Daily Marauder

ONLINE SERVICES/INTERACTIVE MEDIA

Downloading movies is kind of a fool’s game. You have the movie on disk, but now what? Well, it seems Apple is thinking about adding streaming to the next version of iTunes and, presumably, offering cheaper streaming prices for those so inclined. (http://www.crunchgear.com/2009/02/12/itunes-might-get-streaming-with-acceptable-prices-for-same 2/12)

Borrowing a model from the sporting world, CBS.com is launching a fantasy league for the newest season of Survivor offering the winners a free trip to Brazil. Registered players are randomly assigned a tribe, in which they win points and compete for the top spot on the Leaderboard. Players are able to trade any or all of their Survivor team members and are awarded points based on their team members’ performance in certain categories. (Cynopsis 2/12)

When TV networks and programmers pay for a search-ad link with Google to promote a new show, the likelihood that people actually will tune in to the show goes up 25%, according to the Internet search giant. The likelihood goes up 20% for an existing show, Google said. MediaPost Communications (2/11)

This past December we reported on how Facebook was coming up on Blogger to steal its top spot among social media sites when measured by total unique visitors worldwide.  Now, it appears as though Facebook has finally done it. Data from comScore, which unfortunately goes only through December 2008, shows how Facebook’s visitors (221 million) basically matched Blogger’s (225.5 million) by the end of the year. (http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/02/12/looks-like-facebook-just-took-the-top-spot-among-social-media-sites 2/12)

Brett Brewer, the co-founder of MySpace‘s parent company before it was sold to News Corp., says the global battle against Facebook is over. Facebook, he predicts, will come to dominate MySpace in worldwide user numbers. “There’s a fundamental shift going on.” (Iwantmedia 2/12, http://business.smh.com.au/business/facebook-tipped-to-outshine-myspace-20090211-84qt.html 2/12)

Trying to differentiate itself from rival Netflix, Blockbuster is launching a pilot program to expand its Total Access online movie rental service to include video games. So in addition to movie titles to choose from, select Total Access subscribers will have access to game titles for a number of platforms including the Nintendo Wii, PS2, PS3, Xbox and Xbox 360. (Cynopsis 2/12)

Consider it a sign of the times when internet company Google acquires the buildings and premises of a mill site from a paper, packaging and forest products company that caters to the print industry. (http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/02/12/google-buys-a-paper-mill 2/12)

Horror maestro Stephen King was on hand Monday to help launch the Kindle 2, reserving a novella exclusively for the device. Now legal thriller specialist John Grisham is close to signing an e-book deal with Bertelsmann AG’s Random House publishing arm to make all 22 of his books available in all e-book formats, reports the WSJ. Amazon’s Kindle has driven two-thirds of all e-book sales thus far, according to estimates. (Cynopsis 2/12)

Cyber-crooks are setting traps on the popular news-sharing Web site Digg. Criminals pose as Digg members and then entice readers with links to “scintillating” online celebrity videos. Those that follow the links are prompted to download software, which turns out to be malware. (Iwantmedia 2/12, http://tech.yahoo.com/news/afp/20090211/tc_afp/usitinternetdiggpanda 2/10)

Increased video consumption will contribute to the overall doubling of Mobile Data Traffic every year through 2013, according Cisco‘s annual Global Mobile Data Traffic Forecast, updated this week. Almost 64% of the world’s mobile traffic will be video by 2013. The proliferation of netbooks and high-end handsets will be key drivers of traffic; a single laptop can generate as much traffic as 450 basic-feature phones, and a high-end handset such as an iPhone or Blackberry device creates as much traffic as 30 basic-feature phones. (Cynopsis 2/12)

IP Traffic 2006-2012
2008   2009    2010    2011     2012       2013       CAGR
Application (TB per month) ’08-’13
Audio                              3,612   7,996   16,930  35,486   74,503    154,988   112%
Video                             13,062 38,681 107,714 274,820 650,310 1,390,548  154%
P2P                                 6,714 15,851  33,784   69,856 134,224   220,829   101%
Data                               9,680  22,547  48,984 102,054 217,282   417,847   112%
Source: Cisco 2009