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August 5, 2008

 In This Update:

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IOC Puts Beijing Games Highlights on YouTube
REUTERS
Clips and highlights of Olympic events are to be made available on the video-sharing site YouTube, owned by Google, under an agreement with the International Olympic Committee, the IOC said in a statement. IOC said it wanted to tap into the youth market that Youtube carries with it. It will be offering three hours per day to viewers which will be a compilation of all the day’s action, as well as Games highlights.
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Sony Buys Bertelsmann’s 50 Percent Stake in Sony BMG For $1.2 Billion
PAIDCONTENT
As expected, Sony and Bertelsmann AG have reached an agreement that has Sony buying Bertelsmann’s 50 percent stake in Sony BMG for $1.2 billion. The music company will be called Sony Music Entertainment Inc. and will become a wholly owned subsidiary of Sony Corporation of America. Sony and Bertelsmann AG originally created the Sony BMG joint venture in August 2004.
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Facebook Employees Allowed To Sell Stock At $4 Billion Valuation
VENTUREBEAT
Facebook will begin letting current employees sell 20 percent of their fully vested stock options at an internal valuation of $4 billion, starting this fall. This move incentivizes current employees to stay with the company while simultaneously allowing them to reap some of the benefits of their hard work.
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AT&T to Be Provider of Cloud Computing
WALL STREET JOURNAL
AT&T Inc. is unveiling a service that provides computer networking and storage services for business customers, making the telecommunications giant the latest company to invest in what is known as “cloud computing.” Cloud computing has become a crowded field in a short period of time, as technology companies such as Google Inc., International Business Machines Corp. and Amazon.com Inc. have announced initiatives. Verizon Communications Inc. said it plans to enter the market in the first half of 2009. Cloud computing’s appeal is that it can eliminate a company’s need for its own data center. It also lets businesses pay for bandwidth on an on-demand basis.
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Mozilla Leads Push to Reimagine Web Browsers
SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE
Mozilla, the group that oversees scores of volunteer programmers collaborating on the free Firefox Web browser, hopes to attract more visionaries to help change the way people surf the Internet. This week, the group’s research arm, Mozilla Labs, is calling for developers, designers and artists across the globe to ponder the future of the browser and submit their creative ideas.
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Blockbuster Adds DVD Vending Kiosks; 50 Machine Pilot
PAIDCONTENT
Blockbuster has expanded its earlier partnership with NCR, and will be deploying about 50 DVD rental kiosk machines in a pilot test…this expands on their earlier announced separate deal for download-only kiosks which are being tested in Dallas area. The DVD-rental only kiosks will start to appear in the third quarter, with full deployment by the end of 2008…down the line, these kiosks will add DVD buy and downloads as well, the companies said.
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Online Advertising Growth Slows
LA TIMES
The slowing economy is starting to hurt an unexpected segment of the advertising world: the Web, which has been growing fast for half a decade. Once thought to be immune from cutbacks, online advertising — especially at Web portals and information sites such as those run by newspapers — is experiencing a slowdown as marketers tighten their belts and make tough decisions about where to spend their leaner budgets. A host of those companies recently reported slowing growth that’s expected to linger through 2008.
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Google Backs ISP-Guaranteed Minimum Data Rates
ARS TECHNICA
One side effect of the FCC’s recent move against Comcast’s P2P “delaying” technology has been to make discussions about the dark art of network management even more pressing. Comcast can’t use TCP reset packets to limit the number of BitTorrent connections a client can spawn, what legitimate techniques can ISPs use to deal with congestion ? Google’s Vint Cerf, one of the grandfathers of the Internet, today weighed in with his answer: transmission rate caps. He suggests a rate cap where users can “purchase access to the Internet at a given minimum data rate and be free to transfer data at at least up to that rate in any way they wish.”
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A Ruling May Pave the Way for Broader Use of DVR
NEW YORK TIMES
Recording TV shows – and skipping the commercials that come with them – may become more pervasive in the wake of a new court ruling that blesses a new networked form of digital video recorder. The United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in New York said Monday that the so-called network DVR, which records programs on a faraway computer rather than on the device itself, does not violate copyright law.
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CAA Forms Sports Media Rollup Venture
PAIDCONTENT
CAA is making its biggest bet on sports media, yet, and has formed a new unit called CAA Sports Media Venture, and funding it to buy and operate companies in the space. It has tapped Chris Bevilacqua, co-founder of CSTV Networks, as the CEO of this venture. The new unit is a three way partnership between CAA, Bevilacqua and Evolution Media Capital, a PE firm formed by Bob Stanley earlier this year after he left Merrill Lynch…this will operate independently of CAA’s existing sports talent unit, which reps about 350 sports athletes.
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Delta to Add WiFi to All Domestic Planes in 2009
ENGADGET
Delta has announced that it will install Wi-Fi on its entire domestic fleet of more than 330 mainline aircraft by the first half of 2009. The Aircell Gogo service will run $9.95 or $12.95 for trips under or over three hours, respectively, and will allow connection of any WiFi device.
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Friendster Raises $20 Million Round; Focuses on Asia
PAIDCONTENT
Friendster has closed its new round of funding, in progress for most of this year, and it is a big one: it has raised $20 million in a new round, and the pioneer is now shifting its focus, wisely, to where it is strongest: in Asia. The round was led by IDG Ventures, which has a lot of experience investing in Asian countries, and included previous investors Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and Benchmark Capital.
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Cloud Company Elastra Raises $12 Million from Amazon
VENTUREBEAT
Elastra, a company that helps manage applications in the Internet cloud, has raised $12 million in new funding. This is Elastra’s second venture round, and it was led by Bay Partners, with Amazon.com and existing investor Hummer Winblad Venture Partners also participation. Amazon’s backing is particularly impressive, since its Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) makes Amazon one of the most important companies to cloud computing in general, and to Elastra in particular, since the San Francisco startup hosts applications on Amazon’s EC2 service.
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WePlay Raises $8.6 Million in Series B for Sports Social Network
TECHCRUNCH
Youth-oriented sports social network WePlay raised $8.6 million in a series B financing led by Deep Fork Capital. Existing investors also participated in the round, including FirstMark Capital and athletes Derek Jeter, LeBron James and Peyton Manning. That brings the total capital raised to $13 million. WePlay launched in March, and is designed as a social utility where parents, coaches, and kids can manage their Little League and school sports teams. The company was founded by former Geo Cities CFO/COO Steve Hansen.
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750 Industries Raises $1 Million in Funding for Viral Video
TECHCRUNCH
Dan Ackerman Greenberg’s new company, 750 Industries , cofounded with Brett Keintz , landed a $1 million round of financing from Ron Conway, Maples Investments and Baseline Ventures. The company, which is located in Yelp’s old offices on Montgomery and Mission in San Francisco was founded six months ago and has seven employees. The startup remains in closed beta.
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