Daily Marauder

ONLINE SERVICES/INTERACTIVE MEDIA by Marauder

ONLINE SERVICES/INTERACTIVE MEDIA

Yahoo has urged its shareholders to reject the slate of directors proposed by Carl Icahn, according to an SEC filing it did late on Friday. This is for Yahoo’s annual meeting, which was delayed and will now happen sometime late in July. (http://www.paidcontent.org/entry/419-yahoo-says-we-cant-on-icahns-slate 5/23)

Will we see longer-format videos on YouTube? CEO Chad Hurley says: “As we build bridges and connections to other devices beyond cell phones — connections to the TV — that is where it’ll become more of an opportunity for us [to] host and really push longer-form content.” (Iwantmedia 5/27, http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/635d1ba6-2876-11dd-8f1e-000077b07658.html?nclick_check=1 5/23)

Steve Chen, YouTube’s CTO, on YouTube and What Comes Next

Viacom’s $1 billion copyright infringement lawsuit against YouTube threatens how people exchange all kinds of information on the Internet, according to lawyers with YouTube owner Google, in new legal papers. Google says YouTube “goes far beyond its legal obligations.” (Iwantmedia 5/27, http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080526/ap_on_hi_te/youtube_lawsuit 5/26)

The American Federation of Television and Radio Artists may not have made much headway on the issue of new media control and compensation in negotiations with the AMPTP over the weekend. AFTRA National President Roberta Reardon sent a letter out to members warning of “tough challenges” involving new media and pointing to an editorial in the LA Times as a way to remind them that studios are not yet making much off the medium. Studios seek the right to re-use TV and film clips online as they see fit under a flat fee structure without having to consult performers as to their usage. The Screen Actors Guild is scheduled to resume negotiations with the AMPTP tomorrow. (Cynopsis 5/27)

Sometime soon, perhaps this week, Facebook will turn the year-old Facebook Platform into an open source project, multiple sources have told Techcrunch. The immediate effect will be to allow any social network to become Facebook Platform compatible – meaning application developers can easily take their Facebook applications and have them run on those social networks, too. (http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/05/26/facebook-to-open-source-facebook-platform 5/26)

In a marketing campaign on Facebook to promote “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull,” Viacom’s Paramount Pictures is allowing site users to send their friends a virtual version of Indy’s iconic brown hat. In less than 12 hours, all 250,000 of the hats sold out. (Iwantmedia 5/27, http://www.clickz.com/showPage.html?page=3629616 5/23)

Social networks, blogs and other “social media” are yet to produce significant revenue, say some entrepreneurs and financiers, despite years of experimentation aimed at turning such sites into money-makers. The failure is said to be dampening the mood in Internet start-up circles. (Iwantmedia 5/27, http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/6c968990-2b4c-11dd-a7fc-000077b07658.html 5/26)

Microsoft is abandoning its effort to scan whole libraries and make their contents searchable, a sign it may be getting choosier about the fights it will pick with Google. The software giant says: “The next generation of search is about the development of an underlying, sustainable business model.” (Iwantmedia 5/27, http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080524/ap_on_hi_te/microsoft_book_search 5/24)

Borders is jumping back into online retailing with a redesigned Web site that aims to evoke the feeling of browsing at a neighborhood bookstore. But after seven years paired with Amazon.com, analysts say it will be a challenge for Borders.com to step out of the Web retailer’s shadow. (Iwantmedia 5/27, http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080527/ap_on_hi_te/borders_goes_online 5/27)

Foreign Body from Vuguru, a 50-part serialized prequel to the Robin Cook’s soon-to-be-released novel streaming in 2-minute chapters 5 days a week through Aug. (Cynopsis 5/27)

I love the idea of using a web series to promote the release of physical media.  After experiencing only just over 2 minutes of video encapsulating the first episode, I would also say that the content is interesting.  I would add a tail end to this strategy and offer a story to follow the novel.  The primary winner in driving momentum in this strategy seems to be the novel as book sales should be increased if all goes well.  To garner some additional ad dollars online, I would create a top and tail to push users back online after reading the book as well and entice some additional online ad $$.

Episode 1

Scott Sassa, a former president of NBC Entertainment, is now behind Uber.com, a publishing platform that aggregates individuals’ Web sites for free. Discovery Communications is signing on as an investor and plans to use the site to power online forums for its cable channel shows. (Iwantmedia 5/27, http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-uber27-2008may27,1,4179227.story 5/27)

Jason Busch, a former columnist for InternetWeek and InformationWeek, is pulling in $300,000 a year from his blog, SpendMatters.com, which focuses on spend management. Busch is targeting annual revenue of $1 million from his business, which includes podcasts and Webinars. (Iwantmedia 5/27, http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/chi-mon-minding-blogging-businesmay26,0,7187568.story 5/26)

The method of counting video views on online portals varies greatly among the internet’s top sites, according to research conducted a year ago then recently revisited by TubeMogul. The online video analytics firm looked at 14 sites for possible overcounting, testing how 4 separate events are measured, including:

• Watching a video start-to-finish multiple times
• Watching a video and stopping more than half-way (but not to completion)
• Refreshing the browser after video play has begun
• Watching a video multiple times through a player embedded on another site

Only blip.tv, Metacafe, Dailymotion and Howcast had taken steps to account for pumped up views resulting when these actions are taken from a single IP address. Only blip and Metacafe held to the strictest standard of counting one user per IP address. (Cynopsis 5/27)

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