Google

Google Book Settlement Gets Preliminary Approval; Hearing in 2010

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on November 20, 2009 - 11:02am.
New York - The judge overseeing the settlement agreement between Google (NASD: GOOG) and authors and publishers over the direction of its massive book-scanning project has pushed a hearing on a revised settlement back to Feb. 18, while at the same time granted preliminary approval to the new deal. "The preliminary approval order sends a positive initial message; this agreement promises to benefit readers and researchers, and enhance the ability of authors and publishers to distribute their content in digital form," Google said in a statement.

YouTube Debuts Automated Closed Captioning

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on November 19, 2009 - 12:01pm.
Mountain View, Calif. - Google (NASD: GOOG) announced on Thursday that it has combined its automatic speech recognition technology with the YouTube close captioning system, to offer automatic captioning of YouTube videos. The company acknowledged that the automatic captions "will not always be perfect," but can improve accessibility and help translate videos into other languages. YouTube also added automatic caption timing, so that users captioning videos by hand can simply create a text file, and let Google's automatic speech recognition sync their captions to the video.

tags: Video | Google | YouTube |

Vevo to Debut Music Video Portal on Dec. 8

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on November 18, 2009 - 1:23pm.
New York - Vevo, the music video joint venture between Sony Music and Universal Music that will use technology from Google's (NASD: GOOG) YouTube, is set to launch on Dec. 8, the company announced via its Twitter feed. The labels hope the standalone site will help them further monetize their music videos -- which are the most-watched content on all of YouTube.

Report: Yahoo Search Share Dips in October; Bing, Google Gain

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on November 18, 2009 - 12:41pm.
Reston, Va. - Yahoo (NASD: YHOO) lost 0.8% of its share of the U.S. search market in October, while Google (NASD: GOOG) and Microsoft's (NASD: MSFT) Bing both saw increases, according to data from Internet audience measurement firm comScore.

YouTube Direct Aims to Connect Citizens, Journalists

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on November 17, 2009 - 12:28pm.
San Bruno, Calif. - Google's (NASD: GOOG) YouTube on Tuesday introduced YouTube Direct, a new application that aims to place citizen journalism videos in front of media organizations for potential rebroadcast. Users can upload newsworthy videos directly to the application. YouTube said outlets including ABC News, Huffington Post, NPR, Politico and the Washington Post are already using the application to source news video.

YouTube Inks Deal to Add Univision Spanish-language Content

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on November 16, 2009 - 1:20pm.
San Bruno, Calif. - Google's (NASD: GOOG) YouTube on Monday announced an agreement to add content from U.S. Spanish-language broadcaster Univision to its site. The deal includes full-length content from Univision's three networks -- Univision, TeleFutura and Galavision -- as well as footage from celebrity interviews and special events.

tags: Video | TV | Univision | Google | YouTube |

Google, Authors Submit Revised Book Settlement to Court

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on November 16, 2009 - 11:49am.
New York - A revised settlement agreement was submitted on Friday, in the closely-watched case of Google (NASD: GOOG) and the authors who sued the company over the details of its plans to scan the world's books into a digital index. The revised settlement addresses many key issues raised by the U.S. Justice Dept., copyright and consumer advocates, although some concerns remain. Under the agreement, the scanning of out-of-print books will now be limited to works published in the U.S., U.K., Canada and Australia.

YouTube to Launch 1080p HD Video Quality Next Week

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on November 13, 2009 - 11:41am.
San Francisco - Google's (NASD: GOOG) YouTube plans to introduce a new 1080p, full high-definition resolution option for viewing videos, as well as a new full-screen player next week, the company said at the NewTeeVee Live conference this week. The site's current maximum output is 720p. YouTube said it is currently re-encoding already submitted 1080p videos so they can be viewed in the higher-resolution format.

