Daily Marauder

ONLINE SERVICES/INTERACTIVE MEDIA

Adobe, in a somewhat foolhardy quest to develop and establish its own media distribution creds, has now updated its Media Player with a new interface, and added full length movies from Sony Pictures…also added are new shows from CBS, including episodes of Beverly Hills 90210, 48 Hours, The Love Boat. About 600 shows and 25,000 individual episodes are available in all in AMP. (http://www.paidcontent.org/entry/419-new-adobe-player-adds-sony-movies-still-trying-harder 7/21)

I’ve said it before but I’ll say it again, I have download fatigue.  The product has to be an unbelievable game-changer at this point for me to take the time to download it.  In most cases, I forget to remove the program and clog up my machine like a impenetrable drain.  Speaking of which, I should go remove Google Lively. . .

TiVo and Amazon.com may be getting one step closer to the marketing dream of using a TV remote control to order products being advertised or promoted on a talk show or commercial. TiVo today will unveil a “product purchase” option that will link to products being pitched by guests on a handful of popular talk shows, including Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show.” (The New York Times 7/22)

Ousted AOL chief Jon Miller is a candidate for one of the two open board seats activist investor Carl Icahn gets in a deal avoiding a battle for control of Yahoo. Miller could even end up running Yahoo if pressures to oust CEO Jerry Yang continue. (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080721/ap_on_hi_te/yahoo_miller 7/21)

Ongoing talks about a deal for AOL between Time Warner and Internet giants Yahoo, Google and Microsoft have heated up since Microsoft’s bid to acquire Yahoo was rebuffed by Yang in July. Those talks may further intensify, now that Yahoo may no longer be in play. (http://www.smartmoney.com/breaking-news/ON/index.cfm?story=ON-20080721-000487-1624 7/21)

MySpace is rolling out a couple of announcements this morning a day ahead of Facebook’s F8 developer conference. The first is confirmation of our story that they are supporting OpenID, although they aren’t releasing any details (It’s our belief that they will first issue OpenID IDs, and possibly become a relying party later).  The company is also announcing the launch of two new Data Availability integrations: Flixster and Eventful (we built what we believe is the first Data Availability app last month). (http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/07/22/myspace-confirms-openid-support-launches-data-availability-on-flixster-and-eventful 7/22)

Justin.tv, one of the first live video streaming sites, has announced its 1 millionth registered user since its launch in March 2007.  Justin.tv has a number competitors, namely Stickam, Mogulus, and Ustream.tv, but has managed to keep a strong presence in the space (maintaining attention along the way with a number of media stunts). We’ve analyzed the competition several times. (http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/07/21/justintv-reaches-1-million-users 7/21)

Looking to become a conduit for other companies that want to get into the online-video arena, Comcast unit thePlatform has announced a series of deals to help other cable providers gain a toehold in the emerging market for Internet content. ThePlatform, a Seattle company that Comcast acquired two years ago, said it would begin delivering video to high-speed Internet subscribers with Time Warner Cable, Cablevision and Cox Communications. (The Wall Street Journal 7/22)

New York attorney general Andrew Cuomo is notifying Comcast that the state will take legal action if the company doesn’t block access to adult content that features children. Comcast, the No. 2 U.S. Internet service provider, says it will take action. (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/07/21/AR2008072102623.html 7/22)