YouTube: Riding on a Content Creator Camp and Bigfoot Sighting
May 31, 2011 by admin · Comments Off
Last week, YouTube held a Content Creator Camp — its first — at the Google Manhattan Offices. During the camp, winners of a talent show sponsored by the Google-owned website got to hear expert advice on viral-video creation, audience-building, and brand-strengthening. The camp comprises an important element of YouTube’s latest effort to amass a big heap-up of novel video content of quality. Margaret Healy, a lead for strategic partnerships at YouTube, summarizes the effort’s direction: “We would like it if everyone who had the talent, interest and potential to gain an audience to come on YouTube and start a channel and make original content.”
Currently, YouTube uses its Partner Program to share advertising gains with video content creators with big audiences on the site. It’s reported that the Partner Program garnered 100 billion views and multi-million dollar profits in the last year alone. Next New Networks, a video production company bought by Google in March, has been tapped to provide production support to video content generators working under the Partner Program.
Although the last quarterly report showed a doubling of YouTube’s profits, the site remains well aware of the competition posed by its rivals like Hulu and Netflix, to name a few. Thankfully, for YouTube’s big effort, Samantha — real name still unknown — has just posted a viral video of a Bigfoot sighting in Spokane, Washington that’s got even the Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization speaking out to the media. In a bit of a discredit to Samantha, however, they proclaim the sighting’s location to be historically unlikely.
Read More:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/30/business/media/30youtube.html?ref=technology#
Facebook to Make Music-Sharing Even Simpler
May 27, 2011 by admin · Comments Off
Because the imaginations of those who follow tech news have momentarily been hauled away by the revelation that rosy-cheeked Mark Zuckerberg has just become the most literalist of cutthroats — he’s resorted to processing the stupendous wealth he’s amassed at the apparently still-tender and impressionable age of 27 (his birthday was a bit over two weeks ago) by only eating meat that comes from animals he himself has killed — news of Facebook’s latest scurry into the music scene may have been missed.
If you were one of those followers put in a trance by the revelation, please keep reading. The word has been circulating that Facebook and online music service providers like Spotify have entered talks about the joint development of music-sharing widgets. Unnamed sources, apparently privy to the confidential information discussed, are saying the not-so-hush-hush talks are likely to lead to a widget allowing Facebookers to more easily share their music data with their friends. For example, by using the hypothetical widget, two Facebook friends could know what songs the other listens to the most and immediately see links to places providing an earful of those songs. The same could be done with other online content, like video.
Social media insiders are saying that people’s identity is increasingly becoming tethered to the “media they consume.” So to keep up with the changing tides, the young folk at the helm of Facebook are eagerly — when not slitting goats’ throats, of course — finding ways to make music, news, and video content more sharable and accessible. Spotify’s music-streaming service is not currently available in the U.S., but it’s used in seven European countries.
Read More:
http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/facebook-teams-up-with-spotify-for-new-music-service-20110527
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/27/technology/27facebook.html?ref=technology
TweetDeck Goes to Twitter for Something Like $40 Million
May 25, 2011 by admin · Comments Off
The next time you mosey on over to TweetDeck, this message will greet you: “TweetDeck is now part of Twitter.” That’s because the fifteen workers comprising the London startup TweetDeck are now officially bound for Twitter’s payroll; Twitter is said to have paid $40 million or $50 million for them and their company. The application and service TweetDeck’s team created will continue to exist though some new features, more warmly embracing of the Twitter brand, will surely be added soon. The reports on the deal are also saying that TweetDeck will keep its London base.
Because the application does such a fine job of helping one keep track of Twitter posts, whether those authored by an account holder or by people followed, TweetDeck is especially popular among those deemed “Twitter power-users.” (A.k.a. people who tweet a lot.)
Iain Dodsworth, founder and CEO of TweetDeck, posted the following on a blog: “The mainstream Twitter user-base is well catered for by twitter.com and the official mobile clients … by becoming part of the official platform, TweetDeck will now fill that role for brands, influencers, the highly active and anyone that just needs `more power.’”
TweetDeck was founded in 2008 and has built a strong following among loyal users. With the buy, Twitter’s employee tally now stands at 505 workers.
Read more:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2011/05/25/national/a092201D35.DTL#ixzz1NPDGbnAD
A Social Network for Cars? Toyota, Salesforce.com, and Microsoft Say Yes!
May 24, 2011 by admin · Comments Off
Japanese automaker Toyota and Salesforce.com are in the midst of perfecting a car-focused social networking platform that will enable users to, for example, get the car started in the morning or turn its seat-warming mechanism on with a few finger jabs to an iPhone, instead of the usual going outside. Microsoft, though apparently staying at the sidelines through the initial developmental stages, represents one of heaviest investors in the project. So far, Microsoft has forked out $4.1 million dollars, Toyota $5.5 million, and Salesforce.com $2.8 million. Reportedly, Microsoft will be constructing a “global cloud platform” with the popular automaker.
