USAToday.com offers widgets to bloggers

Everyone is going widget crazy, and now USAToday.com is jumping into the fray. As of now, it’s offering three travel-related widgets with four more on the way — news headlines, pop culture, entertainment and informational graphics (that last one sounds cool.) The idea is to incorporate advertising, but no clients have signed on so far.

Add comment September 5th, 2007

Hulu sued by Lulu (no joke)

A week hasn’t gone by since News Corp. and NBCU announced that their new video joint venture will be called Hulu — which curiously means “cease and desist” in Swahili — and now a company called Lulu is slapping them with a lawsuit. “The lawsuit seeks only for Hulu.com to stop using the name to avoid confusion in the marketplace between these two digital content platforms,” explains Lulu.com CEO Bob Young, who’s also a founder of Red Hat. Lulu isn’t a video site — it’s for authors to self-publish their content — but its tagline is “the premiere marketplace for new digital content on the web.” Stay tuned…

7 comments September 5th, 2007

Vudu is 5,000 movies in a box

From Hulu and Lulu to Vudu…

One of my big complaints about Comcast ON DEMAND is the limited movie selection. AppleTV takes forever to download. And I’ve never signed up for Netflix because I watch movies on impulse. Enter Vudu. It’s a $400 box that allows you to watch 5,000 movies instantly, at the touch of a button. So how does it store that many movies on a 250GB drive? It doesn’t, really. It stores the first few seconds of each movie, which allows it to play instantly while streaming the rest in real-time via a fast internet connection and a peer-to-peer network with other Vudu boxes. How fast? When you visit Vudu.com, it asks you to check your bandwidth. Cable modems are recommended, although my Verizon DSL passed the test. Movie rentals are $2-4 over a 24-hour period (my Comcast movies are $4), and you can also download to own. Vudu upconverts movies to 16×9, but true high-def isn’t available… yet. Sounds cool, eh? Check out David Pogue’s positive review in the NY Times. And what about that smokin’ remote…

4 comments September 5th, 2007

Jobs extends fig leaf to NBC

During Steve Jobs’ presentation, he made a remark that the Lennon song “Give Peace a Chance” should be his ringtone on his phone when NBC calls. And then he made this remark about the impact of NBC’s pullout in an interview with USA Today: “Overall, it’s zero. Music dominates iTunes. In terms of TV shows, NBC supplied us with 30 percent of our TV shows, and we love their content. I hope it works itself out over time.”

As far as the $200 price drop on the iPhone and the early adopters who spent the big bucks just a few months ago: “That’s what happens in technology.” (Via PaidContent)

1 comment September 5th, 2007

Cable nets lobby for channel position in NY

When Fox Business Channel launches next month, it will get MSNBC’s current channel position of 43 on Time Warner Cable in New York. Fox News will move from 46 to 44. “We’re thrilled with both channel locations and look forward to FBN being available in the world’s financial capital on Time Warner Cable’s dynamic lineup,” said Tim Carry, senior vice president of affiliate relations for FNC and FBN. Meanwhile, MSNBC will move down to 14, next to CNBC at 15 — which industry insiders say was a priority for NBCU.

So while you’d think that channel position doesn’t mean as much in a new nonlinear world, it’s critical in the eyes of media companies in a very competitive space.

Add comment September 5th, 2007

Apple unveils ‘Touch iPod’ that can surf the web

Updated: Steve Jobs has just unveiled a “Touch iPod” with a 3.5 inch widescreen and the same touch functionality as the iPhone. And with WiFi! So you can browse the internet via a Safari browser with that same flip, zoom, scroll functionality. And you can watch YouTube videos, as well as video off your iPod, of course. “The iPod looks exactly like it does on the iPhone,” blogs Gizmodo’s Jason Chen. And just 8mm thick. You can also purchase and download content from iTunes straight from the device. When you sync up later, it will port the song over to your computer’s iTunes collection. (Jobs also announced this new feature for the iPhone, as well.)

And that’s not all. “When you get near a Starbucks location, you’ll get a Starbucks icon in the iTunes store,” blogs Chen. “You can buy songs that are playing over the Starbucks music selection, and you can even look at the last 10 songs played and buy the songs there.” Wow! Starbucks just became a major music player.

“It’s one of the seven wonders of the world,” Jobs proclaims. Two models: 8GB for $299 and 16GB for $399. They’ll ship by the end of the month. Oh, and price just dropped on the iPhone. There’s only one model now, the 8GB, and it’s $399 (instead of $599). And Jobs also unveiled new iPod Nanos with a 2-inch color video screen.

Gizmodo live-blogged the keynote (with photos) here. And Engadget did the same here. We’re still waiting for the new stuff to appear on the Apple store.

Related: Microsoft cuts $50 off price for Zune.

13 comments September 5th, 2007

What if AppleTV became a DVR?

The folks at AppleGazette speculate what would happen if AppleTV converted into a DVR that allowed you to transfer (not copy) recorded shows to your video iPod/iPhone. Then, in theory, it’s not so critical that Apple retains video content partners like NBCU for iTunes, if you believe that Apple sees content as just a driver to sell devices. Thoughts?

7 comments September 5th, 2007

Yahoo to acquire ad network, BlueLithium

The acquisition splurge for behavioral ad networks continues with Yahoo’s purchase of BlueLithium, the fifth-largest online ad network, for $300 million.

Add comment September 5th, 2007