Former Google sales boss Tim Armstrong has brought a slew of former colleagues with him to AOL, but this may be his highest-profile hire so far: Dave Eun, who has been in charge of content deals at Google and YouTube, will replace Bill Wilson, one of the last high-profile AOL guys from the pre-Armstrong era.
It’s a pretty standard chain of events: New platform opens up, investors try to attach themselves to developers who want to exploit it. Thus, the AppFund, which says it will invest up to $500,000 in iPad-specific apps.
Is Microsoft is finally ready to a launch its long-delayed advertising exchange? Just barely.
Redmond is set to roll out AdECN, the “real-time” ad exchange it bought in 2007 within the next two weeks. But only in the most cautious of tests: Microsoft will open up AdECN to a handful of ad buyers and says it will only allow them to purchase a “select, limited amount of Microsoft inventory.”
I got a great glimpse of the future of magazines last week. It’s the March issue of Wired, transformed into a digital edition that takes full advantage of the Apple tablet we’re going to see on Wednesday. But you’re not going to be able to buy a tabletized Wired for some time: Condé Nast, like most would-be Apple media partners, simply doesn’t know that much about the device yet.
Don’t know if this qualifies as a parable. But at the very least, it’s interesting: An iPhone app developer has figured out how to combat the burgeoning problem of iPhone app piracy–by embracing the pirates.
Apple is set to show off a shiny new device, which means the company needs shiny new media products to show off, too. Like what? Some educated guesses: Expect stuff from Disney and the New York Times, but not from the music labels.
A ratcheting up in the Google-versus-China fight: The White House has officially endorsed the search giant’s position: “We support [Google's] action…in a decision to no longer censor searches that happen using the [Google] platform.”
Here’s another e-reader clamoring for attention in a Consumer Electronics Show full of e-readers: The Skiff Reader, produced by a company funded by publisher Hearst Corp. and supported by Sprint. But in many ways, the Skiff Reader’s specs are beside the point, because the real point of its parent company isn’t to produce e-reader devices at all–it wants to create a publishing and distribution platform. Does this sound familiar? And does it sound like something another publisher might want to buy?
As expected, Palm announced today that its smartphones–two new variations on the Pre and the Pixi, actually–will be available on Verizon Wireless soon. Also coming: Some software updates, including a nifty one that will give existing handsets the ability to record video.
The Apple tablet is threatening to approach Yeti status, but here’s an indication it will turn out to be very real, indeed: The company has told some of its key developers to prepare versions of their iPhone apps that will work on a device with a larger screen, in time for an event next month. Sound like a tablet to you?
How do you break through in a no-growth industry? Try a different industry. That appears to be the thinking behind this one: Content delivery network Limelight Networks is shelling out $110 million in cash and stock for Eye Wonder, a video ad platform.
CBS says it will stop doing business with ad networks, which are ubiquitous on the Web, and will offer access to its audience of 60 million unique visitors solely via its own salesforce. The company is one of a handful of big publishers trying to force buyers to pay more for its stuff. Clever or quixotic?
Google plans to sell its new phone on its own Web site, without getting a wireless carrier to subsidize the cost of the handset. But that doesn’t mean Google won’t also work with a carrier: The search giant intends to launch its touchscreen phone next year with the help of T-Mobile say sources familiar with its plans.
But will the other big telcos come around? Or not?
After 17 years at the New York Times, journalist Saul Hansell is heading to AOL to do…what exactly? It’s not entirely clear, even to Hansell himself. But he has some interesting ideas.
AOL is about to cut ties to Time Warner, and CEO Tim Armstrong has been making his case to current and potential investors. Here’s one last pitch, delivered to the crowd at the annual UBS Media and Communications Conference in New York.
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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