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Monday's Mac Gadget
by John F. Braun

Want Internet TV? Check Out Democracy!
March 6th, 2006

Democracy Player 0.7 (Donationware)
Participatory Culture Foundation

Things have certainly come a long way when it comes to media technologies on the Internet. With high-speed connections, one can download large video files in minutes, not hours. Services such as the iTunes Music Store have recently started dabbling with selling videos of popular shows, but there's a whole world of other video entertainment just waiting to be found. All you need is the right platform...

Democracy is an open source Internet TV platform with multiple components. The first component is the Democracy Player, which is currently available for Mac OS X and Windows XP, with a Linux version coming Real Soon Now. Shortly after launching the Democracy Player, you'll be shown a Channel Guide to get you started. There are lists of both new and popular content, as well as tags which let you view specific categories of content, such as Animation, Comedy, News, Technology and more. Once you find a video you like, you can download and then view it. Downloaded videos will remain on your hard drive for a period of time you specify, and will then be deleted to make room for more videos.


Democracy Player and Channel Guide

If you like a certain video you've viewed in the Democracy Player, you can click on a little bomb icon that appears near the video, which submits it to the Video Bomb site. When someone submits a video, it appears on the Incoming! page of the site. If people like it, they can 'bomb' the video, which adds it to their favorites list. If enough people bomb a video, it will appear on the front page of the site. Finally, if you'd like to share your video with the rest of the world, you can check out the Broadcast Machine. Broadcast Machine is software you install on your Web site to easily publish video files and create internet TV channels. Broadcast Machine gives you the option of using torrent technology to reduce or eliminate bandwidth costs.

So get in on the Internet TV revolution, and check out the Democracy platform today! Have any other Gadgets that let you share your stuff with others? Send an e-mail to John, and he'll give it a look.

Monday's Mac Gadget is here to help you with those cool things that we all just have to have on our Macs. Shareware, Freeware, Postcardware, Emailware, and even commercial apps, Monday's Mac Gadget is here to help you find and use the best of these programs.

John is a software engineer who works in the corporate R&D group of a Fortune 500 company, focusing on all aspects of communications technology. He has several degrees that claim he knows what he's doing when it comes to computers. After watching co-workers reinstall Windows, search for device drivers, and experience other horrors during the day, he's glad that he comes home to a Mac (compatible) computer. Have any comments, suggestions, or favorite Gadgets? Drop John a line at

You can also Post Your Comments below.

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Observer Comments

Show: Subjects Only | Full Comments
Close Name:Guest
Mon Mar 20, 2006 9:29 pm Subject: Pretty impressive

I've been using Democracy Player on Mac for about a week and so far it's been brilliant. It does have bugs, but they're more irritating gnats than heart-breaking show stoppers.

And, as it's cross-plaform and Open Source it should get the widest possible user base.

Not sure if every day users will notice that it includes Bit Torrent; so when you're using it presumably you're also a server for other users. You can read my post about <a href="http://slgeorge.wordpress.com/2006/03/21/remaking-tv-with-democracy/">Remaking TV with Democracy</a> for more. Perhaps this will be one of the first apps to give P-2-P a legitimate purpose as far as the general public is concerned!

Steve


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