Daily Marauder

ONLINE SERVICES/INTERACTIVE MEDIA

Look out iTunes. Amazon.com announced plans to expand its DRM-free MP3 store to international markets later this year. Launched in Sept. 2007 with content from all 4 major labels, Amazon’s digital storefront now offers over 3.3 million songs from 270,000+ artists, with more than 1 million tracks available for .89. Amazon’s international destinations include www.amazon.co.uk, www.amazon.de, www.amazon.co.jp, www.amazon.fr and www.amazon.ca.

How’s this for a visual (see below)? It’s fun to compete with iTunes while advertising the iPod.  I’m down with the Amazon store.  I just wish usability was even in the same playground as the iTunes store.  I prefer to pay $.10 more and deal with the DRM so that I don’t have to navigate an Amazon world.  Here’s the thing.  The iTunes store gives consumers the search and discovery functions that remind us all why we love music so much.  If I’m too lazy to head down to my local record store, I’d like to at least pretend.

Current Media, which operates a television network and current.tv, is filing with U.S. regulators to raise up to $100 million in an initial public offering. Shareholders include Blum Capital Partners, Yucaipa Cos., DirectTV, Comcast and former U.S. vice president Al Gore. (http://www.reuters.com/article/governmentFilingsNews/idUSWNAS794020080128 1/28)

The folks at interactive agency Deep Focus launched another interesting website in support of HBO’s new drama In Treatment premiering tonight, about a psychotherapist (Gabriel Byrne) and the inner journeys he embarks upon with his patients. He’sListening.com features an innovative user interface, allowing the user to click on sections of brain to pull up audio and video thoughts of the main characters. Medical illustrator Bryan Christie was commissioned to illustrate the brainwork.

CBS Interactive announced that Last.fm’s unique U.S. listener base spiked by 85% after announcing its free music service on Jan. 23, compared to metrics for the previous week. Unique visits and page views were also up dramatically throughout the rest of the week.

Top Facebook Applications  U.S. Home/Work/University  - November 2007
Engaged Widget         Penetration of Total
Facebook App.              Viewers (000)         U.S. Facebook Audience
Top Friends (Slide)               6,230                    18.5%
Movies (Flixster)                  5,199                    15.4%
SuperPoke! (Slide)               3,626                    10.8%
Compare People                   3,503                    10.4%
iLike                                    3,449                    10.2%
Super Wall (RockYou!)           3,237                     9.6%
Likeness (RockYou!)              2,693                     8.0%
Quizzes                                2,583                     7.7%
FunWall (Slide)                     2,107                     6.3%
Graffiti                                 1,647                     4.9
Total Facebook.com Visitors   33,660                   100.0%
Total Facebook Applications    20,649                    61.3%
Source: comScore Widget Metrix

The Super Bowl is still the ultimate traditional television event, but some marketers are starting to turn to Web video and profiles on social-networking sites. Companies that aren’t buying a TV spot during the big game hope to tap the Super Bowl’s following online on the cheap. (http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB120148348745821125.html 1/28)

Proving that it truly is the airline of bloggers and the technorati, Virgin America (the airline with an electrical socket and Ethernet port at every seat) will be offering episodes of Diggnation and other Web shows produced by Revsion3. (http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/01/28/diggnation-to-be-shown-on-virgin-america-flights  1/28)

Michael Eisner’s Vuguru, book publisher G.P. Putnam, Cyber Group Animation and Big Fantastic are collaborating on a web series that will serve as a prequel to Robin Cook’s latest thriller Foreign Body. The ad-supported webisodes will debut the week of May 27, hoping to build momentum for the book’s Aug. 5 release.

Ribbit, the startup that is building a platform for Voice 2.0 apps, is creating a Web-based phone service for consumers codenamed “Amphibian.” The point of Amphibian is both to demonstrate the capabilities of Ribbit’s technology and to serve as a marketplace for Ribbit developers to showcase and sell their own voice apps. Co-founders Ted Griggs and Crick Waters dropped by my office last week to give me a sneak peak at the service, which will launch publicly in a few months. Amphibian in a nutshell, says Crick, is the “convergence of your personal mobile communications with your personal web experience.” (http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/01/28/ribbit-readies-an-amphibian-attack-on-voice-apps  1/28)

Very excited about this if the user experience is as seamless as I think it will be.  This effectively would offer one web-based phone number to act as the central communication portal for all incoming and outgoing calls be it at work, mobile, etc.  One place for all the communication in your life.  Very nice.

Clickable online video advertising start-up Ooyala raised an additional $8.5 million in second round financing led by Sierra Ventures.

Social networking service Imeem has made its first acquisition, a small one in online social music service Anywhere.FM. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. The San Francisco-based Imeem has also been heavily focused on music as part of its community, and this adds to its service: Anywhere.Fm’s browser-based music player enables consumers to upload their music collections and listen and share them (and playlists) from any browser. (http://www.paidcontent.org/entry/419-imeem-buys-social-music-service-anywherefm  1/28)