Filed under: ONLINE SERVICES/INTERACTIVE MEDIA | Tags: Apple, Google, ITunes Store, Lala, Myspace, Pandora, Searching, Wall Street Journal
ONLINE SERVICES/INTERACTIVE MEDIA
Apple is trying to round up programming support to offer a $30-a-month subscription-television service. The Wall Street Journal says Apple’s “over-the-top” service in theory could rival cable television, given it can offer programmers a base of 100 million customers through iTunes. The Wall Street Journal/Digits blog (11/2)
Best Buy Co., the world’s largest electronics retailer, will start an online store for movies and television shows that will compete with Apple Inc.’s iTunes. (Bloomberg11/3)
Last week Google launched the Music Onebox — a special new search result that lets users stream songs in their entirety for free. The feature is being powered through partnerships with MySpace and Lala who are providing the song streams, with contributions from a host of other partners like Pandora and imeem. Millions of people will doubtless stumble across the new feature on their own as they run searches for their favorite bands, but Google also has a few tricks up its sleeve to get the word out. We’re hearing that a number of well known artists will soon be actively promoting the service, offering exclusive content to fans who Google them.
Tres smart marketing promotion. Tres Tres smart, The word of mouth on this should be intense. Nice move Google. Very nice. (Techcrunch11/3)
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Filed under: ONLINE SERVICES/INTERACTIVE MEDIA | Tags: Apple, Hulu, iPhone, ITunes Store, News Corporation, Providence Equity Partners, Software release life cycle, Twitter
ONLINE SERVICES/INTERACTIVE MEDIA
As Hulu continues its spectacular rise (it is the No. 3 video site in the U.S. and is closing in on No. 2), it just got major buy-in from yet another major media company. Disney is now an investor, joining News Corp and NBC (along with private equity firm Providence Equity Partners). Each of the three media companies now reportedly own 27 percent 
of Hulu. (http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/04/30/disney-buys-into-hulu-youtube-should-be-worried/ 4/30)
A future version of iTunes, which was included in the beta version of an iPhone software update sent to developers, included a reference to Blu-ray playback in the “About iTunes” section, according to reports. The news indicates that Apple is preparing to make its applications and hardware compatible with Blu-ray, although the company has not released any statements to verify this speculation. InformationWeek (4/30) , Digital Trends (4/29
Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes says his company is working with several distributors on its TV Everywhere concept and will begin testing it sometime during the second half of the year. TV Everywhere, theoretically, will allow subscription-paying cable customers to watch their favorite shows on a number of other media platforms, including those that are mobile. Reuters (4/29)
Twitter has rolled out search functionality in a more prominent area of the site: the right nav bar. The functionality was originally only available to select users but now has been rolled out to everyone. (http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/04/30/twitter-brings-search-to-all/ 4/30)
To build buzz for MTV‘s Justin Timberlake-produced reality show The Phone, Fanscape has launched an interactive Twitter-based game on MTV’s Twitter page. Similar to the popular kids’ game “Telephone,” Fanscape tweets MTV’s audience weekly with abstract messages, asking them to change one word and retweet the message to create progressively funnier conversations. (Cynopsis 4/30)
Google has just announced that it has become the default location provider service in Firefox, which means beginning in the latest Firefox Beta (available here) users will be able to update their location from their web browser without having to install an extra plugins or programs through Google. (http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/04/30/google-becomes-default-location-provider-for-firefox/ 4/30)
Barry Diller’s IAC/InterActiveCorp says it is in talks to buy Yahoo’s online-dating business, after posting a first-quarter loss due to advertising woes. “We would love to have Yahoo Personals,” Diller says. IAC already owns Match.com, the Web’s largest online personals service. (Iwantmedia 4/30, http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124100716278968323.html 4/30)
Sony is making more of its films available for free on Crackle.com, the company’s online movie and television video site, adding “Spider-Man 2″ and other titles as it looks to attract more viewers and advertisers. The latest additions specifically target younger males. (Iwantmedia 4/30, http://www.variety.com/article/VR1118002988.html?categoryid=1237&cs=1 4/29)
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Filed under: WIRELESS | Tags: Android, App Store, Apple, Facebook, Google, iPhone, ITunes Store, Yahoo! Messenger
Popular social gaming developer Zynga
has just released Mafia Wars on Apple’s App Store, bringing the company’s incredibly popular game, which has over 9 million monthly users on Facebook alone, to the iPhone. You can grab the free game here (iTunes Link). (http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/04/07/zynga-brings-smash-hit-mafia-wars-to-the-iphone 4/7)
Google has launched a new Gmail mobile web app for the iPhone and Android-powered devices. The app has been revamped to have the same look and feel as your desktop Gmail. (http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/04/07/mobile-gmail-becomes-more-like-its-desktop-father 4/7)
Yahoo Messenger now has an iPhone app (iTunes link). It lets you IM your friends, see their status, share photos, share links, choose emoticons, and see recent conversations. It also lets you send free text messages by choosing a contact’s mobile phone number if they are not online. Replies come back to the app, which could save you a dime each time. (http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/04/07/yahoo-messenger-brings-free-text-messaging-to-the-iphone 4/7)
Just in time for the playoffs, Turner Sports’ NBA Digital launched the NBA Game Time mobile app on the Android Market for the T-Mobile G1. The free app offers live game scores, stats and schedules. NBA Playoff brackets will also be featured through a free upgrade just before the start of the postseason. (Cynopsis 4/7)
