GrandCentral’s “One Number For Life” Not Really

So much for GrandCentral’s “one number for life” promise. The company is turning off customer phone numbers and giving them new ones following their acquisition by Google last month.

Troy Schneider received such a notice, advising him that in 8 days his GrandCentral number would be canceled and that he would be required to immediately start using a new number allocated to him. Judi Sohn received the same message: with no prior warning she had 8 days left on her existing phone number then it would cease to operate. Sohn was fortunate to some extent: Google has offered to pay for the reprinting of her business cards, but that would appear to be a one off, and a token gesture at that.

The inconvenience of losing a telephone number, particularly for a business, is more than just stationery. Paper telephone listings must be changed (some people still use them), sign writing must be fixed, and every single listing of the old number has to be found and changed. Most land line telephone providers would offer a redirection service for the old number, however with Google it’s simply a matter of 8 days then no more phone number. Every customer that tries calling the old number post cancellation and cannot connect to the business is potentially a lost sale.

There was no comment at the time of writing from Google or GrandCentral. Ironically the last post on the GrandCentral blog talks about the wonders of being able to keep a GrandCentral Number for life.

Update: Founder Craig Walker comments below and notes that this affected on 434 users:

Everybody, thanks for your comments and I want to quickly reply to try to clear the air regarding this issue. I’ll post a full blog about this on the GrandCentral site in just a bit, but first I want to assure everybody that we are NOT disconnecting anyone’s service. Unfortunately we received word recently that one of our partners was stopping their service in part of the country and since that time we’ve been working to port those phone numbers to other partners. We’ve done this successfully for the vast majority of those users but unfortunately there were approximately 400 users whose numbers could not be ported (434 to be exact). As soon as we found out these users could not be ported to other partners, we contacted those users, set up an alternative GrandCentral number in the same area code for them, and gave them a reply email to request additional GrandCentral number choices. Vincent (our COO and Co-Founder) and I have been personally replying to these emails to help make this transition easier. This would have been these case whether or not we were acquired. We completely sympathize with any pain or disruption this might cause these users and will continue to work directly with them to help find a solution. I will post more on our blog shortly, but wanted to give you all a quick heads up.

Link to Tech Crunch Article

Google Takes Stake In Tianya.cn

Google has acquired a stake in Chinese social portal Tianya.cn.

Tianya.cn offers a variety of services including user blogs, classifieds, photo hosting, news, sports news and University information. The site is ranked as the 63rd most popular website in China according to Alexa.

As reported August 17, Google stated its intention to acquire 1 or 2 China focused internet companies and invest in 5 over the next 12 months. The investment in Tianya.cn would appear to be the first of those 5 investments. The percentage of Tianya acquired by Google, or the price of the purchase was not disclosed, although it is believed the stake could be as high as 60%

Link to TechCrunch Article

Betting On Second Life Stock Exchanges

After the recent ban on gambling, Second Life residents have had reduced opportunities on where spend their hard earned (or bought) Lindens (the Second Life in-world currency).

The world of share trading, regarded by some to be actually worse than gambling, has started to make its presence felt in Second Life. I went undercover (see picture) to see if good money could be made.

First Impressions

The World Stock Exchange (WSE) sits on its own Second Life island in a shiny multi-story edifice that just says money.

The trading floor on the third floor presents an initial lobby that includes an ATM machine (players must deposit money to trade stocks), rule boards and advertising for a bank that offers 15.75% PA. Walking through the lobby players are presented with a lounge area and customer service desks. There is usually a WSE representative on hand to assist with inquiries.

No In-world Trading

The trading floor itself is a misnomer as players are unable to trade via the Second Life interface. Company listing boards and IPO information all lead through to the WSE website. A video viewing area is surrounded by price quote boards, although the space sorely lacks a traditional style transaction ticker.

The WSE website is simple enough.. The trading room page allows players to buy or sell shares, with Limit Ordering also available. General information is provided about companies, as well as stock price history and recent trades.

Can You Make Money Though?

There is only one way to find out. After perusing the 30 odd listed companies I made a number of investments which I may revisit at TechCrunch in the future to report on how they went.