Google Adds World Bank Data to Search Results

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on November 13, 2009 - 11:36am.
Mountain View, Calif. - Google (NASD: GOOG) this week added World Bank data to its search results, providing access to statistics for most economies in the world. The data includes 17 of the organization's World Development Indicators, such as GDP, life expectancy, population growth, energy use, CO2 emissions and Internet usage.

tags: Search | Google | World Bank |

Report: News Corp. to Block Google News "Within Months"

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on November 13, 2009 - 9:52am.
London - Days after News Corp. (NYSE: NWS) chairman Rupert Murdoch said he plans to block stories from his stable of newspapers from appearing in Google's news index, the company's chief digital officer, Jonathan Miller, echoed the position and said the move would come in "months and quarters -- not weeks," the Telegraph reported. "The traffic which comes in from Google brings a consumer who more often than not read one article and then leaves the site. That is the least valuable of traffic to us... the economic impact [of not having content indexed by Google] is not as great as you might think. You can survive without it," Miller said at the Monaco Media Forum, according to the Telegraph's coverage.

Report: Bing Ups Share of Search Market by 7% in October

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on November 11, 2009 - 2:06pm.
New York - Microsoft's Bing increased its share of the U.S. search market by 7% in October, according to data from Experian Hitwise.

YouTube Experimenting with Skippable Pre-roll Ads

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on November 11, 2009 - 2:00pm.
San Bruno, Calif. - Google's (NASD: GOOG) YouTube has begun experimenting with skippable pre-roll ads before some videos, in a bid to increase ad value for advertisers while also giving users some input into the ads to which they're exposed.

Clearwire Raises Another $1.6 Billion, Led by Sprint Nextel

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on November 10, 2009 - 9:21am.
Kirkland, Wash. - Giving it more ammunition to roll out its high-speed wireless (WiMax) network in more cities across the U.S., Kirkland, Wash.-based Clearwire said on Tuesday that it has raised another $1.6 billion, including a $1.2 billion investment from partner Sprint Nextel (NYSE: S).

News Corp. Mulls Google News Exit for WSJ, Other Papers

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on November 9, 2009 - 10:09am.
New York - News Corp. (NYSE: NWS) chairman Rupert Murdoch is considering blocking newspaper content from The Wall Street Journal and his company's other papers from appearing in Google's (NASD: GOOG) news index, The Guardian reported, citing an interview with Sky News Australia. Murdoch added that such a move wouldn't happen until his plan to begin charging users for access to more of News Corp.'s newspaper content online moves forward.

Google Book Settlement Parties Ask Court for Extension

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on November 9, 2009 - 9:47am.
New York - Facing a deadline to submit a revised settlement agreement on Monday, attorneys hammering out a new deal between Google (NASD: GOOG) and authors and publishers over Google's massive book-scanning project have asked the judge for an extension until Friday, The New York Times reports.

Google Acquires Mobile Ad Firm AdMob for $750 Million

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on November 9, 2009 - 8:30am.
Mountain View, Calif. - Google (NASD: GOOG) announced on Monday that it has signed a deal to acquire mobile display advertising provider AdMob, for $750 million in stock. Founded in 2006, San Mateo, Calif.-based AdMob offers advertisers self-service tools to target their mobile ads, and has developer mobile ad platforms for the iPhone and more recently, Google's own Android operating system for mobile phones.

Report: Google Acquires VoIP Firm Gizmo5 for $30 Million

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on November 9, 2009 - 8:17am.
San Diego - Google (NASD: GOOG) has paid about $30 million in cash to acquire Gizmo5, a developer of Internet telephony technology, TechCrunch reported, citing multiple sources with knowledge of the deal.

Drop in MySpace Traffic to Cut $100M Off Google Ad Deal

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on November 5, 2009 - 1:00pm.
New York - News Corp.'s (NYSE: NWS) MySpace may lose out on at least $100 million of the $900 million it was contracted to receive from a search advertising agreement with Google (NASD: GOOG), due to lackluster traffic to the website, the Financial Times reported.

YouTube Head of Content Partnerships Steps Down

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on November 3, 2009 - 10:33am.
San Bruno, Calif. - Google's YouTube has lost its head of content partnerships, as Jordan Hoffner has left to joint a new content venture at IAC headed up by Ben Silverman, PaidContent reported. Hoffner will be replaced at YouTube by Chris Maxcy, who was leading YouTube's music content partnership efforts.