Blog News Watch

Ever dream of selling your blog for big bucks? Well, I don’t know about the big bucks part but David Krug’s living the dream, which also (hopefully) means he’ll have more time to concentrate on recovering from an illness. He recently sold 901AM to Slashpress Media.

Thanks to Blogging Pro for this; here’s the announcement from 901AM itself. J. Angelo Racoma also wrote about it at Blog Herald, and wishes David Krug a speedy recovery, as do all of us here at BlogNewsWatch and 451Press.

And the Internets. Interestingly, Blogger & Podcaster has three subscription options. Print will run you $80 a year. Digital and podcast versions? Free. (Does this mean print is dead? I’m just joking!) And they put Scoble on the cover!

Here’s a link to the blog.

blogging, blog magazine, blogger & podcaster

As MySpace gaining more and more popularities everyday, so is the video piracy in MySpace, and they can not afford to get sued every week for piracy (no one does). So ultimately we were expecting MySpace will come up with some kind of filter or moderation to fight this.

Know what! It already did. This week MySpace announced that it is experimenting with a video-filtering system that it developed in conjunction with Audible Magic Corp. to block videos that contain copyrighted material. This will be an experimental phase of the software, as they intended to expend its features further.

Audible Magic Corporation, received rights to the MySpace system that will be responsible for scanning video clips and looking for signature vectors. The video’s unique digital quality will then be cross-checked against vectors that are stored. Pretty cool isn’t it? Well not so cool news for those who post pirated videos. This video filtering system supplements audio filtering MySpace already has in place to block unauthorized music uploads. Chris DeWolfe, MySpace’s co-founder and chief executive, said in a statement-

…MySpace is dedicated to ensuring that content owners, whether large or small, can both promote and protect their content in our community…For MySpace, video filtering is about protecting artists and the work they create…

Well protecting the artist intention is secondary here; protecting themselves to get sued by media/video producers is the primary intention. No matter how News Corp. presents the cause of this implementation, I believe this was triggered by Universal Music’s federal lawsuit in November, accusing MySpace of illegally encouraging its users to share music and music videos on the site without permission. That lawsuit remains pending and seeks unspecified damages, including up to $150,000 for each unauthorized music video or song posted on the site.

But I am not much sure about effectiveness of this new video filtering system, as they will require large number of vectors stored in a database, means for every copyright video one record. Is it possible to cover all the copyrighted video’s vectors? Well certainly not at this stage.

MySpace, Digital Signature, Vectors, Video Filter

This upgrade/integration was long overdue. Where MSN and Google already integrated their IM within mail system, only Yahoo was running IM and mail separate. At last Yahoo got the sense that if they integrate IM within mail it will increase usability, well better late than never.

Yahoo has officially announced this new feature which provides users with instant messaging features inside of their email account. According to official statement this was triggered by a survey result which shows, users have to spend a lot of time on the Internet going back and forth between their email accounts and instant messaging. So the new future will obsolete the necessity of downloading Yahoo Messenger software, as now user can use both mail and messenger within the browser.

(Click to see Larger Image)

Another new feature will be ability to maintain multiple conversation within same window (separated by frames) that will display itself within the email window. John Kremer, vice president of Yahoo Mail says-

..We’re transforming Yahoo! Mail into a tool that’s about communicating; regardless of the form that communication takes..

Yahoo said that it has integrated an instant messaging component into the latest beta versions of Yahoo Mail. The feature is slated for released to all users over the next several months as a free service. According to Hitwise survey Yahoo! Mail is still the third most visited site in the world, Yahoo is intended to keep it that way.

Yahoo Mail, Messenger, Integration

Once upon a time Lycos used to be the leading search engine, but that was long long time ago. Now Lycos is nothing more than a whisper. Well things are about to change for Lycos, as they converted themselves into a entertainment portal. Lycos has announced the launch of its MIX tool, which Lycos declares to be the next step in its watch & chat technology.