For my opening portfolio I bought companies that sounded like they had substance. Hope Capital Limited (HCL) sounded hopeful, and as this is the holding company for the WSE you’d expect good results. Hype String (HYP) may not make string, but hype always rises, right? I expect Spontaneous Rich Investments, Inc. (SRI) to perform well. Ginko Perpetual Bonds (GPB) are all that remains of the funds from the collapsed Ginko Bank. After trading as high as L$26, today’s price of around $L0.19 makes them a steal. For good measure I rounded out my portfolio with the two IPO’s scheduled for August 20, Taft Worsley Enterprise (TWE) and Apez Corp (APZ). I have no idea what either do, but given the history of IPO’s in such markets, I’m confident of a strong performance. More in a week or so, unless of course I’ve made so much money that I’ve retired.

For a quick tour of the WSE trading floor, click here.

Link to TechCrunch Article

USAToday’s Social Network Experiment May Not Be Paying Off

When USAToday relaunched its site in March as a social network around news, I and others thought it was big news.

They integrated Pluck’s new Social Media Suite, a group of social networking products that a number of high profile news sites have adopted. Overnight, USAToday went from being an old school news site to something much different. Readers could now create profiles, comment on articles, vote to recommend articles to others (very Digg-like), etc.

On Pluck’s Social Media Suite product page, the number one selling point to publishers is “Drive site traffic and increase page views.” Given the insane ability of social networks to drive traffic, this seems like a fairly safe promise to make. But so far, the data we have says it hasn’t paid off in terms of unique visitors or page views for USAToday.

Here’s the Compete.com data, showing monthly visitors down from 14 million in March to about 10 million today, a 29% drop in unique visitors. I added in the New York Times and Washington Post for comparison purposes - both are at about even levels with March.

Comscore also shows a decline, although a smaller one. March unique visitors were 7.3 million; June was 6.3 million - a 14% drop. Total pageviews were 70 million in March v. 59 million in June - a 16% drop.

Neither Comscore or Compete are perfect, but the trend seems to suggest the relaunch isn’t performing well. At the very least unique visitors and page views aren’t spiking upwards, perhaps as USA Today and Pluck anticipated. There is no doubt that the Pluck products are very solid products, but perhaps news and social networking just don’t mix.

Update: USAToday issues a press release saying traffic is, actually, way up.

Link to TechCrunch Article

Grocer Wins Cintas Contest For Top Toilets

FAIRFIELD, Ohio -- A suburban Cincinnati grocery store cleaned up on Tuesday in an annual contest to identify and honor America's tidiest toilets.

Exterior and interior of award-winning restroom at Jungle Jim's Market

The restrooms at Jungle Jim's International Market appear to be portable toilets, but they actually lead to real jungle-themed restrooms with flowers, marble and tropical pictures. They were named the nation's finest in a nonscientific online poll sponsored by a bathroom-supply company.

"I'm all about putting smiles on people's faces," said store owner Jim Bonaminio. "People are so tense these days. Those bathrooms just seem to make people laugh and that's what we're all about: laughing and having fun."

Cintas Corp., a supplier of uniforms and a provider of bathroom products and services based in Cincinnati, said Tuesday that tens of thousands of online votes were cast in the sixth competition, choosing from finalists selected for hygiene, style and public access. Also-rans included a Las Vegas hotel lounge and an upscale restaurant in Flushing, Mich.

Anyone could nominate a restroom online, and Cintas picks the final list of 15 nominees to put to the Internet-based vote.

Link to WSJ Article

The Best Way To Search Videos On the Internet

August 22, 2007; Page D1

Some fascinating results can be produced when you scour the Internet using a giant search engine like Google's. You can discover the seedy past of a creep you might have otherwise dated, find directions to the nearest Thai restaurant, or instantly learn how many inches are in a mile (63,360).

But searching for video, the hottest content on the Web right now, isn't easy. Sure, you can go to Google's popular YouTube site and look for clips stored there. But that won't find videos from other sites, especially copyrighted clips that YouTube doesn't offer or has removed from its site.

This week, I tested four video-search engines, including revamped entrant Truveo.com, a smartly designed site that combs through Web video from all sorts of sources ranging from YouTube to broadcasting companies. Truveo, a subsidiary of AOL, is stepping out on its own again after spending three years in the background, powering video search for the likes of Microsoft, Brightcove and AOL itself. It unveiled its new site last week, though I've been playing with it for a few weeks now.

