(* Source: Enigmax via TorrentFreak *) 

Despite collecting an estimated several hundred million dollars in P2P related settlements from the likes of Napster, KaZaA and Bolt, prominent artists’ managers are complaining that so far, they haven’t received any compensation from the labels. According to a lawyer, some are considering legal action.

Lawyer John Branca, who has represented the likes of The Rolling Stones and Korn, said: “Artist managers and lawyers have been wondering for months when their artists will see money from the copyright settlements and how it will be accounted for.”

Irving Azoff, who manages Christina Aguilera, The Eagles, Van Halen, REO Speedwagon and Seal (amongst others) says it’s hard for artists to get what they deserve from the labels: “They will play hide and seek, but eventually will be forced to pay something,” he said. “The record companies have even tried to credit unrecouped accounts. It’s never easy for an artist to get paid their fair share.”

 

More here 

Posted by brian tiong at 01:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Marta Strickland *)

Behold the amazing power of Sprout, a quick and easy way to build all those widgets, jukeboxes, and mini-sites you've been dreaming of, both for clients and personal projects. My first endeavor into using the service, aka my first Sprout, was a widget of passion.

Even before going on my big fall eurotrip, I decided that upon returning I was going to chuck out the idea of the traditional scrapbook and latch onto more web 2.0 ways of recording my experiences. By using Sprout, I was able to develop a "mini-site" of most of my digital vacation artifacts (music, photos, videos, maps, research) within a few hours, and to their credit, most of that time was spent in designing, collecting, and uploading.

The actual interface within Sprout Builder made the entire process intuitive and quick, and when I was finished, I was able to instantly bring my Sprout into my Myspace page, Facebook page, Netvibes account, and now here on ThreeMinds. Although it has a few bugs and limitations, I was more surprised at how much it COULD do and how much it did well. Any users of Photoshop or Flash will be able to dive right in, but I think it would be easy to pick up for most anyone.

Posted by brian tiong at 01:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Three Minds *) 

Posted by brian tiong at 01:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Michael Arrington *)

Mike says...

Google acquired hosted wiki service Jotspot in October 2006. The service immediately stopped taking new users, although existing users were supported. Now, nearly sixteen months later, Jotspot has been relaunched under the Google Apps team, as Google Sites.

Google Sites looks absolutely nothing like Jotspot, other than the fact that both are hosted wikis. All of the structured data templates launched by Jotspot in July 2006 have been stripped out. Users now have a choice between just five basic templates - a standard wiki, a dashboard where google gadgets can be embedded, a blog-like template for announcements, a file cabinet for file uploads, and a page for lists of items. Instead of creating structured templates, users will now simply embed spreadsheets, presentations and word documents from Google Docs, as well as Google Calendars, YouTube Videos and Picasa Albums.

Like Google Docs, Google Sites wikis can be made private, shared with others, or made public. Users can select from a variety of templates, but cannot yet customize the look and feel of the site. Somewhere down the road, Google says, they’ll release an API for the new service as well. Editing is done with a rich text editor that allows for basic formatting.

Google Sites is a free product, with limitations on support and storage (10 GB). Users can upgrade their Google Apps account to a standard edition, also free, and map their own domains to the site. A premier edition is also available for $50/user/year that includes a service level agreement, support and more admin capabilities.

All wiki pages have RSS feeds associated with them to allow users to track any changes.

Existing Jotspot users will continue to be supported on the old platform for the near future, and they will also be given instructions for porting their Jotspot wikis to Google sites.

In an interview today, Google’s Management Director of Enterprise Matthew Glotzbach called the combined products under Google Apps a “Microsoft Sharepoint killer” because it’s allowing businesses to collaborate without all that expensive Microsoft software. It may not be a Sharepoint killer yet, but Google Apps constitutes 2-3% of Google’s total revenues. Some point soon, its going to start hurting Microsoft.

Sample screenshots:

Posted by brian tiong at 01:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Mark Hefflinger *) 

Internet advertising revenues from 2007 are expected to come in at $21.1 billion, in a year that saw record revenue levels in all four quarters that propelled the market up 25% over 2006's record $16.9 billion, according to data from the Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB) and PricewaterhouseCoopers. Still, the gain of $4.2 billion in revenue in 2007 was still less than the $4.3 billion in growth, and 35% revenue increase registered between 2005 and 2006.

The report estimates that fourth quarter 2007 Internet ad revenues reached a record $5.9 billion -- a 13% increase over the third quarter of 2007 and 24% increase over the fourth quarter of 2006.

"The continued record growth evidences the importance and uniqueness of interactive media to both consumers and the marketers that are trying to reach them," said David Silverman, a partner at PricewaterhouseCoopers.

Posted by brian tiong at 09:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Mark Heffliger *) 

Apple announced on Tuesday that its iTunes Store is now the second-largest music retailer in the U.S. behind Wal-Mart, having leapfrogged retail chain Best Buy in the latest figures from market research firm NPD Group. The company pulled ahead of then third-place U.S. music retailer Amazon.com last June, according to NPD's rankings.

Apple also announced that there are now over 50 million iTunes Store customers, and that the company has now sold over four billion songs -- including 20 million sold on Christmas Day 2007 alone.

"We'd like to thank the over 50 million music lovers who have helped the iTunes Store reach this incredible milestone," said Eddy Cue, Apple's vice president of iTunes.

Posted by brian tiong at 09:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Erik Schonfeld *) 

Erik reports... 

Daem Interactive has developed Skuair, new technology that it is calling the next generation of 2d code readers. Skuair isn’t limited to reading barcode lines and numbers but can read product logos or images. Skuair works with any mobile phone camera and is easy to operate. The user simply takes a picture of an advertisement or product logo and a low resolution image is sent to the recognition server and an associated URL is returned. The user can receive a variety of multimedia content from the company or person who owns the image

User generated tags will be launched later this year. A short demo of how Skuair works.

Posted by brian tiong at 09:43 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Mark Hefflinger *)

"The continued growth in legal download sites is encouraging, yet the industry struggles to improve the value of each digital customer," said NPD analyst Russ Crupnick.

"With so many baby boomers and gen-Xers entering the market, there are certainly opportunities to sell more digital albums, promote older catalog titles, or create bundles that will raise revenues.

Posted by brian tiong at 10:23 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Michael Arrington *) 

Mike says...

We covered Stage6, a DivX-owned site, in October 2006 as part of a roundup of up and coming video sites. The site, which allowed users to upload video in the high quality Divx format, streams video that makes YouTube look shabby in comparison.

The site won’t be around long, though, Uploads have already been shut down, and the site itself will go offline on February 28. The official reason: “So why are we shutting the service down? Well, the short answer is that the continued operation of Stage6 is a very expensive enterprise that requires an enormous amount of attention and resources that we are not in a position to continue to provide.”

Translated, that may be that the pirates took over the site. New movies and tv shows were constantly being uploaded and then taken down by the site staff. Sites like Joox.net took all that pirated content and repackaged it on their own site. The combined costs of hosting, plus all the monitoring for infringement, may have been more than Divx was willing to deal with.

Update: Ok, we’ve been shaking the trees on this story a little. According to one source, the planned spinoff of Stage6 from DivX apparently had $24 million or so in committed venture capital but negotiations with the DivX board broke down over ownership percentages. We’re still digging.

Update2: Comscore says Stage6 has 17.4 million monthly unique visitors and 360 million page views. We also hear that their monthly CDN bill from LimeLight is $1 million, about 11% of their revenues. That’s going to hurt them.

Posted by brian tiong at 03:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: eMarketer *) 

Coming soon to a screen near you: Convergence.

Posted by brian tiong at 03:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Yanqing Chen *)

Yiqilai.com released its new version in late September 2007 and jumped into China’s online music discovery battle field where 8box.cn, Yobo.com and dola.com.cn already compete against each other. We compared these services earlier here and here.

