Filed under: ONLINE SERVICES/INTERACTIVE MEDIA | Tags: Comcast, Eric E. Schmidt, ESPN, Google, NBC, Search, Twitter, YouTube
ONLINE SERVICES/INTERACTIVE MEDIA
Google CEO Eric Schmidt hints that a deal with Twitter could be close, although he dampens speculation that he is planning to buy the microblogging phenomenon. “We do not have to buy everyone to work with them.” Google is believed to be seeking real-time search. (Iwantmedia 5/20, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/mediatechnologyandtelecoms/5351937/Google-chief-hints-at-partnership-with-Twitter.html 5/20)
After NBC “unceremoniously” cancelled “My Name Is Earl,” one of the sitcom’s actors, Ethan Suplee, turned to Twitter to complain. His actions helped spark a Twitter-based campaign to resurrect the series. An earlier geek-led campaign purportedly helped save NBC’s “Chuck.” (Iwantmedia 5/20, http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/showtracker/2009/05/my-name-is-earl-creator-greg-garcia-is-a-writer-because-he-has-a-way-with-wordsasked-for-his-take-on-nbcs-unceremonious-canc.html 5/19)
U.S. cable giant Comcast climbed the most in customer-satisfaction ratings among its peers by using Twitter to calm disgruntled subscribers, according to the American Customer Satisfaction Index. Comcast employs 10 people to monitor tweets about the company. (Iwantmedia 5/20, http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=a71HPbtIMT20 5/19)
ESPN on July 15 will launch the first integrated video player on YouTube and also will be the first network to run pre-roll ads on the Google-owned site, the Walt Disney Co. unit announced at its upfront. “We’re programming dayparts as if ESPN.com was a new network,” said Sean Bratches, ESPN’s executive vice president of sales and marketing. “We want to make ESPN and our partners’ brands available to fans in every conceivable way.” Advertising Age (5/19)
The DVD box set of the just-ended season of “24″ on News Corp.’s Fox network became available for sale the day after the airing of the season finale. News Corp. describes the unusually quick DVD release as an “experiment” amid changing viewing habits in the digital age. (Iwantmedia 5/20, http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/technology/news/e3ic8543054a8a9084dc949c8916b611a54 5/19)
You’d be hard pressed to find someone who tries the online streaming radio service Pandora that doesn’t like it. In fact, some users like it so much that they actually ask for ways to pay the company, to make sure it stays alive (something that has been a question mark given the oppressive Internet radio licensing costs). And while there has been a limited subscription version for some time, Pandora has never proactively promoted it. But starting tomorrow it’s taking the freemium model seriously, with the launch of Pandora One
. (http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/05/19/pandora-gives-the-freemium-model-a-thumbs-up-with-pandora-one/ 5/19)
Remember TotalMusic, the failed music initiative created by Sony BMG and UMG that was built from the start with the goal of serving as Facebook’s music platform (and was ultimately rejected by the social network)? Its assets were recently acquired by Project Playlist, the troubled music streaming startup that just lost its CEO to MySpace last month and has had lawsuits pending from the major record labels since late last year. (http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/05/19/the-record-industrys-failed-totalmusic-project-finds-a-new-home-at-project-playlist/ 5/19)
A U.S. district judge is ordering YouTube to pay $1.61 million in royalties to the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers, the performance rights organization, for streaming music on the video site. YouTube is expected to pay songwriters going forward. (Iwantmedia 5/20, http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20090519/1127454934.shtml 5/19)
Google has released a new version of Reader that’s been tweaked a bit. Google has added a new set of tabs in the trends page called “Friends Trends,” where you can see which friends share the most content and whose shared items you read. (http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/05/19/google-releases-new-version-of-reader/ 5/19)
Following a suit filed by Discovery Communications against Amazon in March alleging infringement on a patent held for e-book technology, Amazon has filed a lawsuit against Discovery alleging infringement on four e-commerce patents held by the company. Discovery has not responded in court to the suits but is in the “process of reviewing those and will respond appropriately in due course.” The Wall Street Journal (5/20)
Looks like Windows Media Center, that hub for video and audio which I’ve never used, is getting full Netflix streaming support. This is good news for those of you running HTPCs with Vista on them — no need for an extra layer or front-end, just open up WMC, enter your info and you’re on your way. (http://www.crunchgear.com/2009/05/20/windows-media-center-gets-netflixd 5/20)
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=0f6cb176-4c21-4a17-88ff-fb98dfacf5f0)
Filed under: ONLINE SERVICES/INTERACTIVE MEDIA | Tags: Craig Mundie, Eric E. Schmidt, Eric Schmidt, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, United States, YouTube
ONLINE SERVICES/INTERACTIVE MEDIA
