Take My Money - Please!

Business 2.0 solicited ideas for new businesses from the Valley's top VCs. See Matt Miller's suggestion for a company that he would like to fund. (For more information about Matt, please click here.)

The Future of Digital Media

In the immortal words of Washington Redskins coach George Allen, "The future is now."

Tuning in to Pandora

Pandora CTO Tom Conrad has created a del.icio.us bookmark with all of the latest and greatest news about Pandora. Check it out!

Pandora Sneak Peek

Savage Beast has changed its name to Pandora and launched a private beta version of its new product - a Web-based Internet radio player that instantly builds stations based on users' favorite artists. Robert Scoble, a technical evangelist for Microsoft and a well-known blogger, wrote about the company today in his blog. Apparently, Tom Conrad, Pandora's CTO, presented Pandora to attendees of an innovation conference called BAR Camp. Says Scoble,

Pandora is definitely the talk of the Barcamp ... and was the talk of the midnight dinner last night.

Tivo Enters the On-Demand Universe

Poor Tivo. This last gasp is too little, too late, I'm afraid. Comcast, et. al., have once again outmaneuvered the company. Nevertheless, this observation is worth repeating ...

Content on demand has long been a holy grail for Internet and cable companies as they try to create the next generation of television. No one yet has found a way to overcome key technological hurdles, such as finding a speedy way to pump two-hour movies through broadband, or convince Hollywood that it can profit from Internet broadcasts.

Still, broadband connections are picking up speed, and are moving closer to becoming a reliable delivery method for broadcast-quality video. Should the day come that video is downloaded at the touch of a button, some of the stakeholders in the sector foresee a vast video universe of endless variety.

The TIME Is Now

In its latest issue, TIME profiles SNOCAP.

Looking back over the past few years, Fanning has no regrets. "Everything that was done with Napster was a learning experience," he says. "What was learned helped create some of the inspiration for what Snocap would become."

Digital Filmmaking Costs Less Digits

From a Wired News article ...

"Shooting on 35-mm film costs about a dollar a foot," Bob Harvey, Panavision senior vice president of sales, told Wired News. "A thousand feet for a thousand dollars adds up to about 11 minutes of footage. But about an hour of footage on a Genesis 24P HD, for instance, costs under a hundred dollars."

Good News for VitalStream

VitalStream reported its second quarter results today.

"Revenues for the quarter ended June 30, 2005 were $3,957,000, a 72 percent increase over revenues of $2,302,000, in the same period a year ago, and a 16 percent increase over revenues in the first quarter of 2005. Revenues for the six months ended June 30, 2005 were $7,355,000, a 71% increase over revenues of $4,293,000 for the six months ended June 30, 2004."