Like its competitors, Yiqilai.com’s goal is to copy the success of Pandora and Last.fm to China. Yiqilai is more like Last.fm in terms of features and design. It lets user create profile and customize their own music boxes. The music recommending feature is also included as well as some simple social network features. As far as legal issue goes, I don’t find anything in their help and FAQ pages. I assume they are using the similar approach as Yobo.com and other services.

There’s one interesting feature called “Yiqiali Music Assistant”. It is a windows media player plug-in which supports both local and online music lyric matching and all other features of its website. It is a very good feature for users who are still more comfortable listening music locally using media player while taking advantage of Yiqilai’s music recommending and other features.

I like the potential of Yiqilai and other similar services in this area considering China is going to be the biggest online community in the world down the road and online entertainment including online music services is a great area where startups can have success.

With that being said, they still have a long way to go. Alexa data shows the users in China are using the traditional music sites more than these new web 2.0 services. But I believe time will change everything and all these websites need to do right now is winning the user base battle. Right now I think Yobo is the front runner. It has the best design and best user community. Also it seems to me that Yobo.com has the fastest streaming speed. At least I can listen it here in US while having trouble listening to Yiqilai and other websites.

Posted by brian tiong at 01:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Marta Strickland *)

There was an interesting article today on Last100 about Apple and a new patent they have on a podcasting mash-up service.

It is a little embarrassing, but the idea of podcasts has never really appealed to me. I mean, I understand why they are great and I could honestly see a use for them in my daily life, but I have been intimidated to get involved. I felt kinda the same way when RSS first came out. I was excited, but the idea of searching for places that had feeds and incorporating them into this extra tool known as an RSS reader that I would have to remember to visit… it just seemed like too much of a bother. It wasn’t until RSS readers started to become integrated into anything and everything I was already using (browsers, start pages, mobile phones, etc), that I began utilizing RSS with a passion

Last100 suggests that the patent recently filed by Apple might mean that they are building a took that allows users to easily “look inside” podcasts for certain keywords, aggregate snippets together, and then publish that to a service that can be accessed by iPods, iPhones, and AppleTV. This finally perked my interest. Sure it will be a while before this service becomes more automated and available outside of the realm of Apple. But, the thought of being able to assemble my own daily “best of” on a topic that gets automatically pumped into my phone or car stereo (even better for commuters like me) is a tantalizing daydream that has finally got me seriously considering latching onto this whole “podcast” thing.

Posted by brian tiong at 01:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: eMarketer *)

(* Source: Erik Schonfeld *)

The number of people who visit Facebook has been leveling off over the past few months in the U.S., and even dipped by about 800,000 individuals in January. According to the latest stats from comScore, Facebook attracted 33.9 million unique visitors in January, 2008, down 2 percent from 34.7 million in December, 2007. Maybe all that friend spam has something to do with the decline. Will the Facebook fatigue get worse, or is this just a temporary dip?

Worldwide, Facebook is still doing fine. It grew 3 percent in January over December, attracting 100.7 million unique visitors. (MySpace had 109.3 million visitors worldwide, up 2 percent month-over-month. And in the U.S., it was slightly down as well from 68.9 million visitors in December, 2007 to 68.6 million in January, 2008. Despite its larger size, though, MySpace lost fewer visitors in the U.S. than Facebook did).

Posted by brian tiong at 12:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Michael Arrington *)

Mike says...

San Francisco/Seattle based music service iLike launched a “news feed” for favorite artists this week. Users can now see exactly what their favorite artists are up to - when they go on tour, release new songs or videos, etc, the news is presented to them in the feed.

Users can select their favorite artist via the iLike website or on their social network applications. Or the service decides what you like based on your playing habits on iTunes (they have an iTunes plugin - if you listen to a song ten times, it thinks you like the artist).

The news feed for favorite artists can be viewed via the iTunes plugin, the website, the social network applications, or via a new iPhone app (just go to iLike on an iPhone and log in).

The company continues to dominate the Facebook music scene. Their U2 page on Facebook has 1.9 million fans. Compare that to just 168,000 friends on the MySpace U2 page, and 933,000 on Last.fm. The fact that a previously unreleased U2 song was first heard on iLike didn’t hurt those numbers, either.

In July 2007 iLike had 4.5 million users of its Facebook application. Today they have 14 million. But more than half of their new members today are coming from their iLike.com site and other social networks - OpenSocial gave them access to Bebo, Hi5 and soon MySpace. On their website alone they see 3.5 million worldwide monthly visitors, which isn’t bad considering most users interact with iLike via their iTunes plugin, or on Facebook and other social networks. Last.fm, which was acquired last year for $280 million, has 4.7 million.

Posted by brian tiong at 04:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Tangos *) 

Tangos reports... 

According to the latest report by China Internet Network Information Centre (CNNIC), at the end of June 2007, Chinese Internet users has reached 162 million, which means an increase of 25 million in last six months, the biggest half-yearly increase ever. But it may because CNNIC report change the definition of Internet users, in all previous reports, Internet user means Chinese citizen aged 6 and above who averagely use the Internet at least one hour per week. However, in its latest report, Internet users are Chinese citizens aged 6 and above who use the Internet in last half year.

The following are my quick thoughts on the latest report:

• Mobile Internet will become more and more important, over 44 million users use mobile handsets to access Internet, an increase of 27 million (159%) in last six months.
• Over half of all Internet users(51.2%) are under age 25. The Internet penetration rate for users aged between 18 to 24 is 43.4%. Internet has become their lifestyle, that’s also part of the reasons that QQ and 51.com are so popular in China.
• The percentage of Internet users with high school education or below increased from 48.2% in half year ago to 56.1%. The percentage of users with an income below 1000 yuan increased from 47.6% to 51.7%. You need to understand these group of young users to become leading player in China’s Internet market.
• Over 37% users, increased from 32.3%, access Internet in Internet cafe. It is said that 51.com is very popular among Internet Cafe users
• IM is more important in China than email for communication. More netizens use IM than email (69.8% vs. 55.4%), while over 90% Internet users use email in US. IM usage rate is even higher (74.6%) among users under age 25, while the email usage rate is only 46.6% among them.
• Online entertainment demand is the most important demand among Chinese yougsters(under age 25), with 91.4% of them used online music, 79.6%% used online movies, and 67.1% played online games.

Well, from this data, you may find the characteristics of Chinese Internet is quite different from those of US, you should study the report in detail to understand Chinese Internet users better. The full report in PDF file can be downloaded (English version report) here.

Posted by brian tiong at 02:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Mark Hefflinger *)

Posted by brian tiong at 11:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: eMarketer *)

MySpace and Facebook are less than five years old. Will widgets stick around that long?

Posted by brian tiong at 09:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Kristen Nicole *) 

The Gamers Developer Conference (GDC) 2008 began yesterday, and it’s been interesting to see some of the announcements that have come out of the conference so far. As you may have noticed, gaming (which was already huge) is creeping into our every day web activities more and more, on a more complex level. And by “more complex” I mean that it’s more integrated.

Today, we hear of Avatar Reality’s upcoming launch of an MMVW called Blue Mars. Those at GDC 2008 get a sneak preview of the virtual world, and you Mashable readers get a bit of a sneak preview as well. The graphics are probably the most noteworthy aspect of Blue Mars, especially at this stage of the game’s life, but equally as important are the platform options Avatar Reality will be extending to third-party developers for creating games of their own.

From the looks of it, Blue Mars will be along the lines of Second Life or Sony Home, where individuals can create realistic representations of things that could occur in real life (shopping, home decor). It could be right up the alley for retailers and brands that would like additional options for integrated online marketing campaigns. I’ll admit, I’ll be anxiously awaiting the arrival of Blue Mars so I can try it out comparatively, though it won’t be available to the public until after Spore is scheduled to actually be released. We’ll see how much free time I have left after that!

