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| Hulu's web TV coming to the UK
May 21, 2009 at 7:53 pm
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|   Hulu, the commercial-fed internet television service backed by three of the four American TV giants, is rumored to be arriving in the UK as early as this September. According to The Telegraph, which cites "senior sources" close to negotiations, Hulu is planning an autumn UK roll-out that will include 3,000 hours of American content. It's also currently working on getting programming from ITV and Channel 4 into the mix.  Your Gmail inbox threatens to go "magic," Hulu gets ready to jump across the pond, the New York Times talks about Texter, and 4chan attacks YouTube with porn.  Hulu will offer a live stream of a Dave Matthews Band concert on June 1—the first of its kind for the popular TV streaming site. If it becomes a trend, cable providers may have reason to worry.  Many savvy advertisers are making strides in attracting their target audience with online videos. They are utilizing popular video sites such as YouTube and Hulu to engage and connect with consumers.  Google has launched a new blog, the YouTube Biz Blog, that continues its effort to "help partners and advertisers find a home on YouTube." It's a theme we've written about...  According to senior sources close to the UK negotiations, Hulu is trying to sign a deal with both commercial broadcasters in the next few weeks, for a roll-out of the service by September.
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| OpenTable wins big with hearty IPO
May 21, 2009 at 7:52 pm
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|   Online restaurant reservation site OpenTable (trading as OPEN) has stunned the market with the best IPO performance of any company since 2007 (Orion Energy Systems), reaping a 59 percent gain with share prices closing at $31.89 on the Nasdaq - a staggering upsell from its anticipated $20.  Anyone who dismissed OpenTable's IPO price of $20 as grossly overpriced has in short order been proven grossly mistaken. Shares in the online restaurant reservation company opened at $24.  OpenTable CEO Jeff Jordan (pictured, right) probably wouldn't have been tapped to ring the opening bell on the NASDAQ just a few years ago when the IPO market was thriving.
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| Can Western Digital drives vary their spin speeds?
May 21, 2009 at 7:50 pm
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| There has been some confusion about whether Western Digital's IntelliPower technology varies a drive's rotation speed or not. Well, it doesn't. A WD spokesperson said that IntelliPower does not vary a drive's spin speed while it is in use. The drives have fixed spin speeds and these may vary with individual drive capacity points within a particular drive model. |
| Twitter Hit With Phishing Attacks
May 21, 2009 at 7:40 pm
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|  Twitter users who thought friends were directing them to a "funny blog" Thursday ended up experiencing something completely different: a phishing scam. Twitter was hit by two different rounds of phishing Thursday, as criminals tried to take control of user accounts and then use them as a springboard to attack others.  Twitter gets a lot of the hype these days, but Facebook is a monster. The social networking site blew past 300 million unique visitors last month, according to comScore.  NEW YORK (Reuters) - Yahoo is looking to buy companies that will allow it to become a bigger player in social networking and revamp its family of products, Chief Technology Officer Ari Balogh said Wednesday.  Flock version 2.5, released on Tuesday by Redwood City, Calif. based Flock, Inc., is designed to let social network addicts spend their entire day in a single browser window.
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| Panasonic Lumix DMC-LS85
May 21, 2009 at 7:37 pm
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| A $120 point-and-shoot camera, the 8-megapixel Panasonic Lumix DMC-LS85 has a surprisingly rich feature set and good image quality. Its Leica lens offers a 4X optical zoom, from 33mm to 132mm. Like its older (and more expensive) sibling, the Lumix DMC-FS25, the DMC-LS85 has a convenient Intelligent Auto (iA) button on its top, next to the shutter button... Hulu, the commercial-fed internet television service backed by three of the four American TV giants, is rumored to be arriving in the UK as early as this September. According to The Telegraph... Online restaurant reservation site OpenTable (trading as OPEN) has stunned the market with the best IPO performance of any company since 2007 (Orion Energy Systems), reaping a 59 percent gain with share prices closing at $31. Your Gmail inbox threatens to go "magic," Hulu gets ready to jump across the pond, the New York Times talks about Texter, and 4chan attacks YouTube with porn.  Americans still watch most of their video content on TV, but the numbers of mobile and web viewers is growing. All of which got us thinking: What kind of a viewer are you? According to the results of a recent Nielsen's Three Screen Report...
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| Philips SPC1330NC webcam reviewed: high quality but not exactly high speed
May 21, 2009 at 7:34 pm
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|   If you're still Skyping in VGA you need to get with the times, brotherman. Two megapixel webcams are where its at, and according to the review at Register Hardware, the £70 ($110) Philips SPC1330NC delivers.  Microsoft (MSFT) is targeting its "Laptop Hunters" ads -- the ones that praise Windows PCs as a good value on TV -- to Apple's (AAPL) iPhones. We just found one on a mobile Web site.  Google (NSDQ: GOOG) has been busily adding ads to many of its properties since last fall, including Google Finance and Google News. The latest and perhaps most prominent:...  It's not quite on the level of some of Microsoft's past patent showdowns, but a Texas federal jury found yesterday that the company should pay a still hefty $200 million in damages to Canadian software firm i4i Ltd for some supposed wrong doing.  2009 is proving to be a year of dubious distinction for Microsoft (MSFT) in patent litigation. On Wednesday the company was ordered to pay $200 million to Toronto-based i4i for willfully infringing its patents.
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| What Kind of A Viewer Are You?
May 21, 2009 at 7:30 pm
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|  Americans still watch most of their video content on TV, but the numbers of mobile and web viewers is growing. All of which got us thinking: What kind of a viewer are you? According to the results of a recent Nielsen's Three Screen Report, over 285 million Americans get their video fix live from their televisions, 80 million timeshift their TV with a DVR, around 131 million get their TV fix from the Internet, and a surprisingly large 13...  Content delivery network Limelight Networks (LLNW) has acquired Kiptronic, a small software company that targets ads to non-computer devices, including mobile phones, videogame consoles, and other gadgets.  Internet streaming and watching video on a mobile phone are increasing, but doesn't hold a candle to watching television. Americans watch an all-time high of 153 hours on average per month, according to the latest viewing data from Nielsen.  Tonight we attended the Churchill Club's 11th Annual Top Ten Tech Trends event. These take place every year to predict the next big trends in the industry. This year was...  One big reason why very few ad dollars have yet to make their way from television to the Web, even though online video is booming: TV viewing isn't shrinking. Yet. So says Nielsen, via its newest "Three Screen Report".