The in-development social network currently goes by the handle “Toyota Friend,” and responsible for its most current progress is Salesforce.com, a cloud computing company from San Francisco. Next year, drivers in Japan of Toyota plug-in hybrids and electric cars will be the first to make use of the evolving social network, which will be accessible from any gadget connected to the internet.
Users will be able to interact with the new network through Facebook and Twitter, but it will nonetheless remain a private network and run on Salesforce.com’s Chatter service. Benefits of joining the network will include receiving tweets about one’s car running low on battery power and finding out the status of tire pressure from a Facebook feed.
Akio Toyoda, President of Toyota Motor Corp., in a released statement commented: “Social networking services are transforming human interaction and modes of communication. The automobile needs to evolve in step with that transformation.”
Read More:
http://money.cnn.com/2011/05/23/autos/toyota_friend_social_network/?section=money_latest
LinkedIn Makes Bank
May 23, 2011 by admin · Comments Off
Stock market debutante LinkedIn was the belle of the ball on Thursday. LinkedIn kicked off its first day as a publicly traded company and made a big splash — so much so that the markets rallied and stirred in ways that harked back to the tech boom of the 90s. Those days are hardly back but LinkedIn’s early and promising success is giving investors something to feel good about, and they’re also thinking of LinkedIn’s social networking peers about to take their own plunge into the market waters. The IPOs of Facebook, Twitter, Groupon, and Zynga are all expected to arrive very soon — perhaps more than a couple of those will get here before Christmas.
Thursday, closing time at the New York Stock Exchange saw LinkedIn’s shares being valued at $94.25. Their offering price was $45 and the day’s high was $122.70. It was an excellent first day that saw the stock market entrance of the first big-name, American social media company. $9 billion is the figure that most currently represents the company’s valuation.
Although subdued controversy about initial under-pricing of shares has ensued, here is a choice statement from Jeff Weiner, LinkedIn’s chief executive: “We were able to find investors who understood our story and understood our desire to invest in our platform.” Correct, sir!
Read More:
Bing Goes Deeper into Social Search
May 17, 2011 by admin · Comments Off
It seems Microsoft may be in for a much-delayed social media breakthrough with a more socially searchable Bing. Reaping some of the rewards of its recent partnership with Facebook, Bing’s search results will be featuring a searcher’s Facebook friends’ Likes and Shares. The people at Bing are describing the new search layers as “conversational,” and adding, in the words of Bing director, Stephan Weitz, that “it’s a first step in the evolution of how search can become more human.”
Bing is en route to “humanization” by way of special highlights in its results alerting searchers to social media friends’ recommendations that coincide with one’s latest topic of inquiry. For example, as Weitz was helpfully paraphrased in the New York Times, if someone searches for a website “like NYTimes.com or Cooks.com, Bing will” produce “news articles or recipes deep inside those sites that … friends have recommended.” Moreover, the folks over at Microsoft not being ones to forget the ever-growing importance of location-based sociability, they are also piling on Bing a feature that will make note of which of a searcher’s friends live in a given city or other locale if it’s a destination being searched for. Microsoft may be, indeed, gaining some steam.
Read more:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/techchron/detail?entry_id=89057#ixzz1Mdz4qWW3
Lady Gaga Reaches 10 Million Twitter Followers: Justin Bieber and Barack Obama Follow Closely
May 16, 2011 by admin · Comments Off
Lady Gaga has temporarily achieved Twitter Gold. On Saturday, for the 10th million time, a person on Twitter decided to follow her. At last checking, Lady Gaga’s Twitter account had 10,068,309 followers. Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta (Gaga, by her given name) is the first person to reach 10 million followers on Twitter. And not entirely disparately, her two closest pretenders to the top of Twitter’s totem pole are teen singing (and hair) sensation Justin Bieber and 44th president of the United States, Barack Obama.
They, in turn, are followed by Britney Spears and Kim Kardashian at 7,845,366 and 7,498,364, respectively. Lady Gaga also previously bested Bieber to the 9th million follower mark. Twitter itself must be feeling very proud that its site is garnering so much attention and that Twitter rankings are continuously used as an important factor in the calculations for overall online popularity.
It was only about two years ago, in April 2009, that Ashton Kutcher — Charlie Sheen’s much vaunted “replacement” on “Two and a Half Men” — became the first person to amass 1 million followers. Quick Twitter facts of quirk: (1) The man himself, Charlie Sheen, was able to gain 1 million followers in little over a day (2) Beyoncé’s account just reached the same number without her ever having tweeting a thing and (3) Justin Bieber is predicted to take over the top spot later this year.
