Prodigem reborn

Mega-uber value readers may recall that I have written about Prodigem with some enthusiasm on many occasions over at EuroTelcoblog, and have also used it to distribute some of my content. Following its acquisition back in the spring, Prodigem has revamped its look and relaunched as MoveDigital, and has moved beyond its original remit of Torrent creation and hosting, to encompass direct download hosting. There's also a sharing widget which includes the ability to donate bandwidth, presumably to those considered particularly promising authors. Check it out - apparently Senator John Edwards was the first official customer.

Cracked up

Last Friday afternoon I was only about 100 yards or so from my office, beginning my bike ride home, when I had a three-way misunderstanding with an unobservant pedestrian and an innocent bus. I was the only injury, but as I never like to do things halfway, I seem to have bruised most of the ribs on my right side. All outpourings of pity are welcome, as are cash donations and unwanted painkillers. Understandably, I think, blogging is a low priority for me right now. Though it's unlikely that they will be reading this, I would nevertheless like to extend my gratitude to the three very kind, decent people who came forward from the throng of gawking morons in front of Cannon Street Station to help me get upright again and see if I was okay.

Blowing a tube

Poor internet, it's in real trouble as each passing day brings some new claim or counter-claim to value creation or destruction, requiring someone to plead victimization and demand compensation (we've seen the likes of this before). What makes things even scarier, in fact bordering on the surreal, is the risible justifications for some of these claims from the political sphere. Take this vivisection of Senator Ted "Tubes" Stevens by Jon Stewart (it takes a while to load, but it is well worth the wait). You really couldn't make this up if you had to - my favorite section is where Sen. Stevens claims that his staff sent him "an internet" and he didn't receive it until days later, presumably because of congestion. I get the distinct impression that the internet is an entirely alien concept to the man, though he appears to have a much better understanding of the traditional content industry...

The proof of the pudding...

...is in the gaming, obviously. Does the Murdoch empire understand the internet? I think so. Trying to drive some synergies between the gaming acquisition and a core portfolio holding in broadcasting is entirely sane, and the cross-promotional opportunities will abound. Can you see a future game developed around the adventures of a professional gamer (as has already occurred with skateboarding)? Sounds silly, I know, but live broadcasts of gaming chamionships are already commonplace in South Korea, where the gifted gamers are celebrities.

I got yer long tail right here

Nielsen//NetRatings have just put out some interesting stats which suggest that nearly 7% of US adult internet users have consumed an audio podcast in the past 30 days, with 4% downloading video podcasts during the same period. That's an audience of 9.2m for audio and 5.6m for video - not huge audiences, but the browser analysis included here suggests that they are above average in tech savvy, which may make them more lucrative for some advertisers, I suppose. On a separate but interesting note, check the monthly update on advertising spends at the end of the memo. Some things never change (Vonage number 2 at $37.5m in June - hey isn't that 4% of your current market cap?) while some certainly do (Skype outspending TimeWarner? Sacrilege.)

UPDATE: It's obviously not just a US phenomenon, as attested to by Neil over at ThamesValleyPod. He just pinged me to say that total hits in June were 81,500, but that this has risen to over 133,000 in the first eleven days of July.

Pimp my mobile PVR

The beautifully named Adisasta has released WinMobile Fusion, which I guess more or less takes the principles behind Torrentocracy (the marriage of RSS and BitTorrent) and brings them to Windows Mobile devices. Anyone on the sort of extortionate data tariff that I'm on would find this a horrifying prospect, but bring on the WiFi and everything changes (check out the specs on the new Windows Mobile handset from HTC to be sold by DoCoMo).