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Facebook Rolls Out New Privacy Features

Authored by Jay Baage on July 2, 2009 - 8:32am.

Palo Alto - Facebook has begun testing new privacy options. Once the changes - now in beta and not yet final - are complete, users will be able to decide who can see their Facebook posts on a post-by-post basis, according to PC World.

tags: Social Networking | Facebook | Privacy |

Nickelodeon Launches AddictingGames For iPhones

Authored by Jay Baage on July 2, 2009 - 8:19am.

Los Angeles - Viacom-owned kids channel Nickelodeon (NYSE: VIA) is launching a cross-promotion network for the iPhone, dubbed the AddictingGames iNetwork. AddictingGames will be publishing games from its own and other Viacom properties on the network as well as invite indie game developers to benefit from the brand name.

tags: Games | Mobile | Nickelodeon | iPhone | AddictingGames |

Report: Evite Lays of a Quarter of Employees

Authored by Jay Baage on July 2, 2009 - 8:08am.

New York - Online invitation service Evite, owned by IAC (NSDQ: IACI), is has laid off almost a quarter of its personel, 9 employees out of 38 total, and will reorganize to cope with a slump in advertising, according to Paid Content. IAC Chairman Barry Diller said in the first quarter earnings call that display advertising on Evite, its main source of revenue, has been hurt due to the downturn.

tags: IAC | Layoffs | Evite |

YouTube Co-Founder Chen Takes Position at Google

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on July 1, 2009 - 9:28am.
San Bruno, Calif. - YouTube co-founder and chief technology officer Steve Chen has stepped down to take an unspecified position at parent company Google (NASD: GOOG), All Things D reported. "Steve shifted his focus to help with some Google engineering projects. He's still involved with YouTube and invested in its success," YouTube spokesman Ricard Reyes told The Times' Bits Blog. Chen's holdings in YouTube, which was acquired by Google for $1.65 billion, reportedly were worth more than $326 million in February 2007.

tags: Video | Moves | Google | YouTube | Steve Chen |

Pandora Comments on New Submission Requirement

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on July 1, 2009 - 9:27am.
San Francisco - Tim Westergren, founder and CEO of streaming music service Pandora, has responded to complaints about the company's new requirement that independent artists first list a CD for sale on Amazon before they are eligible for play on Pandora, Hypebot reports. Westergren chalked the move up to three reasons: "user experience, improving the metadata, and managing submissions." "We are huge believers in not discriminating against aspiring/emerging artists -- 70% of the 75,000 artists in our collection are not on a major label," Westergren told Hypebot. "All we're asking of artists is to make great music, and have it available for easy purchase for Pandora's audience."

tags: Indie | Pandora | Amazon.com | Tim Westergren |

Sony Music, RED in Talks With IODA for Distribution, Marketing

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on July 1, 2009 - 9:25am.
Los Angeles - Major record label Sony Music Entertainment and its RED Distribution arm are in talks to partner with IODA, a provider of digital distribution services for independent artists, Digital Music News reported. The proposed deal reportedly centers on use of IODA's Rightsholder Dashboard, an online tool that artists, managers and labels can use to track sales and related data.

tags: Music | Indie | IODA | Sony Music | RED Distribution |

Yahoo Enables Flickr Photo Posting to Twitter

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on July 1, 2009 - 9:23am.
San Francisco - Yahoo's (NASD: YHOO) Flickr photo-sharing site has launched a new feature that lets users easily post Flick photos to their Twitter accounts. The Flickr2Twitter feature lets users post photos to Twitter with a new button above the photos on Flickr, which creates a shortened URL at the address flic.kr.

tags: Yahoo | Publishing | Images | Flickr | Twitter |

Hype Machine Outs Bands it Thinks Manipulated Charts

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on July 1, 2009 - 9:22am.
Los Angeles - Hype Machine, an aggregator of music based on coverage and buzz generated on blogs, has made changes to its chart of popular songs after it found allege manipulation of some of the placements. The company found that multiple fake accounts had been created whose only actions were to favorite a single band's songs, upping their ranking. Hype Machine also went as far as to name the bands "who (or their managers, promoters, interns, determined fans, there is no way to ultimately know) we believe have attempted to manipulate the charts on the Hype Machine."

tags: Marketing | Blogs | Music | Publishing | Hype Machine |

1Cast Mobile Clip Service Adds Al Jazeera English, Fox Business

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on July 1, 2009 - 9:21am.
Kirkland, Wash. - 1Cast, the provider of a video news aggregation service for smartphones and the Web, said on Wednesday that it has added programming from Al Jazeera English and Fox Business Network to its service. 1Cast also offers up-to-the-minute video clips from the Associated Press, BBC, Bloomberg, Reuters, CNBC and All Things D.

tags: Mobile | Video | News | Fox Business Network | 1Cast | Al Jazeera English |

Lime Wire Store to Stock CD Baby Digital Catalog

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on July 1, 2009 - 9:20am.
New York - Lime Wire, a provider of peer-to-peer file-sharing software and an online media store, announced on Wednesday that it has partnered with online CD retailer CD Baby. Under the deal, the LimeWire Store will now sell CD Baby's digital catalog, boosting its library to over 3.5 million songs. CD Baby offers recordings from over 240,000 artists.

