In This Update:
• YouTube Sells Keyword Searches
• Nielsen, Ad Giant WPP Agree to Swap Certain Assets
• My.Gov: How Obama Can Use the Net to Improve Government
• Lonely Planet To Share Ad Revenue With Amateur Travel Bloggers
• And Now, Windows Live Is a Social Network
• Live Nation to Sell MP3s on Artist Web Pages
• Ticketmaster Experiments With Lower Fees
• The Military Launches TroopTube After YouTube Is Blocked From Military Networks
• Algorithm-Driven Dating Site Be2 Raises €15 Million from Index
• Transpera Raises $8.25 Million Second Round

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YouTube Sells Keyword Searches
NEOWIN.NET
Today YouTube announced it will be selling keyword searches to anyone with the cash. Users and corporations can buy individual, or phrases to represent their videos after uploading. The new tool is called “Sponsored Videos”, which will be available via an online auction for anyone to purchase these keyword terms, and push their videos up.The Sponsored Videos program will allow users to purchase words such as “Neowin.net”, which will redirect users to their videos who purchased the keywords for promotional purposes. Sadly, the most popular keywords like, “Movie Trailer”, “Game Trailer”, “New Movie” and many others will all be picked up by larger corporations looking to cash in on this to promote their product.
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Nielsen, Ad Giant WPP Agree to Swap Certain Assets
DIGITAL MEDIA WIRE
The Nielsen Company and advertising giant WPP announced that they have agreed to swap certain assets, in a deal that will among other things give Nielsen full ownership of AGBNielsen Media Research, the television audience measurement business. Under the terms, Nielsen will acquire the 50% of AGBNielsen Media Research currently owned by WPP. In return, Nielsen will transfer to WPP its SRDS unit, which provides media rates and data to the ad industry; PERQ/HCI, its healthcare industry media planning business; and its 11% share in Brazil-based media and opinion research firm IBOPE.
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My.Gov: How Obama Can Use the Net to Improve Government
GIGAOM
President-elect Obama promised during his campaign to create a “Google for government.” Now that he’s on his way to the White House, let’s imagine what this might look like, and how such a tool could change the way people relate to those tasked with running our country.?The first image this phrase brings to mind is some sort of search engine that would allow citizens to see what the government is doing, especially how it’s spending money. While useful, it’s not enough, as it lacks a key element: a personalized front end for government services.
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Lonely Planet To Share Ad Revenue With Amateur Travel Bloggers
PAIDCONTENT
Best known for its professional travel writing, BBC Worldwide’s Lonely Planet will also start running reviews from amateur authors – and pay them for it. The publisher wants to republish their content and, in exchange, will share revenue from various sources and promote traffic to their sites. The revenue-sharing scheme, codenamed BlogSherpa, will begin in February. BBCW paid an estimated £100 million for the travel publisher in the controversial 2007 acquisition but has yet to make the most commercially of digital media, including lonelyplanet.com.
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And Now, Windows Live Is a Social Network
PAIDCONTENT
Microsoft has launched a new version of its Windows Live service, or whatever it was before (search plus its myriad communication services tacked on), and now it is a full-blown social network, with the idea to integrate all the disparate MSFT online services, as well as allow other third-party services to be embedded within it. Pretty much everything except MySpace and Facebook is integrated into the new service, including Flickr, LinkedIn, Pandora, Photobucket, Twitter, WordPress and Yelp. Nevermind that MSFT has a big investment in Facebook…apparently it is only being used to “borrow” ideas: It has the now-de-rigueur news feed, a la Facebook, which lets you track your friends and their activities. Apparently, people who have reviewed it like it.
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Live Nation to Sell MP3s on Artist Web Pages
DMW MEDIA
Concert promoter and venue owner Live Nation will soon begin selling MP3s from artists on three major labels on its own dedicated Web pages for the artists, Digital Music News reported.
The songs from Sony Music, Universal Music and EMI artists will be licensed through Live Nation’s Musictoday unit, which already powers fan sites for artists including the Rolling Stones, Celine Dion and Dave Matthews Band.
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Ticketmaster Experiments With Lower Fees
HYPERBOT
Long criticized for excessive ticketing fees, the newly renamed Ticketmaster Entertainment is experimenting with lower charges on some tickets. “We’re already testing the program on certain upcoming tour on-sales,” Ticketmaster CEO Sean Moriarty said during an earnings call. Under the plan, fans who use Ticketmaster’s electronic delivery system TicketFast would not be charged additional service fees. High ticket fees have come under scrutiny again as a way to lower costs for consumers affected or frightened by the economic downturn. Implicit, however, in lower fees is also the threat of lower profits for venues and promoters who have long relied on privately receiving a percentage of those fees from Ticketmaster.
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The Military Launches TroopTube After YouTube Is Blocked From Military Networks
PULSE 2.0
YouTube was taking too much of bandwidth up on military networks so the U.S. Department of Defense blocked it. YouTube was used by many soldiers to send videos back and forth so Military OneSource setup a new kind of video network. The project is called TroopTube. Troops are using TroopTube as a resource for quickly uploading videos and sharing them with their families and friends. Military OneSource is an organization that provides assistance and online services to members of the military and their families. OneSource worked with Delve Networks to build the new site.
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Algorithm-Driven Dating Site Be2 Raises €15 Million from Index
TECHCRUNCH
As the downturn bites, VCs are putting more into the companies they feel most confident about rather than the spray-and-pray approach of the last three years. That, combined with companies that have proven models, and developing revenues. The latest example of this is the €15 million investment from the European VC Index Ventures into Be2, the Munich-based global dating site. But this is not your average dating site. This bases its business on an algorithm which identifies specific personality traits and characteristics and uses them to match potentially compatible partners.
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Transpera Raises $8.25 Million Second Round
MULTICHANNEL
Mobile video services startup Transpera announced it has closed second-round financing of $8.25 million and hired former Brightcove executive Brian Monnin as chief product officer.
Investors in Transpera’s second round included Labrador Ventures, who joined the round led by Flybridge Capital Partners. All previous investors, which include Flybridge Capital Partners, Intel Capital and First Round Capital Ventures also participated. The new round of capital also includes debt financing from Silicon Valley Bank.
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