Truveo organizes search results by grouping clips together and spreading them out in a smart grid-like display.

This Web site, www.truveo.com, operates under the idea that users don't merely search for video by entering specific words or phrases, like they would when starting a regular Web search. Instead, Truveo thinks that people don't often know what they're looking for in online video searches, and browsing through content helps to retrieve unexpected and perhaps unintended (but welcome) results. I found that, compared with other sites, Truveo provided the most useful interface, which showed five times as many results per page as the others and encouraged me to browse other clips.

In effect, Truveo combines the browsing experience of a YouTube with the best Web-wide video-search engine I've seen.

The other video-search sites I tested included Google's (www.google.com/video) and Yahoo's (www.video.yahoo.com), as well as Blinkx.com (www.blinkx.com). None of these three sites do much to encourage browsing; by default they display as many as 10 results per search on one page and display the clips in a vertical list, forcing you to scroll down to see them all. The majority of clips watched on Truveo, Yahoo and Blinkx direct you to an external link to play the video on its original content provider's site -- which takes an extra step and often involves watching an advertisement.

Searching on Google video almost always displays only content from Google and its famously acquired site, YouTube. The giant search company is working on improving its search results to show a better variety of content providers. Still, the upside here is that clips play right away in the search window rather than through a link to the site where the video originated. YouTube works this way because its clips are user-generated -- either made by users and posted to the site or copied from original host sites and posted to YouTube, saving a trip to the original content provider's site.

Yahoo's video-searching page looks clean and uncluttered, with a large box for entering terms or phrases with which to conduct searches. Two options -- labeled "From Yahoo! Video" and "From Other Sites" -- help you sort results in one step. But the clips that I found on Yahoo video seemed less relevant, overall, and included more repeated clips. One search for the Discovery Channel's "Man Versus Wild" show returned seven clips, four of which were identical.

Blinkx, a three-year-old site, distinguishes itself with its "wall" feature -- a visually stimulating grid of moving video thumbnails. It is like Truveo in that it also works behind the scenes for bigger companies, including Ask.com. Blinkx says it uses speech recognition and analysis to understand what the video is about, while the others stick to text-based searching. And this seemed to hold true: I rarely got results that were completely off-base using Blinkx.

But Truveo's focus on browsing and searching worked well. It repeatedly displayed spot-on results when I was looking for a video about a specific subject, or provided a variety of other videos that were similar, requiring less overall effort on my part. Its most useful feature is the way it shows results: by sorting clips into neatly organized buckets, or categories, such as Featured Channels, Featured Tags and Featured Categories. These buckets spread out on the page in a gridlike manner, giving your eye more to see in a quick glance.

This grid also lets you change the direction of your search quickly. Tabs at the top of the page can re-sort your results according to Most Viewed Now, Today, This Week, This Month or of All Time. Three more tabs rearrange the results into Highest Rated, Most Recent (my personal favorite) and Most Relevant.

The other video-search sites offered fewer details, overall, about each clip. This meant that I had to waste time opening and watching clips to discern whether they were what I wanted to see.

I searched for a variety of things, including a new television series called "Mad Men" on AMC that has me hooked. The show is still just gaining popularity, so I was curious to see what my video search would return. A single Truveo search can display as many as 51 results on a page, and the bucket organizational system placed all of these results into a layout that didn't look overwhelming. Of the four sites, Truveo had the highest number of clips related to the actual television show: 32 out of 51. On the other sites, all of which show 10 results per page, all of the Blinkx clips, five of the Google clips and eight of the Yahoo clips were relevant.

With the exception of a few clips, Truveo search results include a thumbnail image of each video, its title, channel and category, and a line about how old the clip is and how many times it has been viewed.

The top 15 results -- grouped into three columns of five clips each -- feature slightly larger thumbnail images, and moving a cursor over one of these larger images shows a brief summary of that clip.

If your search generates numerous relevant clips on a well-known Web site, a special bucket is created at the top right of Truveo's results page that will hold just that site's clips. For example, if you were to search an MTV show that's popular enough to have a lot of clips available directly through the MTV.com Web site, a bucket is designated just for MTV.com clips.