Earlier today, the U.S. declared a public health emergency over the Swine Flu, after confirming 20 cases of the flu spreading to humans in New York, Ohio, Kansas, Texas and California. More than 80 people have died in Mexico from the disease, which has potentially spread to other countries, including Canada and France. Although Federal officials are urging Americans not to panic about the disease, fear of contracting the potentially deadly flu is quickly spreading over Twitter, Google, and blogs across the web. (http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/04/26/swine-flu-spreads-panic-over-the-web 4/26)
Eric Schmidt, 
Google’s CEO, and Craig Mundie, Microsoft’s chief research and strategy officer, have been named to President’s Obama’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST). According to a statement released by the White House, PCAST is an advisory group of the the country’s foremost scientists and engineers who will help the President and Vice President form policy related to science, technology, and innovation. (http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/04/27/googles-schmidt-and-microsofts-mundie-appointed-as-obama-tech-advisors 4/27)
Google plans to roll out a system that will bring high-quality news content to users without them actively looking for it, according to CEO Eric Schmidt. Users will be automatically served the kind of news that interests them. Google will sell advertising against premium content. (Iwantmedia 4/27, http://www.thewrap.com/ind-column/2679 4/25)
Facebook is expected to open up core parts of its site to third-party developers so that they can build new services. The move means developers can build services that access the photos, videos, notes and comments users upload to Facebook, with users’ permission. (Iwantmedia 4/27, http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124078628311057281.html 4/27)![[facebook]](image021.jpg@01C9C747.89E261D0)
Computers will freeze and drop offline with increasing regularity as the Web’s outdated infrastructure struggles to cope with the surging popularity of bandwidth-hungry video sites, analysts warn. YouTube reportedly uses as much bandwidth as the entire Internet took up in 2000. (Iwantmedia 4/27, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/scienceandtechnology/technology/technologynews/5224306/Internet-users-could-suffer-brownouts-due-to-YouTube-and-iPlayer.html 4/27)
AOL is adding a twist to old-fashioned political journalism with the launch of its new political news and blog site, PoliticsDaily.com. The site, which will primarily focus on in-depth political commentary as opposed to breaking news, will only provide original content, from long-form analysis to blog posts on issues in the U.S. political landscape. (http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/04/26/aol-launches-online-news-magazine-politicsdaily 4/26)
MTV Networks exec and co-founder John Sykes will replace outgoing CEO Owen Van Natta as the new head of Project Playlist, the controversial music-sharing site. Van Natta is being named CEO of MySpace. Sykes, who helped launch MTV 25 years ago, left the company last year. (Iwantmedia 4/27, http://kara.allthingsd.com/20090424/project-playlist-names-former-mtv-exec-sykes-as-ceo-replacing-van-natta 4/24)
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=4508e612-70cf-4fcd-bc0f-dccc1481eef9)
Filed under: ONLINE SERVICES/INTERACTIVE MEDIA | Tags: Advertising, Eric E. Schmidt, Google, Julia Child, Mario Batali, NBC Universal, UK, YouTube
ONLINE SERVICES/INTERACTIVE MEDIA
YouTube is blocking all music videos to U.K. users after failing to reach a new licensing agreement with the Performing Right Society, Britain’s music royalty-collecting body. The group says the move “punishes the songwriters whose interests we protect.” (Iwantmedia 3/10, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7933565.stm 3/10)
Proving that I will finally be able to do Beyonce’s Single Ladies dance better than my British counterparts. Suck it UK…
Google’s advertising business appears to be under increasing pressure as fewer shoppers search for products online and advertisers spend less. CEO Eric Schmidt admits that the economic situation is “pretty dire” and that his company is “not immune” to current conditions. (Iwantmedia 3/10, http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20090309-711758.html 3/9)
Users of Bravoforfoodies.com and Oxygen.com have access to Cookstr’s collection of recipes, thanks to a new partnership with NBC Universal‘s Bravo Media and Oxygen Media. According to this report, viewers will be able to see recipes from Bravo’s “Top Chef” celebrities as well as recognized top chefs Mario Batali, Jamie Oliver, Julia Child and Jacques Pepin. Broadcasting & Cable (3/9)
A great site for finding some recipes for those random ingredients lurking in your fridge. You can search by ingredient, chef, or recipe. Very nice. Now, all I have to do is stop buying the random key lime curd at Dean & Deluca…
ESPN’s ESPN360.com online portal has introduced a new advertising feature that provides brands with more dynamic commercial capabilities and better reporting on how many viewers are streaming those ads. The new wrinkle, which debuted March 6, during college basketball’s Championship Week, also allows ESPN the ability to run more varied spots in a greater number of pods. Mediaweek (3/9) , The Wall Street Journal (3/10)
This graphic scares me…so I thought I would bring it to you…to spread the fear around.