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| Plastic Jungle Scores $4.8 million For Gift Card Marketplace
May 21, 2009 at 7:29 pm
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|   Plastic Jungle, a marketplace for gift cards, has secured $4.8 million in Series A funding, led by Shasta Ventures with investments from Bay Partners, First Round Capital and Harrison Metal. The company says that it will use the funds to accelerate its growth through new hires, as well as increased marketing and business development efforts.  Fotolia, a marketplace for microstock photography and video, is launching PhotoXpress, a free, premier-quality image bank, which will offer users royalty free image licenses for personal or professional use...  From a consumer standpoint, Amazon's Kindle has made a quite a splash, with its rapidly expanding roster of publications and new large-screen model. But will it also be...
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| AOL Lands Another Media Refugee: Portfolio.com's Bercovici To DailyFinance
May 21, 2009 at 7:20 pm
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|   I don't usually write about writers landing jobs, but I did want to point out that Jeff Bercovici, last seen writing the Mixed Media blog for Portfolio.com, has landed at DailyFinance, a site run by Time Warner's AOL (TWX). Why do I care?  The Business Insider, the blog network that includes Silicon Alley Insider and a pair of other business-focused news sites, has closed its third funding round. The company hasn't disclosed the amount of the round...  Ex-Gawkerite Lockhart Steele (SA 100 #33) adds another blog to his network: Curbed Hamptons launched today, joining the flagship Curbed NYC, Curbed LA, and Curbed SF, plus the Eater, Racked, and Gridskipper sites.  Google users can now try new changes to the search engine's auto-completion of search terms. The changes were announced in detail late yesterday on the company's official blog.  iGoogle, the Google start page loaded with gadgets and data, is a nice way to get started with RSS feeds. When it's time to upgrade to a full-fledged feed reader, iGoogle users have two roads they can go down.  Insufficient bandwidth has the potential to limit the cloud because it can take a long time to send large files over thin pipes. Amazon Web Services now addresses this problem with a new data delivery service called AWS Import/Export...
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| Valero inherits hefty stake in ethanol producer Qteros
May 21, 2009 at 7:18 pm
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| Oil and gas company Valero Energy has acquired an undisclosed stake in Qteros, maker of microbial ethanol, along with other assets divvied up from bankrupt ethanol producer VeraSun Energy. It also assumed ownership seven of the company's plants - 780 megawatts in all - and rights to build another for $477 million.  Southern California Edison is pursuing a 20-year contract to buy and distribute power generated by a BP Wind Energy-backed 90-megawatt wind farm in Idaho. The agreement is pending approval by the California Utilities Commission...
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| Sprint to sell Palm Pre to a lucky few one day early
May 21, 2009 at 7:11 pm
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|   If being an early adopter means anything to you, we hope you pre-registered for a Pre...
 With just over a fortnight to go before Sprint starts selling Palm's Pre, it stands to reason that a few of the units have made their way out into the wild. According to Millennial Media...  Best Buy may not be launching the Pre exclusively, but it's probably the place to go if you're scouting one come June 6th. Why? Pretty simple, really -- you'll leave the joint with an extra Benjamin in your purse.  Ahhh, Best Buy. Many speculated that the Pre would hit Best Buy Mobile locations without the need to worry about that annoying mail-in rebate (MIR) and as of yesterday evening, it's confirmed.
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| Microsoft's Kumo Search Engine Creates Buzz
May 21, 2009 at 7:10 pm
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| Microsoft has not even released or confirmed next week's rumored release of its Kumo search engine, and already the industry is speculating what the new engine will or will not do, both in terms of functionality and for the company's search market share. While little is officially known about Kumo, the Wall Street Journal has reported Microsoft will unveil the new search engine next week. Some industry analysts said they already have been briefed about the search engine under nondisclosure agreements.  Gina may have switched her search engine from Google to Yahoo, but for those still willing to hand over their data, Google has added some time-saving features to Google's autosuggest worth checking out.  Yesterday we looked at Quintura, a search engine designed with kids in mind. Today let's turn our attention to the browser itself, which is not only a potentially confusing environment for kids...  Many people don't realize that Search Marketing Expo is just one part of Third Door Media, the company that's also parent of Search Engine Land, Search Marketing Now and Sphinn.
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| Hitachi GST buying WD plant
May 21, 2009 at 7:09 pm
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| Number three disk drive manufacturer Hitachi GST is helping out number two supplier Western Digital by buying a media substrate plant it no longer needs. The plant makes the aluminum disk platters used in hard drives, and it's located in Sarawak, Malaysia. The WD employees there will transfer to a Hitachi GST subsidiary. The price was not disclosed and the transaction is expected to close in a month or so. I don't usually write about writers landing jobs, but I did want to point out that Jeff Bercovici, last seen writing the Mixed Media blog for Portfolio.com, has landed at DailyFinance, a site run by Time Warner's AOL (TWX). Why do I care?  A Mozy by any other name is...Fabrik. Though resold by Hitachi-owned Simpletech, the only differences between Mozy and Fabrik are the name and the revision of the client software that sits in your system tray waiting to back up your files.
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| Google Reveals New Product Logos
May 21, 2009 at 7:06 pm
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|   It might be a pretty minor thing, but when it's on the scale of Google, it's a change that millions of people will notice. The company has updated all of its product logos – Docs, News, Maps, etc – to all share a more standardized look and feel. Specifically, all logos (aside from products with their own branding like GmailGmail reviews) now include Google's standard logo, plus the product name in the same "clean, simple blue lowercase type," as described by Marissa Mayer, Google's VP of Search Products and User Experience. Here's what some of the new logos look like:  Google's logo for several of its products has been tweaked. The existing Google logo remains the same but the look of the product names have changed. Maps, Docs, News and others will be in a blue lowercase font to the right of the Google logo...  Yahoo CTO Ari Balough told the Reuters tech conference crowd this week that the company is looking at acquiring social media startups and smartphone application-makers.  Microsoft will stop issuing security updates and patches for Microsoft Office 2000 as of June. It's Microsoft's policy to support its business software products for up to 10 years after their release...  This one's pretty straightforward: IAC's Ask.com search engine has struggled for years to gain traction against the likes of Google (GOOG) and Yahoo (YHOO) without success.
