In This Update:
• Apple Halves iPhone to $99, Trims Mac Prices
• Sprint Breaks Its Sales Record with Palm Pre
• China to Require Software on PCs to Block Sites
• U.S Online Video Views Jump 16% to 16.8 Billion
• Facebook.com US Reach Grew by 8% in May; Twitter Growth Flattens
• Broadcasters Compete to Put TV on Cellphones
• Mozilla to Let Enterprises Build Custom Firefox Browsers
• Most Firms Unaware of Web Domain Changes: Survey
• Local Mobile Advertising Gains Traction
• Ad-Funded Mobile Carrier Blyk to Launch In India
• Ticketmaster Tries Going ‘Paperless’ to Thwart Scalpers
• Intel Capital Invests $43 Million into Japanese WiMax Firm UQ Communications
• Open-Source Router Maker Vyatta Raises $10 Million
• Sequoia Invests $4.1 Million in Gaming Site GameGround

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Apple Halves iPhone to $99, Trims Mac Prices
REUTERS
Apple halved the price of its entry-level iPhone to $99 on Monday to widen the trendy device’s mass-market appeal, as global competition heats up after Palm Inc launched the Pre. Apple also cut prices on several of its Mac notebooks amid a tooth-and-nail battle among computer makers for buyers during the recession. And to shore up its hold on the smartphone market, it unveiled a new, faster, high-end iPhone that takes videos and has voice features, matching offerings by rivals Palm and Research in Motion’s BlackBerry.
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Sprint Breaks Its Sales Record with Palm Pre
CNET
Sprint Nextel executives said Monday that the launch of the much anticipated Palm Pre on Saturday hit a new sales record for the company. Neither Sprint nor Palm is discussing specific sales figures, but Tim Donahue, vice president of business marketing for Sprint, said that the launch exceeded the company’s expectations. “We experienced our best one day of sales and single weekend sales for any phone we’ve launched in our history,” he said. “We sold out of the device over the weekend in most of our store locations. And it happened at a much faster rate than we had planned on. ”
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China to Require Software on PCs to Block Sites
REUTERS
The Chinese government has required that personal computer makers bundle software that filters Internet content from July 1, raising concerns over cyber-security as well as Internet freedoms.The free “Green Dam-Youth Escort” software, developed by Jinhui Computer System Engineering Co, can effectively filter “unhealthy words and images,” according to a Ministry of Industry and Information Technology document seen by Reuters. Foreign computer makers are now caught between maintaining access to their fastest-growing major market, and concerns the mandatory software will make their products vulnerable to security breaches as well as potential malfunctions.
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U.S Online Video Views Jump 16% to 16.8 Billion
HYPERBOT
April 2009 data from the comScore Video Metrix showed that U.S. net users viewed 16.8 billion online videos during the month, a 16% increase over March. A significant increase at YouTube contributed to the gains. In April, Google sites once again ranked as the top U.S. video property with 6.8 billion videos viewed (40.7% market share), a 15% increase over March.
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Facebook.com US Reach Grew by 8% in May; Twitter Growth Flattens
INSIDEFACEBOOK
May stats are out from Compete, and the web analytics company says US traffic to Facebook’s main consumer website increased by 8% during the month to 82.9 million uniques. That’s back up from Facebook’s “dip” to 4.6% monthly growth in April after growing by 11% in May. Traffic to Facebook Connect-enabled sites increased 14% in May to 65 million US uniques after growing by a whopping 40% in April. By contrast, however, Twitter was flat for the quarter in terms of reach. The site registered 19.7 million uniques for the month, up 1% from last month.
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Broadcasters Compete to Put TV on Cellphones
LOS ANGELES TIMES
The digital switch is the end of one TV era, but broadcasters and device companies hope it’s opening up another.VTheir vision for the future: a world in which we access live television not just on big screens in our living rooms, but also on cellphones and computers and in cars. On Thursday, when stations will be required to broadcast through digital rather than analog signals, some companies will use the broadcast spectrum freed by the switch to transmit live television to cellphones and other portable devices. Shows and live video clips are already available on some phones, but this heats up competition as broadcasters and cellphone companies vie to turn the feature into a must-have.
