« October 2, 2007
October 4, 2007 »

October 3, 2007

In This Update:

Microsoft to Increase Ad Business
NEW YORK TIMES
Steve Ballmer, the chief executive of Microsoft, vowing that the company’s $6 billion plunge into the ad business two months ago was not just an experiment, said today that advertising would become 25 percent of the company’s business within a few years. That, he said, would be about the same amount of time it would take for all media and marketing to go digital.
Source>

Move Networks Raises $34mm
ALARM:CLOCK
American Fork, UT-based Move Networks has closed a big $34M round (it has raised $45M to date). Move Networks’ online broadcasting technologies allow major networks and studios to deliver full-episode programming in a format that supports massive audiences at HD-quality levels. Among the companies in online video Move Networks has one of the tougher models. That’s because it requires users to install a plug-in that is competitive to Flash. YouTube and its competitors grew big thanks to the large base of Flash users. But it they can accumulate plug-in users of course they put some distance themselves and the Flash madness.
Source>

Justin.tv Wins Funding, Opens Platform
NEWTEEVEE
Justin.tv, a startup that will forever risk coming off as a prolonged publicity stunt rather than a business, is rolling out the platform it’s been saying was the point all along. Starting out with founder Justin Kan broadcasting his life 24/7 from a hat-cam was a way to grab attention, but now the company will open up its live video streaming services to anyone with a webcam, a computer, and an Internet connection. The company has also raised an undisclosed amount of funding from Alsop Louie Partners.
Source>

Microsoft Unveils Second-Gen Zunes
PAIDCONTENT
As expected, the next gen of Zune was announced tonight: three new players timed to hit stores in mid-November: two flash models-4GB ($149) and 8GB $199) – and an 80GB ($249) hard-drive model. The current 30GB model launched at $249 list. Chief among the new or enhanced features: wireless syncing via WiFi from PC to Zune, more expansive wireless music sharing, and-perhaps the most important-automatic import of TV shows recorded to the MicrosoftWindows Media Center baked into most editions of Vista. Still no video sales in Zune Marketplace but the company is adding 1 million DRM-free songs to the market place.
Source>

AzoogleAds Buys Bazaar, Moves Into SEM
CLICKZ NEWS
In an effort to morph AzoogleAds into more than just a performance-based affiliate advertising specialist, the company has acquired Bazaar Advertising, a San Francisco search engine management and advertising player whose technology impressed AzoogleAds’ executives. The decision to go beyond its niche in CPA-based affiliate networking has already proved fruitful for the New York-based company, said chief marketing officer Michael Sprouse. He said AzoogleAds, which handles affiliate advertising for Blockbuster Video, recently convinced the movie-rental giant to also use it for SEM.
Source>

Video Infrastructure Firm Acinion Raises $16 Million Second Round Funding
PAIDCONTENT
Acinion, an online video delivery services provider, is receiving USD16m in its second round of funding. Participants in the round were Globespan Capital Partners, IDG Ventures Boston and Sigma Partners. As a result of the investment, VC firms have now invested USD21m in the Massachusetts-based startup. Acinion provides internet video systems to content distribution networks, aggregators and content producers, with the aim of providing a cost effective way of delivering high-definition video content online. In its previous round of funding, it received USD5m from Globespan and IDG Ventures. Jonathan Seelig, MD of Globespan, sits on the startup’s board.
Source>

Major League Baseball to Watermark Content
ARS TECHNICA
In an effort to know exactly how game footage is being used by television stations around the world, Major League Baseball has signed a deal with watermarking and monitoring firm Teletrax to keep an eye on the 2007 postseason. Teletrax will provide the technology to watermark game broadcasts, and it will use a proprietary international system of detectors to determine when and where that footage is then used around the globe. The company claims that its technology is robust enough to protect against “all common video-processing operations normally found in studios and in transmission paths,” including MPEG compression, cropping, scaling, and 50/60Hz conversion for use outside the US. The company claims that the watermark will even survive the transition to DivX.
Source>

Google Upgrades Business E-Mail
REUTERS
Google Inc is moving to attract big business users to its Google Apps service just a year after entering the software market, as the company said on Tuesday it is offering stepped up e-mail management services at no additional cost to paying users.Google, the market leader in Web search and online advertising for consumers, is introducing e-mail controls and anti-spam protections resulting from the acquisition of e-mail services supplier Postini, which it closed three weeks ago.
Source>

Study: File-Sharing Leads to “Chart Churn,” Helps Indie Acts
ARS TECHNICA
Tracking if and how P2P file-sharing has altered the music business is a difficult challenge. The advent of the MP3 era has enabled illicit online file-swapping, but it also enabled the portable music players that have changed how music is listened to. Ambiguous study results and hyperbole from opposing camps on the issue haven’t helped make much sense of these changes, either. A study that appears in the latest issue of Management Science attempts to bring some clarity to the issue. Consistent with the idea that P2P sharing lowers the “cost” of finding new music, the data suggests that music buyers now have shortened attention spans, so the amount of churn on the charts has gone up dramatically since 2001. Most albums spend a reduced amount of time on the charts, and those that debut at a low ranking tend to drop off much faster than they before. The effect isn’t uniform, however; albums that debut high on the charts still have longer survival times, and female solo artists seem oddly immune to the changes.
Source>


Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,