It’s e-reader preview week, apparently. Last night, Plastic Logic formally named its would-be Kindle killer; tomorrow, Barnes & Noble is supposed to show off its own branded device. This morning’s entrant: Spring Design, which says it has produced a reader that boasts two screens and an operating system that runs on Google’s Android. What it doesn’t have: Big-pocketed partners to boast about.
Is there anything you people won’t watch online? Doesn’t look like it, based on the newest Web video numbers from Nielsen. While stats show that the overall size of the Internet video audience has increased by 12 percent in the last year, the amount of video consumed has shot up 25 percent.
Well look at that: EMI Music Group, which had been working on a licensing deal with music start-up Grooveshark but ended up suing it instead, now has a licensing deal with Grooveshark after all.
Last month, the New York Times was attacked by hackers who bought fake Web ads from the publisher. And one of the world’s biggest ad companies says that won’t be the last assault. But the solution runs counter to industry trends.
Associated Press CEO Tom Curley told a group of journalists this week that his company isn’t talking to Google about renewing its licensing deal. But they have been talking for months and talked again this week.
YouTube sneaked up on big media, then scared the hell out of them, then tried to do business with them, more or less unsuccessfully.
Now, three years after Google plunked down $1.6 billion for the video site, it seems to have figured out an approach that works for at least some big players: Hand over a chunk of the site to content creators, who get to control it, sell ads on it, program it with their stuff and share some of the ad dollars. Newest example, reportedly: Britain’s Channel 4.
Last month, Warner Music Group won the right to sell ads on its YouTube videos. Next step: Getting someone to sell ads on its YouTube videos, since the music label doesn’t have its own sales team. The plan: Hand those duties over to someone who’s already doing it for Veoh and other video outfits.
Google CEO Eric Schmidt used the opening moments of a New York City press conference to reinforce a message he’s been delivering for several weeks: The worst is over, things are looking up, and Google is spending accordingly.
This is the way the Internet is supposed to work: Something amazing happens on TV on Thursday night and everyone talks about it, and watches it, on the Web on Friday.
Today’s example: David Letterman’s startling admission, broadcast on his CBS show last night, that a network employee had tried to extort him.
That’s something you’re going to want to watch, right? And sure enough, the world’s largest video site obliges, even if it’s a little bit unwilling.
Is this what they mean by “creative destruction”? Potty-mouthed Web kids wreck a tourism group’s perfectly good name.
Want to learn how to steal your favorite movie or TV show? A 10-minute video starring a Paramount executive offers detailed instructions.
Google and Yahoo both expect mobile ads to provide big boosts. Time to rethink that notion, says Bernstein Research’s Jeffrey Lindsay, who says mobile will be a modest niche business for the big guys.
Google marked down AOL’s value from $20 billion to $5.5 billion earlier this year. That’s still too high, argues a JP Morgan analyst.
Here’s your daily dose of goodish news about the Web ad business, courtesy (again) of Mark Mahaney, who says display ads are perking up. Or at least some of them are.
You already know this, but it’s always good to be reminded: In online video, there’s YouTube, and then there’s everybody else. Today’s data point: ComScore’s August video report, which shows Google’s video site generating 10 billion views and owning 39.6 percent of the market. That’s 10 billion views, and that’s just counting Web surfers from the U.S. Factor in international visitors and…it would be a lot bigger.
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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