Podcasting Matures with Pod-Conference - On the Expo Floor
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Jeremy Horowitz, editor in chief of iLounge, a site that covers iPod-related products, seemed relatively unimpressed by the exhibitors. “It’s been a fledgling conference with a lot of focus on how to get people to carry advertising on their podcasts and find ways to capitalize podcasts…There really wasn’t that much new in the way of products.” Judging from the reviews written by other reporters, he may have missed a few things.
There was a lot of excitement surrounding Podtrac, a New York-based startup. The company released a demographics-and-advertising program during the weekend of the conference. The software solves a particularly vexing problem for podcasters: finding out how many people are viewing your podcast. CEO Mark McCrery said that his company’s application can obtain an exact count of downloads per show. Podtrac also hopes to work as a sort of middleman between podcasters and advertisers, with Podtrac taking up to a 30 percent cut of the revenue.
Gadget lovers were not neglected. The Video Without Boundaries booth featured the FlyBoy portable media player. It boasts a 3.5 inch screen, built-in speakers, and can hold up to 40 hours of video or 370 hours of music. For $349, it might even offer the iPod a little bit of competition. For those who like larger gadgets, the same booth offered an interesting media server. This bad boy boasts a 160 MB hard drive, two mic in leads, a DVD player and more. It could let you get rid of your TiVo and the monthly fees that go along with it.
Devices that aren’t out yet also generated some interest. Though this item was mentioned in a keynote, it really deserves coverage here – which shouldn’t surprise anyone, considering that the keynote in question was delivered by Mike Trainor, Intel’s Chief Mobile Technology Evangelist. He spoke about the future of Intel-based portable media devices. What I would have loved to grill him about was the UMPC, or ultra-mobile PC. These devices are still on the drawing board, apparently. They are supposed to feature four- to eight-inch screens, have very low power requirements, be always connected and capable of supporting a full-featured OS. To me, they sound like a cross between a handheld and a laptop; if I had to picture one, I would expect it to look like a larger version of T-Mobile’s Sidekick phone. Provided it really was as capable as Trainor described, and featured an easy to use interface (I know far too many people who have trouble with even laptop-sized keyboards), a UMPC could become the ideal road warrior’s companion.
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