Posted by brian tiong at 10:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Fvrit.com *) 

Businesses are beginning to wake-up to the fact that social networking sites such as facebook are no longer employee time wasters, but rather a new medium for extending their brand and communicating directly with consumers.

The social web has transformed marketing so that it is no longer a one-way transmission. Social media provides two-way communication between companies and consumers. It only takes a moment to realize why traditional media such as newspapers are losing readers and their appeal.

Most notably on facebook, this transformation has begun to take place. The reason being I believe is that facebook has become one of the most popular social networking destinations for web-savvy users and professionals alike. In addition, many corporations use facebook (and other networking sites) for employee recruitment. Since both are businesses and consumers are already there, why not take advantage of it.

Consumers are not stupid. With the popularity of the Internet, consumers are becoming even more knowledgeable. The interactivity of social media draws consumers and allows them to have discussions with each other. Businesses are getting to realize that they need to be where the consumers are.

I have been saying for quite a while that business should embrace social media as a means to communicate with consumers, and as a sounding board for understanding what customers want. Social media is currently one of the most underutilized methods of receiving customer feedback. Who needs a focus group or group study when there are millions of consumers willing to carry on a conversation with your business?

In order to embrace social networking companies must give up some control they previously wielded with an iron first via traditional media. Social networking and media is about giving the user a voice, opening dialogue and communicating with them. Media sites such as facebook, LinkedIn, Bebo and the like are perfect places to do so. Businesses are warming up to the idea that a conversation between them and consumers is ultimately a good thing.

Social networking for businesses can be a double-edged sword though. If a company produces crappy products, then they are going to hear about it from users of same social networks. Companies that produce excellent products can expect a far-reaching positive response that will extend their brand across the Internet.

I am still curious about one thing: How many corporations (of any size) still believe the traditional mantra that press releases, case studies, television ads and snazzy imagery reach farther than communicating directly with those that are buying their products through social media.

More here 

Posted by brian tiong at 10:40 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Shankar Ganesh *) 

Ok, you’ve got loads of music on your computer - but is that all cluttered, unorganized, unmanaged and simply not easy to access? May be you need to do something. Literally hundreds of free software let you play, organize, burn and do lots more with your digital MP3 music collection. Have a well tagged, sortable music collection that you can be proud of!

Here comes a carefully chosen list of free programs that might help you squeeze the best out of your MP3 collection.

Part I - Audio Players

The default audio player software on your Windows is probably not enough, when it comes to extensive features and customizability. Here’s a pick of the best media players that can let you sort through and efficiently play most audio formats on your Windows computer:

VLC Player - It’s more light on resources that you would imagine. VLC is a very versatile player - throw any odd format, and it plays them for you instantly (FLV included).

Winamp - Winamp has its own fans, it’s customizable to a large extent and can come as a great saver. If you listen to music every other day, you need to have Winamp installed. A similar player is Jet Audio.

Songbird - A feature rich application that has great looks, go for it if your Windows computer has got some memory to spare, it’s reviewed here. You can customize it by adding extensions (similar to Firefox).

Part II - Organizers/Taggers/Jukeboxes

Jukeboxes are music software that come with amazing capabilities. Go for them if you have huge music collections scattered all around - not just in your computer, but also in audio CDs.

Media Monkey - The best piece of software out there that you’ll love using. Tag editor, format converter, CD recording, iPod support, you name it - it’s got all the tools that squeeze the best from your tracks.

J River Media Jukebox - Very pretty, has good features. And might serve as a good jukebox.

>> I missed out Foobar, thanks for the heads up Ashwin!

MP3 Tagger - The best ID3 tagger out there in the market, that’s free as well.

Magic MP3 Tagger - Update: Oops, sorry guys this is not freeware.

Part III- Rippers, Converters

Audio Grabber - Fantastic audio ripping software, with FreeDB tagging support included. Another similar ripper is FreeRip. Another one a few commenters have mentioned is Exact Audio Copy

Part IV - Audio Editors

Trust me, as far as I know, there’s no free editor as much capable as the professional ones out there. But still if you’d like to do some basic recording and effects, you could try these:

Audacity - Open Source, and is very light weight.

Wavosaur - Comes with no installer, and is a single exe file that does the job. Supports WAV format

Part V - Other

Last.fm - A social networking site for audiophiles out there. Listen, get interesting tracks based on what you’ve played, and add friends! More such music sites here.

Tunatic - A song is playing on your head, but you just can’t get it’s title right? Then download this, install, hum the song through your mic and let Tunatic locate info on the song for you! Quite cool for show off as well

Audio Files GDS Indexer - Google Desktop Plugin - Install this one if you have got Google Desktop installed. Adds a bunch of functionality to the Desktop Spider to make it more friendlier towards Audio files.

More here 

Posted by brian tiong at 10:33 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Ken Fisher *) 

Posted by brian tiong at 10:13 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Sean P Aune *) 

The Nintendo DS is the latest and possibly most popular handheld game system from Nintendo. As has become tradition with just about every game system, there is a large and active homebrew community making all sorts of tools and toys for it. We’ve gathered 20+ examples of some of the things your favorite game system for those on the move can do that you may never have known about.

Make sure to read the instructions for each as some require different homebrew installs than others. The DSWiki has detailed directions on how you can get in to the homebrew world.

Art

Animanatee - An animation program that allows up to 10,000 frames of animation, or until the memory runs out.

Colors! - A pressure sensitive art program that you can save your artwork via memory card or email it over Wi-Fi.

FlickBook - A simple animation program for making small animations.

Phidias - An art program that lets you create detailed images saved to the BMP format.

Communication

DS-AIM - A version of AIM for your DS.

IRCDS - Internet Relay Chat comes to your handhel.

SvSIP - A VoIP tool based on Session Initiation Protocol (SIP). Still in development and only handles basic phone functions at thi time.

Emulators & OS

DSLinux.org - If it’s electronic, somebody stuffs Linux in it, and the DS is no different.

DSMouse - Turn your DS into a wireless mouse for your computer.
Emulator-Zone.com - A repository of several emulators for the DS.

Goomba - An emulator to run original Gameboy games on the DS.

SnezziDS - Away to run Super NES games on the latest iteration of the Nintendo handhelds.

Utilities

DSFTP - Allows you to set up an FTP server on your DS, also includes instructions to incorporate it it into other homebrew programs.

DSLiveWeather - A client to access Weather.com’s weather information.

DSOrganize - A lightweight organizer for your DS that also includes a RSS reader, file browser, web browser, IRC client, text editor, calculator.

DSReader - Another popular ebook reader that also allows you to turn the DS sideways to read it in more in the orientation of a traditional book.

DSVNC - A VNC tool to allow you to control a computer over a private network from your DS.

Image Viewer - From the same homebrew group behind Moonshell, uses an app on the computer end to convert photos for better viewing on the DS and then gives you a viewer inside the DS.

Moonshell - A popular media player that can use MP3, OGG, MIDI, AAC and other audio file formats. Can also show JPG, BMP, GIF, PNG, TXT files and some videos.

TextViewer - Can read several file formats and allows for text bookmarking so you don’t lose your place.

Treasures of Gaia - A Google Maps application that works both in French and English.

TxtWriter - This allows you to create simple txt files using a modified on-screen keyboard. Can be saved to a memory card for transfer.

Posted by brian tiong at 10:09 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Kristen Nicole *) 

Avatar creation tool Meez is announcing the gold launch of its distributed gaming service, and a related API platform, which had already been in use for casual games, and other social networking uses, as seen with the recent integration with AOL’s instant messaging tool.