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| NetApp says no one wants to buy NetApp
May 21, 2009 at 7:04 pm
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| No-one really wants to buy NetApp. There are five possibles but none of them has a problem that buying NetApp would solve better than any alternative. Really. That's NetApp CEO Dan Warmenhoven's view. He listed the five possible suitors in a question and answer session at NetApp's Sunnyvale HQ this morning...  Limelight (NSDQ: LLNW), the content delivery network, has acquired multi-platform video ad insertion firm Kiptronic for an undisclosed sum. The terms of the deal were not disclosed, but it was a combination of stock and cash.  Acer's entering the home server market, and its first entry's gonna be the easyStore AH340-UA230N with built-in Windows Home Server. It's juiced up with Intel Atom 230 processor and 2GB DDR2 RAM, and in addition to 1TB of storage, you've got three 3.  Earlier this year, we heard that ESPN was supposed to come to YouTube this April, but AdAge now reports that the Connecticut-based sports network will finally arrive on Google's highly popular video portal on July 15.
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| Wall Street Beat: HP, Lenovo Disappoint but IPOs Rock
May 21, 2009 at 7:00 pm
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| Successful initial public offerings this week from network management company SolarWinds and Web-based restaurant reservation company OpenTable were offset by disappointing results from Hewlett-Packard and Lenovo, which said they face a tough sales climate for the rest of the year. SolarWinds had a successful IPO on the New York Stock exchange Wednesday. The IPO priced at $12.50 a share, above the expected range of $9.50 to $11.50 a share, raising $151.5 million in gross proceeds. The Business Insider, the blog network that includes Silicon Alley Insider and a pair of other business-focused news sites, has closed its third funding round. The company hasn't disclosed the amount of the round...  SolarWinds, an Austin, Texas-based maker of network management technology, has ended a nine-month stretch where the market saw zero public offerings from venture-backed companies.  We're looking for a few great writers to add to the Business Insider team. We'd be grateful if you would help us find them. The folks we're looking for have the following...
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| Remains of the Day: The Magic Inbox Edition
May 21, 2009 at 7:00 pm
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| Your Gmail inbox threatens to go "magic," Hulu gets ready to jump across the pond, the New York Times talks about Texter, and 4chan attacks YouTube with porn. Hulu, the commercial-fed internet television service backed by three of the four American TV giants, is rumored to be arriving in the UK as early as this September. According to The Telegraph... Hulu will offer a live stream of a Dave Matthews Band concert on June 1—the first of its kind for the popular TV streaming site. If it becomes a trend, cable providers may have reason to worry.  One almost surefire way to find if a new feature is on the verge of launching is to dig through code. That's exactly what led to finding a reference to something called "Magic Inbox," in Gmail.  When Rogers Wireless announced it would be carrying both the HTC Dream (G1) and Magic this coming June, the company held back on pricing. Thanks to one of our ninjas however... Google has launched a new blog, the YouTube Biz Blog, that continues its effort to "help partners and advertisers find a home on YouTube." It's a theme we've written about...
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| The Next iPhone: Warp Speed, Mr. Sulu
May 21, 2009 at 6:59 pm
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|  The iPhone is still hands-down one of the best 5 tech purchases I've made over the past decade - and it's probably the best. I use it every day to do a variety of things that I still find incredible that I'm able to do in something so portable.  DreamStream [App Store] is a new piece of software for the iPhone and iPod touch that gives you a personalized wireless portable picture frame. It can access photos you have on your phone...  Much to the chagrin of many of our iPhone-less readers, TUAW receives a huge amount of mail every day from iPhone developers who are releasing new software or updates.  More evidence of the Apple Tablet surfaced today. We first wrote about the device at the end of last year when OEMs in China started hearing about the device. Details are still thin, although probably not because of a lack of leaks.
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| IBM euthanizes aging Power gear
May 21, 2009 at 6:58 pm
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| With Power6+ systems in the market and Power7 machinery slated for next year - and with IBM's supply chain expert (Bob Moffatt) in charge of its Systems and Technology Group - you can't expect older gear to stay in the product line for very long. And so it comes as little surprise that IBM is already starting to wind down some Power6 iron. Starting July 1, IBM will stop selling 4.2 GHz Power6 processor boards and processor activations for them inside the original Power 570 server. The server made its debut in the summer of 2007. (That's the 9117-MMA box, you'll remember). I don't usually write about writers landing jobs, but I did want to point out that Jeff Bercovici, last seen writing the Mixed Media blog for Portfolio.com, has landed at DailyFinance, a site run by Time Warner's AOL (TWX). Why do I care? It might be a pretty minor thing, but when it's on the scale of Google, it's a change that millions of people will notice. The company has updated all of its product logos – Docs...
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| Rejection: Apple hates (certain) books and whistling
May 21, 2009 at 6:49 pm
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|   It seems like only yesterday Apple was surprising us with its App Store rejection antics.
The iPhone is still hands-down one of the best 5 tech purchases I've made over the past decade - and it's probably the best. I use it every day to do a variety of things that I still find incredible that I'm able to do in something so portable. DreamStream [App Store] is a new piece of software for the iPhone and iPod touch that gives you a personalized wireless portable picture frame. It can access photos you have on your phone... Microsoft (MSFT) is targeting its "Laptop Hunters" ads -- the ones that praise Windows PCs as a good value on TV -- to Apple's (AAPL) iPhones. We just found one on a mobile Web site.  Document sharing site Scribd will begin beta tests of an e-commerce platform today, an effort to tap into publishers' increasing interest in charging consumers directly for digital content.
