In addition to a unique and experimental debate coming up this Saturday, MTV is teaming up with Flixwagon for an experiment in crowd-sourced journalism. While most of us will be tuned in to Twitter (assuming it’s up and working) for the latest election results from Super Tuesday, MTV is sending out what they are calling an army of citizen journalists to pull some Scobles from the nation’s polling stations, caucuses, candidate rallies and other political hotspots.

Just as Scoble used Qik to broadcast from the World Economic Forum, MTV Street Team members will be utilizing Flixwagon coupled with Nokia N95s to stream live from the various locations with what Flixwagon is calling “DVD-like quality.” I’m certain the quality may end up being a notch or two below that, but it’ll still be of a watchable quality.

Visitors to ChooseOrLose.com will be able to select the various streams from an interactive map that will show pinpoints where the various Street Team members are presently streaming live.

I’m certain both the MTV planned events are all about bringing in the young voters to the primaries, and that’s always an admirable goal, I suppose. In that, the citizen journalist efforts will fail miserably, as they always have. In that it is an interesting and new way to bring live political coverage to the masses utilizing a method of journalism I’ve been espousing quite vocally, I’m cautiously optimistic.

I say that, because if you recall, we’ve been bitten before when the mainstream media tries to imitate what it is we do organically on the front lines of technology. The Republican YouTube-CNN debates were a miserable failure because of the biases inherent in the Old Media screening process, and left New Media with some lasting egg on its face. I can see a number of ways that the citizen journalist efforts of MTV here can go horribly awry.

For instance, there are a number of laws regarding exactly where a member of the press can stand outside a polling place, and violation of those laws can be Federal offenses. Some of the Street Team members could turn out to be staffers from a candidate’s campaign (it’s happened before on a non-citizen journalist level - that it could happen here is not far fetched). The editorial process for what gets played on broadcast television could be completely skewed in terms of bias one way or the other so as to mar the reputation of the whole project.

I can only hope for the reputation of New Media as a whole that they’ve thought through and planned well this whole affair. Utilizing the bleeding edge of technology is one thing, and when it is a voluntary effort unorganized by a monolithic media company, certain allowances are there to be had. Because it is being headed up and broadcast in such a high-profile way, unless they mean to undermine the idea forever, they need to have an extra level of attention paid to the integrity of the process.

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We’ve gotten word that Yahoo will make an acquisition announcement of a video startup today or tomorrow. At first we thought the target might be Metacafe, which was almost acquired by Yahoo just following the Google/YouTube deal in 2006. Shortly after, it made a small acquisition in Jumpcut, a Web-based video editor. But It’s not a video aggregator, we’ve heard, but a platform company. And the price is north of $100 million.

The price point limits the number of candidates. Brightcove is our top guess. If it is Brightcove, the price would have to be well north of $100 million, given that investors have poured $86 million into the company so far. More as this develops.

Update: It is not Brightcove. It is Maven Networks, another Boston-based video startup, three independent sources confirm. And the price is believed to be $150 million. Maven is a video-hosting platform for media sites, including Fox News, CBS Sports, CNet, and Scripps Networks. But Yahoo would probably want it more for its video-ad network, targeting, and insertion technologies. Maven has raised $30 million to date from investors include Accel, General Catalyst, and Prism Ventures.

Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.

Filed under: Digital Cameras

Sony fans, the fun's not over yet. Besides going hands-on with that pair of new 300-series alpha DSLRs and that alphabet soup of H, S, and T series cams, we also managed to take a look at all four new W series Cyber-shots. Differing mostly in resolution and optical zoom, the 10.1 megapixel DSC-W170, 8.1 megapixel DSC-W150 and DSC-W130, and 7.2 megapixel DSC-W120 all feature the company's "smile shutter" technology, which we found to work pretty well at recognizing our grins during a demo. Look for these to start shipping in March and April, for between $200 and $300.

 

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Filed under: Storage

The memory card announcements at PMA continue -- Kingston has just announced its first 16GB SDHC card. Sure, we're happy for them, but at $231, it's more expensive than SanDisk's $179 16GB card -- which comes with a USB 2.0 reader -- and it's certainly not as impressive as SanDisk's new 32GB card. Also, your hair is frizzy and you look fat. But have fun at the party!

 

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Are we looking at HTC’s next GUI? Could be! It might be called “Manila” too. Doesn’t it give you goose bumps? Oh really? It didn’t give me goose bumps either. I just said that because I figured there was something wrong with my feelings again.

Here’s some more info from the::unwired,

I have zero information if this screenshots are legit or just a simple PhotoShop result but according to Swiss Windows Mobile fan-site “Mobile-Devices.ch”, bellow you see some screenshots of HTC’s upcoming/next TouchFLO GUI which is code-named “Manila”.

No further information given so it’s not clear if it is real (really from HTC), an HTC development environment or really HTC “TouchFLO 2.0″; also Mobile-Devices.ch hasn’t mentioned where they got the information from but from what you can see from the screenshots, it could be real indeed.

So there you have it. Grains of salt and all that good stuff.

LEAK: Is this a new HTC TouchFLO GUI called Manila? [the::unwired]

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The most closely-watched part of the wireless auction for the 700 MHz spectrum that started earlier this week appears to be over. The auction for the coveted C-block of spectrum, which is a nationwide license and is subject to special open-device/application rules, was won by a $4.7 billion bid—just a smidgen above the $4.6 billion minimum required by the FCC. Until the entire auction is over for the other blocks of spectrum, the FCC won’t disclose who the winner is. But the consensus is that the winner is either Google or Verizon.