This particular initiative touches on both of these aspects of online communication, to be used for casual games and social networks. It enables game publishers to tap into Meez’s existing user base across the social networking landscape, including Facebook and Friendster. Similar to the deal between Meez and Sears, this API offering can also provide additional monetization options for game publishers. From Meez:

* In-Game Avatars (“Meez Inside”) – Users can import their avatars into a game and use it to represent them as they play, creating a highly personalized gaming experience, which was formerly available only in high-end console gaming. Game players can become the bartender serving friends in Bar Room Blitz, now available at http://apps.facebook.com/meezroomz/, and will be able to have their Meez avatar bring down the house as a DJ in Dance Floor Destroyer later this week.

* Emoticon Avatars (“Meez Enhanced”) - For games without human characters, the user’s individual Meez sits next to the game, reacting with a wide range of emotions as the user plays, such as falling “dead” when the game ends, or giving the thumbs up when the player gets a high score. This experience can now be seen across the games at Meez, as well as at Friendster Games and Perfspot Games.

The interesting thing about the Meez API is the interaction options that provide an added networking element in accordance to whatever the game publisher has created with their casual game. For those that would like to layer in social networking tools for their existing games, the use of Meez avatars may be a viable option.

In response to initiatives like Meebo’s API offering, which provides an option for layering in chat tools for casual games, Meez’s interactive avatars looks to extend its interactive tools in order to provide alternatives to the larger trends occurring within the gaming industry. As the bigger game networks like EA Games look to offer more casual games on the web, the casual gaming trend is really beginning to take advantage of tools offered across the Internet.

Posted by brian tiong at 09:48 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: eMarketer *) 

Posted by brian tiong at 02:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: eMarketer *) 

So far, widgets and applications are garnering far more attention than actual ad dollars. Although consumers are increasingly using them, eMarketer estimates that US companies will spend only $40 million in 2008 to create, promote and distribute widgets, up from $15 million in 2007.

The Web Widgets and Applications report tracks the trends that are driving this unique and intriguing, but not yet lucrative, area of Internet development.

Widgets are popping up everywhere online. Since Facebook opened up to third-party applications in May 2007, nearly 15,000 applications have been developed. Overall, some 100,000 developers are working on widgets and applications worldwide.

Widgets are new, hot and fun. But there are already raising concerns, including “application burnout,” measurement difficulties, distribution challenges and deceptive techniques used by some widget developers to increase their installation rate.

The widget and application business can really grow—it has some growing up to do.

More here 

Posted by brian tiong at 02:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Kevin Riley *) 

According to data at Alexa.com which ranks websites according to their visitor traffic, Web 2.0 video sharing site Youtube.com has now overtaken Google.com as the world's second most visited website. Is this proof that video search marketing has come of age and is becoming a threat to traditional online search?

After noticing a massive spike in popularity and traffic at video sharing sites such as Youtube.com starting early last year, internet marketer and website traffic expert Kevin Riley decided to see for himself if online video had more than just entertainment value.

 
"As someone who had previously focused on online marketing through traditional search using PPC and SEO, I initially assumed that video sharing sites were going to be a fad with little marketing potential," explains Riley. "But when I noticed niche content videos posted to these sites were getting a massive number of views and also showing up high in the search engine results pages for relevant keywords, I knew the potential for marketing with videos was about to explode."

 
"Although I was excited at the traffic these videos received, I was even more surprised when I noticed that these promotions really did increase website traffic to our sites that converted into leads and sales," says Riley. "In fact, the conversion rates on some of our video promotions are as good as the results we get with some of our traditional search campaigns."

"Video search marketing is here to stay," proclaims Riley. "Although video search is more of a compliment than a threat to traditional search, especially since Google wisely acquired Youtube, it has already proven itself as a necessary component of any effective online marketing campaign."

 

More here 

Posted by brian tiong at 01:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Nicholas Deleon *) 

And who said World of Warcraft was a waste of time? Turns out you can win a couple of ducats if you’re good enough.

Starting in April, Blizzard will start a contest where players will compete for a grad prize of $75,000. It’ll be a 3v3 Arena contest where players will try to out-PVP each other. To make things intersting, the contest will be held on servers where you can automatically create level 70 characters with the best gear available—the contest is about skill and guile rather than who has the most time to raid and raid and obtain gear the hard way. An even playing filed. Much appreciated, Blizzard. (Not that I’ll enter; my PVP skills can be best described as “atrocious.”

The contest ain’t free, though, with Blizzard charging $20 for North American entrants, and around the same amount in your local currency.

Posted by brian tiong at 12:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Erik Schonfeld *) 

A new startup called Lingtastic is coming out of stealth today that wants to lower the cost of professional translation services. Using a distributed team of freelance translators around the world, customers will be able to call in, and the translator with the lowest bid will take the call. Instead of $100 an hour or more, CEO Chas Watkins expects the hourly rate to be as low as $18. (Lingtastic will take 20 percent as its cut).

The service launched in closed beta today for Spanish-English translations. Other languages will be available when the site launches publicly in March. If you want to try it out, send an e-mail to TC [at] Lingtastic [dot] com saying why you want to use the service. TC readers will get preference in being accepted to the beta.

Lingtastic will provide both live interpreters and translate text messages from one language to another. Watkins imagines many scenarios for his services. Any hotel or car rental agency across the world can have a live interpreter by simply calling. Sales people trying to reach potential customers in foreign countries could use the service. Or simply someone trying to flirt with someone they meet on a social network who lives in another country. Text translations can be sent via e-mail, SMS, or posted to Websites. There is a developer API as well. Here is how Watkins describes the service:

In the live release next month a customer with an account will be able to request a live interpreter from our website and they will receive a call from that person in seconds. They can specify language, specialty, max price and skill level and the interpreters compete for their business. That call can come on a normal phone, cell phone, skype, Yahoo, Google talk, or MSN. We can even conference in a third party on any of those applications too!

The most important aspect of our service though is the interface we have built to this system. That allows developers to quickly add our service (or resell it) from their own software or social site. This will allow people to quickly develop applications that can translate text, or have live interpreters call them to chat with friends from within any website or service.

Posted by brian tiong at 12:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Duncan Riley *) 

Singapore based Comiqs gives users the ability to create their own comics with a rich web based editing suite.

Sites and services that provide comic generation aren’t new. Comic Life from Plasq (makers of Skitch) would be the best known in the field, and comes installed on new Macs. There’s also no shortage of “add speech bubble” style web editors available as well. Comiqs offers a similar feature set to Comic Life, but online and totally free.

Users can use Comiqs with photos uploaded from their computer or from a photo-sharing website like Flickr to create a comic. Tools include speech bubbles of different kinds and shapes, frames and fonts. The interface is drag and drop so the learning curve is next to zero. Comics can also be embedded on other sites in a custom viewer for multi-page productions.

Comiqs is currently securing investors to take the service to the next level, where they intend to “work closely with cartoon artists in a revenue sharing arrangement that open up new revenue streams for talented artists and position our site as a place to find talented cartoon artists.”

Comiqs completes with StripGenerator, PikiStrips and Toondoo.

The demo video below shows one frame editing, but it should be noted that the tool can be used for traditional style (frame by frame) comics. You can also play with the service directly without the need to set up an account.

Posted by brian tiong at 12:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Duncan Riley *) 

 




New data released by Hitwise yesterday shows that there is a socio-economic difference between those frequently using Yahoo and those more frequently using Google.

The graph right demonstrates “Online Representation” based on demographic types. The Y axis represents Yahoo, the X axis Google, with the higher the number, the more that particular group of users uses each service. Yahoo is strong in “struggling societies,” “blue collar backbone,” and “remote America,” where as Google obtains higher use in “small town contentment,” “affluent suburbia,” and “upscale America.” The size of each circle represents how many in each group have spent $500+ online.

The differences between the groups aren’t great, but the results do go some way in explaining the Yahoo conundrum. Although a distance second in search, Yahoo has remained the number one traffic destination online ahead of Google, so you’d think with more traffic Yahoo would convert that traffic into similar returns to Google. But alas we know that not to be the case, and that would appear in part to be related to people using Yahoo not spending as much online and being in poorer demographic categories than Google users, providing a lower return per user.