Anyway what this Lycos Mix will do? Lycos MIX will enable groups of individuals to obtain video clips from a variety of different sites throughout the Internet and lodge them into one playlist, a form of search and sort system for video clips. . Accordingly, users will be able to respond to content on the website with their own content and video collaborations. Not a bad idea after all, search and sort the video clip, add adverts around it and make profit. I am not really sure where Lycos going with this? why would people even use that Lycos mix, for watching adverts where majority of video sharing site don’t show adverts. Apart from as usual video search Lycos nix is offering just one new feature, that is chat about it.

Lycos MIX account will be free and users have the option of having a public account or private accounts, where the user has complete control over what videos are added. As well as there is option for adding “MIX It�? bookmarklet feature in browser, allowing users to add videos from other sites to their “MIXes�? without cutting or pasting URL’s, as well as a permanent comment and rating system that allows users to rate whole video mixes versus individual video content. Well where did we saw that before? StumbleUpon have the same feature isn’t it? Brian Kalinowski, chief operating officer for Lycos, Inc. says,

Lycos MIX continues the evolution of community and video with a true Web 2.0 collaborative, contributory and interactive social viewing experience. Unlike social networking sites, each MIX is a collection of video clips where users socialize around content, not individual people or profiles, creating combinations of lasting content to share with others. With Lycos MIX, users can create an amalgamation of video content where others participate by viewing, commenting and adding more clips.

News Source: MediaPost

Lycos, Lycos MIX, Video playlist

MySpace thus News Corp. was quite busy last week with it’s oriental deal. But a new partnership was unfolding on the shores of Europe too. MySpace has been working on for a deal with British mobile phone company Vodafone Group Plc. According to Reuters, MySpace has been making efforts to boost its global presence and has begun to expand internationally. No doubt about that effort, since we already know MySpace will be available in China soon. Now as Vodafone is the largest mobile carrier in Europe, this deal will boost MySpace dominance in European market.

After the partnership has announced, in a joint press statement, both Vodafone and MySpace affirmed-

The partnership will enable millions of Vodafone customers to access MySpace mobile, allowing them to edit their own MySpace profiles, find and add friends, post photos and blogs and send and receive MySpace messages while on the move.

The deal will be in action within few months. In the process Vodafone will begin to implement this service within the UK, and will pre-load MySpace mobile software on selected handsets. But off course user can also download software from its Vodafone live! site.

Source: Reuters via Red Herring

Vodafone, MySpace

The US Army is being sued by a privacy group,EFF(The Electronic Frontier Foundation) that wants the military to come clean about how it monitors websites and soldiers’ blogs for potential military leaks. EFF filed the lawsuit(January 31st, 2007) after the Department of Defense and Army failed to respond to Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests about the blog monitoring program.

According to EFF, an Army unit called the Army Web Risk Assessment Cell (AWRAC) which is responsible for reviewing websites and notifying webmasters and bloggers when it finds “sensitive information”, is going beyond a legitimate attempt to restrict the disclosure of military secrets by forcing military bloggers to censure posts about their feelings about the conflict or shut down sites altogether.

EFF’s suit demands records on how the AWRAC operates, as well as any orders to soldiers about revision or deletion of web posts.EFF staff attorney Marcia Hofmann said–

..Soldiers should be free to blog their thoughts at this critical point in the national debate on the war in Iraq,…If the Army is colouring or curtailing soldiers’ published opinions, Americans need to know about that interference…

Sorry no response from DOD yet, as I think they don’t give a flying F**k.

Source: The Register UK

The PDF of Lawsuit: FOIA complaint filed against the Department of Defense.

They way online videos are coming up, i am begining to think, 2007 might be the year of online videos. Our well known online photo sharing network Facebook (Owned by Yahoo! now) is also coming in the arena of online video. According to BusinessWeek published article, Facebook is joining forces with Comcast to create a television series from user-generated videos that will appear online and through video on demand. Well shouldn’t that be deal between Yahoo! and Comcast? never mind.

