I cruised by Digital Life yesterday, a friend was doing pr for a publishing company and we had time to catch up after the show. While he was working I wondered the main floor of The Javits Center to see if there was something I could learn or give me some inspiration. As the average age of the people in attendance was twenty years my junior, I certainly felt out of place.

The show was a mish mash of gaming (both fixed and mobile), consumer electronics, audio and communications. It was interested to see the old style Ms. PacMan alongside a mobile version of the same. What was interesting was that hardly anyone was playing the mobile version, but rather opted for twenty year old technology, certainly an oxymoron given the nature of the show and my belief that twenty somethings were early adopters of mobile gaming?

I did meet Frank Greer, CEO and President of Zipit Wireless, a company with the Z2 a $150.00 mobile communicator, I called it the Blackberry for the under twenty set, I think they liked the comparison. Given the growth of IM, texting, social networks and media sharing, they are in the sweat spot for their target market. Along with the units ability to download music and image content via Wi-Fi networks one could certainly futurecast out such capabilities such as streaming video content to users, both peer too peer as well as from content servers. Remember the IR beaming capability of the Zune? People want to share content and given the restriction with music and movie content such a capability would not prevent people from swapping their own content, be it on YouTube, Revver, or something they editing themselves. Add Wi-Max and the experience expands.

Another interesting technology was the $328.00 Supacam mini video camera/personal entertainment unit. With the capability to record up too 4-hours of 720x480 video with a 2GB SD memory card, a 12 mega pixel/8x zoom for still photos and the ability to play MP3's and video content you have what was in the Nokia N93 until they retired it, due to form factor and cost reasons. While the unit has USB capabilities, imagine Firewire in/out as well as Wi-Max, it could become the choice for Citizen and perhaps News Journalism. It you add some of the capabilities of the Zipit, you would have a platform for sharing of content.

There were a couple of other interesting technology ideas that I could fit under the general umbrella of Internet TV, but at the end of the day gaming was the main draw and I found it easy to spend a few minutes blasting someone away in Halo3, after all when in Rome...

As we are presented with many options for viewing content, I find I am using more then one solution for viewing video content while at home and especially when on the road. How about you? Which solutions do you use and more importantly, tell us how and why you use them.

According to a recent Business Week article MySpace Goes Hollywood, MySpace was tossing the term “Network Quality” around without much understanding what it means.

They were referring to Quarterlife, a series of eight-minute videos, created by Marshall Herskovitz and Edward Zwick which is being touted in the article as the first network quality show produced for the on-line viewing, really?

As someone who has shot content for “Broadcast”, the term is specific to certain technical parameters for transmission of SD or HD signals...for another post. Considering that many people view on-line content using a laptop, desktop monitor or mobile device such as an iPod they are not going to see the difference between a five thousand dollar DV camera verses its sixty-thousand dollar cousin. In addition, most content today is not yet encoded at VC1 specs, which seems to render this point moot.

Quarterlife, the thread for the series is about a group of twentysomething writers, actors and dancers trying to break into show business. Their site in soft-launch indicates they are aiming to bring the audience along as community, read; Entourage on MySpace. The site went on to further that participatory angle by saying the community would “participate in the ongoing creation of the series, be discovered as a writer, director, composer, photographer - find your next step as an artist and as a person”. And bring peace in our time, sorry I could not resist.

Of course, I find this rather ironic seeing that writers, actors, dancers, producers and DP’s are trying to break into the on-line and IPTV television distribution space on their own without significant traction. That it takes the muscle of Hollywood to dangle this in front of thousands of talented content creators does not speak well for the current opportunities for Indies, but more like an on-line reality show where people might be discovered.

That Producer Herskovitz has estimated each 48-minute episode will cost more then $500,000 to produce is not surprising for Hollywood though rather shockingly excessive given the target platforms and what some Indie producers have created with far less resources.

Perhaps MySpace has not heard of Williamsburg or ventured into Brooklyn, NY where The Burg, a very well produced series (near network quality, read; sarcasm) with talented actors and solid storyline has been on-line since late 2005, long before Hollywood ventured into their hood. Even the Quarterlife trailer reminds me of The Burg.

So what's the path for aspiring content creators serious about their craft, pepper the web's aggregator sites in hopes of a few dollars, self-promote on their own site or hope to get discovered by the Producers of Quarterlife, its a tough call with no easy answers.

Recently I setup a poll on my Facebook page using Pollection, an interesting application which allows people to conduct polling along with the aid of video and or still images.

I asked a simple question, which I knew, had no easy answer, namely; do you agree with the concept of the Inverted Pyramid where niche markets of five or ten thousand viewers can sustain video content?

The response was right down the middle with 66% saying No and 33% Yes; here is how the Demo broke down.

Some of the data was surprising and some suggests polling is not an exact science. <g> For instance, I would not have expected the gender split to be as close. On the other hand, the numbers did not match up between those who were high school age, their educational background and income for that same demo. I gather high school students do not earn 25k and over, more likely they embellished, ya think?

In any event, (all polls incur a sampling error rate) the data was interesting. The answers of course are far more difficult, for example;

1. If Indie and small producers can make a sustainable income serving niche market groups, what are the steps to profitability?
2. Are there any case studies and if so are they unique?
3. Do content aggregator and super aggregator sites offer Indies promise for income, or just gas money?

The original poll is located at Pollection.com

I interviewed Burhan Fatah, CEO of SIVOO.com last month about what it takes to be at the fore of content delivery in the multicultural and non-English language content space through ITV and closed IPTV systems. As OTA and cable barely cover cultures past Spanish in the U.S. Sivoo currently has 20,000 hours of programming in Spanish, Chinese, and Hindi and Burhan sees this as a Greenfield opportunity for content and Sivoo.

Note: We are evaluating a new audio player platform to provide sliced Q&A for faster access for our readers, while we are still tweaking it, please let us know what you think of it.

Microsoft has released 1.0 of Silverlight and of special interest is their Silverlight™ Streaming by Windows Live™ which gives small content producers and developers 4GB of server space from which to experiment with the platform.

The service offers web designers and developers a free and convenient solution for hosting and streaming cross-platform, cross-browser media experiences and rich interactive applications that run on Windows™ and Mac. Combined with the ability to create content with Microsoft® Expression Studio and other 3rd party tools, Web designers and content publishers wishing to integrate Silverlight applications into their online properties can enjoy complete control of the end user experience.

Currently, video must be less then 22 MB which works out to 10mins of content encoded at 300Kbps. VC-1 and WMV are the supported video formats.

Microsoft has got its work cut out for itself beyond creating the tools, For if you build it will they come? I am referring to the community of developers who create plug-in applications which serve to build a foundation for product growth. As someone who has a lot of miles with WM Encoder and streaming video content under my belt, I would like to see Microsoft go the distance with Silverlight as a robust alternative to Flash.

Check out the Expression Media Encoder.

The road for content creators interested in navigating the ITV/IPTV landscape is no different then starting any other new business idea or product, it requires guts, planning and luck. Guy Kawasaki is one of the great thinkers for the new era of innovation and planning.

The Art Of The Start is a must read and we have a signed copy we are giving away. drop an email or reply to this post and let us know what changes, innovation you foresee for Internet TV in 2008, we will pick from the most interesting and the winner will receive the book. Deadline for entry is by September 15th.