Daily Marauder

ONLINE SERVICES/INTERACTIVE MEDIA

Only 15% of the country knows about online video site Hulu.com, but those that do rate the NBCU-News Corp. joint venture highly, according to a report by Solutions Research Group. The report also showed that the average age of a Hulu user is 32, that their income is 22% higher than the U.S. average and that two-thirds are male. TVWeek.com (7/17)

Not everyone is going to watch the Olympics on their PCs, but they will want the ability to catch events that occurred in the middle of the night. DirecTV announced an agreement with NBCU to help fulfill this need, offering more than 500 titles on its new on demand service available through the end of the games in both standard and HD. But viewing on NBCOlympics.com should be something to behold. More than 2,200 hours of content will be streamed, giving users the ability to track live stats, access athlete profiles and toggle back and forth between live events being held simultaneously. Note that many of the higher profile track & field events will not be shown online, however. They will be held for later use in NBC’s prime time line-up. (Cynopsis 7/18)

The first trailer for one of the most highly-anticipated comic book film adaptations ever hit Gizmodo today. Yep, it’s the trailer for Watchmen that’s debuting before The Dark Knight. Directed by Zack Snyder of 300 fame, it’s sure to be the biggest fanboy magnet of the decade. (http://gizmodo.com/5026434/nerdgasm-watchmen-trailer-hits-web-a-day-early 7/17)

Yahoo reiterated that it is still open to a full takeover at a price of $33/share and that it would seriously consider an offer for its search businesses in a letter to shareholders. CEO Jerry Yang and Chairman Roy Bostock also defended its search partnership with Google, claiming it will bring in more revenue than a similar proposal from Microsoft. (Cynopsis 7/18)

Yahoo is pulling out its biggest gun in the showdown with Carl Icahn: the Yahoo homepage itself. Right now on Yahoo.com, the single most-visited page on the Web (with 304 million unique visitors worldwide in May, according to comScore), there is a big purple button the third box down aimed squarely at Yahoo shareholders. The button takes people to this page where Yahoo outlines its argument against investor Carl Icahn, who wants to replace Yahoo’s board, fire Jerry Yang, and then restart negotiations with Microsoft (an effort that is not going so well). (http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/07/18/fighting-for-its-life-yahoo-uses-its-homepage-to-battle-carl-icahn 7/18)

Google disappointed investors when it reported a mere 35% increase in net income yesterday (up to $1.25 billion) on revenue of $3.88 billion, falling short of lofty expectations. CEO Eric Schmidt put on a happy face, blaming the downturn in the economy. (Cynopsis 7/18)

CEO Eric Schmidt, on a conference call after Google reported disappointing second-quarter earnings, says he expects to hit the mother lode when YouTube finds a way to make money. Monetization “is likely to be very large because of the scope and scale of YouTube.” (Iwantmedia 7/18, http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-9993929-93.html 7/17)

Warner Bros. is releasing an online Batman series to tie-in with the film “The Dark Knight,” a hybrid of comic books and animation that the studio calls “motion comics.” The Web shorts will be distributed via Microsoft’s Xbox 360 game consoles and Verizon’s V Cast mobile phones. (Iwantmedia 7/18, http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB121634908179464605.html 7/18)

With the highly successful launch seen by Pandora’s iPhone app, streaming digital radio seems ready to finally go mainstream. Unfortunately, as great as Pandora is, its music recommendations can shy towards music you already know – you may like the song that gets recommended, but there’s a good chance you’ve heard it before. For listeners looking for something that’s entirely new, there’s StumbleAudio, a streaming music service exclusively for indie music that is launching today with a catalog of over 120,000 artists and 2 million songs. (http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/07/18/stumbleaudio-is-pandora-for-indie-music 7/18)

I wouldn’t recommend this site.  Pandora may produce music that I’ve already heard but StumbleAudio produced music that I hated.  I searched for music like Beck and got a random selection of really awful music.  I’ll take Pandora thank you very much.

Legendary animation producers (and goofballs) Spike & Mike, creators of the long running Spike & Mike’s Sick and Twisted Animation Festival, have staked a claim on the web, offering selected shorts, merchandise and even a UGC section. The site is part of the Mondo Media Network. (Cynopsis 7/18)

NPR entered the web 2.0 world releasing a public API enabling developers to create applications to help spread its content to third party sites, blogs and profiles. Click here for a few widgets that have already been built, including a radio search tool for the iPhone from Axiom Software and a NPR podcast player for Facebook. Not everything is being let free, unfortunately – no Car Talk, This American Like or Fresh Air, for instance. (Cynopsis 7/18)

Eighteen of the country’s largest cable companies have agreed to block Internet access to Web sites known to contain files related to child pornography, the NCTA announced Thursday. The group also pledged to work with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and the National Association of Attorneys General to combat the problem. PC Magazine (7/17) , Multichannel News (7/17)