Aztec Media

Online user-generated video provider GoFish Technologies has announced a new consolidated business operating naming strategy, finalized leadership appointments, a stock-for-stock merger, and $12 million in private placement stock and warrants financing.

GoFish reports having hundreds of millions of videos watched over the last two years, and is also producing and distributing their own original series called "America's Dream Date" (which after watching for a few minutes you might want to hurl like I did).

There is definitely some value in these online video sites ... or Google would not have purchased YouTube.  But at some point, there can only be so many because frankly if the Internet has shown us anything is that we have a low attention span, and attention (ie. via ad revenue) is all that matters for those trying to make revenue.

JotSpot has announced that they have been acquired by Google.  JotSpot is a popular for fee scalable Wiki service provider who will be moving into a traditional Google free but ad supported business model after this purchase.

You can expect this Google's purchase will mean increased integration of 'wiki like' collaboration services across their current product line which will make for a compelling solutions for distributed groups working online together.

I have been a long time user of TypePad.com for posting my blogs and creating my podcast websites.  This site is a TypePad.com site.

They have a new free (ad supported) blog publishing tool and site called Vox.com that just launched officially (even though it has been in beta for a while).

I am not sure I'm ready to make a dedicated move to Vox.com, but from what I've seen ... by playing around at sholden.vox.com ... it is a very good tool for someone who just wants to get started blogging without having to know a lot of the technical details.

I also think the privacy features are well thought out and attractive to those who want to family/personal/friends blog but don't want to be completely open to the whole Internet.

Digital Media Wire is reporting that a German-based company called 'Spodradio' has "raised $10 million in [a] second round of venture capital financing, led [by] Benchmark Capital Europe and previous investor Baytech Capital." 

Spodradio provides an application suite and content directory that enables mobile operators to deliver media to mobile devices in a mobile network friendly manner.

Kiptronic and IODA have announced a new parternship to help connect the dots for bands performing in a specific geographical region with podcasters who provide content targetted for the same region that the band is planning to be performing in.

The only down side to this in my humble opinion (IMHO) is that bands would in theory only get access to 'Kiptronic friendly or associated podcasts.'  Which will be a yet to be determined slice of all podcasts available for a geographic area, and thus potentially limiting in scope and coverage.

That being said, it is a great idea.  I hope it get some traction.

I was recently approached by PhoneCasting.com about putting my podcasts on their mobile phone focused network.  It is pretty clear my intentions on my current podcasts - TechNewsRadio.com and JerseyBoysPodcast - they are both licensed Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike v2.5.  So I just sent them email that all they need to do is abide by the license, and then they could do whatever they liked.

From a quick look at the PhoneCasting.com site.  It appears the RSS and the iTunes feeds are re-generated feeds that PhoneCasting.com is hosting.  It also looks like they are re-hosting the MP3 files. 

I could be wrong, but that is my initial assessment.  I think that will in general go over very poorly in the podcast community, especially for any podcast currently in a network.

This "re-hosting" though may be part of the general industry-wide mobile phone distribution technology challenges looking to send down to the phone a more mobile network and device friendly content.  In that case, podcasters are going to have to get use to this idea or decide not to participate.

Vital Podcasts (beta) has announced via the Yahoo Podcast Mailing List they are looking for more testers of their "100% free podcast hosting service."  The most recent new features implemented include:

• Create podcasts
• manage episodes
• RSS generator
• Delivering of media files

If you are very new to podcasting and don't yet have a host or want to push off as much technical implementation to your host provider as possible, then Vital Podcasts might be a good site to evaluate. 

If you have an existing podcast, they are offering a directory, so you'll want to go over an reserve your name space.

This segment of the podcast marketplace is extremely competitive and full of alternative options.  Things should start shaking out over the next six months.  I'm not sure TechCrunch's DeadPool is going to be paying that much attention to the 'small podcast directory/hosting efforts' online but they will start dropping off sooner than later IMHO.  The marketplace will be very different by next Podcast & Portable Media Expo 2007.

PRWEB notes that Podcast Media Services (PMS) is now offering for a limited time time a "5-Day Pro Podcast, Hands-On Live Online Webinar Workshop with Dr. Tony Marino" if you purchase PMS' Quick Podcast, Premium Hosting Package.

CNET News.com is reporting that PodZinger has a new plan to share ad revenue with podcasters that would allow PodZinger to make transcripts of their podcasts, and then feed them into the search engine world for discovery. 

The idea is pretty simple, the ads on your transcript pages that are visited would in theory generate revenue which would then be shared between Podzinger as host/transcriptionist and yourself as content provider.

The Podcast and Portable Media Expo 2006 is in full swing.  Here is my run down of Friday (9/29) from my perspective:

• Keynotes:
  • Leo Laporte: Business perspective is sound. Netcast is hard to warm up to.
  • Ron Moore from Battlestar Galactica Podcast: Nice story and concept.
• Dave Slusher's presentation was excellent! I got a lot out of it to help me better articulate my personal and professional reasons for podcasting.
• Paul Colligan: I only really liked one of the seven ideas - email lists. Some of the others require continue periculation.  The majority though do not fit my personality.
• TWIT#71: How many podcasters does it take to get a mixer to work? More than 10 less than 20.  Nice that Leo invited FriendsInTech.com member Chuck Tomasi on the show!
• Denise Howell: Wow. This session could have been two hours long and completely interesting the whole time.  There was someone from BMI there that from my perspective made a comment that leads me to believe that they do not believe in Fair Use of any content that they represent.
• Podango Unconference: I think the Directiory Discussion when pretty well.  No one got to leave and there as a lot of interaction with the audiance. Thanks to Podango.  Also thanks to Adam @ The MacCast for letting me use his Griffin Air Clip USB and for Michael Geoghegan from GigaVox for the slide on all the podcast directories that he uses in some of his presentations.
• Technorama Live
• Libsyn Party & Winging It