Filed under: ONLINE SERVICES/INTERACTIVE MEDIA | Tags: Facebook, Myspace, News Corp, Social network service, World Wide Web, Yahoo
ONLINE SERVICES/INTERACTIVE MEDIA
Microsoft is continuing to distance itself from Yahoo, telling the people it had lined up to nominate to the board as part of a prospective hostile takeover battle that their services are no longer needed. The software giant insists that its pullback is not a negotiating tactic. (Iwantmedia 5/9, http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-microsoft9-2008may09,0,5935072.story 5/9)
Google expects to launch new products for YouTube in the next few months and sees reason for closer cooperation with Yahoo, says CEO Eric Schmidt, speaking at the Internet giant’s annual shareholder meeting. Getting YouTube to make money is said to be a top priority. (Iwantmedia 5/9, http://www.reuters.com/article/internetNews/idUSN0841442520080508 5/8)
News Corp.’s MySpace plans to give users the option of sharing their profiles and other personal data with other Web sites, a move that could dramatically expand the reach of the Web’s most popular social network. The “data-availability initiative” will be open to rival Facebook. (Iwantmedia 5/9, http://www.informationweek.com/news/internet/social_network/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=207601084 5/8)
Facebook is announcing an agreement with 49 U.S. state attorneys general and the District of Columbia to take significant steps to protect children on the social networking site. The move comes after a similar agreement was reached with MySpace in January. (Iwantmedia 5/9, http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/2008/05/08/facebook-agrees-to-child-safety-plan 5/8)
Cablevision announced Thursday that it would spend about $300 million to build a wireless-broadband network that will cover its footprint in the New York City region. The company also announced that operating income jumped 44% in the first quarter on strong additions of video, broadband and phone subscribers, but that its deficit widened. (The Wall Street Journal 5/9, Light Reading 5/8, Google/Associated Press 5/8)
What’s this? A cable company thinking outside the box?!!? No. . .it couldn’t be. Dear Cablevision, thank you. Thank you for envisioning ways to bringing Wi-Fi for free to your broadband customers rather than solely thinking about ways to restrict access [cough, cough] Comcast [cough]
Twisney.com, created by a 34-year-old software developer and Disney fan, offers live updates from ordinary people walking around the Disney World recreational resort, using their cellphones to share their experiences via text and photos. Twisney allows users to share “real-time intelligence.” (Iwantmedia 5/9, http://blogs.wsj.com/buzzwatch/2008/05/08/citizen-journalism-live-from-disney-world 5/8)
Turner’s SuperDeluxe.com comedy site is being folded into AdultSwim.com with much of the SuperDeluxe staff being let go, reports paidcontent.org. (Cynopsis 5/9)
The price war over bandwidth, its patent fight with Akamai and the loss of Divx Stage6 as a customer took its toll on CDN Limelight Networks during Q1, as the company missed its revenue targets by $1 million. On the bright side Limelight signed up 183 new customers during the quarter and got major accounts such as MySpace and Viacom to renew. (Cynopsis 5/9)
(Below) Step 1: Upload application. Step 2: Send out press release. Please do not confuse step 1 with step 2.
NBC is launching an application on Facebook based on its “American Gladiators” series. “The Official American Gladiator Challenge” will present interactive games based on the show’s competitions. Users will be able to compete against their friends and the greater Facebook community. (Iwantmedia 5/9, http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/news/e3if1d4beff617a2bbe837c6b395affd965 5/9)
Facebook will soon remove a limitation that restricts users to no more than 5,000 friend connections, someone close to the company told us this week. There are stories around why the limitation exists at all. The official reason is that Facebook wants to make sure that people only add “real” friends to their account, and the restriction is on the high end of the number of friends that any one person could reasonable have. The unofficial (and actual) reason: scaling problems made this necessary. I’ve heard this directly from Facebook employees, as have others. (http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/05/09/facebook-to-lift-5000-friends-limit 5/9)
The IAB issued revised Ad Unit and Rich Media Creative Guidelines yesterday, asking for input from ad agencies, advertisers, online publishers and technology vendors. The guidelines cover formatting standards for banner ads, buttons, floating ads and other rich media products. Companies have 30 days to comment via the IAB site. (Cynopsis 5/9)
The IAB’s Audience Measurement Working Group also expects to release guidelines soon that will finally define many of the metrics terms publishers throw around. If only standards could be set in time for the upfronts where web metrics are expected to play a major role. Experts say inconsistencies and confusion over web measurement issues have a more adverse affect on digital ad spending than practically any other issue. (Cynopsis 5/9)
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