Digital media: explained by others, compiled by me, presented to you

Broadband viewership has doubled! Well, at least in the States.

And a large number of people want to see companies on social networking sites… or so it may seem. Social networking is a very broad term. Personally, I’d be happy to stop receiving ads for celebrity dieting techniques while I’m on Facebook. 

I have tried to cancel these ads (you can click a thumbs down on each thumbnail advertisement and let Facebook know why you don’t want to see it) but so far, their technique isn’t working too well. I regularly see a Rachael Ray diet beside my profile, despite regularly telling Facebook it’s irrelevant. I don’t want a Rachael Ray diet! I don’t want to start calling everything yummo.

DRM backlash has been happening for years. It prompted some music distributors to shed the DRM restrictions off their music on iTunes. But it continues to cause issues and frustration for consumers. Many feel they are buying the movies, music and TV episodes, but their devices actually own it.

The latest snafu is with Sony.  In short, a fella deleted some movies off of his hard drive to make some room, but he then he couldn’t reload the content he purchased.

DRM backlash hit the new Electronic Arts game Spore, where users gave the high profile game only one star on Amazon. EA loosened its rules.

Could a solution be on the way? Major producers (except for Disney and Apple) seem to be interested to create a system that allows downloadable content on any device called DECE (Digitial Electronic Control Ecosystem). Details will be available in January but will likely employ cloud computing ideas.

As long as I can download my stuff to my iPod, Shuffle and (upcoming) iTouch without trouble, I’ll be happy.

It’s not big news that viewers are heading online more lately. Recent research shows online viewership has doubled in two years. What’s more remarkable about this study is 65% of people head to a broadcaster’s website over 41%, who log into YouTube. 

43% of those surveyed go online to watch news, and 15% for user-generated content. That’s where this gets confusing: does this survey mean they are going online to only view UGC, or to participate? Because from what I’ve read in the recently established comments sections in The Star and other online newspapers, everyone sure likes to give their 2 cents when reading the news… giving UGC a way higher rating than just 15%.

I do write an awful lot about Google. I’d stop writing about them if they wouldn’t keep coming up with cool new things that are bound to shake things up on the internets (sic.)

The first is the announcement its new web browser of Google Chrome. Just like its Google Docs application, Chrome is easy to use. It’s a great way to view websites if you’re using Windows. There’s a free beta that should be available right about… now.

This is cool because if one site crashes, the other tabs won’t be affected. No more canceling and restarting your browsers.

Google has also created a video service for the business set.  If you want to create a training video for employees, spend $50 for a premier business version of Google Apps.  It will work like YouTube, with comments and videos.