Tag: podtech

video

Is there even a short-term gain for Viacom here?

Much has been said about the fact that Viacom are suing Google for $1bn because YouTube (now owned by Google) hosted Viacom copyrighted shows.

Technically, Viacom are well within their rights to sue Google for this copyright infringement but what good does it do Viacom, apart from adding up to $1bn to their bottom line, if they win?

They will have lost massive goodwill and a ton of free PR! How much traffic was YouTube sending to Viacom and how much free publicity were Viacom shows receiving by being featured on YouTube?

Robert Scoble, speaking on this topic the other day said:

PodTech tried that strategy. To watch my videos you used to have to go to PodTech. Then in January we let go a little bit of our controlling attitude and made a player that you can embed on your own site. What happened?

Traffic tripled.

Traffic tripled.

PodTech, by allowing people to place in their blogs PodTech’s copyrighted videos, tripled their audience.

Viacom on the other hand have forced YouTube to take down Viacom’s copyrighted videos and are suing YouTube.

Is there even a short-term gain for Viacom here?

Blogging, Business blogging, video

Oh no! Scoble Show launched

Robert Scoble’s video show was launched this morning. The delay in the launch was due to the PodTech.net site’s re-design apparantly.

The Scoble Show

There are some fascinating interviews there. One of the videos is of a photo walk with Thomas Hawk. Thomas is a photographer in San Francisco and works with photo sharing site Zooomr.

I did a podcast on PodLeaders with Thomas a couple of months back and it was an engrossing interview but Robert vastly improves on my podcast by interweaving photos Thomas was taking as they were walking along by the Golden Gate bridge (and by being a far better interviewer!).

The interview with Sun CEO Jonathon Schwartz was a compelling insight into why Sun still matters!

And I love the wide screen format of the video.

I can’t wait to see the JotSpot video and the Shai Agassi interview – jeez, now I’m never going to get any work done!

[Update] I see Robert has blogged about it too

Blogging, Podcasting

Congratulations Robert

Robert Scoble, Microsoft’s most prominent blogger is leaving Microsoft to join John Furrier’s PodTech.net.

Robert himself has said that

I love Microsoft and Microsoft did not lose me — at least as a supporter and friend. I am not throwing away my Tablet PC or my Xbox or my other Microsoft stuff

So his departure appears not to have been acrimonious.

That he has decided to join PodTech.net should come as no big surprise. John Furrier, CEO of PodTech.net, has been growing the network at a phenomenal rate (including landing $5m of investor funding a couple of months back).

For Robert this will be a natural extension of the work he was doing already on Channel9 – video blogging. The difference this time is that instead of just video blogging what Microsoft’s teams are developing, he will now be video blogging whenever he comes across something interesting in Silicon Valley.

This is a huge loss for Microsoft but hopefully they have learned a lot from having Robert on board and they will continue to change for the better (they have a long way to go yet before they win back many people’s trust).

So congratulations Robert to you and Maryam. This is a big move for you both, and I wish you nothing but the best. You deserve no less.

Edited to correct the spelling of Silicon – thanks Eoghan for pointing that out