Daily Marauder

ONLINE SERVICES/INTERACTIVE MEDIA

While people are watching video in ever-increasing numbers across all media and screens, the largest growth came in mobile video and on time-shifting devices, according to Nielsen’s report on fourth-quarter viewing habits. Internet video logged twice the gains of traditional television in terms of time spent watching and number of viewers, while mobile viewers increased 9% compared with the third quarter. The Wall Street Journal (2/23)

Hulu, founded by NBC Universal and News Corp., has become a better online video moneymaker than Web darling YouTube. But Hulu’s real victim might be cable companies: “Why pay $100 per month for a cable subscription when you can get so much great stuff online for free?” (Iwantmedia 2/23, http://www.newsweek.com/id/185790 2/21)

A video clip of Academy Awards host Hugh Jackman rehearsing his Oscars shtick in advance of the ceremony allegedly was “leaked” online by a production assistant. But the organizers of the awards are believed to have produced the clip, intending it to go viral. (Iwantmedia 2/23, http://goldderby.latimes.com/awards_goldderby/2009/02/sneak-peek-see.html 2/20)

That leaked U2 album is causing all sorts of trouble. The unreleased album, which is due out on March 3, found its way onto BitTorrent and was downloaded hundreds of thousands of times. That, apparently, sent music industry lawyers over at the Recording Industry Association of America into a fit. As a result, word is going around that the RIAA asked social music service Last.fm for data about its user’s listening habits to find people with unreleased tracks on their computers. (http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/02/20/did-lastfm-just-hand-over-user-listening-data-to-the-riaa/ 2/20)

If Facebook has one standout application it has to be Photos. Measured on its own, it is the largest photo site on the Web. A full 69 percent of Facebook’s monthly visitors worldwide either look at or upload photos, based on comScore data. And more than 10 billion photos have been uploaded to the site. (http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/02/22/facebook-photos-pulls-away-from-the-pack/ 2/22)

Online photo editing site Picnik is quickly climbing the ranks of photo sites from seemingly nowhere.   In January, according to comScore, the site attracted 6.6 million unique visitors worldwide, a tenfold increase from the year before. (http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/02/23/picnik-is-emerging-as-one-of-the-fastest-growing-photo-sites-on-the-web 2/23)

Late last week, Microsoft Research shared a couple of things about Social Desktop, a prototype of which they are debuting at TechFest 2009 in a couple of days. (http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/02/23/microsoft-research-a-look-at-the-intriguing-social-desktop-prototype 2/23)

Comcast has confirmed that its thePlatform unit will provide backing technology for a new online video initiative that would allow cable customers to access “more content in more places.” The company, which previously has powered online video for the BBC, PBS and Fancast, said the move “is also good for cable programmers because it doesn’t put subscription fees at risk, and gives them the ability to give their audiences the experience they want and expect.” The New York Times/GigaOm (2/20)