Telenet launches ZITA

Some over-the-lunch surfing and I bump into the new Telenet Portal: www.zita.be. Working for Telenet's agency I knew something was coming, and that the name would start with a "Z", but the launch kind of surprised me (in fact, I thought launch was tomorrow or so).

First impressions:
- Looks fresh, but not really timeless.
- Navigation is rather strange, if you click to a subsection the top level navigation disappears. (could this be bèta?)
- In the subsections designs seem to change somehow, again strange.
- The directory at the bottom is a cool idea.

But portals are so 'last year' (or was that last decade?) ;-)

Podshow goes warp speed

Podshow.com is stepping up all it's initiatives.

A few weeks ago they launched BTPodshow.com, a UK version of the Podshow.com platform. This time, in collaboration with BT ... Telenet, what are you waiting for? I really think there are immense opportunities here to promote broadband usage or use Digital TV in a more creative way (open it up to the people). At this moment BTPodshow.com is being used to stream the digital music awards, but I assume the UK version of Podshow.com will be live soon. BTPodshow.co.uk is password-secured, so that's probably their test-area.

And a few days ago Podshow raised an additional $15mln over the 9mln they already had. That's a lot of money! In fact it's so much I wonder what they are up to. It's way too much to just continue what they're doing today. So either they have some spectacular concepts up their sleeves, or they plan to buy some other companies ... to be continued.