Posted by brian tiong at 11:28 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Steve Rubel *)

Steve says... 

Content: it's everywhere. Content is in your inbox, your feed reader, outdoor media, your living room, your pocket and, increasingly, on every web site you visit. It also increasingly resides on sites built and managed by your favorite brands, which are bypassing the media and going direct.

The democratization of publishing is without a doubt a revolution. When we're all dead and gone, the 21st Century will be remembered as a Digital Renaissance - one that rivals the original that preceded it by 700 years.

The Internet has empowered billions of people and is distributing their creativity across millions of niches and dozens of formats. Quality and accuracy, of course, can vary. However, virtually every subject either is or will be addressed with excellence - by someone, somewhere.

However, the glut of content as we all know also has a major downside. Our information and entertainment options greatly outweigh the time we have to consume it. Even if one were to only focus on micro-niche interests and snack on bite-sized content, demand could never ever scale to match the supply. Content is a commodity. The Attention Crash is real and - make no mistake - it will deepen.

Enter the Digital Curator. A curator, in a cultural institution context, is a guardian or an overseer. According to Wikipedia, he/she "is a content specialist responsible for an institution's collections and their associated collections catalogs. The object of a curator's concern necessarily involves tangible objects of some sort, whether it be inter alia artwork, collectibles, historic items or scientific collections."

Museum curators, like web users, are faced with choices. They can't put every work of art in a museum. They acquire pieces that fit within the tone, direction and - above all - the purpose of the institution. They travel the corners of the world looking for "finds." Then, once located, clean them up and make sure they are presentable and offer the patron a high quality experience.

Much the same, the digital realm too needs curators. Information overload makes it difficult to separate junk from art. It requires a certain finesse and expertise - a fine tuned, perhaps trained eye. Google, memetrackers such as Techmeme and social news sites like digg are not curators. They're aggregators - and there's a big difference.

The call of the curator requires people who are selfless and willing to act as sherpas and guides. They're identifiable subject matter experts who dive through mountains of digital information and distill it down to its most relevant, essential parts. Digital Curators are the future of online content. Brands, media companies and dedicated individuals can all become curators. Further, they don't even need to create their own content, just as a museum curator rarely hangs his/her own work next to a Da Vinci. They do, however, need to be subject matter experts.

Curators are not editors either. The notion of an editor inherently implies that space is finite. Online it's not. Curators don't need to necessarily be trained in cutting, but in knowing where and how to unearth those special high-quality "finds" and to make them presentable. It's just as much about the experience and the way the information is presented, as it is the content.

If you look for them, curators are everywhere. Mahalo is a thriving community of curators on virtually dozens of subjects. The tech section of the New York Times web site and the My Times site, both of which highlight blogs, is another. Last but not least is the IAB Smartbrief. If you're interested in online marketing and have time to read only one source, this is the one to turn to because they curate.

As content universe expands and floods niches, there will always be a market for Digital Curators. The key for brands, individuals and media companies will be to identify those niches where they have deep expertise and to become the best in the world at serving them. I guarantee if you do this well and consistently, your long-term success is essentially guaranteed. And even if you do not have the energy to become a curator, you will certainly be influenced them.

Posted by brian tiong at 05:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins *) 

Today, Tiny Pictures announced an exclusive partnership with will.i.am of the Black Eyed Peas, adding him to the Advisory Board. Tiny Pictures is the software and web development outfit behind the system called simply Radar, which seems to be a semi-walled garden for moblogging. The community centers around the sharing of pictures and video taken from the user’s mobile phone, and then once sent to the system is able to be shared a variety of ways like Facebook apps or MySpace widgets.

Will.i.am will join with the community and collaborate with Tiny Pictures on the development of the community in return for the Radar Gallery promoting his creative projects. The project will.i.am has planned for Radar is a sort of behind the musician studio/MTV Cribs look at his life on tour, in the recording studio and at home view for his fans.

Grabbing the most explosive viral video producer on the market at the moment is quite a coup for Tiny Pictures, and will certainly raise the profile for the community. The community currently doesn’t offer much more than the standard set of features available with a host of other moblog service providers, but if they’re able to use will.i.am’s pop appeal to transform the community from utility status into a hip, happening place for pop and underground culture, it could turn Tiny Pictures’ Radar Gallery into something significantly more.

Posted by brian tiong at 04:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: b-side *)

B-side is an official media partner for Music Matters - The Asia Pacific Music Conference that is happening from the 3rd of June 2008 in Hong Kong.  Last years conference saw over 600 mover and shakers in the music world come together to share their views on the ever changing & challenging music space in Asia.

I was there last year and the segment I enjoyed most was the special appearance of the legendary Nile Rogers and his unplugged performance of his hit songs over the past 2 decades.  Truely inspiring.

This year, B-side is supporting this conference with the below free widget and email newsletter on what's happening in the digital music space. Go ahead...take it, spread it.

Posted by brian tiong at 10:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Paul Glazowski *) 

Like online gaming? EA has noticed.

Yes, so it seems. News broken a couple of days ago by Curt Feldman of Gametap, a subscription-based gaming service on the Web, Electronic Arts, one of the largest publishers of video game entertainment, is working to assemble a social online division of the company that will develop, among other things, titles that operate on platforms all over the Internet. According to Gametap’s report on the matter, EA has already begun “testing the waters” with a game dubbed Facebook Smarty Pants [Facebook login req.], a “repurposed version of (2007’s) Wii-exclusive trivia title bearing the same name.

Looking at the clear potential to be gleaned from a large archive of social Web-based games on networks of various stripes (not only Facebook), this looks to be precisely the right moment for EA to make a move into the regions of the Internet populated by people of a variety of ages. With broadband having become something of a near ubiquitous utility for a sizable percentage of the US, Europe, Asia, and places elsewhere, now is as good a moment as any for an interactive-media giant like EA to make a significant impression on the Web 2.0 scene.

Posted by brian tiong at 10:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Kristen Nicole *) 

That's one for the book club, Mr Ian... 

(* Source: Stan Schroeder *) 

You tell them Stan... 

Wanna Beat Piracy? You Have to Do Better Than Them!

Is piracy killing the record industry, or is the record industry just too slow and inert to adapt to the way business should be run nowadays, and that is online? My vote goes to the latter; in fact, I think they aren’t even trying hard enough.

An interesting article from Torrentfreak tells the story of a German indie record label Dependent Records which was forced to shut down and then decided to upload its entire catalogue to The Pirate Bay.

Interestingly enough, the company’s CEO Stefan Herwig claims that Dependent Records was forced to shut down mostly because of piracy, and that indie record labels are the ones which are struck by piracy the most. “A popular claim often seen on Internet fora maintains that the P2P culture weakens the majors and bolsters the independent labels. This is, we can assure you, 100% bullshit,” he says. He’s angry but not bitter, though; he seems to think of this as the natural course of events, and thus he decided that the least he can do to make his music available to the public is offer his label’s catalogue freely on The Pirate Bay.

I do not agree, however, with Herwig’s assertion that the main reason for his company’s demise is because “there are simply too many people who enjoy our bands and their songs who do not wish to pay for them.” The problem of record companies - especially small, indie ones - is not that people don’t want to pay; it’s availability. An average user simply doesn’t have the time to walk from one small record store to the other and search for new records; especially since new albums are often available on the internet weeks before they physically come to the store.

Big stores at least offer a wide variety of products, so you can hope to find most of what you’re looking for in one place. But small record stores, as cute as they are, are simply too much hassle compared to the armchair-shopping that the internet offers. The indies thus are forced to change their business model even more than large record companies. If you’re thinking of starting a record label/store today, the first thing on your mind should be an online shop; and this online shop has to be at least as easy to use as The Pirate Bay.

