The Democracy Player has been relaunched today as Miro by the
Participatory Culture Foundation.
Miro aims to make online video "as easy as watching TV", while at the same time ensuring that the new medium remains accessible to everyone, through its support for open standards. The open-source application combines a media player and library, content guide, video search engine, as well as podcast and BitTorrent clients. But why the name change?
According to
last100, which has published a full review and guide to Miro:
"When Democracy Player launched back in February 2006, the feedback received was that the name evoked different, yet equally negative responses. For many Americans it conjured up an image of yet another left wing media project, and to the rest of the world it was, rather bizarrely, being associated with the policies of the Bush administration. In contrast, the new name is purposely abstract."
Abstract? I guess in a sense the world famous Catalan painter, Miro’s style could be called abstract, since his paintings were surrealist. Little wonder, since
Miró repeatedly expressed contempt for conventional painting methods and his desire to "kill", "murder", or "rape" them in favor of more contemporary means of expression.
In a sense they are right: iTV is as contemporary as it gets....
