Google’s acquisition spree continues: It has bought Teracent, a startup that customizes online ads on the fly. All Things Digital had reported in September that Google was interested in the San Mateo-based company, which is filled with veterans of… Yahoo. No purchase price disclosed, but I’m fairly confident this was in the sub-$50 million category.
Another expansion for Spotify, the much hyped European streaming music service: It’s now going to be available on Nokia phones and other handsets that run the Symbian platform. That’s good, because the service is supposed to work best as a mobile play.
But Spotify has yet to make a key expansion: To the U.S., where the big music labels worry that consumers will love everything about the site except paying for it.
Want to watch YouTube on your TV? There are plenty of devices and services that let you do that, with more on the way. But starting next month, at least one gadget is getting its YouTube feed shut down: Syabas, which makes a line of set-top boxes called “Popcorn Hour,” says Google’s video site has told it to remove YouTube content from its offering beginning December 2.
Here’s your half-empty/half-full stat for the day: Four in 10 consumers don’t want to see ads on their phones. Is that good or bad for the nascent mobile ad business?
In the U.S., this is no big deal, but in much of the world this is now the sports equivalent of the Zapruder film: French soccer star Thierry Henry cheating, via a handball, and propelling his team past Ireland and into next year’s World Cup.
The Web is full of chatter about yesterday’s game, but video is hard to come by: YouTube has shut down most of the clips. But dedicated searchers–and there are lots of them right now–can find them.
Vevo, the music industry’s attempt to create a Hulu-like site for its music videos, will formally launch Dec. 8. The site, which is co-owned by Vivendi’s Universal Music Group, Sony’s music label and Abu Dhabi Media, will host a New York kick-off event that day.
Here’s a match up that makes plenty of sense: EMI Music Group, which has a new Norah Jones album to promote, is showing her videos on Hulu, the video joint venture that specializes in “premium” content. But the deal is the only one of its kind. While the big music labels have played footsie with Hulu in the past, they have yet to actually move any of their clips there. Instead, they’re concentrating on YouTube, which makes plenty of sense.
Going, going, gone: The last of the Web 2.0 music services are dwindling away. The latest is Imeem, which is in the process of being purchased by MySpace, I’ve confirmed.
Haven’t heard a price yet, but I wouldn’t expect much, given that this deal, like the iLike purchase MySpace made earlier this year, is an “acqhire”–News Corp.’s social network/portal wants to buy Imeem for its “sales team, engineering, Snocap and other Imeem IP,” a person familiar with the transaction tells me.
The new conventional wisdom is that sooner or later, consumers will have to start paying for some of the stuff they currently get for free on the Web.
But will they actually pay up? Here, the conventional wisdom is not so helpful. Nor are studies predicting consumer behavior.
Little by little, AOL is offering investors more and more details about what the company will look like after it spins off from Time Warner. But the more AOL discloses, the less attractive the company looks. The newest problem: AOL’s steady flow of Google money is going away.
Are the folks who put together “The Office” clairvoyant or what? These things are written and shot many weeks in advance, yet last night’s episode contains a perfectly timed reference to the News Corp./Google paywall controversy.
If you’re someone who gets paid to market to people who use YouTube, there’s a good chance you already know about TestTube, the site’s suite of experimental services. The rest of us will find interesting novelties, like “Insights for Audience”: A nifty way to find out what people like–or unlike–you are watching.
While Rupert Murdoch is busy thumbing his nose at Google, he is making more friendly overtures to other media players. Sources tell me his News Corp. may join the digital e-reader storefront that Time Inc. and other magazine publishers are putting together.
The newest twist in Google’s quest to wring more more money out of YouTube: Ads you don’t have to look at. That’s a refreshing change of pace, no?
Add one more voice to the chorus of conventional wisdom: The Web ad market has stopped getting worse, but it’s going to be a while before it starts getting healthy.
Peter Kafka has been covering media and technology since 1997, when he joined the staff of Forbes magazine. Most recently, he has been the managing editor of the tech and media Web site, Silicon Alley Insider. Read more »
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