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| Tap Tap to Dave Matthews
May 21, 2009 at 2:06 pm
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|  Tapulous has released a version of its mega-popular Tap Tap Revenge app geared toward Dave Matthews fans. Dave Matthews Band Revenge (link opens iTunes) costs $4.99US and includes 10 songs from the band, including two from its upcoming album "Big Whiskey and the GrooGrux King." Additional features include multi-player mode, a news feed for the Dave Matthews Band, and Facebook Connect for sharing scores.  The day after Tapulous announced its Dave Matthews Band version of Tap Tap Revenge, online TV site Hulu let out the word that Matthews and the boys will perform in Hulu's... Twitter gets a lot of the hype these days, but Facebook is a monster. The social networking site blew past 300 million unique visitors last month, according to comScore.  Is Meebo moving into email? The web-based chat service already centralizes instant messages from AIM, Yahoo, MSN, Google Talk, Facebook, MySpace, and more. Folding in emails from different accounts across the Web is a logical next step.  Clearly, we are a very long way from seeing Lost or 24 streamed live to the internet, but Hulu appears to be at least crawling in that direction. First, it streamed presidential debates and several of President Obama speeches live...
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| OpenTable Shareholders Apparently Booking Reservations in Empty Restaurants
May 21, 2009 at 1:53 pm
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| Anyone who dismissed OpenTable's IPO price of $20 as grossly overpriced has in short order been proven grossly mistaken. Shares in the online restaurant reservation company opened at $24.50 apiece, up 23% from its IPO price. As I write this, they're trading at $28.72 after topping out at $30– more than double their original price range.  Is the IPO drought over? Not quite. But OpenTable's successful IPO today will give tech startups and VCs a sign of hope that you can still go public eventually if you have a real business. OpenTable CEO Jeff Jordan (pictured, right) probably wouldn't have been tapped to ring the opening bell on the NASDAQ just a few years ago when the IPO market was thriving.  Online reservation service OpenTable is predicted to go public this week - much to the excitement of the Silicon Valley community - and it just lifted its estimated price range from $12 to $14 per share to $16 to $18 in response to investor demand.  It's not exactly as impressive as a touch panel with unlimited points of input, but this new resistive touch panel with 9-point detection from Touchpanel Laboratories is still a cut above most and...
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| BlackBerry Storm 2: the official unofficial hands-on
May 21, 2009 at 1:34 pm
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|  We've been bumping into the new BlackBerry Storm 2 for quite a while now on the so-called "information superhighway," but we've finally had a chance to escalate those encounters and spend a few sweet moments with a live unit in the flesh. With just over a fortnight to go before Sprint starts selling Palm's Pre, it stands to reason that a few of the units have made their way out into the wild. According to Millennial Media...  You've spent your hard-earned cash on a brand new smartphone. Now it's time to put that money to work and turn your new acquisition into an entertainment powerhouse. The number of mobile entertainment apps out there is incomprehensibly large...
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| Avoid Tipping Your Hand in Salary Negotiations
May 21, 2009 at 1:30 pm
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|  You're in the midst of a job interview, your potential boss-to-be seems very interested in what you've got to offer, and then she pops the question: "What were you making before?" How should you reply? That's exactly what career blogger Marci Alboher set out to answer over at weblog Manage Your Life, turning to a few experts in the field to get their two cents. Our favorite advice comes from personal finance writer and Lifehacker contributor Ramit Sethi:  Social media sites like LinkedIn and Twitter are often the go-to applications for career networking, but now Facebook users can contact people who have interviewed, worked...  You know, if you're going to post pics of yourself onto the Internet goofing around with the Palm Pre in a Sprint back-office, Engadget's going to be there to post them.  More ripple effects from Tim Armstrong's departure from Google to run AOL for Time Warner (TWX): Tom Phillips, Google's director of search and analytics, is out. No word on whether he has a new job lined up...  NY Tech Meetup organizer, former BricaBox founder, and long-time SAI contributor Nate Westheimer has a new job. After several months as an entrepreneur in residence at Rose Tech Ventures, Nate is now VP of product at NYC- and Jerusalem-based AnyClip.
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| OpenTable Has A Healthy IPO. Shares Shoot Up 40 Percent, Market Cap Passes $600 Million.
May 21, 2009 at 1:27 pm
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| Is the IPO drought over? Not quite. But OpenTable's successful IPO today will give tech startups and VCs a sign of hope that you can still go public eventually if you have a real business. On a day when the Nasdaq is down 2 percent, OpenTable is up 40 percent from its offering price of $20 (which itself kept moving up from $12 to $14 initially)... Anyone who dismissed OpenTable's IPO price of $20 as grossly overpriced has in short order been proven grossly mistaken. Shares in the online restaurant reservation company opened at $24.  Will the settlement agreement between Google's Book Search Library Project and authors and publishers put Google (GOOG) in monopoly territory? That's the argument that Brewster Kahle... Online reservation service OpenTable is predicted to go public this week - much to the excitement of the Silicon Valley community - and it just lifted its estimated price range from $12 to $14 per share to $16 to $18 in response to investor demand.
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| Rogers HTC Dream and Magic to retail for $549.99; 6GB/$30 plan might return alongside nation-wide calling plan
May 21, 2009 at 1:25 pm
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| When Rogers Wireless announced it would be carrying both the HTC Dream (G1) and Magic this coming June, the company held back on pricing. Thanks to one of our ninjas however, we found out that both devices are destined to have an off contract price of $549.99. Due to Rogers' somewhat crazy subsidization system it's hard to say exactly how much each device will be on contract, but we're hearing a 3-year contract could be the standard $400 off - or $149.99. We shall see. Hit the jump for an inventory screenshot of the Magic and some more Rogers news.  We never really pegged the HTC-sourced T-Mobile G1 as a hardcore gaming handheld, but obviously it handles the stresses of Ghosts 'N Goblins and Samurai Showdown admirably.  While Sprint stores are gearing up for the day we've all been waiting for, Verizon Wireless will be busy appealing to a different crowd… Tweens. One of our Verizon...  Sigh. Where to begin? It looks like a Magic, it smells like a Magic, but the perfectionist in us fully understands that it's absolutely not a Magic. The self-proclaimed followup to HTC's G1 has itself an impostor...  Apple saw its share of global smartphone market more than double on a year-over-year basis during the first quarter of the year but still has much work to do before catching BlackBerry maker Research in Motion and market leader Nokia.
