September 21, 2005
Magic Wallpaper
I just learned about the MagicBoard.
The MagicBoard project aims at augmenting a perfectly ordinary whiteboard-like surface with electronic capabilities, via a video projector and a pan / tilt / zoom camera.
The user works on the board as in the usual way, drawing or writing with ordinary marker pens. Whenever she chooses, the user can “grab” an electronic copy of the things that have been drawn or written with the marker pen. This copy is projected back onto the board, precisely overlaying the original markings with the appropriate colour. The physical ink may then be erased and the electronic version manipulated on the board’s surface: it can be duplicated, moved, enlarged or reduced, printed, or hidden for a moment before being recalled. Meanwhile, the user may add to her designs with the marker pen as before. At any time, these new markings can be turned into digital form to merge with the electronic version of her work.
continue reading the Magic Wallpaper
Posted by barney on September 21, 2005 at 10:58 pm | No Comments
July 20, 2005
Marc Cuban at AlwaysOn05
Fireside Chat with Marc Cuban, interviewed by Allen Delattre
At Always On 2005
July 20, 2005
I thought it was an interesting
discussion. Here are the points I found most noteworthy:
- blog search: I agree with Marc’s comments about the growing importance of
Blog Search, and his view that the aggregators will capture the market
value from the long tail of blog search. I personally like
www.blogpulse.com the best. Cuban’s new IceRocket seems to be direct
knockoff. Blogpulse gets my vote for best blog search engine not just
because my friends from Whizbang days were the founders of this service,
but because it has the best analytics and, unlike Technorati, it hasn’t
yet hit a scaling barrier. - Releasing movies simultaneously in all channels: I think that’s a great
idea, and it is exciting to see Marc Cuban in a position to lead the way
here. - Interactive TV and accountable TV advertising models: I agree with him that models for TV advertising are going to change, and that this will be enabled by interactive TV (and time shifting services like Tivo). The 30 second
spot is dying (George Gilder made a comment about this in a preceding
session at Always On), and new measurable forms of advertising are being
developed to take its place. I don’t expect it will be as simple as
pay-for-placement, but I do think internet and tv advertising models will
come together in some interesting blend over the next few years. - Dennis Rodman and Paris Hilton’s intuitive sense for media
manipulation: indeed! (I hope that previous reference doesn’t cause my blog
to become misclassified…).
Below are my (mostly raw) notes from this session.
continue reading the Marc Cuban at AlwaysOn05
Posted by barney on July 20, 2005 at 7:44 pm | 1 Comment
June 6, 2005
Shopzilla to be acquired for $525M
According to an article in Reuters today,
the E. W. Scripps Co., which owns newspapers, broadcast and cable TV networks, said it will pay $525 million in cash for 100 percent of Shopzilla, one of the leading pure-play shopping search engines (formerly known as Bizrate).
The article offers this rationale for the deal:
The Internet is shaking up the once-staid and lucrative business of classified advertising. Newspaper publishers that once enjoyed a virtual monopoly on the classified market now face increasing competition from Web sites like eBay.
This comes just days after Ebay agreed to buy Shopping.com. I think the eBay/Shopping.com deal seems to be more strategic, because eBay was already in the business of helping users comparison shop for products. But I do agree that the decline of the newspaper classified advertising business is driving major activity by all the papers. Following on these lines, I expect there will be a string of acquisitions of vertical search engines, particularly those related to classifieds, within the next year. The next one I would predict: Oodle, a classified search engine that aggregates across many sources of classified ads and provides a nice faceted search interface.
Posted by barney on June 6, 2005 at 3:56 pm | No Comments