While sites such as Facebook and Yahoo remain very popular, marketers are shifting advertising dollars toward sites such as those owned by Meredith and NBC, according to digital ad agency Razorfish. Portals aren’t necessary “to achieve scale.” (Iwantmedia 3/10, http://adage.com/digital/article?article_id=135095 3/9)
Time Inc. CEO Ann Moore says she is considering making the publisher’s most successful Web sites, such as Time.com and People.com, subscription-based. “Someone has to pay for the Baghdad bureau.” She admits she does not know whether it will work. (Iwantmedia 3/10, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/mediatechnologyandtelecoms/4963568/Times-Ann-Moore-looks-to-internet-subscriptions.html 3/10)
In its ongoing effort to unlock value from the $850 million acquisition of Bebo, AOL People Networks announced the launch of its Bebo U.S. Latino site. Built on its new Lifestream platform that enables users link to their accounts at YouTube, Flickr, Twitter, Facebook or MySpace, the site also features videos, photo galleries, polls, quizzes, and surveys from partners Hearst Magazines Digital Media and AOL Latino, AOL’s bilingual portal for U.S. Hispanics. (Cynopsis 3/10)
Social networking, defined as “member communities,” has an active reach of 67% as compared with 65% for e-mail, per a Nielsen study. The audience for social nets and blogs also is rising at twice the pace of portals, e-mail, search and other key sources of Web traffic, according to Nielsen. Adweek (3/9)
Two online teen brands have joined at the hip. Fast growing Sweden-based virtual doll site Stardoll (27 million users/month) and its new sister site Paperdoll Heaven has merged with teen-targeted social network Piczo (which claims 30 million registered users -including long inactive ones – mostly in the UK and the U.S.) The three sites will form the Stardoll network as a single platform for advertisers. (Cynopsis 3/10)
The largest U.S. cable TV providers added 3.2 million broadband subscribers in 2008, about 1 million more than their telecom rivals, according to a study by Leichtman Research Group. Comcast, the largest cable company, led the way with 1.3 million adds. CED Magazine (3/2009)
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=5577112f-1c65-472a-bdd1-c5c167691de2)
Filed under: ONLINE SERVICES/INTERACTIVE MEDIA | Tags: CBS Sports, Dane Cook, Eric E. Schmidt, Google, Google Page Creator, Jeff Dunham, Jim Gaffigan, Wall Street Journal
ONLINE SERVICES/INTERACTIVE MEDIA
Today, the New York Times is redefining “Extra” as stories written by others. It is turning on a new feature on its homepage
called Times Extra that will start adding links from elsewhere underneath the headlines of its own articles. The related links are from other news sites and blogs (even the Wall Street Journal), with the source highlighted in green to differentiate them from the New York Times’ own stories. (http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/12/04/the-new-york-times-clutters-up-its-homepage-with-links-from-elsewhere-in-beta 12/4)
The College football game of the year is going to be available on multiple platforms. As part of its new deal with SEC, CBSSports.com and CBS Sports Mobile will provide live streaming video of the CBS Sports broadcast of the 2008 SEC Championship game between No. 1-ranked Alabama and No. 2-ranked Florida on Saturday, Dec. 6 at 4:00 PM, ET. MediaFLO subscribers can also view the game live and for free on CBS Sports Mobile. (Cynopsis 12/4)
You know times are tough when Google is forced to cut back. This is precisely the case on the Google campus according to The WSJ, as CEO Eric Schmidt and new budgeting czar Francois Delepine continue to meet with executives to decide which programs to let go. (SearchMash, virtual world Lively and Google Page Creator have already been eliminated or merged into other products.) Despite its generous funding of pet projects, Google continues to receive 97% of its revenue from search advertising. (Cynopsis 12/4)
Conde Nast is shutting down teen social networking service Flip.com on Dec. 16, according to an email sent out to users this week. The site was built as a place to come and share “flipbooks” of photos, videos and other content. (Cynopsis 12/4)
Yah, I didn’t know it was there either. Step one. Don’t make users sign in to use your site. Coercion will get you no where my dear. . . Being that I could use a kick ass slideshow tool like Animoto (even though, yes, I have to sign in), I would have little reason to use this one. Have I mentioned I heart Animoto lately?