One important thing here that the entertainment industry doesn’t understand, is how piracy works. Piracy works very, very well. The albums and videos and movies come quickly; they’re thoroughly checked by the community, they’re well organized, they have standards of quality, and they’re free. To beat that, you need to offer content that’s just as fast, just as good, just as organized, and then give something extra to compensate for the “free” part: higher quality bitrates, extra digital content, extra physical content (shirts, concert tickets, coupons). You can’t miss out any of these elements because your content will ultimately be worse than the stuff on Mininova or The Pirate Bay.

Not realizing this, the industry stabs itself in the foot. They add those annoying “piracy is a crime” trailers to DVDs which you can’t skip and which just make you go and download the XviD version. They add DRM and rootkits to their media which makes pirated content, well, a 100 times better than theirs simply because it’s annoyance-free. They often have crappy online shops and support some weird media formats instead of using what most people use. Their content, simply put, sucks compared to pirated content.

Ultimately, I think the “free” element of piracy is not crucial. It’s the fantastic organization, speed and quality that piracy offers that makes most people download pirated content. If the entertainment industry - movie studios and record labels, big or small - should offer content that has the same quality as the pirated content; and perhaps even strive to offer just a tiny bit more, they’d see their profits surge.

Posted by brian tiong at 10:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Adam Ostrow *) 

it's past New Year and I was thinking about my Facebook fatigue and then I realised that the number of messages I get daily seem to have halved in January... hmmm, is it me or... apparently not. Isn't there just too much going on but not really?  Let's hope the trend keep going till it gets to a real level of communication and not useless applications being sent like good old fashion spam. Read on.

Adam says...

Stats to be released tomorrow by comScore show that traffic to most of the top social networking sites is continuing to increase in the US, although the amount of time users spend on such sites is leveling off. For example, while MySpace is showing 11.6% year-to-year growth in unique visitors and Facebook is up 78.6%, the amount of time the average user spends on each site is down 10.4% and up just 1.1%, respectively. Further, the average time spent on Bebo is off 63.6%, though the US is only a small part of that social network’s user base.

Looking closer at the engagement metrics, it’s notable that MySpace users still spend the most time on the site versus users of other social networks. In January, the average visitor spent 203.9 minutes on the site (a 13.7% month-to-month increase), while the average Facebook visitor was logged on for 172.1 minutes (a 1.6% month-to-month increase, but notably down from a high of 199.9 minutes per visitor in February ’07).

The decline in minutes per user on Facebook certainly adds more credence to the theory that interest in applications is starting to fall off. Meanwhile, a few Facebook-like additions such as a friend news feed and improved photo galleries seem to be keeping users on MySpace as the top social network prepares to launch its own developer platform to users next month.

A few other notable numbers from the report:

* YouTube unique visitors more than doubled in the past year, to 61.3 million visitors in January. Page views were up 277%.
* Flickr unique visitors were up 88.5% to nearly 14 million. Page views were up 266% year-over-year to 340 million in January.
* Yahoo 360 unique visitors plunged 53.4% to 2.2 million. Page views were down 54.6% to 52 million.
* Unique visitors to Facebook fell 2.3% from December. They are essentially flat since August (33.7 million, versus 33.8 million for January).

Clearly, YouTube is benefiting from being acquired by Google and integrated into search results, while Flickr is continuing to grow under the Yahoo umbrella. As for Yahoo 360, its demise probably doesn’t come as a huge surprise given Yahoo’s ever-shifting social networking strategy (anyone still looking for Yahoo Mash invites?).

Posted by brian tiong at 10:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Taly Weiss *) 

"Online Media is the mass media" great quote and report by Taly showing how Coke has experimented with all these new media platforms and I can only suspect they have a better understanding than most other FMCG brands on what i think is only the start of "conversational marketing".  Read on...

Taly says...

We all follow the growing success of Users Generated Content (UGC) sites. As the top websites still struggle to allow marketers inside, users keep rejecting those efforts and are strongly organizing not to allow marketing campaigns on their behalves.
While marketers realize its time to transfer their focus online, let us follow the top brands activity in the hubs global users spend their time in.

case study: Coca-Cola (no. 4 brand according to BrandZ, no. 1 brand according to Interbrand).

Coca-Cola on Youtube:
Starring on YouTube, the closest to resemble the TV online, Coca-Cola’s biggest success was due to the known series of Diet Coke experiments with Mentos (nostalgia: not too long ago, marketers were carefully picking other brands only if their values found to match- well see how Coke and Mentos nicely match today!). The most viewed from these take offs brought about 8 million views (Comments: 12,500, Favorited: 9704 times), while other videos with this concept brought few million more.
Coca-Cola’s original video (GTA Coke, Coca-Cola video game) brought together about 5 million views (aggregated results: Comments: 5,140, Favorited: 18,575 times), when Coca-Cola presented a car theft video performed by second world avatars.

Coca-Cola on MySpace:
Many MySpace groups were established in connection with Coca-Cola, but all hold very small number of members.
The largest group I could find was Coca-Cola’s Fan club – with 6319 friends.

Coca-Cola on Facebook:
Coca-Cola fans on Facebook count no more than 625.
Coca Cola’s events using Facebook application (Coca-Cola my summer application) involves no more than 17 daily active users.
Largest Facebook’s group for Coca-Cola - counts about 13,000 members (calls to bring the old Xmas advert).

Coca-Cola on Second worlds:
After few innovative experiments – Coca-Cola leaves Second Life to try another second world platform.

Coca-Cola on blogs, forums, Coca-Cola website:
While Coca-Cola generates higher volume in blogs and forums than its direct competitor (Pepsi), it can hardly confront other leading brands on the top brands list (having technology or online advantage).

According to US traffic data provided by Compete, over the last year Coca-Cola lost more than 40% of its visitors (currently = 290k uniques). Alexa, on the other hand presents an opposite trend of world wide traffic (is it that Coca-Cola is losing its power in the USA?)

Results:
Over the top social networking sites - Coca-Cola fails to create fans, members and friends.
The YouTube findings, can serve as the best model for Coca-Cola. The most successful Coca- Cola related activity observed, was due to users experimenting in splashing Diet Coke on the ground…

********************************************************

Conclusions:

1. Coca Cola – needs to step aside, contribute underground innovative concepts for users to create their own Coke experience. Coca-Cola must understand that “Coke jokes” might be the best brand experience it can empower.

2. If the name of the game is online presence – Coca-Cola as a global leading brand needs to re-think its business assets. For years Coca-Cola met its audiences through mass media, constantly engaging with its targets. Today, when online media is the mass media – Coca-Cola must improve the channels needed to make an optimal reach over. If Coca-Cola wishes to stay on the top brands list – side by side with technology monsters – it should create its own “technology” solution.

Posted by brian tiong at 03:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Victrix Media *)

Commercialising social media assets is only going to get harder.

The audience numbers aren’t in dispute, neither is the longevity of social media, vernacular media, in any doubt. This is a phenomenon that won’t be turned back. Imagine George Eastman trying to ’switch off’ the popular surge in photography by pulling the plug on his Kodak brand?

Yet in the context of return on marketing investment (ROMI), we’re still struggling. Social media brands provide a Superbowl-sized audience everyday, yet the ROMI is still hard to quantify. In part we’re still struggling to understand audience mind-sets, levels of association and engagement. Enter the recent findings from VM’s Vector Media Study.

Focusing in on the issue of recency, a key finding is the levels of account activation amongst some of the biggest social networks, including MySpace, Facebook, Bebo and LinkedIn. According to the study, 38% of MySpace members accessed their account in the last week, compared with 62% for FaceBook, 30% for Bebo and almost 29% for LinkedIn.

In this one data point alone, a large discrepancy already appears between one brand and almost every other social network in the study. However, the most interesting finding relates to account dormancy. The study indicates that up to 21% of all MySpace accounts have not been accessed in the previous six months, compared with 6% for FaceBook, a massive 41% for Bebo and 21% for LinkedIn.

