Daily Marauder

ONLINE SERVICES/INTERACTIVE MEDIA

Microsoft is getting aggressive in its bid to acquire Yahoo, hiring a proxy solicitation firm to help oust the Web portal’s 10-member board. The software giant also may simultaneously circumvent Yahoo’s management and ask shareholders to sell their stock to Microsoft directly. (http://www.smartmoney.com/bn/ON/index.cfm?story=ON-20080220-000291-0447  2/20)

Microsoft may announce a new partnership with Netflix to offer the rental company’s movies over its Xbox Live service, if renewed rumors are correct. “A partnership with Netflix gives Microsoft a partner that already streams movies to over 7 million subscribers through their PCs, and encourages these subscribers to sign up for the Xbox Live service in order to stream movies to their TVs,” said Michael Pachter, an analyst with Wedbush Morgan. (MSNBC 2/19)

News Corp.’s MySpace is holding talks with major record labels about an online service that would let users listen to music free, as long as they do it at their computers. The so-called MySpace Music would likely be structured as a joint venture with the participating labels. (http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB120347734816179147.html  2/20)

Disney Online is adding to its online services for children with a new virtual world called Pixie Hollow, based on fictional characters like Disney’s Tinkerbell. Separately, Time Warner’s AOL plans to relaunch its kids site KOL with new content from National Geographic Kids, among others. (http://www.news.com/8301-10784_3-9874335-7.html  2/19)

Yahoo is following in Google’s footsteps again in search. Today, it is shifting a crucial part of its search engine to Hadoop, software that handles large-scale distributed computing tasks particularly well. Hadoop is an open-source implementation of Google’s MapReduce software and file system. It takes all the links on the Web found by a search engine’s crawlers and “reduces” them to a map of the Web so that ranking algorithms can be run against them. (http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/02/20/yahoo-search-wants-to-be-more-like-google-embraces-hadoop  2/20)

Online content delivery network Limelight Networks reported Q4 revenues of $29.1 million, up 31% from a year ago, but also revealed expanded net losses of $6.2 million from $4.9 million in Q4 of 2006. The company actually blamed the Writers’ strike in a conference call with analysts, despite the conventional wisdom that online video consumption increased during the period. Limelight added 200 new customers during the fourth quarter but suffered in a price war with rivals such as Akamai, as it was forced to lower the costs of streaming video for its content clients.

NBC Digital Entertainment announced plans to begin streaming full episodes of vintage TV shows this month for free on NBC.com and select NBC Cable Entertainment sites. Included among the classics, look for The Alfred Hitchcock Hour and Night Gallery on NBC.com, the original Battlestar Galactica and Buck Rogers on SciFi.com, Swamp Thing and Crow on ChillerTV.com and Kojak and Miami Vice on SleuthChannel.com. (http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/Entertainment/2008/02/19/nbc_to_stream_vintage_content_on_web_sites/6636  2/19)

National Lampoon signed a revenue-sharing content partnership with DailyMotion to provide comedy programming to the video sharing site, the first partner to take advantage of DailyMotion’s new HD video player.

The Crystal Light beverage brand launched uPumpitUp.com, a wellness-themed social networking site targeting women with actress Mandy Moore as partner and spokesperson. The site features expert instructional videos presented as overlays who pose open self help challenges to the community.

A branded social networking site featuring Mandy Moore brought to you by Crystal Light?  What’s next?  A branded Tampex social networking site featuring Paris Hilton?!?  You know social networking has spun a bit out of control when things like this start happening. . .

Online video viewing is helping to create a new entertainment medium for younger viewers rather than steering them away from television, according to new study by New Hampshire-based Leichtman Research Group. Among viewers aged 18-34, 42% reported that they watch video online at home at least weekly – up from 28% last year – but only 9% of all online video viewers surveyed claimed they watch TV less often as a result of their new habits.

Forrester Research projects that digital music sales will grow at a compound annual rate of 23% over the next five years, reaching $4.8 billion by 2012 — not enough to make up for lost CD sales. The rise of DRM-free music will allow social networks like Facebook “to become music stores.” (http://www.radioink.com/HeadlineEntry.asp?hid=141106  2/19)

Former AOL CEO Jon Miller is joining online advertising firm OpenX as chairman, banking on room in the industry for smaller players even as it consolidates around big deals like Microsoft’s bid for Yahoo. OpenX’s free software lets Web publishers control how ads are served on their sites. (http://www.reuters.com/article/reutersEdge/idUSN1817293320080219  2/19)