tags: P2P | Music | CD Baby | Lime Wire |

Report: U.S. Used Game Market Hits $2B, 100 Million Units

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on June 30, 2009 - 8:39am.
New York - The U.S. market for used video games has reached $2 billion in annual revenues, with 100 million units now changing hands each year, according to a report from Wedbush Morgan cited by GamesIndustry.biz. The figure represents one-third of all games sold every year. The firm said that just 5% of new game sales are affected by the used market, noting that most used games do not appear on the market until more than two months after their physical release dates.

tags: Games | Reports | Retail | Research | Wedbush Morgan |

Pandora Requires Indie Artists to Have CDs Listed on Amazon

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on June 30, 2009 - 8:35am.
San Francisco - Streaming radio service Pandora is now requiring independent artists to stock a physical CD for sale at Amazon.com before adding their songs to the service, Hypebot reported. Submissions must be available as a physical CD, and include cover art and a UPC code, in part due to a deal to display album art on Pandora via Amazon's servers. Artists are also encouraged to joint the Amazon Advantage Program, which costs $29.95 per year and gives Amazon a 55% cut of profits from CD sales.

tags: Music | Indie | Pandora | Amazon.com |

White House Launches New Site to Track Federal IT Spending

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on June 30, 2009 - 8:32am.
Washington - The White House on Tuesday launched USASpending.gov, a new web site designed to inform visitors about how the federal government is spending money on information technology projects. Speaking at a forum in New York Tuesday morning, Vivek Kundra, the federal chief information officer, said that although information on the site already was publicly available, the site's new "dashboard" format is designed to make it much easier to understand. The site, available at the link below, features information on nearly 7,000 federal IT investments.

tags: Law | Policy | Washington | Vivek Dundra |

Microsoft's IE8 Sponsors Free Music via Live Nation

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on June 30, 2009 - 8:28am.
Los Angeles - Concert promotion giant Live Nation announced on Tuesday that it partnered with Microsoft to offer free music downloads to fans who download new customized versions of the recently-launched Internet Explorer 8 Web browser. The Live Nation custom browsers will give access to access to an exclusive song from Nickelback, and content from the Bamboozle Music Festival. IE 8 will be a sponsor of the band's tour and the Live Nation festival.

French Xbox Users Get Canal Plus TV, Movies, Soccer

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on June 29, 2009 - 11:04am.
London - Microsoft (NASD: MSFT) has partnered with French pay-TV company Canal Plus to offer movies, TV and soccer on demand through its Xbox 360 video game console, Reuters reported. The deal will give French Xbox Live members access to some 3,000 programs, as well as French Ligue 1 soccer matches. Microsoft signed an Xbox Live programming carriage deal last month with BSkyB.

tags: Games | Sports | TV | Microsoft | Movies | Xbox 360 | Xbox Live | Canal Plus |

Nextgov.com Tool Aggregates Government Twitter Feeds

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on June 29, 2009 - 11:03am.
Washington - Government Executive Media Group, publisher of the Nextgov.com federal technology community site, said on Monday that it has launched a new tool designed to aggregate official Twitter feeds from federal government agencies. "Readers can see real time tweets from across the federal government such as a report from the Rose Garden on the President's energy bill speech, a warning from the National Terror Alert Response Center about terror threats in Sudan, and a tweet from the NIH on recent findings from their cancer research," said Nextgov executive editor Allan Holmes.

tags: Publishing | Washington | Politics | Twitter | Nextgov.com |

MTV Games Names Scott Guthrie Vice President, General Manager

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on June 29, 2009 - 11:02am.
New York - Viacom's (NYSE: VIA) MTV Networks on Monday named Scott Guthrie as vice president and general manager of MTV Games. Guthrie was formerly executive vice president of publishing at THQ. The company also said it named former Sony Computer Entertainment America executive David Cox as its senior vice president of sales.

tags: Games | Moves | Viacom | MTV Games |

"Transformers" Posts Biggest Opening in IMAX History

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on June 29, 2009 - 11:00am.
Los Angeles - The IMAX Corporation (NASD: IMAX) announced on Monday that Paramount's "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen" posted the biggest opening in IMAX history, with a single-day domestic gross of $3.9 million, and five-day gross of $14.4 million. The film was available from 169 IMAX screens in the U.S., making for a per screen average of over $85,000 during the five-day opening period. The company said the IMAX release contributed more than 7% of the film's $201 million total, on less than 2% of the screens showing the picture.

tags: Paramount Pictures | Movies | Transformers | IMAX |

Sirius XM Debuts Michael Jackson Tribute Channel

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on June 29, 2009 - 10:58am.
New York - Sirius XM (NASD: SIRI), the satellite radio firm with major operations in DC, on Saturday launched The Michael Jackson Tribute Channel, honoring the pop music icon who died last week. The limited-run channel, featuring Jackson's music, as well as interviews and stories from other artists, will air through midnight Monday on Sirius channel 51 and XM channel 62.

tags: Music | Michael Jackson | Sirius XM |

YouTube Ups Video Upload Size Limit From 1GB to 2GB

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on June 26, 2009 - 12:05pm.
San Bruno, Calif. - Google's (NASD: GOOG) YouTube has increased the maximum size of video file that may be uploaded from 1GB to 2GB, keeping the maximum length of videos at 10 minutes, Mashable reported. The move should make it easier for publishers of HD video to post their content to the site.

tags: Video | Google | YouTube | User-Generated |
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