Daily Marauder

ONLINE SERVICES/INTERACTIVE MEDIA

Google, which has nearly $16 billion in cash and securities in its coffers, is seen as unlikely to be out of the deal market for long. The increasing popularity of Twitter is raising speculation that Google may see a need to co-opt the service to protect its own search business. (Iwantmedia 3/24, http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSTRE52N0B120090324 3/24)

CBSSports.com‘s March Madness traffic numbers continued to climb over the weekend as an aggregate 5.6 million unique visitors consumed a total of 6.5 million hours of video throughout the first four days of the tournament – y/y increases of 65% and 71% respectively. (Cynopsis 3/24)

Netflix is taking advantage of the Facebook Connect service to allow subscribers to the movie-rental service to share their ratings and movie queues with social-network contacts. Those who opt in to the service will have their movie ratings posted on their Facebook profile pages, with those ratings linking back to the Netflix site. Reuters (3/24)

YouTube is giving Lionsgate two rich-media units and exclusivity on its home page to advertise the upcoming horror film, “The Haunting in Connecticut.” The Lionsgate ad is said to be part of a $500,000 buy that includes search and display across Google’s network. (Iwantmedia 3/24, http://adage.com/digital/article?article_id=135449 3/23)

Showtime is demoing the iTV Marketing App it has been using to market its Pay TV service to Dish Network subscribers at the Cable Show next month. Utilizing a platform-agnostic series of updatable templates, the application allows users to sample Showtime programming then sign up for the service directly from the remote. (With call-in customers costing operators and an average of $8 per call, this one should be a no-brainer.)  Showtime estimates it has added 100,000 subs from Dish since deploying the app two years ago. (Cynopsis 3/24)

Apple’s move to include HD video titles at its iTunes Store could pose a threat to video providers, according to this report, which suggests that audiences are getting more comfortable with viewing programming over a variety of gateways. Apple’s challenge could be especially strong because it sells current TV episodes and — since it does not stream video — lacks the bandwidth-quality issues faced by Web-based providers. xchange (3/20)

MTV Network’s Atom.com premiered Nick’s Big Show, a weekly six-episode mockumentary directed by Luke and Jeremy Jackson (Highway 61). It stars up-and-coming comedian Nick Thune. (Cynopsis 3/24)

Popular media and BitTorrent client Vuze released a new media streaming/downloading update allowing users to convert and play HD video on a variety of devices including the iPhone, iPod, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. Drag-and-drop videos from your Vuze Library to the device of your choice from the Sidebar section then use iTunes or the PS3 or Xbox 360 interface to access the titles. The software automatically converts the video the proper format. (Cynopsis 3/24)

Twitter has started to advertise a number of applications using the small box on profile pages that it first introduced earlier this month. Before today Twitter had reserved the space for links to its own services like Search, but now they are advertising a number of sites and apps, including Tweetie, a popular iPhone client. (http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/03/23/twitter-opens-the-revenue-faucet-starts-serving-ads/ 3/23)