MOBILE TV WORLDWIDE - Top mobile TV providers in the US

There are currently 40 million people watching broadcast mobile television around the world according to a report from consultancy Arthur D. Little.
By country:
18 million in Japan,
17 million in South Korea,
1.2 million in China
1 million in Italy.
Is that all ?! Yes, but the number of viewers will expand to 140 million by 2011 - or so is it expected by the research firm.

How about the revenues?
The research firm SNL Kagan estimates that the top 18 video providers and aggregators recorded revenues of $306 million in 2008.

Here’s the US top 5 providers in order of their 2008 revenue estimates:

1. ESPN : $38.4 million.
2. MobiTV: $23.8 million.
3. MTV Mobile: $22.4 million.
4. CNN: $22 million.
5. Comedy Central: $20 million.

New hegemonies - social networks country by country

Interesting map set up by Vincenzo Cosenza in his blog listing the main social networks country by country. It looks pretty much like an online game with color codes - and dominating 'regional' forces: whether FaceBook, hi5, Skyrock, Cyworld, Friendster, V Kontakte, Nasza-klasa, Orkut, QQ, Mixi, Maktoob...

Interesting comments (complaints as well from here and there: where the hell is MySpace ?), have a look, Vincenzo is asking for input.

My main comment is that, beyond the clarity of the map, the list mentioning the top 3 networks per country is great. Forza Vincenzo!

HOME - awesome movie by Yann Arthus-Bertrand

HOME is a documentary by Yann Arthus-Bertrand. Taste it! Here is a trailer



The film is entirely composed of aerial shots of various places around the Earth. It shows the diversity of life on the Earth and how humanity is threatening the ecological balance of the planet. The movie was released today, simultaneously in cinemas all over the world, on DVD, on television and on Internet. Its release on the same date in 50 countries is a world record for any film release in history.
The aim of this simultaneous worldwide broadcasting is to enable as many people as possible to watch the movie together.

The film is 100% free and no profits will be made from its release or future showings. What is more, it can be freely copied, distributed, broadcast etc. - as a whole and in parts.
The movie website: HOME where you can watch the full movie or on YouTube.

Awesome, inspiring, moving stuff. Please seed and share!

Copyright is the new fuel for the economic uptake!

Think about creativity and how wide is now the access to content in all forms today.
Think also that copyright is increasingly present, everywhere.
Will copyright be the new source of economic energy in this century ?

Yesterday, copyright was a regulation that only few people were feeling concerned about. See what is hapening now: we are surrounded by copyright. New technologies opened doors to massive creativity and sharing, copying, remixing of all sorts of content. There are (almost) as many creators as users, with a relationship to copyright.

The area is extremely wide.
Sharing files can be a criminal offense.
On the other side, you see teenage amateur artists worried by the copyright of their creations.
And all the way you go, pictures, music, videos, whether professionally produced or not, are being used, accessed to, copied, shared...

The understanding of copyright is progressing and true new understanding of copyright is emerging. It is not anymore only a "Don't Touch My Property" motto. Copyright includes also "some rights reserved" options, notably Creative Commons licenses, permitting a number of usages - legally, according to the rights' owners' choice. Who is involved today in the reflections on copyright ? Lawyers, scientists, economists, politicians - but also you and me and the kids, DJs, teenage programmers, amateurs, pro-am creative teams.

Access to content, whether you call it culture, entertainment or waste of time - is overwhelming. Companies dedicated to disseminate content, invent new models, create value around all those new market sectors.

Semantic search engines - are we there, yet ? Google isn't.

I use Google a lot and I am happy with the search results. I am a semiotician, too.
So when I heard that Google is joining the race for the semantic search engine, I couldn't wait, yet I was extremely skeptical. Semantic search is the capability for a computer to understand what you're searching for based on the meaning behind your words (instead of just delivering keyword-based results.
The competitors for the semantic search include Kumo, Microsoft's upcoming redesign of Live Search, Wolfram Alpha (launching in May 09). So far, I have not seen miracles.

I did try the new Google and I found that Google is still the same old Google and an excellent tool for finding information. I have to say that I was not impressed at all. Google is not really delivering a different experience. Semantic search is not only the future of the search, it is part of search at all times, come on, how can you search for information without taking into account its meaning.

As far as my search strategies are concerned, I have a variety of tactics to turn almost ANY search engine into a semantic search champion. A little intuition & imagination - the typical trick such as typing in the beginning of the answer instead of asking a question. Imagine what would write the expert that you are looking for, if you were him. Well, to use this trick, you need to have at least some information already, kindly provided by any key-word search engine. Simple!