In short, the average dormancy rate across these four social networks is 22%. In the abscence of verifiable data from the publishers themselves, the ‘22% rule’, as we will call it, isn’t a bad rule of thumb in applying a discount factor to the total number of members a social network claims to have on its books.

In every business ‘dead accounts’ are an issue, be it a bank, retailer or hospitality - but when the business is media, and audience, particularly an active audience, is the currency for advertisers, greater focus on the issue of recency is absolutely critical.

Posted by brian tiong at 03:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Erick Schonfeld *) 

In the old days, when people had stereos (remember those), if you wanted to listen to a friend’s music collection, you had to go to their house. Today, you check out their iLike playlists on Facebook, their Last.fm profile, or any of dozens of other social music sharing widgets and Websites. Now you can add Reble.FM to that list. Reble.FM is free software you download to your desktop that lets you stream songs from any friend’s PC that is also online and is running the Reble.FM client. It just launched in public beta today. Says founder and key-coder Nick Meyer:

Playing music on my friend’s computer should feel just like playing a song on my hard-drive, and you should be able to add any of your friends’ music to playlists. That’s what we’re going for with Reble.

Reble is a scrappy YCombinator startup. The software is built on the Jabber open-source instant messaging platform You are basically IMing with your friends and hooking into their iTunes or other music library. You can only see the music of friends on your contact list, and can only stream a song if no one else is listening to it at the same moment. It is a one-to-one system.

But the more friends you invite, the bigger the music library that you can access. The software only works on Windows machines right now, and only streams DRM-free MP3s. Eventually, it will let you buy songs that you like from digital music stores like iTunes or Amazon.

The download-only client will be a nonstarter for some users, especially since there are many other Web-based options for sharing your playlists with your friends. It does beat uploading all your songs to some Website, or only being able to listen to a random shuffle of your friends’ songs. But even the Web-based music sharing services are making on-demand music streaming possible. Last.fm, for instance, now lets you stream any song three times in full before reverting to its default random shuffle. For those of you who try out Reble, please tell us your impressions in comments.

Posted by brian tiong at 02:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Erick Schonfeld *) 

Today, Fast Company relaunched its Website as a business social network, putting blog posts, comments, and questions from its readers front and center. Readers are now are encouraged to sign up, create a profile, and “join the business conversation.”

Over the past few years, the print version of Fast Company has been brought back from near-death (thanks largely to the efforts of top editors Bob Safian and Will Bourne, both of whom were editors of mine years ago at Fortune). Now it is trying to shake things up on the digital side. You might have heard that guy Scoble is starting FastCompany.TV.

Next, it wants to tap into social media. A magazine’s readership is not a social network, but it is a community of interest. And Fast Company seems to understand the difference between the two. Edward Sussman, the president of Mansueto Digital, explains this in a post:

First off, here’s what it’s not: It’s not a pure social network. . . . You go to Facebook or MySpace and find the friends and co-workers you already know. The real world gets reproduced virtually. Maybe you meet a friend of a friend.

We’re not that.

We’re an entirely new community of people brought together because we want to share ideas about business. We like business. We think it’s important. Work gives more meaning to our lives. We believe business profoundly helps define our culture.

On FastCompany.com, you can now start your own blog, join a group, post a video, comment on articles, or suggest a “Fast Talk” question to start a debate. Articles from the print publication are interspersed with blog posts from readers, experts, and staffers, and are arranged in a blog-like chronology on the front page.

The idea is to make it easier for readers to interact with staff writers and contributors, and write their own thoughts, which might be featured prominently on the site. Every contribution a reader makes gets collected on his or her profile page, tagged, and placed into one of the eight sections on the site (innovation, technology, leadership, management, design, social responsibility, careers, and work/life balance). The site is built on top of the open-source content-management software Drupal. And it will support OpenID.

During the dying days of Business 2.0, I remember sitting in editor Josh Quittner’s office brainstorming about how we could do pretty much the exact same thing to save that magazine. We never got beyond the brainstorming. Whether or not this will work for Fast Company depends on how smart its readers are and how willing they are to contribute. But any media site that does not listen to its readers and, indeed, allow them to take over the conversation at times, is doomed for the dustbin.

We saw this with the recent relaunch of the Industry Standard, which tries to engage readers to predict future business events. And we will continue to see it moving forward. As a result, mainstream media and the blogosphere will become harder and harder to tell apart. It will just all become part of the bigger conversation.

Posted by brian tiong at 12:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Erick Schonfeld *)

Another shining case to how music industry needs to 'face the music' with piracy today and other more effective ways of dealing with this situation rather than treating file sharers like pirates instead of consumers.  It's the only reasonable thing to do.

Erick says...

As if we needed yet more evidence that trying to fight piracy is a futile exercise, just look at the case of a company called MediaDefender. The company acts on behalf of media companies to monitor and sabotage the sharing of movies, music, and video games on peer-to-peer networks. It seeds BitTorrent, for instance, with fake files to try to make P2P file-sharing a hassle and annoyance. Last September, a hacker fought back by uploading to BitTorrent internal e-mails and documents outlining MediaDefender’s tactics, rendering them much less effective.

For a blow-by-blow, on how the teenage hacker compromised MediaDefender’s own defenses and why he felt compelled to disseminate its secrets on the Web, read Dan Roth’s story “The Pirates Can’t Be Stopped” in Portfolio. (In case you have not seen it, the story has been out for a few weeks). The hack ended up increasing MediaDefender’s costs by 28 percent, including nearly $1 million in legal fees and “service credits” it had to offer to unhappy media customers. Here’s an excerpt from the story, which shows how exposed the company became to the righteous teenager (who refers to the company as Monkey Defenders):

One file contained the source code for MediaDefender’s antipiracy system. Another demonstrated just how deep inside the company they had gone. This file featured a tense 30-minute phone call between employees of MediaDefender and the New York State attorney general’s office discussing an investigation into child porn that the firm was assisting with. (MediaDefender refused to comment for this story.) The phone call makes clear that the hackers had left a few footprints while prowling MediaDefender’s computers. The government officials had detected someone trying to access one of its servers, and the hacker seemed to know all the right log-in information. “How comfortable are you guys that your email server is free of, uh, other eyes?” an investigator with the attorney general asked during the call.

“Oh, yeah, yeah, we’ve checked out our email server, and our email server itself has not been compromised,” the MediaDefender executive said.

But, of course, it had.

“In the beginning, I had no motivation against Monkey Defenders,” Ethan tells me. “It wasn’t like, ‘I want to hack those bastards.’ But then I found something, and the good nature in me said, These guys are not right. I’m going to destroy them.”

And so he set out to do just that: a teenager, operating on a dated computer, taking on—when his schedule allowed—one of the entertainment world’s best technological defenses against downloading.

The story also has some good details on how MediaDefender went after the Pirate Bay.

It’s a cautionary tale for media companies everywhere. Treat file-sharers like pirates, try to clamp down on them, and they’ll always find new ways to fight back. There are too many of them. They are smarter than the media companies and the industry’s digital lapdogs. Treat them like consumers, and they’ll respond better.

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(* Source: Kristen Nicole *)

(* Source: Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins *)

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(* Source: Josh Catone *) 

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(* Source: Gizmodo *) 

Another 'excellent' move by the RIAA... Not! It's looking pretty desperate right now and hardly making any sense to anyone but themselves.

Gizmodo reports... 

The RIAA always claims that its looking out for the livelihood of artists when it sues the hell out of alleged pirates, but in reality it's really fighting to keep record industry executives rich by defending an outdated and unsustainable business model. While before the PR team at least made an attempt to make it seem like artists were priority #1, they seem to have given up: the RIAA is now trying to cut down artist's royalties on digital downloads.

