Citizen journalists have increased both in number and importance in recent years. And Google is now seeking to bring some order to the chaos of how amateur footage is delivered online with YouTube Direct matching citizen journalists with news media organizations.

Citizen Journalists

There was a time when news coverage was strictly professional, delivered by paid reporters, photographers, and cameramen. And then everything changed with digital cameras and video cameras standard on cellphones.

Now, any Tom, Dick, or Harry can be a citizen journalist, reporting the news as it happens in front of them. Twitter and social networks are an important facet of this trend, as is online video and in particular YouTube.

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Twitter has become the darling of social media by keeping things simple, with 140-characters or less messages. Currently, only text and links to external sites are allowed in tweets, but could video messages soon be showing up in the public timeline?

And if so, what does that mean for third-party apps such as Twiddeo, Tweetube and 12seconds which already offer similar off-site services?

Tweeting It Simple

Twitter is growing in popularity and influence all the time. What started out as a small, niche social networking site is catching up with the likes of Facebook and MySpace.

Part of its appeal is the lack of anything complicated or messy clogging up the site. Twitter sticks to the 140-characters or less tweets while letting developers use the API to expand the service outwards.

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Although live streaming is already big business, there has so far been a dearth of options for the professional Webcaster who wants to stream live events without paying a fortune for a traditional broadcast truck and satellite signal. But no longer, as Livestream has launched Livepack.

Livestream Livepack Goes Live

Livestream, formerly known as Mogulus, is one of several live streaming companies which offer everyone the chance to be the star of their own television channel. It’s a competitive sector, with Ustream and Justin.tv the other big contenders.

But yesterday saw Livestream launch a new service which could mark it out against its competitors. Livepack is “the world’s first solution for wireless live streaming at HD quality,” and the hardware which makes that possible fits in a specially designed backpack.

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Netflix is seemingly everywhere now, at least in the U.S., yet there are actually still many devices the service isn’t available on.

Netflix CEO Reed Hastings has now confirmed that an iPhone app will appear one day, but not before Netflix finds its way onto all games consoles, Blu-ray players, and Internet-enabled televisions.

From Mail To The Web

Netflix was formed in 1997 as a service delivering DVDs via mail to consumers across the United States. But its name suggests that even then its founder and CEO, Reed Hastings, was envisioning an Internet future for the company.

And so it came to pass. Netflix now enables its subscribers to watch over 17,000 movies and episodes of television series via their computers or one of a number of Internet-enabled devices and the ‘Watch Instantly’ service.

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The Philips GoGear ViBE Portable AV Player is both an excellent MP3 player and video player. Small and very light, this audio video player offers an impressive performance for a very convenient price.

Summary of the Philips GoGear ViBE features

The GoGear ViBE player features a 1.5” full color display that uses the SMV to play videos. The player can also be used specifically for MP3’s and WMA’s, and offers song title, artist, and album information. As far as storage capacity, the GoGear ViBE offers 4 GB of NAND Flash, for roughly around 900 tracks of music.

No Separate Charger or Headset Required

Included with the player is a pair of earbuds, as well as a mini CD-ROM offering device manager software and a Media Converter for Philips, if for example the user needs to convert MP4 files to a different format for the GoGear.

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The iPod Touch got a serious hardware upgrade, as Apple looks to be drooling over the mobile gaming pie.

The Touch is now faster and supports OpenGL|ES, which should improve game performance.

Two new features are voice-controlled music playback and voice memos; the earphones have been updated with a microphone.

There is no video camera for the iPod Touch, perhaps because this would create competition with the iPhone.

Overview of Features

• Control music playback with spoken commands.
• Audio recorder
• Genius Mixes
• Buy or rent movies and TV shows
• App Store
• Shop on iTunes
• Safari Web Browser, Mail, Maps and YouTube
• Nike+ support

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Netflix is a movie rental company first and foremost but it’s also developing a very strong online video streaming strategy, with its Watch Instantly video-on-demand a huge hit. It has now added ABC shows to its line-up and could soon be available as an iPhone app.

Netflix Watch Instantly

Netflix’s business is built on delivering rented movies to people’s doors and charging them a monthly fee for doing so. And it’s a pretty damn successful business. However, Netflix knows that the days of physical media are coming to an end, with streaming music and video, as well as software and games delivered via the Internet becoming standard.

Therefore, it offers its subscribers the chance to stream video via its ‘Watch Instantly’ service. Those paying the monthly fees required to rent DVDs get access to over 12,000 movies and episodes of popular television series. Not just available on a computer, Netflix’s ‘Watch Instantly’ has been added to a number of devices, from set-top-boxes to the Xbox 360.

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