These two in comparison can playback the same format, has the same capability of up to 2TB Hard Drive, Can output the same quality, up to 1080i 60Hz via HDMI, has multiple input from USB slots, and can be used as NAS, FTP, Web Server and so on. For more spec info for Asus O!Play HD2, or spec info for A.C Ryan PlayOn!DVR HD, please read more below. Continue reading »
My review of the Samsung 7000 series (C7000) and my thoughts about it. I own the 63 Inch Plasma as well as the 46 Inch LED, both 3D. If you get the series lower than 7000, like the C6900, that’s the Non 3D version. Continue reading »
Related Posts:
Jul 222010
What goes up, must come down. Ads revenue declining? I don’t think so, well, maybe a little bit, but for which one? Print or Online?
Print Publishers makes money on Advertisement, Advertising is the only way to offset cost for Publishers. Since the inception of the internet and year by year the internet is the easiest way to find information online and more publisher go online to look for more audience. The more audience, the more publisher can make money from advertising online. One of the reason why print publishing advertisement is lower this year, by 11.4%.
“Print ad sales for the industry skidded 11.4% in the first three months of the year to $5.2 billion, according to data released yesterday by the Newspaper Association of America. This compares with $10.3 billion in the same period in 2005, reflecting a decline since then of 55.3%.” – Newsosour
Our audience, our users, have always thought the internet is free. But we all know that’s not the case. Someone has to pay, and the way they pay is by advertising online. The advertising pays for our server mainframe, our cost to write these reports, cost to maintain, cost for uploading the information to the internet service provider, building maintenance, utility bills, and so on. And sometimes, these cost offset isn’t enough for publishers. Even for big print company, it takes them years to be profitable and debt free.
Publishers don’t have to find money in advertising for the internet, it could be in many ways. Mobile is getting more and more traditional when it comes to finding information online such as iPhone and BlackBerry’s. These mobile advertising isn’t as easy as advertising for the web, it requires a different software and requires a different kind of subscription for the publisher, unless if the publisher have their own software with it’s own subscription. But those who doesn’t want to fiddle with the hassles, there are software out there ready for you. Just like the Google for web advertisement, and Admob for the standard mobile phones and iAd for iDevices such as iPhone and iPad 3G. Those are ways to make Google richer.
“Print advertising matters because it traditionally accounts for three-quarters of the revenue base at most newspapers, with circulation and digital media making up the rest.”
Google has been buying a lot of companies outside of U.S, making them bigger and bigger throughout the world. And those companies letting Google buy them isn’t interested in making their country better with it’s economy. Why make bigger company even bigger? Why not just sustain yourself in your own country and be proud with your accomplishment rather than building something great and letting yourself bought by a giant company who’s interest is nothing more than to take more of your shares. Keep the shares within your own country and excel your countries economy.
In Indonesia, there is such a company for search and advertising, it’s called Bataviase at bataviase.co.id. The group, SITTI, a company by Andy Sjarif and this company has already been approached by Google. Google wants to buy them, and that’s because these guys (SITTI) isn’t the average Joe that anybody can do. Andy Sjarif is a graduate from MIT as a Kama Cum-laud, the best in his class, and SITTI has their own language professor in Bahasa. These guys are serious and Google is serious to acquire them.
So what is the point of all this? If you live in a developing country, like I’m currently am, the opportunities are better, and if you do it right, you too can become successful. Google isn’t the enemy, in fact, Google is there for you to make your own choice. Whether you want work with Google, or not, that’s up to you. If you do, then Google will work with you and take part of what you make with them. Well, that’s smart, that’s business.
Second point is, the only way make money online is by advertising, but you know that already. While other countries ad sales are down in their print version, it’s actually up in Kompas, base in Indonesia. Even an increase of 1% of ad sales is better than loosing money. What’s even better is, the online ads are increasing exponentially.
Especially with the launch of iPad and the new iPhone 4. It’s a big buzz in countries like Indonesia. Those who wants to take the interest in advertising with us gets a huge promotion deal. As we (Kompas) launched an iPad App for their Daily Editors’ Choice, whoever took the deal to advertise early, before the iPad even launch, gets promoted with the iPad App. It’s like a free ride, and the cost offset our production cost, well, not entirely, but enough where we can sleep at night.
These are examples how the trend are moving from Print Advertising to Online Advertising by countries. And it is a big deal if you are a company like Google, because the trend can only go one way. Up!
Stats From: Newsosour and Nielsen
Related Posts:
Jul 072010
Should we change how we report news? If so, how and why? Will we have control to what we report? Should we discard professional news company and use an existing tools such as Twitter and Facebook? If so, who will be responsible for it’s authenticity and it’s content?
