Daily Marauder

ONLINE SERVICES/INTERACTIVE MEDIA

Amazon.com may actually be getting a boost from high gasoline prices as more shoppers make purchases online, Variety reports. Revenue was up 41% in the second quarter, fueled in part by sales of books, music and movies, which were up 31%. ClipSyndicate/Bloomberg (7/23) , The New York Times (7/24) , The Wall Street Journal (subscription required) (7/24) , Variety (7/23)

Facebook is setting out to broaden the appeal of its outside applications by giving programmers access to tools for translating into 20 different languages. The social network also is trying to make it easier for its users to move their personal profiles and favorite apps to other sites. (Iwantmedia 7/24, http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080724/ap_on_hi_te/facebook_programmers 7/24)

Mark Zuckerberg, founder and CEO of Facebook, gestures while delivering the keynote address during the annual Facebook f8 developer conference in San Francisco, Wednesday, July 23, 2008.

Comscore has just released the latest data on Facebook growth patterns, which clearly show that Facebook’s recent push to expand abroad has paid off. The site has seen extremely high growth rates across Latin America, The Middle East, and the Asia Pacific. Europe, which accounts for a much larger user base, continues to grow at a steady clip as well. (http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/07/23/facebook-growth-explodes-globally-levels-off-in-the-us 7/23)

MySpace’s upcoming music joint venture with 3 of the 4 major labels, first announced in April, will launch in September (EMI is still a holdout, but from what we hear they may be ready to fold soon). Chris DeWolfe, CEO of MySpace, mentioned that date and gave other details about the joint venture in an interview today with Adam Lashinsky at the Fortune Brainstorm conference in Half Moon Bay, CA. (http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/07/23/myspaces-dewolfe-says-new-music-joint-venture-to-launch-in-september 7/23)

After years of ceding the upper hand in online travel to booking sites like Kayak and Orbitz, American Airlines is about to fight back. According to the CEO of a competing travel site, American Airlines is about to pull its airline listings out of Kayak and is considering doing the same with Orbitz. If it does so, other airlines such as Continental and Northwest may follow suit. (http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/07/23/trouble-in-online-travel-american-airlines-ditches-kayak-maybe-orbitz-too 7/23)

Warner Bros. is going after the Web sites that posted pirated copies of the hit new Batman film “The Dark Knight.” A spokesman for the Time Warner studio says it is taking action: “We actively search for these sites and services and have them taken down.” (Iwantmedia 7/24, http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-9997233-93.html 7/23)

NBC Universal, Fox News Network and Fox Television Stations are filing a lawsuit against Redlasso, alleging the Web site is improperly making available video clips of their copyrighted programming. Redlasso allows users to create embeddable clips of video and audio footage. (Iwantmedia 7/24, http://www.observer.com/2008/media/fox-news-fox-television-stations-group-nbc-universal-filing-joint-copyright-suit-against 7/23)

Google VP Marissa Mayer says Google News might not make money on its own, but it drives $100 million worth of search. Google News is free and has no advertisements, but it funnels readers to the main Google search engine, where people do searches that produce ads, she says. (Iwantmedia 7/24, http://bigtech.blogs.fortune.cnn.com/2008/07/22/whats-google-news-worth-100-million 7/22)

Time Warner’s AOL is integrating technology from its newly acquired Goowy Media to help advertisers pitch their products and services at social-networking sites. Install a photo program to show off pictures of your dog on Facebook, and you might find you’re really spreading an ad. (Iwantmedia 7/24, http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/080723/tec_techbit_aol_widgets.html 7/23)

“Saturday Night Live” cast member Seth Meyers is directing and starring in “The Line,” an original comedy Web series to debut on Sony’s Crackle.com. Sony is integrating three real-life film releases from its Columbia Pictures studio into the webisodes. (Iwantmedia 7/24, http://www.upi.com/Entertainment_News/2008/07/23/Seth_Meyers_stars_in_new_Web_series/UPI-52871216857991 7/23)

This morning at that OSCON conference David Recordon of Six Apart will announce on stage the formation of the Open Web Foundation. The new foundation is about providing a home for the development and ratification of web-related standards efforts. The foundation will be focused on developing the technical specifications of protocols used for communication and inter-operability between applications on the web. The foundation will also set out the legal terms and best practices for the use and transport of both private and public data, and the usage of web services. (http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/07/24/open-web-foundation-officially-launches 7/24)

Comcast, the country’s biggest cable TV provider, will begin offering next month advanced telephony services such as visual voice mail, caller ID on TV and universal address book. With 5.15 million phone subscribers, Philadelphia-based Comcast now ranks as the fourth-largest phone company in the U.S. CNNMoney.com/Associated Press (7/23)