Daily Marauder

ONLINE SERVICES/INTERACTIVE MEDIA

News Corp. is shutting down PageSix.com, its entertainment gossip site, after a mere three months online. PageSix exec Jennifer Jehn cites “difficulty in the economy.” Some 18 staffers will be let go. PageSix was not believed to be making rapid inroads against sites like Time Warner’s TMZ. (Iwantmedia 3/21, http://gawker.com/5004134/page-six-shutters-web-site-after-three-months  3/20)

Pagesix.com vs. TMZ.com

 
Don’t mess with March Madness. CBS Sports is learning that lesson the hard way on Facebook, where a major backlash is happening over its NCAA basketball bracket application. Yes, this is the same application that was allowed to spam users’ friends with more invites than other Facebook apps. (http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/03/21/cbssports-facing-march-madness-backlash-on-facebook-this-app-blows  3/21)

 
Ning certainly continues to rock and roll, at least according to data released by the company and reported by Comscore. The company, which allows users to easily create social networks, now has over 200,000 social networks on the platform and is adding another 1,000 or so per day. And Comscore-reported traffic is spiking up nicely: 3.1 million unique visitors/month, generating 71 million page views (February 2008). Ning, in short, looks like it might be a real business. Meanwhile, Ning competitor Flux, which is backed by Viacom, seems to have fallen off a cliff (we’re checking with Comscore on that data – see our earlier post on Flux growth here, including the update). (http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/03/20/ning-all-our-charts-point-up-and-to-the-right  3/20)

 
The NHL’s free on-demand video service launches on Hulu.com today. Catch a full-length “game of the week,” a full-length classic match up or highlights and features on individual players or teams. (Cynopsis, 3/21)

 
If you hate rising costs, Comcast has a deal for you. The country’s largest cable firm has started offering a $42.95 price-for-life plan for current and new broadband customers. The program does not require a long-term contract, and it offers download speeds of up to 12 megabytes. (American City Business Journals/Albuquerque, N.M. 3/20)