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| The 10 Best Online Ads Of The Last 12 Months
May 21, 2009 at 1:19 pm
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|  Besides the nearly infinite amount of inventory out there, probably the biggest problem with online advertising is that usually, the creative sucks. Unlike TV, where there are at least Super Bowl commercials and French-influenced story-telling, or print, where there at least the cinematic spreads in high-end glossies like Vogue or Vanity Fair, online ads almost always fail to capture the imagination. Publishers like IAC, with the Daily Beast, and Gawker Media, with its frequent site-skinnings, are trying, but we're not there yet.  Despite all the gloom and doom Gawker Media head Nick Denton said was coming back in November, so far things haven't turned out that badly. Not that things are great, but the sky hasn't fallen on online advertising.  Hearst says online-only newspaper SeattlePI.com is growing even with an 80% smaller staff. From a statement: During the last week of April, the site broke its one-day unique user record since going online-only.  You spend minutes crafting the perfect comment for each post, but we don't give you any heads up when someone replies @you. It hardly seems fair, does it? With Tawker, comment reply notifications are yours.
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| An Insider's Look At SMX Advanced: Chris Elwell
May 21, 2009 at 1:13 pm
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|  Many people don't realize that Search Marketing Expo is just one part of Third Door Media, the company that's also parent of Search Engine Land, Search Marketing Now and Sphinn. Chris Elwell, today's featured SMX insider, is president of Third Door Media, and provides the business expertise and acumen to keep our different businesses thriving.  There's no doubt that Sony has a 400-disc Blu-ray Mega Changer on the cooker -- heck, we saw the thing last year at CEDIA -- but up until now, there's been no indication of its nearness to market.  Well, well, well... what do we have here? Oh, it's Sony's anxiously awaited (in the States, that is) OLED X-series Walkman, all ripped to shreds before most of us have even held one in our tiny hands.  Could we be saying goodbye to the BlackBerry Storm sooner than expected? BlackBerryOS forum moderator BlackBerryOS , who has a relatively good track record where early info is concerned...
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| Justin.tv: Our Users Upload More Video Than YouTube Users
May 21, 2009 at 1:02 pm
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|  Yesterday, we shared some mind-boggling stats from YouTube. In all, users now upload 20 hours of video per minute to the site, which, as we wrote "means that for every second in time about 33 minutes of video make it to YouTubeYouTube reviews, and that for any given day 28,800 hours of video are uploaded in total."
 Most cities can barely support two metro newspapers, but the race to become hyperlocal among media companies could recreate the newspaper battles of old. New York City is shaping up as a potential hot spot for a hyperlocal media war...  In a post I wrote yesterday about Warner Music Group's (WMG) debt offering, I noted that the music label was still sparring with Google's YouTube (GOOG), which meant that its videos aren't available on the world's biggest video site. Many savvy advertisers are making strides in attracting their target audience with online videos. They are utilizing popular video sites such as YouTube and Hulu to engage and connect with consumers.  YouTube's reporting some mindblowing video upload numbers today. We already knew that overall online video usage is up by 53 percent since last year, but somewhat more... Google has launched a new blog, the YouTube Biz Blog, that continues its effort to "help partners and advertisers find a home on YouTube." It's a theme we've written about...
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| Apple's future iPhones may leverage ARM's v7 Cortex designs
May 21, 2009 at 1:00 pm
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|  With Apple's first proprietary system-on-a-chip designs still rumored to be under active development, the iPhone maker may turn to ARM's standard v7 Cortex designs for multi-touch devices it plans to launch this year before building off the platform next year. A recent job posting by Apple dug up by MacRumors seeks and iPhone developer with extensive knowledge of ARM's embedded processors, including their NEON vector unit. Content delivery network Limelight Networks (LLNW) has acquired Kiptronic, a small software company that targets ads to non-computer devices, including mobile phones, videogame consoles, and other gadgets. The day after Tapulous announced its Dave Matthews Band version of Tap Tap Revenge, online TV site Hulu let out the word that Matthews and the boys will perform in Hulu's... Limelight (NSDQ: LLNW), the content delivery network, has acquired multi-platform video ad insertion firm Kiptronic for an undisclosed sum. The terms of the deal were not disclosed, but it was a combination of stock and cash.
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| Ask.com Gets Desperate, Full Home Page Skin Ads
May 21, 2009 at 12:59 pm
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|  If you visit Ask.com today, you will see what looks like a huge ad, in form of what is called (I believe) a skin ad, engulfing the home page. The ad, at least to me, shows a sign of desperation for Ask.com to raise ad dollars. While Google would rarely ever show an ad, even a text ad, for a third-party on their home page, Ask.com makes a full page ad. At the same time, the ad is cool in that many of the mouse hovers lead to search results, with Ask.com's Smart Answers, similar to how Live.com does hotspots.  Alex Chitu from the Google Operating System blog found an interesting reference to a "magic inbox" in Gmail's code this morning. In addition, there are also references to an "icebox-inbox" and the ability to sort mail by priority. Is Meebo moving into email? The web-based chat service already centralizes instant messages from AIM, Yahoo, MSN, Google Talk, Facebook, MySpace, and more. Folding in emails from different accounts across the Web is a logical next step.  Suggesting queries is becoming a pretty standard practice on search engines these days. You know, those drop-down menus that are populated as you type with things you likely mean.  My nine-year-old daughter knows how to Google. And as someone who just today accidentally landed on a porn site after typing what he thought was the URL for a sporting-goods store, I realize it's time to take steps.  Next week, at the D: All Things Digital technology conference in Carlsbad, California, Microsoft is expected to unveil its updated search engine, codenamed Kumo. Now...
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| Google Android phones ready to invade Asia — with a stylus
May 21, 2009 at 12:58 pm
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|  Andy Rubin, the co-founder of Google's mobile phone system Android, has emerged from relative silence with a CNET interview entitled "Android a ‘revolution,'" which reads like the speech of a victor. Rubin's confidence comes coincidentally just as VentureBeat learns that John Lagerling, Google's head of mobile in Japan, has left the company. He's left to become vice president and general manager of Japan for Admob, a mobile advertising company. If you visit Ask.com today, you will see what looks like a huge ad, in form of what is called (I believe) a skin ad, engulfing the home page. The ad, at least to me, shows a sign of desperation for Ask. Alex Chitu from the Google Operating System blog found an interesting reference to a "magic inbox" in Gmail's code this morning. In addition, there are also references to an "icebox-inbox" and the ability to sort mail by priority. Is Meebo moving into email? The web-based chat service already centralizes instant messages from AIM, Yahoo, MSN, Google Talk, Facebook, MySpace, and more. Folding in emails from different accounts across the Web is a logical next step.  Netbooks and digital picture frames aren't the only new territory Google's Android can be found exploring. ISB Corp is tinkering with the platform as a way of powering a set-top box.