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Filed under: WIRELESS | Tags: Apple, Handhelds, iPhone, ITunes Store, Mobile device, Skype, Smartphones, Yelp
The official Skype iPhone application, announced earlier this week, hit the iTunes Store last Tuesday and since then it’s seen an astonishing one million downloads to the popular Apple devices, which is nothing short of amazing. That translates to approximately 6 downloads per second. (http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/04/02/skype-iphone-app-downloaded-one-million-times-in-first-two-days/ 4/2)
Local review sites like Yelp have irrevocably changed the way consumers find businesses in a particular area, and truly given power to the consumer in finding the best place to eat a meal, grab a drink, etc. And the potential of putting local reviews and listings on mobile devices is immense. Yelp’s existing iPhone app is less than a year old and it already accounts for 5% of Yelp’s overall traffic, which adds up to be around roughly 1 million monthly visitors. In the next few days, Yelp will be launching a new version of its popular iPhone app. (http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/04/02/yelp-focuses-on-mobile-new-and-improved-iphone-app-coming-soon/ 4/2)
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Filed under: WIRELESS | Tags: Cut copy and paste, Facebook, Finland, iPhone, ITunes Store, Mobile phone, New York, Nokia
Crunchgear liveblogged at the iPhone 3.0 press conference and yielded some delicious morsels of functionality. Here is pretty much everything you need to know, though as things get more clear, there will be updates. (http://www.mobilecrunch.com/2009/03/17/iphone-30-wrap-up-cut-and-paste-mms-push-and-more 3/17)
Ah, finally cut and paste. I can’t wait…
With more than 20,000 apps available for the iPhone, standing out from the crowd is becoming harder and harder for app developers. There are only so many slots in the the top apps lists in the iTunes Store. Discovering new apps is becoming a real problem. But what if apps started cross-promoting other apps, just like they do on Facebook? (http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/03/16/admob-is-working-on-an-iphone-app-exchange-to-swap-ads-for-traffic/ 3/16)
Nokia will eliminate positions in four of its divisions, the Finnish cell phone maker announced today, saying the global economic crisis has curtailed demand for electronics products. The company, which reported a 69% drop in fourth-quarter profit, said it would cut jobs in its handset, marketing, corporate-development and global-support units, including up to 700 in Finland. The Wall Street Journal/Dow Jones Newswires (3/17) , The New York Times/Reuters (3/17)
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Filed under: WIRELESS | Tags: Apple, Asia, Facebook, iPhone, ITunes Store, Japan, Mobile phone, Softbank
There are no official statistics available as how well the iPhone sells after Apple started offering it in the Japanese market
. Now Softbank Mobile, one of Asia’s biggest tech companies and the exclusive carrier for the iPhone in Japan, thinks sales need a boost and decided to give away the hardware basically for free. (http://www.crunchgear.com/2009/02/26/iphone-not-selling-well-in-japan-now-available-for-free 2/26)
How much overlap is there between your Facebook “friends” and the real contacts in your mobile phone’s address book? If those two world’s align and you have an iPhone, you might want to check out a nifty utility called Photo Phonebook (iTunes link). It finds the matches between the people in your iPhone’s contact list and your Facebook friends and downloads their Facebook profile photos. (http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/02/26/import-facebook-photos-into-your-iphone-contact-list-with-photo-phonebook 2/26)
Available in two tasty flavors, free (”AIM Free”) and paid (”AIM Paid”), AIM 2.0 for iPhone now provides SMS notifications, has location-aware services, and supports multiple accounts (among other updates). It appears as though all of the application updates have been included in both the free and paid versions, with the major (and obvious) difference being the inclusion of ads in the buddy list of the AIM Free app. (http://www.mobilecrunch.com/2009/02/26/im-wars-aim-for-iphone-grows-up-gets-paid-version 2/26)
Google has made its Android Market app store off-limits to those who bought an unlocked version of its G1 handsets as the company moves to prevent them from accessing copy-protected applications. Anyone who pays $25 to join the Android developer program can buy the unlocked hardware, which typically costs $400. Macworld/IDG News Service (2/25)
Thanks to the spike in mobile internet use and the push toward mobile TV services, U.S. mobile advertising search, SMS and display revenues will grow to $3.1 billion in 2013, up from a nascent $160 million in 2008, according to The Kelsey Group, a division of BIA Advisory Services. That represents a compound annual growth rate of 81.2%. (Cynopsis 2/26)
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Filed under: WIRELESS | Tags: Global Positioning System, Google Map, GPS, HopStop, iPhone, iPhone 3G, ITunes Store, Social network
Transit planner HopStop
launched its free iPhone application last week to rival the mobile version of Google Map’s Transit option. The application, with support from iPhone’s GPS functionality, offers all the same services as the website. This includes trip customization, maps marked with nearby subways and bus stops, a taxi mode that estimates time and cost of travel and contact information for taxi companies, and the ability to re-route transit plan provided. (http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/02/07/hopstop-jumps-onto-iphone-app-bandwagon-that-is-driven-by-google-maps 2/7)
iPhone dating app HotorNot introduced on Jan. 21 is answering its own question in the affirmative, climbing to the #4 ranking in the social network category at the iTunes store. The free social networking application works much like the site, allowing users to rate members (on a “hotness” scale of 1 -10), buy and send virtual gifts or chat in real time. HotorNot says the app has generated nearly 7 million ratings and over 3.5 million yes and no votes since its launch. (Cynopsis 2/9)
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