Daily Marauder

ONLINE SERVICES/INTERACTIVE MEDIA

Amazon has announced that first-quarter profit was up 29%, fueled in part by sales of electronics and other general merchandise, which was up 56% to $1.48 billion. “It would be irresponsible for me to say they’re recession-proof, but they do have the lowest pricing. They’re the first place a lot of people go to comparison-shop,” said Domenic LaCava, an analys at Boston-based (Canaccord Adams. ClipSyndicate/Bloomberg 4/24, The Seattle Times 4/24, Yahoo!/Associated Press 4/23, CNET 4/23)

The U.S. Justice Department is investigating possible antitrust implications of Google’s two-week test with Yahoo to combine some of their Web search and advertising business. The Justice Department is concerned that the test, which ends this week, may violate antitrust law. (hIwantmedia 4/24, ttp://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSWBT00884320080423 4/23)

To promote its Friday night MovieLand slot, MTV Network’s TVLand.com launched a fun Movie Lover’s Database comprised of nearly 1,000 trailers spanning from the 50’s to the present. The handy interface allows users to browse for trailers by name, genre or decade. (Cynopsis 4/24,  http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/Entertainment/2008/04/23/tvland_creates_new_database/2108 4/23)

Who throws a show?  Honestly. Best movie. . .EVER.

Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery Trailer

The Facebook developer community is thriving but faces a good deal of uncertainty about its future. That was the general message from a session held at the Web 2.0 Expo today called “The Facebook Platform: Finding Success in the Facebook Economy.” (http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/04/23/facebook-platform-faces-rough-road-ahead-despite-successes 4/23)

MySpace Application Gallery, MySpace’s app directory which launched in limited beta back in March, is now fully live and open to the public.  The MySpace application gallery allows users to browse applications and integrate them into their MySpace page and profile, giving what MySpace describes as “a more engaging and entertaining online experience.”  (http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/04/24/myspace-apps-moves-out-of-beta 4/24)

CNET Networks is expected to announce an editorial and advertising deal with Yahoo that will give the tech news site broad distribution on the highly trafficked portal. Yahoo will sell some of CNET’s remnant inventory and allow CNET ad sales staff to sell into some areas of Yahoo. (Iwantmedia 4/24, http://kara.allthingsd.com/20080424/cnet-and-yahoo-broadly-expand-editorial-and-ad-relationship 4/24)

Time Warner’s AOL is introducing an Internet-based marketplace where advertisers can bid for unsold space on company-owned Web sites and others on its Advertising.com network. The market gives advertisers one-stop access to thousands of sites reached by AOL’s ad businesses. (Iwantmedia 4/24, http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601204&sid=aMvRCQj8vj3g 4/24)

Popular podcasting network PodShow, co-founded by former MTV VJ Adam Curry, has officially relaunched as Mevio, adding new features including a tool that allows podcasters to program channels of content to send to other users. (Cynopsis 4/24)

Virgie Arthur, the mother of Anna Nicole Smith, is filing a lawsuit against Time Warner celebrity Web site TMZ.com, among others, claiming she was defamed. Arthur asserts that TMZ and others spread a false story that she was the mother of her stepbrother’s child. (Iwantmedia 4/24, http://www.reuters.com/article/entertainmentNews/idUSN2343027320080423 4/23)

Virgie Arthur (Anna Nicole Smith’s mom)

Internet Broadcasting says it got a huge boost from its new partnership with CNN.com, posting record unique visitors (UV) during the first three months of 2008. UVs grew each month with 17.7 million uniques in January, 19.6 million in February and 17 million in March, compared to 13.8MM, 15.4MM, and 13.9MM during the first three months of 2007. IB attributes the gain to election coverage, weather franchises and ongoing distribution increases. The company says 36 of its partner station sites hit records as well in terms of unique visitors and/or page views during Q1. (Cynopsis 4/24)

Here are some interesting facts about broadband consumption attributed to IP network management firm Arbor Networks, courtesy of GigaOM. On fixed and mobile consumer-focused broadband networks: (Cynopsis 4/24)

• 10 percent of subscribers consume 80% of bandwidth
• 0.5% of subscribers consume about 40 percent of total bandwidth
• 80% of subscribers use less than 10 % of bandwidth

This supports ISP’s argument that only a few heavy users are taxing the network for everyone. But it turns out peer-to-peer networks aren’t the real culprit. According to Arbor: (Cynopsis 4/24)

• Only 20% of traffic is P2P applications
• During peak-load times, 70% of subscribers use http, while 20% use P2P
• Http still makes up the majority of the total traffic, of which 45% is conventional text & images
• Streaming video and audio content from services like YouTube accounts for nearly 50% of the http traffic