Daily Marauder

ONLINE SERVICES/INTERACTIVE MEDIA
Twitter has become a central channel for eyewitness accounts and news updates on the terrorist attacks in India, amid a local coverage black out. The service has been flooded with thousands of “tweets,” some from people trapped in the hotels where the attacks were taking place. (Iwantmedia 12/1, http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/192cc2ae-bdb6-11dd-bba1-0000779fd18c.html?nclick_check=1 11/29)

I for one was glued to twitter for hours, watching the attacks unfold in real time on a monitor in front of me.  It brought me back to the dark place I felt after 9/11 in my upper west side apartment as I sat glued to CNN for hours on end.

The terrorists who attacked various locations in south Mumbai last week used digital maps from Google Earth to learn their way around, according to officials investigating the attacks. The terrorists are said to have used satellite phones and global positioning systems. (Iwantmedia 12/1, http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9121819&intsrc=news_ts_head 12/1)

Yesterday was the day that Facebook made their big press push for their Facebook Connect service, which was first announced last May. (http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/11/30/facebook-google-myspace-data 11/30)

The Web sites of Discovery Channel and several other content creators are preparing to join Facebook Connect, a new service from the social-networking site that allows users to let their friends know where they’re going on the Internet. Connect hopes to create pools of users who can, for instance, watch the same online video stream and discuss the content among themselves. The New York Times (11/30)

New research from NBC Universal suggests advertisers should continue spending while the economy is down and target women who do most of the purchasing. In previous downturns, companies that continued spending increased their market share, and it took years for companies that dropped ads to recover, says Susan Malfa, vice president of ad sales at Bravo and Oxygen. TVWeek.com (11/30)

What is fascination with Britney Spears? Maybe it’s a train-wreck kind of thing. Once again she tops Yahoo’s list of overall searches for 2008, just like she did last year. (http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/12/01/yahoos-top-searches-for-2008-are-the-same-as-they-were-for-2007 12/1)

U.S. cable and telecommunications companies are forging ahead with plans to radically change their familiar flat-rate monthly Internet plans, even as new options for watching movies and television online proliferate. “Usage caps” will penalize those who send and receive too much data. (http://www.smartmoney.com/Spending/Rip-offs/Get-Ready-to-Pay-More-for-the-Web 12/1)

Hulu.com performed an internal study offering users the option of viewing one two-minute ad or four 30-second spots, reports AdAge. An amazing 88% of Hulu visitors preferred the long form ads, which are opt in – allowing viewers to select from a variety of 2 minute commercials. Participating sponsors included Columbia TriStar, American Express, Hyatt, Paramount Pictures, Sprint and Capital One. (Cynopsis 12/1)

Pownce, the media-rich Twitter competitor once labeled by the New York Times as “the hottest startup in Silicon Valley”, is headed to the deadpool after being acquired by Six Apart. The service, which was co-founded by Digg’s Kevin Rose along with Leah Culver and Daniel Burka, will be closing its doors on December 15. (http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/12/01/pownce-deadpooled-team-moves-to-six-apart 12/1)

Parents hit with pre-holiday pleas for “Grand Theft Auto IV” have a new source for sorting out which video games are appropriate with the launch of AOL’s PlaySavvy.com. The new site offers parents a guide to games, from ratings and reviews to connecting with other parents. (Iwantmedia 12/1, http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticleHomePage&art_aid=95495 12/1)