Truveo is considering selling this prominent bucket as an advertisement in the future, but for now, no ads appear on the video-search site.

With so many videos added to the Web each day, the search for online clips can be fruitless and tiresome. Truveo starts users out with enough relevant clips right away so that they can more easily find what they're looking for. And its organizational buckets encourage browsing and, therefore, entertainment -- one of the reasons for Web video's popularity.

Truveo takes a refreshing look at video search, and as long as you have the patience to travel to sites where content originated, you'll find it useful. It stands apart from other search engines in looks and functionality.

Link to WSJ Article

Sprint Nextel Bets on WiMax

By ROGER CHENG
August 22, 2007; Page B3F

Sprint Nextel Corp. wants its WiMax network to serve more than just cellphones and laptops, a move that would change the business model of its wireless operations.

Besides selling wireless service to subscribers, the wireless carrier is seeking to embed access to the network in more novel products, such as digital cameras and billboards. Sprint thinks that move, along with other advertising opportunities, will diversify its wireless business away from its traditional subscription model.

"I'm absolutely convinced this model will work," Chief Technology Officer Barry West said at Sprint's Technology Summit last week. "It is a completely new, game-changing model."

The early WiMax revenue generated by Sprint will likely come from the subscription model. Longer term, though, the company hopes to make money from advertising. For example, it has a deal with Google Inc. in which more than half of the mobile-advertising revenue from the WiMax network goes to Sprint. It expects to post revenue of $2 billion to $2.5 billion from the network in 2010.

As a sign of the plan's significance to Sprint, the company has unveiled a new brand, Xohm, for the business. However, the company's history in building new brands is mixed.

"Sprint is a powerful telecom brand," Mr. West said. "We want to create an Internet brand."

WiMax is a wider-ranging form of Internet access similar to its cousin Wi-Fi, but it uses licensed spectrum and is considered more dependable.

Sprint Chief Executive Gary Forsee said demand for WiMax services won't grow without a large number of products that use the network. As a result, the company has teamed with Intel Corp., Motorola Inc., Samsung Electronics Co. and Nokia Corp. to release 50 million WiMax products over the next three years. Mr. West said Sprint was in discussions with other makers of consumer-electronic products.

One example presented was with a digital camera. Sprint could sell service, either as a one-time fee or regular subscription, that would allow consumers to send photos to their home computer from the camera through the WiMax connection.

Down the line, billboards with WiMax chips in them could link up with an individual's WiMax-enabled cellphone and present the bystander with a personalized advertisement. Cars traveling down the highway will be able to pick up and play video stored in computers at home.

The "embedded model" gives Sprint a chance to expand beyond selling just cellphones. It also gets the company away from using subsidies to push its service.

The 50 million devices expected over the next three years still pales in comparison to Wi-Fi-enabled devices. Roughly 200 million consumer-electronic devices are expected to carry Wi-Fi chips by 2010, according to ABI Research.

Sprint is making a costly bet -- $5 billion through 2010 -- that its WiMax network, which it dubs 4G technology, will pay off by winning new customers.

The company needs the help. The wireless carrier has been steadily losing customers over the past several quarters, and only in the recent quarter did it turn itself around. Management has warned that things could get worse in the third quarter.

"We believe the success of Sprint's 4G strategy is critical to its ability to arrest the company's current market-share decline in the U.S. post-paid market," UBS analyst John Hodulik said in a note.

The network won't just benefit Sprint. Fred Wright, who heads up cellular-network products and WiMax for Motorola, said he sees revenue opportunity in providing consumer devices, modems and networking equipment to support WiMax. In the 2010 to 2012 time frame, the market will be worth "billions of billions of dollars," he said.

"As 2G tapers off, broadband wireless will take off," Mr. Wright said. "It represents a good replacement technology."

The low-key debut of Xohm (pronounced "zome") was meant to replicate the quiet groundswell of support that Google or Facebook enjoyed in their early days. It is unclear, however, whether the Xohm name will garner the same following as its more-famous Web predecessors.

Mr. West said it was necessary to create a separate brand so Sprint and Xohm products can be sold at the same locations but at different price points.

