Daily Marauder

ONLINE SERVICES/INTERACTIVE MEDIA

Time Warner, which recently announced plans to spin off its Time Warner Cable unit, now is in talks with Microsoft and Yahoo! about AOL, according to a source quoted by Reuters. Microsoft ostensibly would acquire AOL outright, while Yahoo! would merge the online service with its own operations. The New York Times/Reuters (7/16)

MTV Networks is continuing its effort to tie programming with music with the debut of Soundtrack.mtv.com, an online music guide that also acts as an archive and a preview of what songs to expect in shows over the next 24-hour period. The Hollywood Reporter/Billboard (7/16)

Time Warner’s AOL is launching two new sites as part of its bid to grow advertising opportunities by serving niche audiences. The new WalletPop.com offers information on personal finance; Pixcetera.com, meanwhile, is devoted to high-quality professional photography. (Iwantmedia 7/16, http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/080715/aol_web_sites.html 7/15)

The storyline of long enduring web show LonelyGirl15 will come to an end on August 1 more than two years after Bree first peaked online viewers curiosity. Creators Miles Beckett and Greg Goodfried, who also wrote KateModern, are working on a new story and cast of characters and felt the need to put the original yarn to bed once and for all. (Cynopsis 7/16)

Online film portal Jaman signed its first major studio deal with Paramount per Variety, offering new and library titles such as Cloverfield and The Hours for rental at $2.99-$3.99 per movie. (Cynopsis 7/16)

BlogHer, an online network of female bloggers, has announced a partnership with iVillage and Women@NBCU, a new content and marketing intiative by NBC Universal. (http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/07/16/blogher-inks-deal-with-nbc-universal-raises-5-million 7/16)

Digital entertainment studio Deca launched a new website and online show dedicated to massive multiplayer gaming beginning with World of Warcraft, dubbed Project Lore. Alex Albrecht will host the daily show, clueing in fans to tips, cheats and tricks. (Cynopsis 7/16)

Project Lore Introduction

Samsung is sponsoring a new 3-part web series on Break.com called Ballpark Invasion, featuring insider tours of Fenway Park, Wrigley Field and San Francisco’s Giants Park. The gist is to demonstrate how useful Samsung’s multimedia Instinct phone is at capturing memorable moments at the ballpark. (Cynopsis 7/16)

Cox Communications, in the process of building its own broadband backbone, expects to finish the work by the end of the year. The completion of the 13,000-mile route will connect most of the company’s major systems and is expected to give it far more autonomy to handle its capacity needs. Light Reading (7/15)

Microsoft’s estimate that a combined Google and Yahoo search engine would control 90% of the search market is pretty spot on, according to the latest Hitwise search market share analysis. Google and Yahoo combined for 88.79% of the search market last month. (Cynopsis 7/16)

Percentage of U.S. Searches Among Leading Search Engine Providers
Domain       June-08        May-08        June-07
Google        69.17%        68.29%       63.92%
Yahoo         19.62%        19.95%       21.31%
MSN             5.46%*        5.89%*       9.85%*
Ask.com        4.17%         4.23%         3.42%
Note: Data is based on four week rolling periods (ending 6/28/08, 5/31/08, 6/30/07 from the Hitwise sample of 10 million U.S. Internet users.  * – includes executed searches on Live.com and MSN Search but does not include searches on Club.Live.com.
Source: Hitwise

Top 10 Parent Companies/Divisions for June 2008 (U.S., Home and Work)
Parent             Unique Audience (000)    Time Per Person (hh:mm:ss)
1. Google                   128,029                   1:50:16
2. Microsoft                123,021                   2:12:38
3. Yahoo!                   113,439                   3:07:47
4. Time Warner*           99,494                  3:23:24
5. News Corp. Online     80,606                  1:55:40
6. InterActiveCorp         63,935                  0:20:22
7. eBay                        62,767                  1:47:53
8. Wikimedia                52,836                   0:21:09
9. Amazon                   52,060                   0:28:03
10.Apple Computer       49,911                   1:08:33
*Time Warner division excludes Turner Network’s audience
Source: Nielsen Online

Average U.S. Internet Usage, Combined Home & Work, Month of June 2008
Home & Work,June   Home & Work,May   % Change
Sessions/Visits per Person              58                           59                   -1.7
Domains Visited per Person            107                         105                    1.9
Web Pages per Person                 2,373                     2,335                    1.6
Duration of a Web Page Viewed   0:00:53                 0:00:53                   -1.1
PC Time per Person                   65:58:23               66:02:45                  -0.1
Active Digital Media Universe     164 million           166.5 million                 -1.5
Current Digital Media Universe   223.1 million          222.3 million                 0.4
Source: Nielsen Online