Daily Marauder

ONLINE SERVICES/INTERACTIVE MEDIA

Yahoo! co-founder and CEO Jerry Yang rejected an acquisition bid from Microsoft valued at $33 a share, or about $47.5 billion. Microsoft Chief Executive Officer Steve Ballmer then pronounced defunct the company’s months-long effort to acquire the Web portal. In a letter to Yang made public in news accounts, Ballmer indicated that he would not stage a proxy battle to gain control of the company. (The Wall Street Journal 5/5)

Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang says he would be open to another bid from Microsoft or other companies at a price he considers appropriate. While the Internet firm isn’t officially for sale, it would listen, “should somebody else come back someday and want to buy the company.” (http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=az5DfMHYs0pY 5/5)

Jerry Yang, chief executive officer of Yahoo! Inc., speaks during the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, Nevada, Jan. 7, 2008. Photographer: Ronda Churchill/Bloomberg News

With Microsoft walking away from the Yahoo deal, there’s been a lot of talk about what it’s next best option would be. Going after AOL is an obvious choice. It has the ad inventory (aka pageviews) Microsoft needs, has its own collection of growing online advertising businesses, and has a very willing seller in parent Time Warner. (http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/05/06/could-aol-be-next-on-microsofts-list 5/6)

Microsoft began offering TV downloads today for its Zune portable media player. The Zune online store, which used to offer only music-video content, will now offer shows from the likes of NBC, Comedy Central and MTV for about $2 each. Zune sales stand at more than 2 million, according to this article. (Reuters 5/6, Variety 5/6)

NBC’s return to YouTube with an official channel represents an acknowledgment of the power of Google’s community. NBC’s new Hulu channel on YouTube features brief clips from popular shows, along with the statement: “At Hulu.com, you can watch videos like this one, for free.” (Iwantmedia 5/6, http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080505-nbc-using-youtube-clips-to-drive-hulu-traffic.html 5/5)

Social networking and advertising networks are attractive sectors for investors in new media, according to panelists speaking at the Digital Hollywood conference in Hollywood. Also, investors should not look for any meaningful returns “for about five years.” (Iwantmedia 5/6, http://publications.mediapost.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=Articles.showArticleHomePage&art_aid=81967 5/6)

LinkedIn, the social-networking site for business professionals, is said to be raising a new round of funding. LinkedIn previously raised $27.5 million from venture firms Sequoia Capital, Greylock and Bessemer Venture Partners. The new round reportedly values the company at $1 billion. (Iwantmedia 5/6, http://venturebeat.com/2008/05/05/whats-happening-at-linkedin-is-it-getting-bought 5/5)

Amazon.com plans to make out-of-print CDs available via its “Disc on Demand” service. The retailer is working with Sony BMG and EMI Music to gain access to hundreds of titles. (InformationWeek 5/5, American City Business Journals/Sacramento 5/5)

Stephen Colbert’s use of the Internet is earning the Comedy Central host special recognition in the annual Webby Awards for online achievements. The New York Times’s online unit will take home eight honors in the ceremonies, June 9 and 10 in New York. (Iwantmedia 5/6, http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/080506/internet_awards.html 5/6)

AP Photo: In this March 5, 2007 file photo, Stephen Colbert poses during the launch party for “Stephen Colbert’s AmeriCone Dream”, his new Ben & Jerry’s ice cream flavor in New York.

Wikipedia is asking a court to dismiss a libel lawsuit brought by literary agent Barbara Bauer, who claims she was described as “The Dumbest of the 20 Worst” in an article. Wikipedia argues that it is immune from liability, because Web sites can’t be sued for comments posted by users. (Iwantmedia 5/6, http://publications.mediapost.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=Articles.showArticleHomePage&art_aid=81881 5/5)

The Interactive Advertising Bureau released its long-awaited Digital Video in-Stream Ad Format Guidelines to help provide a template for digital media firms to deploy, track and monetize non-linear ads. The goal is to develop common formatting and practices to make video ads more interchangeable between publishers and advertisers. (Cynopsis 5/6)

Multiplatform animation producer aniboom signed a quintet of online syndications deals to increase the exposure of its original content. Branded aniboom channels can now be found on DailyMotion, Metacafe, Veoh Networks and blip.tv, and more than 200 aniboom shorts are now indexed through video search engine Blinkx. The network also signed partnerships with MobiTV and Thumplay in the US and Buongiorno SpA, Cellfish, Jamster and Player X overseas to distribute bite-sized animated shorts on mobile platforms. (Cynopsis 5/6)

Another scalable online HD video start-up called Vusion shed its beta status and officially launched yesterday, competing with other high quality video streaming providers such as Move Networks and Brightcove. Island Def Jam Music will be its first paying customer, streaming music videos of artists such as Kanye West, Rihanna and Mariah Carey in 480p quality. (Cynopsis 5/6)

You’ll have to download a player for this one but the video is pretty impressive.  I checked out Kanye West’s Stronger video which was shot to be a bit grainy.  For a better representation of the quality, click on the image below and check out Rihanna’s Don’t Stop the Music video.

NCTA President Kyle McSlarrow was scheduled to testify today before lawmakers that broadband providers such as cable companies do not need to be regulated by net-neutrality laws, because they already manage the flow of online traffic in an open and effective manner. “The disaster scenarios voiced by network neutrality proponents for many years have never happened,” McSlarrow was set to tell the House Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet in morning testimony. “In fact, the opposite has happened — the Internet is booming without regulation. There is, quite simply, no problem requiring a government solution.” (Multichannel News 5/5)