Link to WSJ Article

YouTube to Start Selling Ads in Videos

By EMILY STEEL
August 22, 2007; Page B3

Nearly 10 months after Google Inc. agreed to buy YouTube for $1.65 billion, the video-sharing Web site is rolling out its first approach for selling ads within videos. The anticipated move, announced last night, answers speculation concerning Google's formula for mining revenue from the site and is expected to start to bring standardization to the growing ad market for Web video.

Resembling a popular ad model cropping up on a number of other video sites, YouTube's new format is a semitransparent ad that appears on the bottom 20% of the video. The ad shows up after a video plays for 15 seconds, and disappears up to 10 seconds later if the viewer doesn't click on it. Viewers can either click to close the ad right away or to watch the commercial. If a viewer chooses to watch the ad, the main video pauses until the commercial stops.

During a video from Ford Models Inc. about how to create an evening hairstyle, an animated ad promoting Time Warner Inc. unit New Line Cinema's film "Hairspray" pops onto the bottom fifth of the video player. When viewers click on the ad, the Ford Models video pauses and a trailer for the film appears. Viewers can click on a link that takes them to the "Hairspray" Web site.

YouTube, a subsidiary of Mountain View, Calif., Internet company Google, plans to sell these ads only on videos from its select content partners, whose original videos include professionally produced clips and user-generated content. The partners will earn a share of the ad revenue. The system is similar to Google's AdSense network, which matches ads to the content of a network of Web sites, and gives those sites a cut of the profits. YouTube, of San Bruno, Calif., has established revenue-sharing deals with more than 50 partners, including Ford Models and Warner Music Group Corp. YouTube declined to say what percentage of videos on its site comes from its content partners.

YouTube started testing its in-video ad format in June and July on more than 200 videos from 20 content providers, and found that 75% of viewers watched the entire ad. The ads had five to 10 times greater click-through rates than standard display ads that appear on Web sites, YouTube said. Other ad models are in the works. In the past month, BMW AG has started testing in-video ads on YouTube. Before the German luxury-car maker commits significant ad dollars, it needs to see how the results compare with other forms of online-video advertising and how users respond, says Rinku Mahbubani, interactive-media supervisor at GSD&M, the ad agency representing BMW.

While YouTube's announcement could pave the way for more ad dollars to go into online video, marketing executives say a number of hurdles remain. Right now, producing advertising for Web video is a logistical headache. If an advertiser wants its ads to run on two different video networks, it usually has to negotiate deals and create different ads for each of the different sites. Marketers also are hesitant to advertise during unpredictable user-generated content, which makes up a large portion of videos on these sites. YouTube says that ads will appear only during "brand friendly" videos, and that marketers have the ability to target their ads to specific genres.

One format advertisers won't see on You Tube is the "pre-roll" ad, the video ads that viewers must watch before viewing a clip. With 55.1 million unique visitors who spent an average of 49 minutes and 59 seconds on the site during July, YouTube is the most popular online video site, according to Nielsen/NetRatings NetView. YouTube has spent months testing different ad formats to figure out which models wouldn't alienate its viewers. It found that viewers abandon videos that include pre-roll ads at a rate of more than 70%, so it ditched pre-roll commercials.

Link to WSJ Article

Mobile Social Networking Has 12.3 Million Friends in US and Western Europe

12.3 million consumers in the US and Western Europe report accessing a social networking site with a mobile device in June, according to the first measurement by M:Metrics of mobile social networking, writes MarketingCharts (via CNET's Tech News Blog).

Some findings from the study:

• The US audience for mobile social networking sites is the largest, with 7.5 million, or 3.5 percent of mobile subscribers. Italy follows with 1.3 million, or 2.8 percent; then the UK with 1.1 million, or 2.5 percent; Spain with 751,000 (2.3 percent), Germany (1.9 percent) and France (1.7 percent).
• MySpace garnered the most mobile users in the United States and United Kingdom, whereas MSN was the forum of choice for mobile Web 2.0 users in the other geographies surveyed.
• MySpace attracts 3.7 million US and 440,000 UK mobile users. In America, Facebook's mobile audience is about 2 million, and in Britain, about 307,000.
• Rounding out the top three is YouTube in the US, with 901,000 mobile visitors, and Bebo in the UK, with 288,000.