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| Hands-on with Yahoo Widgets on a Samsung 7000 series HDTV
May 21, 2009 at 12:47 pm
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|  There's little doubt that Yahoo Widgets took the HDTV market by storm at CES, in fact by the end of the first day of the show, it was news if a manufacturer didn't announce the feature. Initially we didn't understand what all the fuss was about, but after spending some time with the Widgets, we started to see the light...  Imagine a world in which all candy is free and you can eat as much as you want. Now stop imagining, because that place is the All Candy Expo. And I visited earlier this week. iGoogle, the Google start page loaded with gadgets and data, is a nice way to get started with RSS feeds. When it's time to upgrade to a full-fledged feed reader, iGoogle users have two roads they can go down.  There was a time when Michael Vick was one of the most popular athletes on the planet. Of course, today sees Vick in a far different circumstance, as the former Atlanta...
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| Facebook Is Now Underhyped
May 21, 2009 at 12:46 pm
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|  It's hip to pee on Facebook these days: - CEO Mark Zuckerberg's a naive control freak.
- The ad inventory is lousy
- There's no real business model
- The new design sucks
- They're hemorraging cash
- They're running out of cash
- They've searched the entire globe for cash
- They can't recruit anyone and employees are leaving in droves (because Mark Zuckerberg's a naive control freak)
- The valuation has plummeted from $15 billion to $2 billion
- Crazy Mark Zuckerberg just rejected $200 million at an $8 billion valuation
- Etc...
 Many retail broadband consumers are oblivious to the cost of bandwidth. For the majority of those here in the U.S., the monthly charge for a broadband connection is roughly $50 a month.  Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg gave something of a state-of-the-startup at the Reuters Global Technology Summit yesterday. Three nuggets worth noting: The startup would take more investment but doesn't need to.  NEW YORK (Reuters) - Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg hopes to eventually take his company public but said it won't be for a few years, and stressed that the world's largest online social network is in no immediate need of capital.
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| Google Suggest changes deliver speed, speed and speed
May 21, 2009 at 12:46 pm
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| Google users can now try new changes to the search engine's auto-completion of search terms. The changes were announced in detail late yesterday on the company's official blog. Unlike many websites, Google's engineers have proven yet again that interactive Web content can be made both better and faster. The two aren't mutually exclusive. If you visit Ask.com today, you will see what looks like a huge ad, in form of what is called (I believe) a skin ad, engulfing the home page. The ad, at least to me, shows a sign of desperation for Ask.  We'll know that Google is hungry for cash when there's a big banner ad on the homepage. That's not what's happening today -- and probably not soon. But Google is going to make ads show up on Google.  With advance apologies to the hard-working PR folks and startup companies who have pitched us their social search engines this week, there is a rising menace in new media: A cluster of sites that call themselves user-powered search engines.
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| Night in front of console more popular than night at movies
May 21, 2009 at 12:46 pm
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|   US consumers are more likely to have played video games over the last six months than gone out to see a movie, though neither activity is as popular as listening to music. Still, gamers are spreading their wings and using more mediums, and they continue to spend money on their favorite pastime. Americans are more inclined to stay home and play video games than go out to see a movie, according to research by the NPD Group...  I thought the revelation that video gamers outnumbered cinema goers was old news, but maybe only partly so. According to a new NPD Group report, 53 percent of U.S. consumers have been to the movies in the last six months... Twitter gets a lot of the hype these days, but Facebook is a monster. The social networking site blew past 300 million unique visitors last month, according to comScore.  Tickets for our Star Trek screening in Tel-Aviv are now available, get em' while they're hot right here. This Thursday the 21st at 7pm we're taking over the main screen...  We have seen our fair share of doom and gloom this year, but, according to a report from Bloomberg.com, at least Pandora, the free online music discovery service, expects to be profitable next year.  Updated with NPD Group estimates for Apple's April Mac shipments. Apple (AAPL) could face its second straight quarter of year-over-year declines in its Mac business. (And only its second negative quarter since 2003.
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| NBC, HuffPo Vie For NYC's Hyperlocal Readers
May 21, 2009 at 12:45 pm
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|  Most cities can barely support two metro newspapers, but the race to become hyperlocal among media companies could recreate the newspaper battles of old. New York City is shaping up as a potential hot spot for a hyperlocal media war, as both Huffington Post and NBC Universal (NYSE: GE) aim to expand their city-centric efforts there this summer, Beet.TV's Daisy Whitney reports. HuffPo launched its online Chicago outpost last August. The NYC site is expected to be up next month. Limelight (NSDQ: LLNW), the content delivery network, has acquired multi-platform video ad insertion firm Kiptronic for an undisclosed sum. The terms of the deal were not disclosed, but it was a combination of stock and cash.  Despite possible legal challenges, Cablevision is moving ahead with plans to deploy its Remote Storage-DVR (RS-DVR) this summer, a service that allows cable TV subscribers to record shows on Cablevision servers rather than on a home DVR.  There's a new Newsweek.com to go along with today's relaunching of the printed Newsweek. The timing is fitting because the launch comes exactly a year after May 2008, which was the last month that Newsweek.  Here's an online video story you haven't seen before: Viacom's MTV sites had a really good month last month. This news comes via Nielsen Online, which just released its video traffic numbers for April.
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| Limelight Buys Company That Targets Ads To Gadgets
May 21, 2009 at 12:45 pm
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| Content delivery network Limelight Networks (LLNW) has acquired Kiptronic, a small software company that targets ads to non-computer devices, including mobile phones, videogame consoles, and other gadgets. The idea is that as people increasingly access the Web from non-computer devices, serving up device-specific ads will be a little more complicated... The day after Tapulous announced its Dave Matthews Band version of Tap Tap Revenge, online TV site Hulu let out the word that Matthews and the boys will perform in Hulu's... Limelight (NSDQ: LLNW), the content delivery network, has acquired multi-platform video ad insertion firm Kiptronic for an undisclosed sum. The terms of the deal were not disclosed, but it was a combination of stock and cash. Imagine a world in which all candy is free and you can eat as much as you want. Now stop imagining, because that place is the All Candy Expo. And I visited earlier this week. iGoogle, the Google start page loaded with gadgets and data, is a nice way to get started with RSS feeds. When it's time to upgrade to a full-fledged feed reader, iGoogle users have two roads they can go down.
