Daily Marauder

BROADCAST/CABLE

Virgin Media is being sued for patent infringement by television listings provider Gemstar-TV Guide, which is part-owned by News Corp. Gemstar claims technology used by the U.K. cable TV group to list TV shows and channels and allow viewers to record them infringes its patents. (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml;jsessionid=2LGXEMGVASDHNQFIQMGCFFWAVCBQUIV0?xml=/money/2008/01/25/cnvirgin125.xml 1/26)

The Writers Guild of America is entering interim deals with independent film production companies Lionsgate and Marvel, boosting work opportunities for striking Hollywood writers. The union has already struck other similar deals, notably with United Artists and Worldwide Pants. (http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/9151c72e-cb05-11dc-97ff-000077b07658.html  1/25) 

CNN will pull out all the stops on Super Tuesday, the day when voters in nearly two dozen states will go to the polls for the presidential primaries. In all, the cable news network will stage 40 hours of live coverage, beginning at 6 a.m. Eastern on Feb. 5 and ending at 11 p.m. the next day. (The Hollywood Reporter 1/25)

David Cohen, Comcast’s executive vice president, will testify next Tuesday before the House Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet in an attempt to explain the cable company’s policy on public, educational and government programming. Comcast wants to give analog-only viewers one free set-top box for a year so they can view PEG channels, but make them pay for additional boxes. (Multichannel News 1/24) 

In an outstanding report on its 2007 operating results, Insight announced that it added 55,000 digital-cable subscribers, 5,000 basic-cable subscribers, 78,000 broadband customers and 68,000 phone customers. “I haven’t seen these levels of growth since the earliest days of cable,” Insight CEO and Vice Chairman Michael Willner said. (CED Magazine 1/24)

AT&T will, later this year, begin “pair-bonding” its advanced DSL lines, a move that the company has said would significantly increase its bandwidth capacity through the addition of a second pair of copper lines at customers’ homes. CEO Randall Stephenson, who issued the new guidelines during AT&T’s quarterly earnings call on Thursday, promised the introduction of “whole-home” DVR service in 2008 as well as a second stream of HDTV. (Telephony Online 1/24)

ONLINE SERVICES/INTERACTIVE MEDIA

(Click here for background on Hulu.)

Hulu.com, the NBC Universal-News Corp. online video joint venture once described as a “YouTube killer,” will likely open to the public around the end of March, says CTO Eric Feng. The site will offer television shows, movies and other professionally produced video. (http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/01/24/hulu-discusses-private-beta-suggests-public-launch-time-frame  1/24)

MTV has become the first TV programmer to bring its content to Sony’s PlayStation Portable Universal Media Disc platform. “This collaboration with MTV is a key first step in meeting the needs of our consumers, who are utilizing PSP as a video player more than ever and are thirsting for more content, particularly short-form videos,” said Phil Rosenberg, senior vice president of sales and business development for SCEA. (The Hollywood Reporter 1/25)

Video entertainment site Veoh.com and horror-themed Fear.net announced a content and ad revenue sharing deal, giving Veoh.com’s 23 million monthly users access to its original and acquired content. Veoh will launch a branded channel featuring frightening Sony Pictures Television and Lionsgate titles, the studios launched FearNet with Comcast a year ago last Halloween.

The granddaddy of interactive serial dramas lonelygirl 15 wraps its second season today with a four-part cliffhanger. The lead up included a live event held earlier this week in San Francisco that invited fans to become extras in the drama and even post their own videos of the action. Expect new twists, turns, character deaths and interactive elements in season 3, to premiere immediately following the season 2 finale.