M:Metrics also tracks the availability of content across all operator portals and found that in June, the top three US mobile social networking sites had strong distribution, with MySpace appearing on the decks of Amp'd, AT&T, Helio and Nextel:

• Facebook was accessible on the Sprint, AT&T, Virgin and Amp'd decks and YouTube on the Verizon deck*.
• In the UK, MySpace has distribution on Vodafone, Bebo is on the 3 deck, but No. 2 MSN Live Spaces is offered nowhere on portal.
• Those under 25 are the most active users of mobile social networking sites across all geographies studied.
• In France, Germany, Italy and Spain, the age demographic with the largest percentage of use is 13-17-year-olds, whereas college-aged consumers (18-24) are the most avid users in the United States and the United Kingdom.

Also, below, M:Metrics data regarding use of mobile content and applications in the US and UK, as of June:

*YouTube is also on the iPhone deck, which was not under measurement at the time of the survey.

Link to Marketing Charts Article

MySpace Prepares Talib Kweli, M.I.A. Album Exclusives

MySpace is now pushing a number of high-profile streaming album exclusives, part of its growing music initiative. Starting this Friday, MySpace is offering an exclusive peek at the upcoming Talib Kweli album, Eardrum. The preview, at myspace.com/talibkweli, will last through the album release date of August 21st. Kweli (Blacksmith/Warner Bros.) has roughly 200,000 MySpace friends.

Also in the mix is M.I.A. (XL/Interscope), who is readying her second studio album, Kala. The Sri Lankan artist is now previewing the release on myspace.com/mia, though the action only lasts through Thursday. Additionally, MySpace is also featuring a preview from the New Young Ponys (Modular), a UK-based group that is now pushing their debut album in the United States.

MySpace now boasts a total band population of roughly three million. Previous album previews have come from the Black Eyed Peas, Weezer, Nine Inch Nails, Depeche Mode, Neil Diamond, Queens of the Stone Age, R.E.M. and Audioslave.

Link to Digital Music News Article

EMI Prepares Catalog Push, Taps Saatchi & Saatchi

EMI is now planning a major revitalization of its catalog roster, and tapping advertising firm Saatchi & Saatchi to craft the campaign. The major label is planning broad-based initiatives for artists like Frank Sinatra, the Beatles, Beach Boys, Dean Martin, Steve Miller Band, Pink Floyd, Bob Seger, the Rolling Stones, Nat King Cole, and the Beatles, according to information recently disclosed. The initiative will traverse a number of digital and physical formats, including CD, DVDs, and DRM-free, premium downloads.

Saatchi & Saatchi will develop approaches to reconnect artists with longtime fans, and nurture fresh relationships. Of course, catalog revitalization efforts are nothing new, though the latest push comes at a difficult juncture for newer artists. For most majors, fresh successes are usually muted by piracy, and rarely compare to the sales profiles of breakouts from earlier eras. That makes it more difficult to develop newer artists, especially over a multi-album period.

Meanwhile, established legends are also prevalent on file-sharing networks, though older demographics are more likely to purchase albums - online or off. The global approach will largely be developed from the Los Angeles Saatchi & Saatchi offices, according to the label.

Link to Digital Music News Article

Live Nation Pushes Portable, Live Performance Widget

Live Nation is now spinning its online concert destination into a portable, widget-based play. The live performance giant has been steadily investing in online initiatives, and last year launched a comprehensive concert listing and ecommerce destination at LiveNation.com. The latest move fits into a broader digital outreach, and brings concert information and sales functionality closer to the user. The downloadable widgets - which are easily positioned within personal web pages, blogs, and profile pages - allow visitors to quickly find upcoming gigs. The portable application also supports ticket purchasing, a functionality designed to lubricate commerce channels.

Additionally, Live Nation is also introducing a concert-focused search toolbar, as well as a Google Gadget for customized search results. "These new features give more power and access to online music fans, enabling them to effortlessly search for and buy concert tickets through their own websites," said Live Nation Global Digital president Bryan Perez. The portable applications were first disclosed on Tuesday.

