Daily Marauder

ONLINE SERVICES/INTERACTIVE MEDIA

Today (4/15), AOL will announce the acquisition of San Francisco-based Sphere, a blog content engine that launched in 2006. The price is not being disclosed, but sources are suggesting it’s in the $25 million range, or possibly a little more. (http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/04/14/aol-buys-sphere-content-engine 4/14)

Microsoft is said to be wanting to stick with its original takeover offer for Yahoo, but is not ruling out News Corp. joining its bid or other options. Separately, a source familiar with the matter says News Corp. continues to talk directly with Yahoo on reaching a deal without Microsoft. (Iwantmedia 4/15, http://www.reuters.com/article/technologyNews/idUSN1142716320080413 4/13)

Google has long been using Google Maps as a way to show local business listings. When you search for hotels in a given city, for instance, each digital pushpin that appears on the map can be clicked on to reveal more information, including photos, reviews, and Web links. Now YouTube videos associated with each listing will also appear. For instance here is a video that is embedded in the Google Map listing of a San Francisco bakery called I Dream of Cake (screen shot below). (http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/04/14/google-maps-youtube-videos-local-video-white-pages 4/14)

Peter Gabriel, the musician, is a partner in TheFilter.com, a new “recommendation engine” for music, movies and Web videos. The site plans to combine purchase, consumption and browsing data to create an “experience map.” The next level will be to meld user profiles. (Iwantmedia 4/15, http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/interactive/la-et-filterapr15,1,3508364.story 4/15)

The site is still in beta but here’s a sample screen grab to whet the appetite.

A study by In-Stat reveals that high-speed Internet and digital players are driving online music sales to new highs. The research firm says digital sales should account for 40% of all music sales by 2012. (TheRetailBRIDGE.com 4/10, Electronista 4/9)

Bertelsmann book publisher Random House plans to offer users a widget to browse its titles. The widget will let users flick through pages of over 500 books as they would in a real life bookstore, reading parts of text and browsing images. Users can then click through to buy. (Iwantmedia 4/15, http://www.nma.co.uk/Articles/37623/Random+House+launches+book+browsing+widget.html 4/14)

New York blog czar Nick Denton, founder and publisher of Gawker Media, is selling three of the new-media company’s properties: Idolator, Gridskipper, and Wonkette. In an internal e-mail, Denton explains: “Someone else will have better luck selling the advertising than we did.” (Iwantmedia 4/15, http://www.news.com/8301-13577_3-9917959-36.html 4/14)

After turning down a $100 million buyout offer, Federated Media Publishing has opted instead to raise $50 million in a C round led by Oak Investment Partners. As was reported two weeks ago, the rumored valuation is $200 million. While the company is not confirming that number, publisher Chas Edwards quips, “We have to be worth at least $101 million.” (http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/04/15/federated-medias-50-million-c-round-confirmed%e2%80%94no-plans-to-buy-up-blog-partners 4/15)

No wonder Rupert Murdoch is in no hurry to do away with the Wall Street Journal’s online pay wall. Even with it still in place around much of the site, traffic is growing. According to internal numbers, WSJ.com hosted 15 million unique visitors in March, a 175% increase over March 2007. (Iwantmedia 4/15, http://www.portfolio.com/views/blogs/mixed-media/2008/04/11/whoah-wsjcom-quietly-makes-big-traffic-strides 4/11)

Blurb, the on-demand print service with a specialization in photographic layouts, is expanding its “crowd sourcing” strategy onto, where else, but Facebook with a new app that brings people together to create professional quality books. (http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/04/15/build-a-book-on-facebook-with-blurb 4/15)

A wave of additional content companies announced support for Microsoft’s Silverlight video platform including Madison Square Garden Interactive, Tencent, Abertis Telecom, Terra Networks Operations, SBSi, MNet and Yahoo! JAPAN. Microsoft also unveiled the specs of Silverlight’s DRM solution PlayReady, supporting live and on-demand streaming and progressive video downloads. (Cynopsis 4/15)

Online media company CNET Networks is digging deeper into business coverage with plans to debut in-depth news and information on 11 industry sectors on its business manager Web site BNET.com. BNET will cover subjects such as health care, financial services, food, and media. (Iwantmedia 4/15, http://www.reuters.com/article/companyNews/idUSN1439881220080415 4/15)

A federal judge in Illinois has dismissed a $21.6 million lawsuit against Comcast that was filed by an e-marketing company called e360Insight. At issue was whether Comcast unfairly blocked online sales pitches, which attorneys for e360Insight said were legitimate, but Comcast — and Judge James Zagel — viewed as spam. (Multichannel News 4/14)

Users are visiting online video sites slightly less often but are spending more time on them once they get there, Hitwise’s latest panel results suggest. The Hitwise Online Video category accounted for 1.09% of U.S. internet visits in March 2008, a decline of 7% compared to March of 2007, with YouTube increasing its share to over 73% of all online video traffic. Yet time spent on video sites increased 7% for the week ending April 5, 2008 from a year earlier. Hulu ranked #22 on this list, despite being available to the public for only half the month. (Cynopsis 4/15)

Top 5 Online Video Websites ranked by Market Share of U.S. Visits
Rank Site Mar. 08 Mar. 07 % Change
1 YouTube 73.18% 55.28% 32%
2 MySpaceTV 9.21% 17.18% -48%
3 Google Video 4.06% 8.42% -52%
4 Yahoo! Video 2.16% 2.63% -18%
5 Break.com 1.82% 1.57% 16%
Source: Custom report from Hitwise

Top 5 Independent Online Video Websites ranked by Market Share of U.S. Visits
Rank Site Mar. 08 Mar. 07 % Change
1 Break.com 1.82% 1.57% 16%
2 MetaCafe .98% 1.13% -13%
3 Daily Motion .96% 1.03% -7%
4 Veoh .93% .38% 145%
5 Blinkx .58% .08% 625%
Source: Custom report from Hitwise

Top 10 Online Brands, Combined Home & Work (U.S.). March 2008
Brand Unique Audience (000) Time Per Person (hh:mm:ss)
Google 119,674 1:15:40
Yahoo! 114,551 3:12:38
Microsoft 99,672 0:44:46
MSN/Windows Live 96,993 2:13:44
AOL Media Network 90,644 3:59:59
YouTube 71,273 0:50:34
Fox Interactive Media 70,389 2:07:30
eBay 57,220 1:58:31
Wikipedia 54,301 0:18:36
Apple 47,516 1:13:23
Source: Nielsen Online

New figures released by comScore show that AOL’s Platform A advertising network is the top advertising network in the United States by reach (unique visitors). (http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/04/14/not-a-misprint-aols-platform-a-is-the-top-advertising-network-by-reach 4/14)