I admit to being a hopeless apologist for the podcasting format. While statistics suggest that only about 10 million people regularly download audio and video programming, I think this is too compelling a platform to ignore. Short form, time-shifted media is not restricted to iPods, however. Much of the programming is experienced in streams online, and now we see it moving to other venues like AppleTV, set top boxes, mobile phones, and even game consoles. Last week at the E3 video gaming trade convention both Sony and Microsoft announced expanded programming on the PS3 and Xbox 360 respectively. Like a new cable network, both machines feed into living room TVs films and TV shows in much the same way iTunes and AppleTV have for a while now. Both services go live in the fall, and I expect that like AppleTV they will pull in podcast material and other Web shows.

This may be a bigger deal than we think for Web multimedia producers. The game consoles have an installed base of over 10 million units, and that reach only expands as this next generation hits deeper household penetration. I know from my own AppleTV habits that video podcasts are among the most interesting content options on a set top box. I firmly believe that connected consoles and set yop boxes will give publishers a new outlet for their video programming. And advertisers are starting to take notice. Ad insertion company Kiptronic tells me that their video business has expanded 300% this year. Companies like Banc of America and brands like Mountain Dew now produce custom ad creative for short form video. Sell through for Kiptronic partners on both audio and video podcasts is 50%, which is pretty astonishing. The audience size for podcasting may still be relatively modest, but the concept of time-shifted short form media is going to be big as more devices come online.

Google has been making the rounds of offline media buyers, from print to radio to TV, hawking analytics tools that promise to bring online measurement tools to offline media. So far, the old guard seems a bit underwhelmed. At a recent Advertising Research Council presentation, Tony Jarvis, VP for global research, Clear Channel loudly challenged Google product manager Keval Desai about getting the Google TV audience measurement tool accredited by the Media Ratings Council. Google balked, by the way. Jarvis is not alone in the offline world. Both sell side and buy side seem less than impressed by Big G’s initial attempts at world domination, according to recent reports. MediaWeek reports that agencies find the new AdPlanner tool novel but shallow.

Google is also taking the direct route, opening a new blog specifically for “Traditional Media” earlier this month here. Here you will find compelling testimonials to the power of AdPlanner as it helps businesses optimize their media mix across TV, radio and print. In video format over YouTube, the materials feel a bit like an infomercial for analytics tools. Still, this is a blog worth watching if only to keep an eye on the Empire.

Following up on my post last week about the new Apple iPhone 2.0 software, I would be remiss to leave out the one day torture that was getting a 3G iPhone. First of all, to clear up any confusion about relevance, the iPhone is not a subject only for gadget geeks and mobilistas. In this one-year-old device, and its new software, we are looking at an important innovation in content distribution. The iPhone is far and away the most compelling mobilization of content we have seen. The 2.0 software with its relatively open garden of third party content is an exceptional media platform. Already, the NYTimes.com is there with an ad-supported application. You can click on the ubiquitous Westin Hotels bottom banner and go to a mini-site without leaving NYTimes. An “article” button at the top of the interface lets you drill into the mini-site all you want and return to original Times content with a single click. That is not only cool, it opens up new vistas for publishing and ad partnerships.

But on to the 3G debacle. As everyone knows by now, Apple got bruised in a way that is both uncharacteristic and unprecedented for one of the most beloved brands in the world. It hyped the next-gen iPhone, encouraged both early adopters and a wider mass market to enjoy the launch day rush. And it proceeded to botch it all up in the one area it should have nailed, technology. So far as we can tell, some combination of the iTunes software and extreme demand on the Apple servers left most new 3G iPhones unusable throughout the first day. Most of us were up and running by nighttime, and my guess is that Apple ultimately gets forgiven. But the incident is not forgotten. Apple was unforgivably silent throughout the day. It never explained. It never apologized. In fact, it confirmed much of the counter-mythology that surrounds the brand, that Apple is a closed and secretive company that puts on a friendly face. Apple is the ultimate consumer-experience seller, until the wheels start falling off. Any media brand, and Apple definitely is a media brand now, proves itself during adversity. What Apple proved to consumers and to potential partners, is that they are very good at playing the nice guy when things go their way. That is one way to take a bite out of your own brand halo.