In recognition of her victory, Lady Gaga had the following to say, via Twitter:
Read More:
http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1663919/lady-gaga-twitter.jhtml
http://www.mediabistro.com/alltwitter/lady-gaga-10-million-twitter_b8816
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/technology/2011/05/lady-gaga-twitter-10-million-followers.html
More Facebook Litigation: Another Actor Enters the Fray
May 13, 2011 by admin · Comments Off
The battle rages on between Facebook and Google. Meanwhile, this connected story has been extensively covered recently, and quite periodically over the last few years, but it’s not appearing here again because of the editorial fun to be had in selecting the many distinctive poses that the Winklevoss twins, both Olympic athletes, are capable of giving the press.
In fact, the case seems to be that Facebook’s growth and seemingly set path to ever greater popularity, power, and reach keep surprising everyone — users, media observers, and the very people who ever had anything at all to do with its origins — to the point that to not try to get a piece of it begins to look like the dumbest move ever.
So what’s going on now? Chang v. Winklevoss, coded SUCV2009-05397, has arrived. That is to say, Wayne Chang, a software developer in Boston, former owner of i2hub Organization, and a once — but to a debatable extent — business associate of Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, has been granted the right to proceed with his suit against the twins, ConnectU (their company), and Howard Winklevoss and Divya Narendra — both shareholders. Chang is arguing that is owed a part of the 2008, $65 million settlement reached between the Winklevoss brothers and Facebook. The cut Chang is filing for is fifty percent. As for the twins, they’re still trying to get out of the settlement themselves in order to be able sue later for an even bigger piece of Facebook.
Read More:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-05-13/winklevoss-twins-face-suit-over-failed-alliance.html
The Makings of an E-Smokers’ Social Network
May 12, 2011 by admin · Comments Off
Yes, today the web is abuzz with news of Facebook’s no-longer-so-stealth smear campaign against Google, but did you hear the news that social media networking’s manifest destiny is currently in the throes of conquering the frontiers of electronic smoking? Say what?
Blu is the maker of devices termed “electronic cigarettes.” They’re supposed to have the look and feel of standard cigarettes but, as Blu’s site states, do “not burn or use tobacco,” produce any ash or smoke, and do well without the “smell associated with traditional tobacco cigarettes.” The gadgets do, however, provide some vaporized nicotine.
In a wireless-communicatory twist, it’s no longer necessary to signal your smoking presence to other smokers in the perimeter through tobacco’s aroma and perceptible cloud — no, it’s now possible to set the e-cigarette carriers of others alight and vibrating if they enter a 50 ft radius of your own pack. How’s that for expanding one’s social graph?
Furthermore — and distinctly evincing someone’s business savoir faire — the e-cig packs also vibrate when an electronic smoker approaches a store selling Blu cigarettes. The technology makes use of radio waves to connect e-smokers when they’re physically near each other and are programmable for the electronic sharing of the smokers’ contact information, like links to personal online pages. Blu has plans for delving deeper into the sharing aspect of its product through mobile apps, much like Color, which is used for the sharing of mobile phone photos among the app’s users when in close proximity of one another.
Read More:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/11/technology/11smoke.html?_r=1&ref=technology
http://money.cnn.com/2011/05/12/technology/facebook_google/index.htm?hpt=T2
Photo Sharing and Ensuing Copyright Furor
May 11, 2011 by admin · Comments Off
Furor was recently incited among Twitpic users when people started talking to one another about the site’s rules and regulations concerning the commercialization of uploaded pictures. One choice extract of Twitpic’s Terms of Service, before being summarily updated read:
You may not grant permission to photographic agencies, photographic libraries, media organizations, news organizations, entertainment organizations, media libraries, or media agencies to retrieve from Twitpic for distribution, license, or any other use, content you have uploaded to Twitpic.
As stated, the rules meant that users of Twitpic could not distribute or sell pictures they themselves had taken and shared with the world by using the free site. Unsurprisingly, it’s a business practice that is replicated by many of Twitpic’s industry-mates.
Because of the ensuing complaints and alarms raised, Twitpic saw fit to rearrange some of the terms’ wording. Another non-random extract from Twitpic’s Terms of Service is most currently reading:
You retain all ownership rights to Content uploaded to Twitpic. However, by submitting Content to Twitpic, you hereby grant Twitpic a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free, sublicenseable and transferable license to use, reproduce, distribute, prepare derivative works of, display, and perform the Content in connection with the Service and Twitpic’s (and its successors’ and affiliates’) business, including without limitation for promoting and redistributing part or all of the Service (and derivative works thereof) in any media formats and through any media channels.
Twitpic rivals keeping to themselves the rights, without consent, for use and distribution of user-uploaded photos include Flickr, Instagram, Color, and yFrog.
Read More:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/05/11/twitpic-copyright_n_860554.html