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| Corsair DDR3 memory clocked at 2533MHz, women swoon 'round the world
May 21, 2009 at 12:41 pm
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|  Corsair -- the swashbucklin' favorite of privateers in need of RAM and SSDs -- has just announced that its Dominator GT DDR3 memory has been overclocked at a pretty astonishing 2533MHz. As you'd expect from a company made of braggarts and rogues, its claiming the world record for itself -- unless, of course, one of you other memory manufacturers feels like taking this bad boy on. Kingston, we're looking at you. Hit that read link for all the salacious details. If you visit Ask.com today, you will see what looks like a huge ad, in form of what is called (I believe) a skin ad, engulfing the home page. The ad, at least to me, shows a sign of desperation for Ask. Most cities can barely support two metro newspapers, but the race to become hyperlocal among media companies could recreate the newspaper battles of old. New York City is shaping up as a potential hot spot for a hyperlocal media war... There's little doubt that Yahoo Widgets took the HDTV market by storm at CES, in fact by the end of the first day of the show, it was news if a manufacturer didn't announce the feature.
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| Google Seeks to Boost Geo Apps With New Maps API
May 21, 2009 at 12:30 pm
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| Google has released a new API for Google Maps designed to relieve developers of the burden of maintaining their own repositories for geographical data. The Maps Data API (application programming interface) lets developers create client-side applications that tap data hosted by Google. "You shouldn't have to worry about maintaining a data store to build a cool Google Maps mashup. Focus on building the client, and we'll provide hosting and bandwidth for free," wrote Taj Campbell, from the Google Maps Data API team, on Wednesday.  Yesterday Mozilla introduced a new Firefox project, called JetPack, that could revolutionize the extensibility of Firefox. Currently available as a Firefox extension, JetPack allows users to extend their browser using regular HTML...  As companies implement virtual goods on applications in Facebook and other social networks, they need better tools for analyzing how people are buying and selling these goods and how to make more money.  In the latest sign that the iPhone is emerging as the platform of choice for companies big and small, Yahoo on Wednesday will reportedly cease work on its Mobile app for...  Lifehacker reader Madlin found a useful synergy between folder syncing service Dropbox and the embeded desktop calendar Rainlendar. Since they both work on all platforms, it's easy to synchronize calendars between every desktop.
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| Google Opts to Reshuffle its Sales Structure
May 21, 2009 at 7:37 am
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| Google's (GOOG) new global operations and sales boss Nikesh Arora has started shuffling some chairs. On Wednesday, Arora and Dennis Woodside, Google's new vice president for the Americas, announced a series of changes to the Internet giant's sales staff, which has been in limbo since Google's top two senior sales and operations executives stepped aside in recent weeks.  The FT's Chrystia Freeland did a long Q&A with Google's Eric Schmidt, mostly about the future of newspapers. Eric is dead-on about subscriptions (they'll work for specialized content but not general news).  Laptops may be the form factor of choice for kid-friendly computers these days, but there's still some room out there for good 'ol desktops, and TG Sambo looks to have produced a pretty nifty one with its new LLUON Kidscom PC. As companies implement virtual goods on applications in Facebook and other social networks, they need better tools for analyzing how people are buying and selling these goods and how to make more money.
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| Bionic Commando nails bionic arm, fails at everything else
May 21, 2009 at 7:11 am
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|  Bionic Commando has a name with a large following, but linear gameplay, weak weapons, and brain-dead enemies sink what should be a soaring experience. The bionic arm provides some thrills, but that's the extent of the enjoyment to be had. Bionic Commando has many, many loyal fans, so a remake of the classic arcade and NES title was a good business decision... The FT's Chrystia Freeland did a long Q&A with Google's Eric Schmidt, mostly about the future of newspapers. Eric is dead-on about subscriptions (they'll work for specialized content but not general news).  When Nokia unveiled its N86 back in February, we Yanks were given no hope whatsoever that a US release was in the cards. We're doing our best to stifle our excitement...  A full 15 months after Panasonic dropped jaws with its 32GB Class 6 SDHC card, the company is hitting us up with another world's first. Announced today over in Europe...  The shock news earlier this week that an Oompa-Loompa, Tinky Winky and Spiderman had been cuffed after a nasty bout of fisticuffs at a Devon holiday camp prompted readers...
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| 85 Reasons Why Website Designers/Developers Keep SEOs in Business
May 21, 2009 at 7:00 am
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| A few months ago, I was quoted by Google's Matt Cutts as saying that "website developers keep SEOs in business." I honestly do believe that and have for a long time. While I don't mean to say that ALL website designers/developers believe or do all of these things, you'll likely encounter many who have done or believe in some of these. The FT's Chrystia Freeland did a long Q&A with Google's Eric Schmidt, mostly about the future of newspapers. Eric is dead-on about subscriptions (they'll work for specialized content but not general news). As companies implement virtual goods on applications in Facebook and other social networks, they need better tools for analyzing how people are buying and selling these goods and how to make more money.
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| Google's Schmidt: We've Decided Not To Bail Out Newspapers
May 21, 2009 at 6:59 am
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| The FT's Chrystia Freeland did a long Q&A with Google's Eric Schmidt, mostly about the future of newspapers. Eric is dead-on about subscriptions (they'll work for specialized content but not general news). He's also right about the value of Google to newspaper sites (traffic). We think Eric's a bit too optimistic about the ability of technology to save newspapers, at least the current newspaper cost structure. But overall, Google's position is perfectly fair on this. As companies implement virtual goods on applications in Facebook and other social networks, they need better tools for analyzing how people are buying and selling these goods and how to make more money.  Earthmine is unveiling a 3-D mapping application today that captures the real world and then lets artists draw graffiti all over it. Wild Style City is a kind of 3-D recreation...
