Daily Marauder

ONLINE SERVICES/INTERACTIVE MEDIA

Looking to boost its presence in living rooms, Microsoft has announced a deal with movie-rental service Netflix that will allow Xbox 360 users to stream movies over the Internet and download them to the game consoles. Not to be outdone, Sony today is expected to announce its own service for downloading online theatricals to its PlayStation 3 machines. The Washington Post (7/15) , Los Angeles Times (free registration) (7/15) , The Wall Street Journal (subscription required) (7/15)

As Digg becomes more mainstream, so are the headlines linked to on its homepage. The once tech-heavy site long ago expanded into other categories such as entertainment, world, and business news. But that change is finally hitting its home page, either because Digg is attracting more mainstream users who are Digging more mainstream stories or it is using other (algorithmic) methods to point its firehouse in the direction of mainstream media. (Comscore shows 15.4 million unique visitors in May, and 6.3 million U.S. visitors in June). (http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/07/15/digg-is-pushing-more-traffic-to-traditional-news-sites 7/15)

MTV Networks signed an exclusive deal to begin producing multimedia digital comic books with a start-up named Gain Enterprises that will give users the chance to participate in the stories. The comic books, containing music and audible dialogue, will contain tools for adding and reciting dialogue to give fans a chance to put their own spin on the tales. The project’s first title, Invincible, will be previewed at Comic-Con next week and will be available on iTunes, Xbox Live and MTV Mobile from Aug. 24. (Cynopsis 7/15)

Google, for the discovery portion of its YouTube unit’s lawsuit with Viacom, will turn over an edited version of its database that does not show individual user information. Maintaining user privacy has been a central concern in the case, in which Viacom is charging YouTube with numerous piracy violations. The Washington Post/Reuters (7/15) , The Wall Street Journal (subscription required) (7/15)

ABC.com released some upbeat online viewing data for May from Move Networks, the online video vendor that powers its HD video player. Viewers watched a record 37 million episodes during the month – a 27% increase from April, or a total of 815 million minutes of full-length content (a 53% month-over-month increase.) A total of 400 million episodes have been viewed on the site since the original player launched in 2006. (Cynopsis 7/15)

ABC.com will release its third version of the player this fall, with enhancements including:

• True full-screen viewing, with no browser border
• Closed captioning for the hearing impaired
• Content sharing tools providing users with the ability send and share video links from full episodes with others through email or by embedding links on other sites
• Enhanced navigation and video search capabilities that will allow users to search for series graphically, alphabetically, by genre or popularity

NBC has already sold 85% of its online ad inventory for its expansive Summer Olympics coverage, according to Mediaweek. The network is selling 15 and 30 second pre and mid-roll video spots but no overlays, per International Olympic Committee rules. (Cynopsis 7/15)

A federal court in Manhattan cleared eBay of wrongdoing in a 4-year old suit brought by Tiffany & Co. for facilitating the sales of knockoffs on the site. The decision comes a week after eBay was ordered to pay $60 million to Louis Vuitton in France for violating intellectual property laws. (Cynopsis 7/15)

Microblogging site Twitter has acquired the Summize search engine, Twitter co-founder Evan Williams confirmed to me. The size of the transaction is not being disclosed, although the transaction price was paid “mostly in stock.” (http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/07/15/confirmed-twitter-acquires-summize-search-engine 7/15)

Fox Interactive Media cut into YouTube’s market share of online videos by 1.3 percentage points in May over the previous month, primarily due to the videos it streams on its MySpaceTV portal. It’s the first time in months that YouTube hasn’t increased its share, dropping from a 37.9% to a 34.8% share of all videos viewed during the month. Total online video views grew to over 12 billion in May, recovering from a slight dip in April. Over 74% of the total U.S. internet audience watched online video in May, with the average user watching 228 minutes of video. The duration of the average clip viewed was 2.7 minutes. (Cynopsis 7/15)

Top U.S. Online Video Properties* by Videos Viewed – May 2008
Property                  Videos (000)     Share Of Videos (%)
Total Internet         12,086,273            100.0
Google Sites             4,205,700             34.8
Fox Interactive Media   778,168              6.4
Yahoo! Sites                346,825             2.9
Microsoft Sites             245,899             2.0
Viacom Digital             206,047              1.7
Time Warner (ex.AOL) 145,113               1.2
ABC.com                    126,589              1.0
Disney Online             107,876               0.9
AOL LLC                     104,681              0.9
Hulu.com                     88,284              0.7
Source: comScore Video Metrix

Top U.S. Online Video Properties* by Unique Viewers – May 2008
Property                   Unique Viewers (000)    Ave. Videos per Viewer
Total Internet                  141,657                      85.3
Google Sites                      83,828                      50.2
Fox Interactive Media          60,760                      12.8
Yahoo! Sites                      40,197                       8.6
Microsoft Sites                   29,471                       8.3
Time Warner (ex.AOL)         24,612                       5.9
AOL LLC                            21,670                       4.8
Viacom Digital                    21,260                       9.7
Disney Online                     12,385                       8.7
ESPN                                  8,425                       8.9
ABC.com                            7,747                       16.3
Source: comScore Video Metrix