By Levi Shapiro

One way to antagonize Mark Selby, Nokia's VP of Industry Collaborations, is to use the term "UGC." At the conference, he told the audience "never use the term User Generated Content? it's disgusting." Selby, who came from a television background at IMG, encouraged the media industry to "look beyond just the consumption aspect on mobile. It is critical that we also deliver the ability to create, connect and interact." Nokia (NYSE: NOK) is in the process of transforming Symbian into an open platform.

In a separate panel, Jordan Berman, Executive Director of Media Innovation at AT&T (NYSE: T) Advertising Solutions, talked about mobile advertising, which is new for AT&T with the launch this month of banner ads on MediaNet. Jordan said he encourages brands to employ the handset as a response mechanism for non-mobile media like print, outdoor, in store, and TV. In Jordan's Valentines Day case study with 1800-Flowers.com, called 'Cupid Goes Wireless,' he said "AT&T drove flower buyers to the brand's WAP store where customers could order bouquets and send virtual flower bouquet greetings." Jordan called this a "whole new wireless way to stay out of the doghouse." Levi Shapiro, a wireless specialist and founder of three mobile media companies, sent in a dispatch from the conference this week, which he helped organize.

Recently I spoke with Imad Mouline, CTO of Gomez, Inc. Gomez is involved in the software as a service testing space for Internet traffic and more recently streaming media. Imad outlined the company's products and testing capabilities for the iTV on-demand space using their Active Streaming XF product. In a follow up article I will flesh out our results and experiences using Active Streaming XF.

Listen to Interview with Imad Mouline

Brightcove, the Cambridge, MA. based video tools company has launched their 3.0 platform to publishers, this after several months of testing by beta users. The system which is totally different in look and system flow from the prior version uses tabs and overlays to navigate between some key functions and is easier and faster to move between uploading, managing and other aspects of the process. The system is concentrated around three key modules: media, publishing and advertising.

Uploading video content was easier and seemed faster then with version 2. As with players, version 3 has fewer default players available however, there is support for user created players via XML which you can then add to your list within the application.

Interestingly, I.E. which had been the only browser that supported uploading of video content is now considered the slowest by the company. "Brightcove Studio loads more slowly in Internet Explorer than it does in some other browsers, If you are using Internet Explorer and find the Brightcove Studio load time annoying try Firefox, Google Chrome, or another browser"

I did notice some performance improvement specific to load times using Firefox when moving between sections however, it was not huge.

Users can take advantage of batch uploading of video content and playlists however, this can not be done via the UI but rather a user created XML file which according to their documentation "requires a high degree of precision" Certainly for companies with this in-house scripting capability and a need for batching of media it should not be a significant hurdle.

Automation will become a key element for larger companies and features like media API's which will allow for hooking out to external applications for file ingestion and server-side transcoding are important and I'd be interested to hear from people who've adapted these features specific to how well they integrate into their work flow.

One of the issues with version 2 which is a concern with the new version is will it take the same amount of time to produce one video clip through the entire process verses five or six clips? With version 2, it was frustrating when you had one video you wanted to post rapidly, say in a few minutes but had to step through the entire process. I'll do some time based testing and report back on this question.

As noted in slide six, I was not able to load any analytics on streams viewed and gave up after three minutes of waiting, no doubt a short term bug however, I'd like to see how analytics are graphically presented, say verses Google or other tools.

Also of note the uploader does not currently support .Mov HD files from the DVCPro format.

Brightcove has found its niche among medium too large media companies for content distribution and version 3 is a significant improvement over their prior version. For Indie filmmakers and other small producers, Brightcove is generally seen as too expensive a platform for distribution especially with low cost or no cost solutions from companies such as Veotag and others.

In sum, version 3 was easy to navigate without reading any of the documentation (which I'll eventually get around to) and loaded sections faster then with version 2. I've yet to process media files all the way through the process so it remains to be seen if there is a reduction in cycle time however, it is a welcome update.

image © LinkedIn

The management team of Obama/Biden is seeking a Chief Technology Officer to bring real change to America.

