Daily Marauder

ONLINE SERVICES/INTERACTIVE MEDIA

Just last month, we wrote that Hulu had gained some 10 million viewers to become the fourth largest video portal on the web. Now, it’s slain another rival to the list: Yahoo, to move into #3 — at least in terms of videos viewed. To be clear, the new March U.S. numbers released by comScore show that Hulu is still slightly behind Yahoo’s video properties when it comes to unique viewers. But the NBC and Fox-backed Hulu should pass it any day now in that category as well. (http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/04/28/as-youtube-passes-a-billion-unique-us-viewers-hulu-rushes-into-third-place/ 4/28)

“$5 Cover,” a new series both on MTV and at fivedollarcover.com, is “a fascinating experiment in new-media storytelling.” The series, which follows a group of real-life musicians in Memphis, encompasses reality TV, music videos and mini-documentaries on several media platforms. (http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/the_big_picture/2009/04/5-cover-mtvs-new-media-and-music-franchise-.html 4/27)

Google News, the news aggregation site run by the Internet search giant, is unveiling the @googlenews Twitter feed. The Google News updates on the microblogging service provide links to stories from the 25,000 news sources which Google News aggregates on its home page. (Iwantmedia 4/28, http://tech.yahoo.com/news/afp/20090428/tc_afp/usmediaindustrynewspaperscompanytwittergoogle 4/28)

Online retailer Amazon has acquired Lexcycle, maker of the Stanza e-book reader application for the Apple iPhone, for an undisclosed sum. Unlike the recently released Kindle reader iPhone app, which uses a proprietary format, the free Stanza software allows users to browse more than 100,000 titles, most of which are open-source titles. The Wall Street Journal (4/28) , Macworld/iPhone Central blog (4/27)

Online video site Joost is shopping itself around to different cable TV operators, but at least one, Comcast, is said to have declined to buy it. Comcast owns a competing online video site called Fancast. Time Warner Cable is in talks with Joost for a possible acquisition. (Iwantmedia 4/28, http://tech.yahoo.com/news/ap/20090427/ap_on_hi_te/us_tec_cable_joost 4/27)

Cablevision on May 11 will begin rolling out speedy, DOCSIS 3.0-powered Internet service with download speeds of up to 100 megabits per second and upload speeds of up to 15 Mbps, according to these reports. The company also said it was working on doubling the speed of its Wi-Fi wireless Internet service. Reuters (4/28) , The New York Times/GigaOm (4/28)