Yes, the RIAA doesn't think the record companies are making enough and that musicians are clearly making too much. I mean, they get 13% now. Like they deserve 13% for writing and creating the music that people are paying for. Hogwash! Someone had to, you know, encode it. That's worth at least 40%. And hey, these shoes don't shine themselves! So they're pushing to get that rate cut down to a shameful 9%, giving artists even less of a slice of the pie than before.

Of course, Apple, Napster and other large online retailers make the RIAA look like a charity in comparison, with Apple pushing to cut the royalty rate down to an insulting 4%. Yes, Apple wants artists to get a 4% of wholesale royalty rate. Really looking out for those artists, aren't you Steve?

If there was ever a time for a band to try going completely independent, this is it. Why give over 90% of your income away to greedy sleazebags when you can sell your music online without the middleman? This industry needs to be burned to the ground and built back up again; it's broken and it seems less and less likely that it'll be able to be fixed.

Hollywood Reporter via Slashdot]

 

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(* Source: eMarketer *) 

Engagement via headphones.

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(* Source: Duncan Riley *) 

All this Yahoo acquisition news is putting Yahoo's service in the limelight.  Music service to go?

Duncan reports... 

Yahoo will shut its premium music service tomorrow, a move away from premium music sales we first reported on in September 2007, and instead redirect users to Real Networks’ Rhapsody service. Terms of the deal are not yet available.

According to an AP report, subscribers to Yahoo Music Unlimited will be shifted to the Rhapsody service in the first half of this year with Yahoo subscribers’ music library and payment plans remaining the same for only a limited time after the switch. Yahoo Music Unlimited plans came in at between $5.99/ month and $8.99 /month, compared to Rhapsody’s $12.99/ month charge.

The move alone is part of the further consolidation in the online music marketplace as more companies abandon standalone efforts in favor of partnerships as Apple’s iTunes continues to dominate the online music marketplace. The move itself may be short term with Yahoo users likely to be forwarded to the Zune marketplace if Microsoft’s acquisition of Yahoo is successful.

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(* Source: Michael Arrington *) 

Want to play a MOG (multiplayer online game) passively while surfing the web all day? Then you’ll like PMOG, the first game developed by California and UK-based GameLayers.

PMOG, which is currently in private beta with 150 or so users, is a Firefox add-on that lets you interact with other users asynchronously on websites you visit. In some ways it is like Stumbleupon - users can create “missions” which are groups of websites under a theme (one is called “Laugh, Hard” and is a group of humor sites; another is called “Tech News Tour” and includes links to Engadget, Gizmodo, Digg and Slashdot). When you go on a mission a controller appears in the bottom right of your screen, letting you move from site to site.

Users can also be more mischievous, leaving mines on websites that other users stumble onto and cause them to explode. Points are deducted unless you’re wearing armor. Other users can also attach “St Nicks” to users who leave a lot of mines, which causes their next mine not to work. Finally, a user can add a “portal” to any page, which is a link to a new website. Click it if you want, although there very well may be a mine waiting for you at the other end.

All in all it’s a lot of fun. While on the phone with CEO Justin Hall, I asked him to go to Google, where I had a mine waiting for him. He tripped it, causing damage to his armor. I thought it was hilarious.

You have to rack up points to buy mines and all the other stuff that makes the site fun. Every unique domain that you visit gives you two points, so you get points just from surfing the web. You can also give gifts of mines and other tools to others by leaving “crates” around. Justin’s fiance, Merci Hammon (the company’s CCO), gave me a gift of ten mines while I was testing the service, all of which I am aiming at Justin.

Gathering points and completing missions leads you to higher levels, where you eventually choose a character type. There are six characters in all - two are “chaotic” and leave a lot of mines and portals. The rest follow the “torch of order” and focus on protecting others or creating useful missions.

All those user created missions create page views for the sites covered, so it gives an incentive for people to add them. And here is one possible business model for the game - having advertisers create sponsored missions that give users some reward for completing them. A badge, for example, or points. Hall says they’ll look at other ways to eventually make money once the community is more mature and they see how people use the service.

The game is easy to play because you gain points in the background while surfing the web, and interact with others only when you want to (or when you stumble on a mine). What makes it compelling is the inspired design and storylines that they’ve created as well. When and if you join the service, watch out. I’ve left mines all over TechCrunch to trip you up.

Posted by brian tiong at 11:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Kristen Nicole *)

(* Source: Kristen Nicole *)

With a reported 26,000 widget developers and 12 million daily widget views, along with a 15% market share of Facebook apps and 60% of Bebo apps, Widgetbox undoubtedly has a wide reach and is established in its space. Typically among the first to offer extended widget applications for integrated use in social networks’ platforms, Widgetbox has maintained much of its market share by providing its own widgets for such integrated use, while extending these same options for other developers.

Even with all of this effort, however, Widgetbox is still overshadowed in some areas by Clearspring, according to the most recent comScore Widget Metrix report, though there are current questions regarding the manner in which comScore has qualified widgets, their manner of distribution, and their viewership counts. Nevertheless, this latest round of funding will surely go towards accelerated efforts in continuing to grow its reach across platforms and devices. In terms of its widget suite of offerings, Widgetbox has been right there with the rest, launching a toolkit for creating Facebook applications, an ad-revenue sharing program, and a distribution method that reaches across various networks and web-based publishing tools.

With Clearspring’s widgetizing options and Sprout launching a web content-widgetizing utility at DEMO earlier this week, and several moves towards more analytical ad optimization for widgets, it’s clear that instant widget gratification and behavioral ad targeting are two of the hottest areas of exploration for widget companies, so I imagine Widgetbox will become even more heavily involved on these ends.

 

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(* Source: Adam Ostrow *) 

Facebook creating a platform for talented developers to find work and at the same time fuel its widget farm.  Good one!

Facebook is using their marketplace feature to create a place for application developers and the companies that need them to connect. If you’re a developer of Facebook applications, you can post a resume of sorts, while if you’re looking to have an app built, you can describe your project and budget.

When searching for a developer or for a project, you can drill down to your various networks, but since the feature is brand new, the best option for now is just to follow the marketplace link from the Facebook Developer Homepage.

Several firms specializing in Facebook app development have sprung up since the social network launched its platform, such as FB Factory and Techligtenment. While these types of firms will still probably be the go-to for companies with a bigger budget, the marketplace should give people with good app ideas and limited funds a good centralized place to connect with others and get their project built. It should also be a good place for freelance developers to find some work.

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(* Source: Erik Schonfeld *) 

Erik says... 

Web-based IM and chat room provider Meebo is releasing full-fledged APIs for its Meebo Rooms that will allow Websites to embed chat functionality in an automated fashion. Currently, Meebo Rooms can be embedded on sites or blogs manually by pasting in the appropriate code, which has already led to a proliferation of such widgets. There are more than 200,000 Meebo Rooms, attracting millions of visitors a month. (See our previous coverage here and here). Explains Meebo CEO Seth Sternberg:

Now, the servers of our partners can say, “I want to create a room.” It automates the creation process on a server-to-server basis. Also, we will be putting advertising into these rooms.

In addition to the APIs, the company is also announcing the Meebo Network, which will serve ads inside Meebo Rooms across the Web, splitting the revenues with the Websites hosting the rooms. Since each Meebo Room is formed around a particular interest, ads can be targeted. And to the extent that sites participating in the network have demographic data on their members, that can be used for ad targeting as well. Only Meebo Rooms created through the API will show ads, not the ones created manually.

The launch partners joining the Meebo Network are Piczo, Revision3, RockYou, Social Project, and Tagged. Revision3, for instance, will create a Meebo room on its site where fans can watch a synchronized loop of Web TV shows while chatting. Access to the full APIs and the ad network is by invitation only at this point. Social networks could use the new APIs to automatically add chat rooms to every group page. Rock bands or movie sites could add Meebo Rooms to their sites for visiting fans.

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