Daily Marauder

ONLINE SERVICES/INTERACTIVE MEDIA

Jonathan Miller, the former CEO of AOL, is taking over the digital assets of News Corp., we’ve confirmed – his new title will be CEO of Digital Media. This will include Fox Interactive Media and other duties. Peter Levinsohn, the current president of Fox Interactive, will be leaving his current position but will remain at News Corp. (http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/03/27/breaking-former-aol-chief-jonathn-miller-new-fox-interactive-chief/ 3/27)

Disney is entering a deal to put video clips from ABC and ESPN on Google’s YouTube video site in an advertising-revenue sharing arrangement. Disney also is near an agreement to take a stake in rival video portal Hulu, whose owners include NBC Universal and News Corp. (Iwantmedia 3/30, http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=afGDz3LXeq8I 3/30)

YouTube will soon unveil a redesign that separates its professional content from amateur videos. YouTube is also redesigning its video player to resemble the video experience on NBC Universal-News Corp.’s increasingly popular Hulu. “It’s totally a Hulu approach.” (Iwantmedia 3/30, http://www.clickz.com/3633218 3/30)

Time Warner Cable has started testing a subscription service in Milwaukee that enables viewers to watch shows on cable networks such as HBO on their computers. According to these reports, the test could lead to a dramatic game-changer for the TV landscape. The New York Times (3/29) , The Hollywood Reporter (3/27)

In an upbeat report this morning, the Interactive Advertising Bureau reported that internet advertising in the U.S. grew 10.6 percent to $23.4 billion. And the $6.1 billion fourth quarter (up 2.6 percent) was the first time Internet advertising surpassed the $6 billion mark. That said, the rate of growth declined both on an annual and quarterly basis. Even the 4.5 percent sequential growth over the third quarter was the lowest since 2002 (as was the annual growth rate). But the sequential growth showed a promising uptick in the fourth quarter compared to the previous three quarters, as the chart above shows. This rebound is also in line with what the four big Web advertising companies (Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, and AOL) saw in the fourth quarter. (http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/03/30/iab-reports-internet-advertising-grew-10-percent-last-year-outpacing-tv/ 3/30)

Two Microsoft-related announcements coming from social networking giant MySpace today: the portal is adding support for Windows Mobile-run phones to its new mobile application, due this summer, and bringing the Silverlight runtime to its developer program thanks to a jointly developed Open Source kit. (http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/03/30/myspace-embraces-microsoft-platforms-for-mobile-and-web-applications/ 3/30)

All you Twitter addicts stuck in traffic, some good news. You might not have to risk your life any longer sending out one-handed Tweets on your Blackberry or iPhone, while trying to hide the fact that you are doing so under the dashboard. If you have OnStar in your car, you may soon be able to send and receive hands-free Tweets through OnStar’s voice-activated calling system. (http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/03/27/omg-onstar-may-soon-let-you-twitter-from-your-car/ 3/27)

Online music may be a treacherous space right now, but there are still a handful of music startups that may be coming close to getting it right. One of our favorites is Lala, a streaming music site that allows users to put their digital music library in the cloud, which can then be accessed from any computer. And soon, they’ll be able to access every song they own from their iPhones too, without having to worry about storage capacity or syncing. (http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/03/28/an-exclusive-first-look-at-lalas-iphone-app/ 3/28)

Google is launching a music search service in China that offers free downloads of songs supported by advertising. Through a partnership with China’s Top100.cn, Google is offering more than 1.1 million songs from record labels including Warner, Sony, Universal and EMI. (Iwantmedia 3/30, http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20090330/ennew_afp/lifestylechinausinternetmusiccopyright 3/30)

Fox News Channel hopes to leverage its conservative news brand online with The Fox Nation, a new Web site built around its on-air personalities. The site will emulate parent News Corp.’s MySpace by encouraging readers to post comments and argue with one another. (Iwantmedia 3/30, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/29/AR2009032902102.html 3/30)

Flickr founder Caterina Fake revealed her latest creation, Hunch, a new ad supported social networking/decision making engine that allows users to pose questions that are answered using data culled from like-minded users. (Cynopsis 3/30)

IAC property CollegeHumor is acquiring the sports satire site SportsPickle for an undisclosed sum. The purchase puts the popular CollegeHumor portfolio of comedy content into the sports vertical. Barry Diller’s IAC already encompasses 35 Internet businesses. (Iwantmedia 3/30, http://www.minonline.com/news/10458.html 3/27)

In a world where everything is being jammed into 140 characters or less, shorter is better. That goes double (or is it half?) for lengthy URLs. So-called URL shortening services are increasingly becoming indispensable to anyone who uses Twitter. It is the only practical way to share links on the service. Today, one of these URL shortening services, bit.ly, raised $2 million, sparking the question: How much are these things actually worth? ) (http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/03/30/if-bitly-is-worth-8-million-tinyurl-is-worth-at-least-46-million/ 3/30)