Filed under: ONLINE SERVICES/INTERACTIVE MEDIA | Tags: AOL, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Myspace, Yahoo, YouTube
ONLINE SERVICES/INTERACTIVE MEDIA
As Microsoft‘s self-imposed Saturday deadline approaches, CFO Chris Liddell reiterated the company’s position that it is ready to take its offer to buy Yahoo for $44.6 billion directly to shareholders. Microsoft reported that net income fell 11% during Q1 to $4.38 billion. But online and entertainment services and devices proved to be bright spots – up 40% and 68% respectively from a year ago. (Cynopsis 4/25, http://www.reuters.com/article/technologyNews/idUSN2435171420080424 4/24)
Yahoo is opening its Web platforms wide open to let outside developers create applications across its network of sites. It is also radically stitching together its online services to replicate the social experience that MySpace and Facebook have made so popular. (Iwantmedia 4/25, http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,145062/article.html 4/24)
The leading 100 media companies will earn $20.7 billion in Internet revenue, with advertisers forecast to spend $2.9 billion annually on online video ads by 2010, according to a new report from the Screen Actors Guild. Some 9 billion videos are watched online every month, led by YouTube. (Iwantmedia 4/25, http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/news/e3i0f3a7216274d5d82b1cb8bfc2996dc9e 4/24)
A yearlong effort by AOL to transform its content Web sites into crowd-pleasers is beginning to pay off. Traffic to the sites grew 15% to 56.5 million unique U.S. visitors in the first quarter from a year ago. Also: AOL is acquiring the fantasy football site FleaFlicker.com. (Iwantmedia 4/25, http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB120908335534743525.html 4/25, http://publications.mediapost.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=Articles.showArticleHomePage&art_aid=81375 4/25)
LeepFrog.tv launched an online music video discovery site offering video, audio sampling and full-length tracks for purchase from a range of labels including Interscope Records, Bad Boy Entertainment and Epic Records. The site will curate the platform to limit the focus to only 50 new releases at any one time. (Cynopsis 4/25)
Video search provider ClipBlast introduced a new “Playbox” feature to combine video search and syndication into a unified experience across various providers, reports VideoNuze. The application also provides a recommendation feature, linking to related 3rd party videos that are played directly from the site. (Cynopsis 4/25)
The following web site is brought to you by, Mishaps in Web Site Design. It seems that 60% of the problem most video search providers are experiencing is directly related to user interface and 40% to poor search results. I want to find what I’m looking for without having to look at a page which inspires vomiting and seizure. A strobe like of web sites. . . (Note, percentages above are not hard data. I know someone is just waiting to respond.)
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