reporter Jessica Yellin the other with Will.i.am of the Black Eyed Peas. Gizmodo does a good job of explaining how [...]

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