Daily Marauder

ONLINE SERVICES/INTERACTIVE MEDIA

Netflix said new net subscriptions declined 30% in October compared with a year ago and — despite reporting a 30% increase in net income for the quarter — again cut its fourth-quarter estimates for adding new customers and profits. The company, which also stated that 500,000 of its 8.7 million subscribers will be Blu-ray customers in the fourth quarter, restated its outlook downward for the second time in two weeks. The Wall Street Journal/Dow Jones Newswires (10/21) , Reuters (10/20)

It looks like Walmart has soft-launched it’s DRM-free MP3 store class=”snap_preview_icon”> . The company decided to ditch its DRM approach, but then got into hot water with consumers once they figured out that Walmart was going to be taking down the servers they used to manage all the DRM rights. No servers, meant that they wouldn’t be able to listen to the songs they had legally purchased. So Walmart had to reverse course class=”snap_preview_icon”> and is now keeping those servers up. (http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/10/21/screenshots-of-walmarts-new-mp3-only-store 10/21)

Yahoo just announced third quarter earnings. revenues were flat, up one percent to $1.79 billion. The company met consensus earnings estimates of $0.09 a share. CEO Jerry Yang on the conference call says that yahoo will lay off “at least 10 percent by year end.” That’s 1,500 people, as expected. (http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/10/21/yahoo-to-cut-headcount-at-least-10-percent-possibly-more-to-come-next-year 10/21)

(Below) So much online video, so little time.  While content developers are thinking about how to make yet another online serial, perhaps someone should also be investing time into how to engage audiences to the point where they are watching multiple episodes.  Appointment viewing is relatively lost on the online content crowd.  Apart from subscribing to a newsletter, is there a better way to promote viewing habits?

Fox TV Studios announced its first homegrown digital serial: a 13-episode web series called The Skinny: Fat-Free News, currently available on MySpaceTV and at Hulu.com. (Not to be confused with celeb dieting blog The Skinny Website.) The Skinny will also be available across multiple video aggregation sites including YouTube, Metacafe, Dailymotion and Blip.tv, as well as social networking site Facebook.com. The Skinny is the result of a think-tank of creative types encouraged to develop original content for the web, henceforth to be known as 15 Gigs. (Cynopsis 10/21)

(Below) The social rooms are live now and frankly bring me back to an antique time where message boards were popular and Buffy the Vampire Slayer was a phenomenon.  The format and user experience are hardly engaging.  TV widget yes.  Social room no.

Taking a page from MTV and others, CBS Interactive announced it will provide social viewing rooms on CBS.com beginning Wednesday where fans can gather to watch primetime, daytime and CBS classic shows while chatting, participating in polls and otherwise interact with the content. Intel is sponsoring the feature. (Cynopsis 10/21)

Current signed a deal to syndicate comedic video produced by stand-up comedy producer RooftopComedy on its linear network and via Current.com. Current TV plans to feature a weekly show featuring stand-up performances from around the U.S. with a focus on topical gags. (Cynopsis 10/21)

From the creators of The Onion and The A.V. Club comes Decider.com. No, it’s not another political site. It’s a localized blog profiling events, musical gigs, restaurants and bars, designed to be powered by users. The site launched with versions for Chicago and Madison, WI. (Cynopsis 10/21)

Time Warner Cable introduced FameStar, a new online mashup tool powered by Oddcast allowing users to create their own mock celebrity exposes of themselves. The interface calls for the subject to upload their photo, decide on a story arch then add dialogue. Your creation can be shared with friends via integrations with a variety of social networking sites. (Cynopsis 10/21)

Aiming to expand its interactive-TV capabilities, the Comcast Media Center has inked a deal with itaas to offer advanced ITV services to small and midsize cable providers. The deal, whose first products are expected to hit the market in the middle of next year, involves services built around the Enhanced TV Binary Interchange Format as well as the tru2way platform. Light Reading (10/20)

A new survey from D S Simon Productions reports that 65% of the Web sites owned by media companies now use online video, and the vast majority of those — 77% — predict that the trend will increase during the next year. The study also showed that 45% of TV stations and 67% of radio stations use video from outside sources on their sites. MediaPost Communications (10/20)

The race for the White House has raised all boats in the online political publishing realm increasing traffic by a factor of three in some cases, notes Mediaweek in a roundup of Nielsen Online data:

• MSNBC.com increased its uniques by 13 million since last Sept. now counting 43.2 million
• Yahoo News traffic is up 5.7 million uniques during same period to 38 million
• CNN is up 6.4 million uniques to 37 million
• ABCNews.com increased by 8 million uniques to 17.2 million
• FoxNews.com nearly doubled its base to 14.9 million uniques