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YouTube brings Leanback forward

by John Moe // Posted: 07/08/10 11:53 AM

Google introduced a new option on YouTube that’s kind of a mashup of YouTube, Facebook, and Pandora. It’s called Leanback and it provides a full screen ongoing series of videos. One ends, the other begins. The preferences are based on what your Google profile says about you, what your Facebook friends are linking to and Liking (if you let it connect to Facebook, or what you search on).

I must admit it’s kind of cool. I typed in Tom Waits and got a whole bunch of videos and concert clips that I can just leave running while I work. I’m sure there’s a business/strategy to this story, something about getting you to linger so you can watch more ads, but mostly I just think it’s neat.

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What will we do with all this "white space"?

09/26/10 11:15 AM

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There’s a vote coming up this week in Washington that will have a big impact on how you use the internet, what’s available to you, how much faster you’ll be able to get things online. On Thursday, the FCC is expected to open up unused parts of the broadcast spectrum, a lot of people call it “white space”. This is space that was positioned to be something of a buffer between television stations but such padding is proving less essential since the conversion to digital TV.

On today’s show, we talk to Glenn Fleishman from Wi-Fi Networking News and The Economist about how the spectrum works and what kind of new space we’re talking about. We also check in with Tim Wu from Columbia Law School about the companies that will look to use the space and what it all might mean for you and me as internet consumers.