If we were to accept the fact that we could use Twitter as an example, to be used as a tool to report what we find, what we see, and our opinion directly, live, then who will moderate the news? Continue reading »
Related Posts:
Jun 152010
Alright, so the iPad is a good Media Consuming Device, and publishers should take all the advantage of it. With HTML5, Embedded video in their Digital Magazine, multiple images for one article, and so on. There’s a particular company called Viv Magazine and they have a pretty neat concept how their Magazine will look like on the iPad. Most magazine company just do a PDF conversion, almost no interaction to it, and not using the full potential of what the iPad can do. Check out their site here. Continue reading »
Related Posts:
Are we ready for the future generation of Journalism? Print or Journalism isn’t ending, not anytime soon, at least not for Indonesia. Print and Classic Journalism,is still growing steady. But the question is, what if Journalism decide to take a change, a change for the sake of archiving, or change to get more audience? Continue reading »
Related Posts:
May 222010
There’s a lot of software out there that can do video conversion for your iPad. But after testing a few of them, I came across a paid version but for limited time, free. It’s called WinX HD Video Converter.
WinX HD Converter
The program has a preset for your ipad, and since the resolution on the iPad is 1024×768, you can still adjust to whatever resolution you want. Of course I suggest 1024×768 for full quality HD Viewing. Sure 1024×768 isn’t HD, but it will fill the screen estate fully.
Download it here
I use DVDShrink 3.2 to convert to VOB and then rename the VOB to MPG and use WinX HD Video Converter to convert the file to iPad quality.
The same company makes a program for DVD straight to your iPad. Blu-Ray to iPad conversion isn’t available just yet.
Related Posts:
May 192010
Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality, or just Reality Check, it’s getting hotter, more and more companies are doing it to promote themselves to the younger generation. Especially for a company as old as Kompas which was established since 1965. We need to attract younger crowd and no better way to do it with Augmented Reality. Non-Digital medium is putting a stamp on the digital world, and below is the video of the newspaper header which came alive. There is a plug-ins for this to work and you also need the newspaper to view it. If you happen to be in Jakarta, Indonesia, you can check it out at http://www.kompas.com/ar. There are two versions of this, one was the newspaper header, the other one was for a bicycle commercial.
AR is perfect for interactivity, imagine a book that’s published in AR. A company in French published an interactive Augmented Reality book which comes alive. The only downside of this is that you need a computer to see it, without it, it would be just a book. Until any camera can be used to translate Augmented Reality programming, it will be a limited audience.
Investigative Journalism made easy with Wikileaks
Wikileaks; a new tool for Journalism? A source for investigative Journalism made easy with Wikileaks, is it another value added tool for Journalist? Should Journalist depend on Wikileaks? Should Journalist use Wikileaks at all? Can Journalist depends on Wikileaks?
A few weeks ago I discovered Wikileaks after a co-worker showed me a video of how U.S Navy operates during a mission in Afghan War. It has a video of two Apache Helicopter intercepted what appear to be part of a rebel group with weapons. The video was longer than 10 minutes long. I wonder how this video could be up in Wikileaks in the first place. It might or might not be confidential to begin with, but if we can learn about this video, well, then so can those who seek to destroy U.S. Learning how we operate and how we execute every command, or maybe they already know, but with Wikileaks, it’s so easy. Too easy. But I’m not here to talk about ethical exercise of Wikileaks, I’m just awed at the video and start to wonder the what ifs.
Alan Rusbridger, editor-in-chief of the Guardian, were asked if Wikileaks better to be separate from investigative Journalism? Would being associated with a news organization subject it to different standards of verification and transparency? “I think it’s better separate,” Rusbridger responded. Wikileaks does things the paper wouldn’t want to do or couldn’t do. And a paper is easier to attack by governments and companies; it has greater liability than a stateless news organization, as Jay Rosen calls them. “I think the Afghan leaks make the case for journalism,” Rusbridger said. “We had the people and expertise to make sense of it.”
Alright, so Wikileaks is there, what is the advantage for Journalism? The internet is so easy for us to find information, Wikileaks proves itself that it doesn’t need News Media Companies to support it, it can do so by itself. Information on the internet after all is free. Wikileaks would be a good way for collaboration, just like what Guardian did with CommentisFree. So we can see Wikileaks to be an added value for Journalist, without second guessing, and sources can be from different places, add Wikileaks to one more source now.
But as a Journalist, information can be found easily, shouldn’t just be a stenographer, but should also add value to the story. A story without opinions or perspective won’t be as good as an original story found. As long as Wikileaks is credited where it belongs, Journalist could save money, resources and time. And I believe in news collaboration, lets hope it’s going to the right direction with Wikileaks and CommentisFree.
Can we depend on Wikileaks? Just like Wikipedia, anyone can put information in, so information might or might not be reliable. Thus, Wikileaks is just merely a tool for double checking and re-checking with your source. Wikileaks would just be a provider for Journalism to add maximum value to the story.
Related Posts: