Veoh saves the web and fishy chip tales

Veoh Networks is a great company, though I haven't worked out yet whether it is sailing too close to the wind or not. The company is funded by media conglomerate Time-Warner and Michael Eisner (the former ruler of planet Disney). The website looks like YouTube, but with some important differences:

• Veoh lets you submit full-sized streaming videos
• YouTube limits its users to 100 MB files.
• Veoh can do 2 GB files distributed via a P2P-client available for Mac and that other platform

I've been enjoying a selection of 'so-bad-they're-good' 1970s martial arts movies off there. The Mac client is really easy to use. My main concern is how will the company make money in the longer term. I can see someone like TimeWarner using Veoh as a guinea pig to further is experiment with AOL and online TV. On second thoughts just enjoy it while you can!

I'm with Stupid

Apple has apparently moved away from using a PortalPlayer media processor in all its iPods and instead moved to Samsung for the next-generation of MP3 players. PortalPlayer is very exposed to the Apple business, with iPods counting for about 70 per cent of its sales according to a Reuters report that I've read. Its not healthy for PortalPlayer, hopefully the company will diversify its client base to become more independent.

However Samsung as a supplier was also a dumb move for Apple. This is not a commodity product like flash memory where Apple can use multiplie suppliers and change at will, the media chip is central to the iPod functionality and experience.

Does it sound like a smart move to work closely with (and educate in the art of engineering a killer MP3 player) a large ambitious, hyper-aggressive company that wants to eat Apple for lunch? It has been alleged that Samsung had meetings with creative agencies in London where the central theme was Kill iPod.

You can chart the fall of the iPod empire from this moment on...