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| Google: We're Still Not in the Newspaper Business
May 21, 2009 at 6:57 am
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| Just to be clear: Google still doesn't plan on bailing out the New York Times (NYT) or any other paper. As a buyer, at least. CEO Eric Schmidt reiterated that position, which he's already made a couple times this year, in an interview with the Financial Times. Though Schmidt did allow that Google had at least mulled the idea at one point, which will be old news to MediaMemo readers:  Google admits they've so far lost the real-time search battle to Twitter, Kindle for iPhone updates, and you get a reminder that most of the time it's best to skip the funny forward.  Yahoo comes up with meaningless new slogan [BoomTown] VC firm Greylock leaves Boston for Silicon Valley [PaidContent] German threatens Google over Street View [NYT] T-Mobile...
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| Spielberg: games consoles doomed
May 21, 2009 at 6:54 am
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| Steven Spielberg has suggested that games consoles will, one day, be replaced by in-home virtual reality entertainment. Spielberg told The Guardian that while he's keen for 3D games to be developed in the short term, he's confident that after the glamour of such titles has worn off the future "will certainly be virtual reality".  File this one under saw-that-one-coming-last-century: Movie mogul Steven Spielberg says the future of gaming is — wait for it — virtual. As in "virtual reality," the...  As we highlighted last week, social gaming is on the rise. A big reason for this is because playing video games is often a social activity that relies on teamwork, collaboration, and a shared experience.  The indie revival in the video game industry continues to gather steam as Loose Cannon Studios announced it has launched a new game development company focused on original games.  Ever since the launch of social networking application platforms on FacebookFacebook reviews, MySpaceMySpace reviews, and others, gaming has taken a sharp turn towards social media.
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| Panasonic's Class 10 SDHC cards make the wait for SDXC easier
May 21, 2009 at 6:52 am
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| A full 15 months after Panasonic dropped jaws with its 32GB Class 6 SDHC card, the company is hitting us up with another world's first. Announced today over in Europe, the outfit has revealed a new line of SDHC memory cards that boast a Class 10 speed rating.  After digesting loads of scuttlebutt here lately, we're elated to see that Pentax has finally come clean with its new K-7 DSLR. The 14.6 megapixel shooter packs a rugged...  "World's Lightest*," says so right in the Panasonic press release. What's that? It's a qualified statement? Oh we see it now, it's the world's lightest Full-HD AVCHD camcorder.  8 megapixel cameras and 3-plus-inch wide VGA displays are the order of the day in NTT DoCoMo's 18-strong summer 2009 range of phones from Panasonic, LG, Fujitsu, NEC, Sharp, HTC, and Toshiba, but a few are definitely standing out for us.  If the earlier reports are accurate, Pentax's latest K series DSLR should be getting official real soon now, but there's still a few days left before that rumored May 21st launch date, and that means more leaks.
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| Nokia's N86 8MP cruises through the FCC's database
May 21, 2009 at 6:50 am
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| When Nokia unveiled its N86 back in February, we Yanks were given no hope whatsoever that a US release was in the cards. We're doing our best to stifle our excitement, but it sure looks like a stateside launch is a lot closer now that said handset has made its way through the dark and murky halls of the FCC. Seen here in a lovely, washed-out shade of black, the 8 megapixel, OLED-equipped dual-slider seems no different than the one we toyed with in Barcelona, save for the whole US-friendly aspect, of course. C'mon Nokia, come clean with the price and ship date, won'tcha? Apple saw its share of global smartphone market more than double on a year-over-year basis during the first quarter of the year but still has much work to do before catching BlackBerry maker Research in Motion and market leader Nokia.  A fresh report from Gartner is good news for Apple, bad news for Nokia. iPhone sales keep climbing, even as the overall mobile phone market shrinks. "Worldwide mobile phone sales totaled 269.  Apple's (AAPL) Q1 smartphone market share doubled year-over-year to 10.8% last quarter, up from 5.3% in Q1 2008, according to Gartner. What changed? The iPhone price got sliced in half to $199 from $399.
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| OCZ ups peak SSD speeds with Summit line
May 21, 2009 at 6:48 am
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| OCZ has rolled out its third 2.5in SSD family this year: the Summit series. The range comprises 60GB, 120GB and 250GB post-format capacities. They all have 128MB of cache memory. They have peak read and write speeds of 220MB/s and 200MB/s, respectively - though the 60GB model has a write speed of 125MB/s.  The kind folks at OCZ Technology's CeBIT booth told us that they expected the forthcoming Z-Drive to be priced between $1,500 and $2,000, and unfortunately for consumers, they were obviously just talking about the starting tag.  Mmm, PCI-Express-based SSD storage. Be honest, is there anything more delicious? The camera-wielding cats over at Hot Hardware managed to climb behind the scenes at OCZ...  Toshiba has begun selling what it claims is the first notebook to come with a 512GB solid-state drive as standard. You'll have to live in Japan - or know someone there - to get your mitts on the Dynabook SS RX2 WAJ...  Rumors of Android-powered netbooks from Dell, HP and Asus have been circulating but the Chinese manufacturer Skytone is apparently the first to get a working prototype together for the world to see.
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| Skype pulls about-face, calls for interoperability
May 21, 2009 at 6:34 am
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| Two months after Skype announced a beta of its SIP gateway, the company's general manager has called on PBX manufacturers to get compatible, despite half a decade of refusing to play nicely with anyone. Skype resolutely refused to consider adopting the industry-standard Session Initiation Protocol, claiming that it could do things better and that compatibility was something other people needed. But now the company is trying to push into enterprise networks and SIP is back on the agenda.  Whether we realize it or not, there's a race going on in the skies above us. With the advent of wireless Internet access creeping into what once our sanctuary of solitude at 37...  T-Mobile USA announced today a new campaign dedicated to helping people save money on their wireless service, and the carrier is not only using the lovely Catherine Zeta-Jones as the face of the campaign again...  When you think of phone companies, Linden Lab's Second Life virtual world doesn't come to mind. But the company is announcing today that its users have used its web-voice... Updated with NPD Group estimates for Apple's April Mac shipments. Apple (AAPL) could face its second straight quarter of year-over-year declines in its Mac business. (And only its second negative quarter since 2003.
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