Open Gardens

About Open Gardens

Open Gardens is published by futuretext

Rated 8/10 on Blogged.com

About The Open Gardens Blog

I (Ajit) founded the blog on May 26, 2005 based on my vision and philosophy of OpenGardens i.e. the philosophical opposite of 'walled gardens' especially as applicable to the mobile data industry.

Today, the OpenGardens blog is one of the few blogs that span both the Web and the Mobile domains.

The blog covers wireless/mobile applications, open networks and mobile web 2.0. My vision behind the OpenGardens blog has been :

The blog is about the Mobile data industry and Digital convergence('Mobile web 2.0')
Analysis is more important than story/controversy. I don't believe that bloggers are true journalists. The blog is not about the latest 'story' but it's more about independent analysis/viewpoint
The OpenGardens blog is broadly about opening up the networks, growing digital usage and digital businesses i.e. we don't advocate closed networks, broadcast media etc
It is about disruptive digital technologies

Founder & Chief Blogger Ajit Jaokar

Ajit Jaokar is the founder of the London based publishing and research company futuretext (www.futuretext.com) focussed on emerging Web and Mobile technologies -including Web 2.0 and Mobile Web 2.0.

His thinking is widely followed in the industry and his blog, the OpenGardensBlog (www.opengardensblog.futuretext.com), which was recently rated a top 20 wireless blog worldwide

In 2009-2010, Ajit was nominated as part of the Global Agenda Council on the Future of the Internet by the world economic forum. He hopes to use this opportunity to further extend the pragmatic viewpoint of the evolution of Telecoms networks in an open ecosystem.

(Note: The Network of Global Agenda Councils plays a significant role in shaping the global agenda by monitoring global issues and elaborating recommendations to address them. Each Council, comprised of 15-20 Members, serves as an advisory board to the Forum and other interested parties, such as governments and international organizations. The Global Agenda Councils also act as the intellectual drivers of the World Economic Forum's Global Redesign Initiative, an unprecedented international, multistakeholder and multimedia dialogue that aims to develop a 21st-century vision of global cooperation. Members of the G20, the UN and other International Organizations have pledged their support for this initiative. )

Ajit is best known for his books Mobile Web 2.0, Social Media Marketing. Two new books ('Open Mobile' and 'Implementing Mobile Web 2.0') are being released in 2009.

His consulting activities include working with companies to define value propositions across the device, network, Web and Social networking stack spanning both technology and strategy. He has worked with a range of commercial and government organizations globally including The European Union, Telecoms Operators, Device manufacturers, social networking companies and security companies in various strategic and visionary roles

His recent talks and forthcoming talks include: CEBIT 2009;MobileWorld Congress(2007, 2008, 2009); Keynote at O Reilly Web20 expo (April 2007);Keynote at Java One; European Parliament – Brussels – (Electronic Internet Foundation); Stanford University's Digital visions program;MIT Sloan;Fraunhofer FOKUS ; University of St. Gallen (Switzerland); Mobile Web Strategies (partner event of CTIA in San Francisco)

Media appearances include BBC – Newsnight – 3phone launch; CNN money; BBC digital planet

Ajit chairs Oxford University's Next generation mobile applications panel and conducts a course on Web 2.0, Social networking, Mobile Web 2.0 and LTE services at Oxford University.

Ajit lives in London, UK, but has three nationalities (British, Indian and New Zealander) and is proud of all three. He is currently doing a PhD on Privacy and Reputation systems at UCL in London. Ajit is a fan of animation especially Tom and Jerry, Tintin and Asterix and likes the music of ZZ Top and other rock bands

You can contact me at ajit.jaokar at futuretext.com

You can follow me on twitter at http://www.twitter.com/AjitJaokar

See a video of my talk at CEBIT in Hannover
(intro in german - presenttion in english)

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June 14, 2007

Disappointed with Video iPod – help!

Anyone else having this problem???

This is my very first Apple product – so I am hoping I may have made a mistake here and there is a solution somewhere!

I am trying to get iTunes to work

I have a video iPod (80G) which I got from the States

I live in the UK – so signed up to UK iTunes store

The UK store has no videos, no TV shows etc

I can’t sign up to the American store because my credit card billing address is in the UK

So, qs is: how do we get videos in the UK?

Am I missing something?

For instance, I can see some movies, CNN, Discovery channel and even the Cartoon network in the us … but not in the UK!!

To me, it seems that at the moment, there is no point buying a video iPod outside the usa because there is no content for it

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Filed under: mobile web 2.0 — ajit @ 6:35 am

Comments (7)

7 Comments »

It is extremely disappointing. We developed a beta product where if you have a TV tuner card you can automatically record shows and copy them to your iPod, but we found the penetration of video iPods is so low in the UK that no one wanted to take it up!

Comment by Tom — June 14, 2007 @ 7:28 am

yes there isn’t much there unless you like Pixar short movies (which are good) but not a lot of other choice as yet, blame the majors or the legal wranglers I guess, or use content you have already

Comment by Ian Hay — June 14, 2007 @ 11:35 am

I assume that Apple has not acquired the distribution rights for video content in the UK.
So, one way would be to convert the content by hand into the right format (e.g. with MediaCoder or Videora iPod Converter) – for which you would, of course, need some input files…
Not as nice as using iTunes, but one way to feed your iPod with content

Comment by Holger — June 14, 2007 @ 3:11 pm

I usually get my viedo from the internet at large (Google, Fora.tv, etc) not itunes. After download just import it into itunes (itunes will play anything that quicktime will). If it isn’t ipod compatible you can convert it using “Convert selction for iPod” from itunes “Advanced” menu.
See: http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=302758

Comment by mturro — June 14, 2007 @ 3:48 pm

Ajit:
I just saw this post and it reminded me of why I choose the Creative Zen over the iPod Video. It was not so much an iTunes availability issue, as much as the ability to use something already available to me, which the iPod would not allow me to use
While the Zen is not as slick as the iPod, it has proven to be a wise choice.
I wrote about it here – http://www.kaujalgi.net/?p=51

Comment by Sandeep — June 14, 2007 @ 7:47 pm

many thanks for all the comments all. I thought I was making a mistake .. apparantly not. The official response is: ‘Coming soon ..’ i.e. indeed there is no video content as such. Ofcourse we can get video podcasts from anywhere but iTunes itself does not have any video content for the uk.

Comment by Ajit Jaokar — June 14, 2007 @ 8:47 pm

I have had my ipod video (30GB)for 6 months and it has woeked really well and it has worked with iTunes well and all that but now if I press the buttons the screen doesnt come on and if I plug it in to itunes the screen doesnt come on and iTunes says that it has been corrupted but i havent dropped it or anything whats gone wrong with my ipod?

Comment by chris mcinerney — July 8, 2007 @ 2:36 am