Analysts: Online video viewing up 13% in December
Maybe the cold weather had something to do with it, and maybe the ever worsening economy. In any case, online video viewing increased a record 13% in December versus November of last year, according to analysts at comScore. During December, viewers watched 14.3 million videos online, with YouTube accounting for 49% of the incremental gain.
In fact, considerably more videos (41%) got viewed on Google Sites than anywhere else, with 99% of the viewing on those sites happening on YouTube. Fox Interactive Media took second place, at 3.1%, followed by Yahoo Sites at 2.3%, and Viacom Digital at 2.0%. Microsoft Sites and Hulu.com tied for fifth place, each with 1.7%. Also placing in the rankings were AOL with 1.4%, Turner Network, 1.3%; Disney Online, 1.0%; and ESPN, 0.7%.
Amazon launches games site beta with three free downloads
Less than four months after buying games distribution and development specialist Reflexive Entertainment, Amazon rolled into beta with its own casual games download site on Tuesday, celebrating the occasion with a one-week trial offer.
The games available for free download from February 3 - 10 include Jewel Quest 2, The Scruffs, and Built A Lot.
Google Maps launches location-sensitive Latitude interface
This morning, Google announced the availability of Latitude, a social location tool for Google Maps accessible through BlackBerry, Windows Mobile 5.0+, and Symbian S60 devices or the corresponding iGoogle gadget.
Users with Latitude turned on show up as an icon on their buddies' Map, which acts as an interface to launch SMS, Google Talk, or GMail communications. Similar to mobile social network Brightkite, Google Latitude's locations are granular and can be as specific as a user's GPS coordinates, or as vague as his hemisphere.
Shazam Android music app now available throughout Europe, too
Following a rollout last year in the US and UK markets, the highly rated, Android-based Shazam mobile music application is now available throughout Europe. Countries added to Shazam's availability list today include Austria, Germany, the Netherlands, Poland, and the Czech Republic.
Could Shazam give Apple's iTunes and Microsoft's Zune some real rivalry whenever more Android devices come to market? Shazam's Android-accessible database contains more than 8 million tracks, including pre-release tunes and music from various eras and parts of the world. Shazam was the third most popular app when the Android Marketplace launched last fall, and it now holds a rating of "4.5 stars out of 5 stars" among more than 6,000 Android Marketplace reviewers, according to Shazam CEO Andrew Fisher.
Network Solutions scores with Twitter during Super Bowl
GoDaddy's Super Bowl ads may have gotten predictably saucy, but the response to them on Twitter Sunday night led to something the company couldn't have been expecting: A win for domain registration competitor Network Solutions.
GoDaddy's Super Bowl ads have a tradition of random T&A. That's really not news anymore, and in fact about three weeks ago the operators of GoDaddy's Twitter account invited followers to drop by and vote on which ad to run.
Let the music (trial) play
Is it possible that the Recording Industry Association of America is afraid of listeners? Their pleading to a US appeals court to forbid the Webcasting of arguments in RIAA v. Tenenbaum is starting to sound like the excuses from a kid seeing monsters under the bed.
The latest round of entertainment up in Boston came last week, when 14 news organizations filed an amicus brief with the appeals court explaining that contrary to RIAA's claim, allowing cameras in the courtroom for the February 24 hearing falls in line with usual and customary camera access for similar hearings.
Search engine Sagoon launches in beta
Sagoon is a newly-launched search engine that joins the race to provide a semantic search with the elegant screen layout made famous by Google. The company calls its semantic technology the "Random Vector Model," where traditional keyword searches are paired with algorithms and formulas that analyze content between sites, finding their hidden similarities.
Sagoon is based out of Washington DC, but the underlying technology comes from New Dehli, India's Elixir Web Solutions
TringMe proves Silverlight-based VoIP (sort of)
In a crafty bit of coding, TringMe has unveiled a demo of a Silverlight widget that allows outgoing VoIP calls to be made. The India-based IP telephone software company says that Silverlight does not provide microphone support, so this widget uses Flash to access the microphone for the exchange taking place in Silverlight.
Netflix contemplates a tiered streaming model
Certain Netflix members this weekend received a survey from the company in their inbox which asked if users would pay more for premium content.
The survey focused on HBO content, which would add $9.99 per month and give the user instant access to HBO original series and movies. While it is still only an idea by the company, the introduction of a tiered streaming model is a logical next step for the company. It would move the streaming business out of the auxiliary position it currently holds and closer to the company's mail order business which currently has nine different monthly rental plans.
eJamming Audiio P2P music collaboration launches beta 14
At CES 2008, Intel's Paul Otellini used eJamming Audiio, BigStage, and the band Smashmouth to show off how a group of musicians located on various corners of the globe could get together via P2P and play live in a virtual environment.
BetaNews tested the eJamming Audiio software last year and found that it was suitable for recording and collaborating with others in a VoIP-enhanced environment, but playing instruments live had too many latency issues to be feasible. In using MIDI drums, a guitar and bass in three different locations in the United States, each musician found they had to get accustomed to latency in their own signal, and then the latency of the others as well. In the end, it was nearly impossible to play live.
Free online games see sharp increase
comScore data released this week showed online casual gaming has reached 86 million users in 2008, an increase of 27% year over year. Additionally, the time individual users spend on gaming sites increased 42%.
Casual gaming is the category where Yahoo is definitely king, with 19.5 million unique visits in December, a 20% increase over 2007 and 4 million visits more than second place EA Online, and 6 million more than Disney Games, which holds third place.
Whitehouse.gov incorporates RDFa mashup lingo
President Obama's TIGR (Technology, Innovation and Government Reform) team has already extolled the merits of mashups, and now we're seeing the beginnings of mashup language RDFa take root on WhiteHouse.gov.
Viewing the site's copyright policy source reveals the use of RDFa tags such as xmlns,and property. These provide a set of XHTML attributes (metadata) to augment the visual data with information meant for other machines to read, recognize and catalog.
Google's rumored GDrive personal cloud service gets real description
Google's GDrive -- a rumored forthcoming service for storing personal software files on cloud-based Google servers -- looks likely to launch soon, if a reference in a file used by GooglePack is a good indication.
GDrive's "localized product category" is "online file backup and storage," according to the newly discovered description in the file. It also offers a two-line "localized short description" for the long anticipated GGDrive service, which is seen by some as ultimately eliminating the need for storing personal data on PC hard drives.
Copyright Board begrudgingly adopts revenue-based streaming royalties
With explanatory language that made it clear its judges didn't particularly favor anyone at all involved in this whole process, the CRB announced this week it will apply royalties to streaming net services based on revenue.
Though the royalty schemes themselves may not be exactly what streaming broadcasters asked for, especially with regard to its phraseology and methodology -- which makes corporate tax law look like an episode of "Sesame Street" by comparison -- the US Copyright Royalty Board published in its weekly news bulletin (dated Monday but released today) its revenue-based royalties schedules for online services that provide streaming music, online music stores that provide downloads, and ringtone services.
Hollywood studios join the streaming media parade
Studio 3 Networks, a joint venture of three major production groups, revealed today that Epix -- the name for which it had filed multiple trademark applications in early December, will be a streaming on demand Web service.
Originally thought to be a premium television channel and companion on demand service, Studio 3 president Mark Greenberg said yesterday that it will actually be the other way around: a Web service with a cable channel planned for the future. Studio 3 is a joint venture of Viacom and Paramount Pictures, MGM Studios and United Artists, and Lionsgate Films.
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