Daily Marauder

ONLINE SERVICES/INTERACTIVE MEDIA

Since reaching a record $741.79 in November, Google’s stock price has plunged 40%. The company’s stock slipped nearly 3% Tuesday to $444.60, its lowest point in nearly a year. The dive reflects concerns that a slowdown in consumer spending could temper Google’s stunning growth. (http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-google5mar05,1,7597546.story  3/5)

Google has started offering search boxes within their search results. In the example above, a search box is offered for Amazon. The new service seems to be restricted to larger sites with a slant towards retails sites. Borders, BestBuy and OfficeMax offer the secondary box, as does a search for Wikipedia and The NY Times. (http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/03/04/google-offers-secondary-search-boxes 3/4)

Yahoo and Time Warner are holding in-depth talks to form an alliance that would help the Internet company fend off a takeover bid from Microsoft. A deal between the two companies would involve Time Warner merging its AOL unit into Yahoo, and then taking a stake in the combined entity. (http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB120468830515212763.html  3/5)

Yahoo’s Change in Strategy with the Microsoft Bid

Facebook is believed to be approaching record companies about creating a music service on the social networking site. The approach follows similar moves by rival MySpace, which is discussing a MySpace Music joint venture with Universal Music, Sony BMG, Warner Music and EMI. (http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/4dc3ea28-ea54-11dc-b3c9-0000779fd2ac,dwp_uuid=e8477cc4-c820-11db-b0dc-000b5df10621.html?nclick_check=1  3/5)

Facebook is hiring Google sales exec Sheryl Sandberg as COO, mining its rival’s ranks to gain expertise in online advertising sales. At Facebook, she will report to Mark Zuckerberg, the 23-year-old CEO of the No. 2 social-networking site. (http://www.news.com/8301-13577_3-9885424-36.html  3/4)

The music Web site Pitchforkmedia.com will launch its own version of MTV, with the new Pitchfork.tv. Pitchfork is already widely recognized as the most influential music destination on the Internet. The new video site will air concerts, interviews and music videos. (http://leisureblogs.chicagotribune.com/turn_it_up/2008/03/pitchfork-to-la.html  3/4)

Barry Diller’s Ask.com is abandoning its effort to outshine Internet search leader Google and will instead focus on a narrower market consisting of married women looking for help managing their lives. The site will help users answer questions on subjects like recipes, hobbies and health. (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080305/ap_on_hi_te/ask_makeover  3/5)

Nokia opened an online music store in Germany this week, just a few months after it launched its British online music store in November 2007. The company is charging about $1.50 per song and plans to open online stores in nine more countries by mid-2008. (The Washington Post/Reuters 3/4)  

Who needs Anderson Cooper? CNN has received more than 100,000 submissions from the public in the past 18 months for its iReporter citizen journalism project, says company exec Chris Press. The new iReport.com is “a lot like YouTube, but with a focus on personal reporting.” (http://www.journalism.co.uk/2/articles/531124.php  3/4)

MySpace founder Brad Greenspan’s LiveVideo.com acquired amateur video publisher Revver.com for an undisclosed amount. Revver was one of the first video sites to begin sharing ad revenue with its creators. But Revver was tripped up in Jan. of 2007 when its proprietary video player stopped working on MySpace. LiveVideo is now claiming that MySpace purposely blocked the player from its site for competitive reasons. (PhotoBucket submissions were also blocked from the social networking site in the weeks leading up MySpace’s acquisition of the photo sharing site.) For Revver the deal comes in a nick of time, as it had burned through its $13 million or so funding. (http://www.informationweek.com/software/showArticle.jhtml;?articleID=206901715  3/4)

Navic Networks, the company that manufactures interactive TV and advanced advertising applications, has received Acadia Application Integration and Test validation, opening the doors for it to run its systems on the Motorola/Gemstar TV Guide iGuide navigation system. The approval more than doubles Navic’s opportunities in the emerging digital-cable world, according to this article. (Light Reading 3/4)

Consolidation in the social media space continues. Santa Monica, CA.-based Demand Media, led by former MySpace Chairman Richard Rosenblatt, acquired social media platform provider Pluck. The move expands Demand’s network of websites to include more than 200 addition media properties that reach over 100 million users including Fox, Gannett/USA Today, Hearst, Meredith and McGraw Hill. The two platforms will combine toolsets to offer Pluck’s third party clients new revenue sharing applications. (http://blog.wired.com/business/2008/03/demand-media-pi.html  3/4)

(Below) While I appreciate any improvement, all of these upgrades/downloads are starting to drive me nutty.

Homepage application aggregator Netvibes launched a new version called Ginger, adding 3rd party widgets from Flickr, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Slide to the thousands of widgets it already offers. Ginger also offers sponsored search results for widgets from publishers such as The New York Times, Capitol Music Group, Los Angeles Times, washingtonpost.com, Newsweek, IDG and CondeNet.

Firebrand, a television and online service that since October has been presenting commercials as content, is being shut down as its major investors — including NBC Universal and Ion Television — decide to halt funding. The Firebrand TV show on Ion was said to be getting low ratings. (http://tvdecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/03/04/firebrand-burns-out  3/4) 

Prime time for online video may be lunchtime, but more companies are finding ways to block online video viewing in the workplace to increase productivity and reduce the drag on office networks, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Top 10 internet video brands viewed at work in the U.S., Jan. 2008
Brand                                Millions of streams
YouTube                                674.2
Yahoo                                    156.5
Fox Interactive Media                92.8
MSN/Windows Live                    74.2
ESPN                                        68.3
CNN Digital                               41.6
Turner Entertainment                 41.4
NBC Universal                           30.5
Disney Online                            27.2
Nickelodeon                               23.5
Source: Nielsen Online VideoCensus 

Percentage of U.S.Searches Among Leading Search Engine Providers
Domain                       Feb.-08          Jan.-08          Feb.-07
www.google.com           66.44%          65.98%          63.90%
search.yahoo.com         20.59%          20.94%          21.47%
search.msn.com            6.95%*           6.90%*          9.30%*
www.ask.com                4.16%            4.21%            3.52%
Note: Data is based on four week rolling periods (ending 2/23/08, 1/26/08; 2/24/07) from the Hitwise sample of 10 million US Internet users.
* - includes executed searches on Live.com and MSN Search.