Throughout the day the Apple and iPhone blogosphere has been abuzz with today’s release of the Apple iPhone Application Store. New version of iTunes and the basic iPhone firmware have been dropping today. I have downloaded both, perused the apps store and installed a handful of third party programs on my phone. Why is the iPhone app store a big deal? Well, for you content providers, be aware that AP, NYTimes, Bloomberg, WeatherBug, eBay, Facebook, YellowPages, MySpace, Salesforce, and LonelyPlanet are already in the catalog of 500 apps. It costs virtually nothing to develop and distribute mobile content to a mobile device with 6 million  data eaters. This is what mobile media creation and distribution will be about someday. It should be this easy to get a sophisticated version of your brand to users’ handsets without having to spend more in porting costs than in the development budget. Many of the apps are free, and I understand that at least one developer is assembling a mobile ad network that dynamically feeds ads into these apps.

Not all is well in Appleland today, however. I experience some hiccups in the system. Bloomberg’s app failed to find the server the first couple of times I tried it. The otherwise excellent AP Mobile News Network crashes whenever I try to access local news set to a particular location. New York seems to work fine. And a couple of apps, including the App Store itself, have crashed on me.

At first blush, it seems to me we are seeing the up and downside of a more open approach to mobile programming. It is easy for most publishers to have a credible iPhone app up and running for free in short order. For those who want to venture into the paid arena, Apple is willing to give back 70% of the fee, which is highly generous in the mobile world where carriers gouge both consumers and content partners. On the other hand, there is a lot of ephemeral crap in the store. How many tip calculators and voice recorders do we need, anyway? I have not ventured to try more than a few, but some of the categories are swarming with one-trick ponies that should have been Web-based apps. Do I really need to carry around the IGN video game reviews in a standalone app that uses up precious phone memory?

More on the iPhone’s new content platform in coming days. For now, it is refreshing to see what mobile content should have been all along, however.

It may just be a game, but the lessons lurking beneath the impending release of a Facebook version of Scrabble should chill any media brand trying to assert itself into cyberspace. After a knock-off version of the ubiquitous game called “Scrabulous” took Facebook by storm last year, Hasbro and licensing partner Electronic Arts claimed copyright infringement and asked that the game be removed. Rather than press the claim actively, the companies just released their own online version of Scrabble into EA’s Pogo.com gaming hub and promise the Facebook version later this month. Like a lot of major media, EA/Hasbro tried to correct an impulsive and bad initial reaction to a digital threat with a more sensible one…too late. Rather than alienate the million of existing Facebook Scrabulous fans, EA seems ready to compete with the knock-off head-to-head. But it may be too little too late. According to a Washington Post article, another Hasbro licensing partner, Real Media, already tried releasing a legitimate Scrabble Facebook app into the overseas markets, but it failed to make a dent in the nearly half million Scrabulous players. In the upcoming U.S. version, the Post report, players will be hobbled by regional licensing restrictions so they can play only against North American opponents. EA and Hasbro have effectively boxed themselves into a losing box. Either they struggle to compete with a knock off of their own product or they demonize themselves on Facebook by forcing a take down of a favorite game. Like too many media companies, Hasbro mistakenly believes that consumers really love their authentic brand.

There is only one good strategy for a media company when it misses the boat this badly. They have to add value. Every good Scrabble player knows that you don’t just win with long words but with well-positioned words that hit double and triple score squares. EA has to offer a better experience, not just some semblance of “authenticity.” This is true of many media properties that finally get serious about the digital world. The odds are that users have already embraced an alternative, endemic version and they really aren’t waiting for the “real deal” to show up. The single greatest lesson of the Web’s “one-click-away” interface is that even the biggest brands need to re-build their equity here.

Morning Routines. They make the world go ’round. And I cling to my morning routine like a fat kid to the last Peanut M&M in the bag.

Part of my morning routine is shared by the masses in New York; I read the paper on the train (two papers actually). I pick up my AMNY and my New York Post in the station and then read them as thoroughly as I can over the course of my 20 minute commute. I have the two papers in my possession for no more than twenty minutes each day. Then I get off the train at Broadway - Nassau and pile them on top of the hundreds of other newspapers spilling out of the trash cans.

This annoys me for two reasons: One, I don’t like feeling the judging eyes on me as I attempt to put the newspapers into the can only to have them slide off the top of the pile and onto the floor where I leave them for fear of stopping and getting trampled by heard of office-bound cranksters. Two, its just stupid. Why are there no recycling containers on the subway platforms?

I’m not a save-the-world freak, but this seems like such a basic concept: there are thousands upon thousands of people tossing paper of the same weight, color, type into the trash everyday. It seems to me that this would be the perfect recycling material that would require minimal sorting effort. Most of the papers aren’t even wrinkled because people have them for such a short period of time.