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Mozilla to Let Enterprises Build Custom Firefox Browsers
GOODGEARGUIDE
Mozilla is readying a program that will allow companies to build their own customized browsers based on the next version of Firefox, which will be out in a few weeks. The Build Your Own Browser program is a good fit for enterprises that want to create a customized browser that can be easily installed across multiple corporate desktops, said Mike Beltzner, director of Firefox at Mozilla Corp. Through the program, which will start sometime soon after Firefox 3.5 is released at the end of June, companies can use a Web application provided by Mozilla to specify certain customizations for the browser — such as bookmarks to certain sites or corporate intranets or portals, he said.
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Most Firms Unaware of Web Domain Changes: Survey
REUTERS
Two thirds of businesses are unaware they will be able to use their own name in place of domain extensions such as .com, .org, or .net when Internet domains are liberalized next year, according to a survey. The change would let the likes of Nike or Microsoft control their own domain and better exploit their brands, and also counter cyber-squatters who use variations of brands on the 280 or so existing domain extensions.
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Local Mobile Advertising Gains Traction
INTERNETNEWS.COM
Local mobile advertising will be the next hot trend, with local mobile search leading the way, according to BIA’s The Kelsey Group. Local mobile ad revenue will grow to $3.1 billion in 2013, up from $160 million last year, while mobile search will reach $2.3 billion, according to the firm’s forecasts. Local searches made up 27.8 percent of all searches in 2008, but are expected to hit 35.1 percent in 2013, according to the report, “Going Mobile: The Mobile Local Media Opportunity.”
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Ad-Funded Mobile Carrier Blyk to Launch In India
MOCONEWS
Ad-funded, youth targeted mobile service provider Blyk is bringing its model of free talk-time and texts in return for viewing advertising to India. Mint.com reports that senior level recruitment is already underway, according to an unnamed source who has been hired as a communications executive at the new operation. Blyk spokesperson Ann Sarimo confirmed that Blyk plans on entering the Indian market, but declined to comment on timing.
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Ticketmaster Tries Going ‘Paperless’ to Thwart Scalpers
WALL STREET JOURNAL
Ticketmaster Entertainment Inc. may have figured out how to lock scalpers out of a major concert tour, and it plans to use singer Miley Cyrus as its guinea pig. The centerpiece of the ticketing giant’s anti-scalping strategy is eliminating, well, the tickets. Ms. Cyrus’s 45-date outing this fall, for which seats go on sale starting Monday, will be the first major concert tour to rely exclusively on “paperless tickets,” according to a news release announcing the tour. The technology, which Ticketmaster tested last year, is meant to make seats impossible to sell or transfer because they can be redeemed only with a credit card.
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Intel Capital Invests $43 Million into Japanese WiMax Firm UQ Communications
MOCONEWS
Intel’s investment arm Intel Capital has invested $43 million (¥4.15 billion yen) into UQ Communications, a Japan-based WiMax mobile services provider. The company said it would use the money to continue expanding its UQ WiMax service in Japan, and said it hoped to provide WiMax coverage to 90 percent of the country by 2012. Intel has been one of WiMax’s biggest supporters and in the past four years, the chip maker has poured some $2 billion into WiMAX investments. Why WiMax? With the world going increasingly mobile, Intel need to ensure its chips are in mobile devices, rather than those from British chip designer ARM, whose products are in some 90 percent of all cellphones.
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Open-Source Router Maker Vyatta Raises $10 Million
GIGAOM
Vyatta, a Belmont, Calif.-based company that makes an open-source routing platform, has raised $10 million in Series C funding led by Citrix Systems. Previous investors Comcast Interactive Capital, Panorama Capital and ArrowPath Venture Partners also invested in this round of funding. The company had previously raised a total of $18.5 million. The investment in Vyatta shows that Citrix is losing ground to the VMware-Cisco Systems colossus. Those two companies are becoming stronger players inside the enterprise data center, both from a server and a networking perspective.
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Sequoia Invests $4.1 Million in Gaming Site GameGround
PAIDCONTENT
With more people playing all types of online games (including social games on Facebook, casual games on sites like PopCap.com, and games on connected consoles), there’s money to be made from giving them a single space to share, store and socialize their game “data.” Which is likely why Sequoia Capital has invested $4.1 million in GameGround, a startup that aims to be the central “hub” for all of a game player’s info. This is GameGround’s first round; the site previously raised $2 million in seed funding from angel investors.
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Tags: Blyk, Google. Yahoo, Ticketmaster