— MySpace: MySpace UK is doing it first branded “radio show” – the weekly, hour-long Mars Planets Radio (the clue’s in the name), hosted by Alex Zane. Not just Zane – from June 12, the show will pick a listener from the userbase as co-host each week, while peers will get to vote the winner off or to keep ’em. Users bid for the spot by submitting a two-minute video, while bands can submit their tracks for inclusion. It’s a vain, Zane kinda interactive world.
— WiiWare: Nintendo switched its answer to Xbox’s Live Arcade in Europe today. Available via the Wii Shop, which had itself recently grown to include titles from Sega’s old consoles and C64, the new initiative gives an electronic sell-through route to small third-party games developers. There are six titles available for download from today.
— BBC vlog: The Beeb has started Kermode Uncut – its “first attempt at doing a true video blog”. Including weekly views and interviews from grumpy movie critic Mark Kermode in the standard BBC blog format, but text is replaced by Kermode video piees in the new embedded Flash media play. All experimental so far. More here.
— BBC iPlayer: The VoD service claimed 21 million streams and downloads in April and the majority of users are middle-aged. Some 37 percent are between 16 and 34, 43 percent fall between 35 and 54 while 21 percent are over 55. While Jan-Feb growth was 25 percent and Feb-Mar was 22.86 percent, Mar-Apr growth slowed further to 22.09 percent – still faster than figures indicated by ISP PlusNet. Guardian.