The final kick in the teeth from the city is the “Can It For a Greener Planet” stickers that coat the outside of the trash cans. Making the effort to toss your coffee cup in the trash is not going to do a thing to help the planet’s greenness or even the overall appearance of the platforms. But recycling massive amounts of newspapers daily might make a dent…

Virgin Mobile USA will acquire one of the last standing MVNO (Mobile Virtual Network Operator) in spending $39 million for Helio. The mobile carrier aimed at the young and hip was co-founded by Earthlink and Korea’s SK Telecom. But like Disney Mobile, ESPN Mobile, and Amp’d MVNOs that crashed and burned, Helio never broke through with consumers. Virgin takes over a mere 170,000 Helio customers. When we first started covering the MVNO space several years ago, pundits said that 500,000 to one million subscribers was a bare minimum for a company to survive the model. Others always speculated that the MVNOs were really start-up ploys designed to attract buy-outs by major carriers in the end. But 170,000 subscribers after several years in business? That amounts to an accounting error at Verizon. Virgin may hope to enter the postpaid wireless game by grabbing Helio. Much of its existing base is younger and using prepaid cards. Helio, which represented higher end handsets and traditional contracted plkans with more advanced data services, may add to Virgin some new models. But it is hard to see how the underperformaning acquisition adds that much to Virgin, which is itself the most successful MVNO in the U.S.

With the release this week of Sprint’s touch-screen Instinct phone, the head-to-head with Apple’s July 11 launch of the 3G iPhone finally is joined. Sprint’s phone comes in prices $60 less than the new iPhone, and Sprint’s 3G data network is already proven and widespread. We have not used the phone yet, so we can’t speak to its attributes, but it looks close enough to an iPhone to attract those Sprint customers who don’t want to switch to AT&T. It is not clear yet whether Verizon has a direct competitor coming to market yet. Regardless, the release of the 3G iPhone at a very aggressive $199 price point is sending shivers down competitors’ spines. Early indications from consumers is that Apple and AT&T could add millions to their customer base by the time the summer is over.

Does this matter to content providers? Hell, yes! The migration of data access to the mobileplatform has begun.  Yahoo Mail already sees 14 million uniques to its mobiel site, ESPN Mobile often clocks 11 million and the Weather channel 8 million. Dig even deeper and you will see economically important pieces of the Web start to splinter off towards mobile. Nielsen reports that somewhere between 10 and 12 million users access mobile search services every month. Among youth, text messaging is replacing email as the preferred mode of contact. Searcha dn email are cash cows for this industry, and any movement away fromt he Web in some demos represent million and billions in revenues also moving. There is a direct correlation between imporved interfaces adn mobile Web access and use of the mobile Web. Magazines not only need a toe in that water. They need a real strategy for how their brands translate into mobile services.

The 3D virtual world Second Life celebrates its fifth anniversary this month, claiming it has over 10 million registered users and has logged up to 50,000 concurrent users at a time. The Eyeball is one of those 10 million registrants, and like many others he just signed up to see how boring it was before logging out forever. Linden Labs (owner of SL) have always played silly games with their numbers, and none of its stats really indicates much of anything anymore. SL is the kind of thing the Eyeball hesitates mocking if only because you never know what lame-brained geeky behavior is going to catch on ultimately. (We’re still wondering if Twitter really matters). As a marketing vehicle, SL surely is a bust. Except for virtual worlds that MTV/VH1 erected around some of its TV shows (“Virtual Hills”) virtual worlds have not proven effective places to extend brands. Cisco and IBM still believe that avatars and 3D workspaces will make great virtual meeting worlds of the future, but we remain skeptical. Except for high level gaming worlds like World of Warcraft, virtual existence shows no signs of breaking out into the mainstream any time soon. We suggest that any partnership meeting that involves prominent use of the term “avatar” end quickly.

Games magazine publisher Future US is the company behind a new downloadable multimedia magazine on the Sony Playstation3 game console, dubbed “Qore.” With the PS3 connected to the Internet, users can purchase one-issue for $2.99, which downloads to the console and plays back as a set of video files, themes and wallpapers that can be applied to the game unit interface. The ubiquitous Veronica Belmont (who seems to be the official Web video hostess of all things geeky) fronts the “magazine” as emcee. The content is not new, since it replicates much of the same material you find on a games magazine with a packed in disc. What is new is the distribution mechanism. With tens of millions of next-generation games consoles (now all with Internet connections) tied to TVs, these are the most powerful bridges between Web and living room now. They constitute a parallel TV universe, the first set top boxes with real distribution. The Xbox 360, PS3 and Wii also provide interesting places where munchable smaller content may have a place – i.e. all that Web video you are producing online. The Eyeball warns all publishers that they ignore this platform at their peril. These game console may never become Web browser replacements, but with the Wii now penetrating a new and broader demographic, as a class they now address a wide population in lean back mode.