Bits blogger Saul Hansell at the NYT has been watching the spectrum auction like a hawk. His theory, after looking at the pattern of bidding for the C-block, is that either there were two bidders playing a drawn-out game of chicken or only one bidder slowly raising its price, almost reluctantly. That one bidder could have been Google, which showed its hand earlier by publicly stating it would bid the $4.6 billion minimum to support its suggested open access rules (and stuck by that pledge even though only two of its four suggested rules were adopted ).

Verizon could have sat the auction out, deciding not to bid and instead watch Google squirm as it realized it was the only one in the game. There is a lot of skepticism about how serious Google really is in its desire to actually win the auctions as opposed to influence their outcome and the rules of the game. When it became apparent that there was only one other bidder in the early rounds of the auction, Verizon could have calculated that Google would bid just shy of the $4.6 billion if it realized it was on its own. If that had happened, the FCC would have almost certainly re-auctioned the C-block at a later date without any of those pesky open-device and open-application rules that Verizon really doesn’t like.

But somebody did make the minimum bid, and those rules will be in effect. If Google indeed was the lone bider, it might have just swallowed hard and decided to go ahead and buy the spectrum. Maybe it was worth more to Verizon to see Google pay a $4.7 billion penalty for stepping on its turf than to have the spectrum for itself. Or maybe it wanted the spectrum all along, and it waited until the last minute to put in the minimum bid, betting that Google wouldn’t respond. Either way, Verizon might feel like it snookered Google on this one.

But we’ll all be better off for it because whoever builds the next wireless network on this spectrum won’t be able to discriminate between devices or applications. And if it turns out that Google did in fact win, there would be nothing stopping it from pursuing its two other goals of opening the network up to other service providers through wholesale leasing and other networks (both wireless and wireline) as well. That would help make the wireless world less a collection of silos and more Internet-like.

So who snookered who?

(Photo by Steve Jurvetson)

Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.

Filed under: Digital Cameras

While it's always great to see your consumer point-and-shoots get a decent spec bump or two, Sony's not really offering too many breakthrough new features in the latest refresh to its T, S, and H series Cyber-shots. Still, it was nice to check out the updated DSC-H3, DSC-S700, and DSC-T200 at Sony's PMA booth in the form of the DSC-H10, DSC-S750 / S780, and DSC-T300, respectively. Ranging from $150 to $400, and from 7.2 to 10.1 megapixels, the four cameras in this gallery seem like they'd be a fine upgrade to folks already hooked on their MemorySticks.

 

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Filed under: Digital Cameras, Gaming

AgfaPhoto -- you know, the company that used to just make really high-end gear, but now lends its name to lame sauce stuff built by plawa -- has a new camera on display at PMA, the DV-5000G. In addition to the regular 5 megapixel camera duties, this thing works overtime as a 720 x 480 video camera -- there's 64MB of built-in memory, but we're guessing you'll want to hop to SD or SDHC in a hurry. Of course, most cameras do full-res video, but AgfaPhoto is also pulling a page out of DXG's book and packing in video games, playable on the 3-inch "960 x 240" screen (we're guessing that's a typo, and this thing is standard 320 x 240 QVGA). Unfortunately, the games are super weak, and there are no emulators in sight. We don't think PMP or webcam functionality is going to save this one either, and the $260 pricetag seems a bit silly for what you're getting. Let's catch up at next year's PMA, huh Agfa?

 

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Text messages are both annoying and expensive. Lawsuits are both annoying and expensive. Put the two together and you’ve got yourself a “Risky Business” party.

A lawsuit was filed in Washington state arguing that T-Mobile should let customers turn off text messaging altogether. As it is, T-Mo’s customers have to pay for text messages they don’t want—things like daily jokes and horoscopes. (Never mind that you have to sign up for these services in the first place.) Hence, lawsuit. Yay.

I used to get unwanted text messages a few years ago. Somehow my number found its way onto some “party promoter” list and I was getting messages like every night. “Yo come out to this crazy party on Ludlow mad crazy yo.”

No. Thank you.

Eventually I texted back in a threatening manner—”please stop sending these”—and never got another message again. I’m a walking Sesame Street episode.

Class action nails T-Mobile USA over texting services [RCR Wireless News]

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What it does

Need a credit card but don’t know what kind of rewards you want with it? Rewardpick lets you search through all the credit card reward options out there and read comments by people who have actually used them. Search for a card by using search filters like what type of reward you’re looking for (sky miles, store credit, gas, etc.), card type (Visa, Master Card, American Express), supplier (Chase, Capital One, etc.), as well as genre (personal, business, corporate, etc.) Once you’re presented with a list of cards, go through and read reviews and get important information like reward rates and fees.

In their own words

“The goal of Rewardpick.com is to allow users to easily choose and give feedback about reward credit cards . All content are user-generated, including listed credit cards. We hope that you have fun and find the card that you are looking.”

Why it might be a killer

Rewardpick can help you make an informed decision choosing reward cards. Find out which ones are worth trouble and which ones are just a waste of time. Rewardpick is definitely onto something and could maybe branch out to cover other credit card issues. They should probably include some advice about credit card debt.

Some questions

Rewardpick is a cool concept, but will enough people join and submit reviews to make it worthwhile?

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