Comedy Central relaunched Jokes.com with a treasure trove of 12,000 text-based jokes and 5,000 standup performances from the network’s 10-year-old programming vault. It’s look is a bit pedestrian but the MTV Entertainment Digital team deserves points for building in as many touch points as humanly possible. Search the routines of comedians such as Dane Cook, Jeff Dunham and Jim Gaffigan or sort by most popular clips, comedian’s name, TV show or most recently added video. Look for jokes from 72 different categories. There are 770 jokes tagged in the pop culture category alone. The site will also function as the central hub for all Comedy Central stand-up events, tours, shows and live comedy entertainment. UGC content and more social tools are needed to make it a truly vibrant comedy portal but the depth of professional content on the site provides a terrific base to start with. (Cynopsis 12/4)
Amazon released its previously announced Public Data Sets web service this evening. The project encourages developers, researchers, universities and businesses to upload large (non-confidential) data sets to Amazon – things like census data, genomes, etc. – and then let others integrated that data into their own AWS applications. (http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/12/04/amazon-launches-public-data-sets-to-ease-research 12/4)
Also on the Hispanic front Cablevision has launched Optimum Latino, a new web channel delivering high-quality Spanish-language content exclusively for Optimum Online customers. The service, which features news, entertainment, sports, and the 15-channel Terra TV platform, is accessible through Optimum Online’s consumer web portal, Optimum.net. (Cynopsis 12/4)
Widget syndication platform iWidgets rolled out a new version of its widgets publishing system, simplifying the process of creating content widgets to distribute out to Facebook, MySpace, Hi5, and iGoogle. iWidgets’ Social Syndication Platform offers drag-and-drop customization of widgets as well as native deployment into social networks. CBS was an early client, allowing social network users watch clips of CBS programming. (Cynopsis 12/4)
Logo‘s campy new online and on air film series “Graveyard Shift” should be worth a few laughs. The weekly series, which celebrates that curious intersection between the gay and horror film genres, kicks off tonight at midnight ET/PT with The Gay Bed & Breakfast of Terror, which tells the story of five gay couples vacationing at the quaint but deadly Sahara Salvation Inn. Logo’s is also hosting a dance-themed webcast Unbuttoned Live this Saturday live from Ultra Suede in West Hollywood, hosted by Noah’s Arc star Wilson Cruz. (Cynopsis 12/4)
(Below) Perhaps I could provide Comcast with a “your customer service sucks” meter for all of the moments when customers are unhappy? That way, they can keep tabs on their customer’s usage in yet another way.
Comcast, possibly by the beginning of January, will start providing its high-speed Internet customers with bandwidth meters so that they can keep tabs on their own online usage. Charlie Douglas, a Comcast spokesman, said that after being tested by employees, the meters would be deployed free of charge and enable users “to very easily keep track of their aggregate data usage each month.” CNET (12/3)
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=a86d8647-7bc9-4d7a-b690-b37a39297b29)
Filed under: WIRELESS | Tags: Apple, Eric E. Schmidt, Google, iPhone, Myspace, News and Media, Searching, Steve Jobs
In preparation for what Apple watchers expect to be the introduction of the second-generation iPhone, the company’s CEO Steve Jobs has apparently learned from his past mistakes, say analysts and company watchers. Meanwhile, these same observers are scratching their heads over what Jobs will say in an anticipated keynote speech next month. (The New York Times 5/28)
Steve Jobs
The next big wave in advertising will be the mobile Internet, says Google CEO Eric Schmidt. Everyone “has a mobile phone.” Web 2.0 “is not where the money is.” MySpace is yet to “monetize.” Also, Google’s focus is on the end-user. “We are not looking at it from the publisher perspective.” (Iwantmedia 5/28, http://faz-community.faz.net/blogs/netzkonom/archive/2008/05/26/eric-schmidt.aspx 5/26)
Eric Schmidt
The San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit District is negotiating with a startup for a Wi-Fi network that would provide fast Internet access to riders throughout its 104-mile regional rail system. (http://www.infoworld.com/article/08/05/23/SF-BART-in-talks-for-full-Wi-Fi-rollout_1.html?source=NLC-MOBILEHARDWARE&cgd=2008-05-28 5/23)
Monsoon Multimedia will produce a beta version of its HAVA Mobile Player that allows users to watch their home TV on select Nokia phones. The device will give people on the go many DVR-like features as well as schedule DVR recordings from the phone. (mocoNews.net 5/27)