Are you a self-starter who can work in a high pressure environment. Do you have a proven track record for technology innovation. Have you managed large groups, really large. Do you possess the ability to dream big and be able to craft new technology processes to solve some of the biggest challenges facing this country? Can you work with people of different ideologies and temperaments to achieve consensus for fundamental and meaningful change for how our technology infrastructure is rebuilt and in some cases built from the ground up?

Some of our goals over the next four years include:

We strongly support the principle of network neutrality to preserve the benefits of open competition on the Internet.

Deploy a modern communications infrastructure:

We believe we can get true broadband to every community in America.

Other Areas of Interest for Change include:

Health care
Lead ideation session with industry, medical practitioners and patient groups to chart the work flow and needs requirements for how to build and implement a fifty-state electronic medical care DBMS. The requirements are to reduce the amount of paper work involved in patient care, reduce the error rate which can impact a patients health and life. In short, make the system more efficient, reduce hospital cost while maintaining a highly secure environment.

Energy Independence
Work with various business and advocacy groups in creating the technology framework and deliverables for addressing the rebuilding of our electric grid, the building of a transportation grid for delivery of wind and solar power.

Departmental Transparency
Implement a government wide framework for the creation of transparent agency websites for consumers in addition to creating more responsive consumer contact and resolution with agency personnel.

Apply here, or recommend someone for this position. (send us you suggestions for who should be CTO to President Obama and we will post the list)

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While the above is not an actual job rec, it illustrates some of the challenges and potential rewards for the country from having a CTO to the President. Someone with an intimate understanding of how technologies can enhance our daily lives and save time and money is not to be minimized with a humorist post, the needs are too great, the challenges are too many and in some cases time is short, failure is not an option!

We are seeing technology in the form of next generation video conferencing, also called Telepresence (a trade name) putting people face to face across the world in immersive environments that will cut travel and other expenses for industries desperately in need of maximizing their most important assets, people and time.

Universal Broadband access, coupled with a U.S. style version of one laptop for every child will provide the tools that if used properly could give the next generation of students a head start in the global economy.

We are at a Nexus* in time, there are many roads in front of us and we can choose to walk together down the road towards a renaissance, or we can have more of the same. I've heard the question, should President-elect Obama be bold and think big or take the safe road? The time for bold moves like going to the Moon is a perfect illustration and we are poised for such a journey, IT IS TIME FOR BOLD VISIONARIES, lets' go.

* In addition to meaning "a means of connection; a link", Nexus refers to the first web browser, created by Sir Tim Berners-Lee, which ran on the NeXTSTEP platform, perhaps a fitting name for the technology goals for our next President.

As reported today by NPR, the President-elect plans to appoint a technology Czar to coordinate the different silos of government, this in addition to fulfilling his pledge to provide broadband access to all American's. If I were to suggest a person for this post it would be Phil McKinney who not only understands technology innovation but has managed large teams and infrastructure at HP.

November 14th, 2007 Googleplex Campus, CA. Then candidate Barack Obama outlined his vision and goals for technology innovation with the Internet as a centerpiece.

There are many challenges facing the U.S. at home over the next four-years. The economy, healthcare and education to name a few. President Elect Obama's understanding of how Internet technology can provide equal access for all American's, bring healthcare into the electronic age and address a myriad of other challenges is a bright prospect that goes well beyond the technology itself.

AT&T announced that they are testing a plan to limit the amount of downstream data that new customers in the Reno, NV. market will be able to use in a calendar month, this for both DSL and users at the 10 Mbps level. According to the company, existing customers will be capped at 150 GB per month, this regardless of their connection speed.

According to company spokesman Michael Coe, five percent of AT&T's subscribers take up 50 percent of the capacity.

Starting in November, the company will limit downstream usage to 20 GB per month for DSL users. this at, at 768 Kbps. The limit increases with the speed of the plan, up to 150 GB per month at the 10 Mbps level. Users will be able to track their usage on the companies website, much like your monthly cell phone usage.

At the 3 Mbps tier this would amount to a monthly cap of 60 GB, or about the download of about 30 DVD-quality movies. Companies such as Roku which have announced HD streaming by the end of 2008 have indicated bandwidth caps will not affect their business model as they will employ new compression models to reduce bitrates. The net effect of the AT&T bandwidth caps is unclear at this point since there is no data to determine if this will be detrimental to residential customers.