IAC/InterActiveCorp and chief Barry Diller are suing the company’s controlling shareholder, Liberty Media, in a dispute that threatens the Internet firm’s plan to spin off four of its operating units. Liberty boss John Malone opposes Diller’s plan for changing the firm’s voting structure. (http://www.reuters.com/article/companyNews/idUSN2428901920080125 1/24)

The growth in online advertising should not be derailed by any downward move in the U.S. economy, according to Nikesh Arora, head of the search engine’s activities in Europe. “Consumer behavior is moving to the Net and marketers want to follow the consumer.” (http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/f492a44e-cae6-11dc-a960-000077b07658.html  1/25)

European regulators are expected to approve Google’s $3.1 billion takeover of advertising firm DoubleClick, despite rivals’ worries the deal could squeeze them and make Web ads more expensive. The deal already won U.S. regulatory approval in December. (http://www.reuters.com/article/reutersEdge/idUSL2589361220080125  1/25)

Who rules the world of widgets? It is difficult to measure, but comScore takes a stab at it with a new ranking of widget providers as measured by viewing audience. The Widget Metrix data is from November 2007 and “measures independent objects that can be embedded or downloaded onto another site and can be used as a tool, have automatic content updates, or are interactive.” (http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/01/24/the-widget-kings  1/24)

The concept that online you own your own data and you should be able to take it with you from one social network or Website to another is gaining a lot of traction these days. Yahoo, MySpace, LinkedIn, Google, Plaxo, , and even Facebook have joined the Dataportability Work Group to figure out standards. Now, Microsoft is joining as well. With 420 million Windows Live IDs tied to user profiles, Microsoft’s involvement is encouraging. Are the days of data lock-in really behind us? (http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/01/24/dataportability-gains-another-convert-in-microsoft  1/24)

Banking on the adage that a picture is worth a thousand words, Tampa, FL.-based Redzee.com introduced a new visual search engine that replaces all text results with pictures. The system still utilizes text-based search tools to scan metadata tags embedded within web pages, but screen grabs of the web pages are displayed instead of the text snippets. 

Actor Barry Williams, who played Greg Brady on the ’70s sitcom “The Brady Bunch,” is reinventing himself online via a new social network for fans called The Greg Brady Project. The network is powered by MyLifeBrand, a platform that integrates profiles from other networks like Facebook. (http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/2008/01/24/a-very-brady-social-network  1/24)

Speaking of the long tail in social networking, I think this community devoted to all things Brady would apply.  [sigh] Bonding over the Bradys.  Good times.

WIRELESS

Fortune Senior Editor David Kirkpatrick led a power-packed session at Davos this afternoon called The Future of Mobile Technology. Panelists included Google CEO Eric Schmidt, FCC Chairman Kevin Martin, Sony CEO Sir Howard Stringer, NBC Universal CEO Jeff Zucker, SK Telecom CEO Kim Shin-Bae and China Mobile CEO Wang Jianzhou. (http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/01/25/super-panel-at-davos-the-future-of-mobile-technology  1/25)

After offering just a smattering of videos to Verizon’s VCast service and to browser compatible phones via m.youtube.com, YouTube has now optimized a vast majority of its videos for the mobile space. The WAP-based site has also been revamped to include more personalization and community features, allowing users to subscribe to channels and upload videos directly from their handsets. The service still requires a 3G network and is quite data intensive – meaning it could cost an arm and a leg depending on the data plan you’re saddled with.

The FCC on Thursday received a total of almost $2.8 billion in offers from undisclosed bidders during the opening day of the auction of reclaimed broadcast analog band. The amount represents the highest bids obtained for five separate blocks of frequencies at the start of the auction, which is expected to raise at least $10 billion for the government. (The New York Times/Reuters 1/25, The Wall Street Journal/Dow Jones Newswires 1/24)

In 2012, there will be more than 76 million Asian subscribers to mobile-TV services, according to a new report, which pegged current use at 15 million. Future mobile-TV applications, according to the report, will have to be “reliant on the integration between content providers, network operators and device manufacturers, as well as government regulation.” (The Hollywood Reporter 1/25)

GAMING

Rumors of a resurrected Gizmondo handheld-gaming device have accompanied the recent prison release of company executive Bo Stefan Eriksson. If the device makes its way back to store shelves, it would join other re-released gaming platforms such as the Atari 2600, the ZX Spectrum and Nintendo’s Game Boy. (The Guardian (London) 1/24)