This new joint venture shows called “Facebook Diaries” will contain 10x 30 mins show of R.J. Cutler, the guy known for “American High” a nonfiction TV series. All these shows will be up in Facebook as well as Comcast’s video sharing site Ziddio.com later this year. The videos also will be carried on Comcast’s video on demand service. Starting in late March, Comcast and Facebook will ask users to submit videos about their lives through Ziddio. Videos can be a sort of free-for-all that can come from cell phone recordings, webcams, handheld devices and other sources.

Neither details about this deal has been revealed by either party, nor any words about whether there will be adverts on those videos. Facebook is certainly a hot cake for advertisers, as they considered to be second to News Corp. MySpace in traffic. If they open up the door for advertisers on those show, it will be selling like hot cake.

Facebook, Comcast, Facebook Diaries, Ziddio

The gossips of Wal-Mart debut in movie download war was around for few weeks now. Finally ending all gossips and speculation Wal-Mart is launching its long-awaited online movie download store.

A so called “beta” version of the online video store, set to debut this Tuesday, will sell digital versions of about 3,000 films and television episodes from all the major studios and some TV networks, including Fox Broadcasting. Unlike some traditional offerings, Wal-Mart will not rent films online instead it will sell the content with limited copyright. The films can be played on a PC or transferred to Microsoft Windows Media-compatible portable digital players. The movies will not play on Apple computers or the popular iPod. According to Wall-Mart later this year movies bought from the Wal-Mart store also can be burned onto a DVD, which won’t be available in this beta release.

Wal-mart is using its buying power to beat the prices charged by other download services in many cases, offering films from $12.88 to $19.88 and individual TV episodes for $1.96 surprisingly 4 cents less than Apple Inc.’s iTunes store. This will play a major impact in online movie download industry.

But Wal-Mart abandoned its efforts to build an online DVD rental service in 2005 to compete with the well-established Netflix Inc. Can they manage to survive this time? Cause there are other companies like-Amazon Inc. launched its “Unbox” video rental and download store, Movielink, which is owned by five studios, and CinemaNow etc. doing well and they won’t just pass the ground to Wall-Mart without fight. I am much more concern about the price Wal-Mart is offering, that is less than the wholesale price of of physical DVDs and it will be very highly unlikely studios will continue to deal at that price. So ultimately today or tomorrow Wal-Mart will change the pricing or something else to adjust and will stand in the same row with other online movie retailers.

Wal-Mart, Online Movie, Retailers

Last week my colleague here at 451Press, DaveP predicted that YouTube’s decision to introduced “pre-roll�? adverts bound to reduce the popularity of the site if it’s mandatory. He was so true. according to a recent survey conducted by Harris Interactive, a large portion of YouTube users expressed that they won’t be visiting YouTube as often if Pre-Roll adverts introduced. The Survey was conducted among 2309 individuals in the US.

42% said they had watched a video on YouTube, and 24% saying they were frequent users, but watched less than an hour a week. 75% of those frequent users said they would be less likely to visit the site if the videos contained pre-roll ads.

So far YouTube has never publicly said that they are considering including short commercials before the clips on their site. Only Last week at the World Economic Forum in Switzerland, YouTube co-founder Chad Hurley said they were considering monetizing YouTube videos in order to share revenue with the content creators. But the 30 second long advert clip before video is just a possibility, among few others. There are lots of other options open for YouTube to monetize video hosted in their site. It might be even the new form of video advert style introduced by adbrite. No one knows for sure what type of monetizing YouTube will adopt, in order to reward video creators/posters. Harris Interactive’s survey shows if in case YouTube decided to include short commercials before the clips on their site, the result will be catastrophic. So i guess YouTube will consider that before making that decision.

News Source: Adotas

streaming video, surveys, YouTube, Pre-roll