Daily Marauder

ONLINE SERVICES/INTERACTIVE MEDIA

The NBA is in negotiations to offer live streaming of local market games in time for the 2008-09 season, according to Sports Business Journal. Each team will get to choose how to manage video streaming, interactive TV and VOD telecasts of their games within their local markets by using geo-targeted blocking technology to prohibit out-of-market streaming. ITV applications are expected to include real-time scores and statistics, polling and multiple camera angles. VOD services will include replayed games and highlights packages. Getting all the various cable and satellite regional sports network rights holders to sign off on the plan will be quite a challenge. But it may be more plausible now given what the industry has learned about broadband coverage of events being additive rather than cannibalistic. (Cynopsis 8/19)

Buzz, Yahoo’s Digg-like effort to leverage reader gestures and third party content in determining the most popular news, removes it’s barriers to entry yesterday. (http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/08/18/yahoo-buzz-opens-to-everyone 8/18)

Google is opening a Web site, freetheairwaves.com, to lobby U.S. regulators to free up unused television airwaves to help spur “a revolution” in wireless Internet services. CBS, ABC and other broadcasters oppose the plan, claiming it could interfere with free, over-the-air TV. (Iwantmedia 8/19, http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601204&sid=azWBUyj09q88 8/18)

News divisions continue to adjust their social networking strategies as they chase young politicos down on their favorite online hangouts. ABC News removed its U.S. Politics Facebook app and is preparing to launch a new project in the coming weeks while CNN and MSNBC are overhauling their presence on Facebook, notes B&C. Fox News is also preparing to update its Facebook page instead of turning to its sister site MySpace, reports The NYTimes. (Facebook users are “a little older and a little more sophisticated,” a Fox News executive is quoted as saying.) The new Fox News app will feature a video player allowing users to create shareable playlists and post their own videos. (Cynopsis 8/19)

To promote the release of season 2 of Dexter on DVD today Showtime launched a series of Rorschach-style inkblot tests to allow users to test whether or not they have the propensity to kill someone. (Cynopsis 8/19)

Fox International Channels is unveiling Biensimple.com, a wiki-based site targeting the U.S. Spanish-language community. This launch marks the first time FIC has opened a domestic site. Biensimple has “potential for evolving into a social network,” says FIC exec Emiliano Saccone. (Iwantmedia 8/19, http://www.adweek.com/aw/content_display/news/digital/e3i4c1e510d6bb05d0d47429f35fdc5c0bc 8/18)

Social media start-up KickApps struck a new partnership with CDN Akamai to integrate the KickApps video player with the Akamai’s Stream OS video management system creating an out-of-the-box video solution for web publishers. KickApps’ drag-and-drop interface allows publishers to create, manage and program an unlimited number of custom online video players with a range of social media features. Akamai’s management system automates syndication and back end functions. (Cynopsis 8/19)