Link to Digital Music News Article

Limewire Readies Paid Download Store; Initial Outline Sketched

Leading P2P application Limewire is now preparing a paid download store, according to an announcement issued Tuesday. The file-sharing application, run by Lime Wire LLC, will position the store as a stand-alone, web-based outlet. The company will offer links to the store from its ultra-popular file-sharing application, and eventually layer the paid downloads into P2P results sets. "Subsequent releases will enable users to browse and purchase music directly from within the Limewire program," the company promised.

Limewire did not offer a concrete release date, though the announcement alluded to something imminent. The store will broker in MP3s, and offer a-la-carte or subscription buying options. Already, IRIS Distribution and Nettwerk Music Group have licensed their content to the play. "We are delighted to collaborate with these forward-thinking music companies and sell their authorized content through Limewire," said Jesse Rubenfeld, chief financial officer at Lime Wire LLC.

Other content holders are certain to jump aboard, though it remains unclear whether majors EMI and Universal Music Group will entertain the possibility. Currently, Lime Wire is in the midst of a protracted legal battle with the RIAA, one focused on copyright infringement. Limewire is now inviting interested content holders to contact them at storecontent@limewire.com.

Link to Digital Music News Article

Apple Jumps Into Widget Game, Spins Portable iTunes Apps

Apple is the latest to capitalize on a consumer appetite for portable media applications, one tearing across social networking destinations and blogs. The company is now offering a trio of iTunes-related widgets, all of which offer tie-ins back to the application. The customized modules include information on latest purchases and top reviews, and feature neatly-organized album images. "My iTunes widgets are simple, self-updating add-ons for your web page, social-networking profile, or blog," the company said. Apple also offers a number of different cosmetic styles, and also offers RSS reader compatibility.

Link to Digital Music News Article

More Details Surface On Universal Music, DRM-Free Move

Additional details surfaced Friday on an upcoming, DRM-free experiment being triggered by Universal Music Group. The move, which first emerged Thursday, involves a broad range of online music retailers - except for iTunes. Universal previously disclosed experimental partnerships with RealNetworks, Google, Amazon, and Wal-Mart. On Friday morning, the mega-label also pointed Digital Music News to deals involving Best Buy, Trans World Entertainment, Passalong Networks and Puretracks. A number of artist and label websites will also position the content, including sum41.com, evefans.com, common-music.com, ryan-adams.com, blaqkaudio.com, dianakrall.com, sectionquartet.com, defjam.com, and islandrecords.com.

Participating partners will be given the liberty to offer tracks in the DRM-free codec of their choosing. In most cases, MP3 will be the selection, and RealNetworks has already confirmed this choice. Furthermore, Universal also indicated that most retailers will position the DRM-free tracks at the same price point as protected content.

Another interesting aspect of the play involves Google. Universal will offer its tracks as contextual advertisements within Google AdWords, and direct queries to ecommerce destination gbox.com. "Because many consumers are searching for music and music-related news and information online, Google is a powerful way to drive consumers to this test," a Universal representative said. The DRM experiment begins later this month, and continues through January.

Link to Digital Music News Article

MTVN's Logo To Buy Gay Social Network

by Gavin O'Malley, Thursday, Aug 16, 2007 6:00 AM ET

LOGO, MTV NETWORKS' CABLE CHANNEL for gays and lesbians, has agreed to buy DowneLink.com, a social network for multicultural lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender audiences. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. The acquisition is part of MTVN's niche programming strategy to better serve up targeted audiences to advertisers, and firm up Logo's "role as the leading online and on-air source of entertainment for the LGBT community as well as the best way for advertisers to reach them," said Lisa Sherman, senior vice president and general manager of the network. With a community of some 400,000 members, DowneLink is a solid addition to Logo's growing assembly of affiliated Web sites for the gay and lesbian community. Existing sites include Happiestgaycouple.com, the recently launched visiblevote08.com, NewNowNext.com along with AfterEllen.com, AfterElton.com and 365gay.com, each of which were acquired last summer. About 72% of DowneLink's members are African-American, Asian or Latino, while the gender breakdown is balanced between men and women, according to a company spokesperson. Encouraged by advertisers attempting to target ever more niche audiences, the world of media is presently undergoing hyper-segmentation and specialization. Logo is one of a growing number of channels through which advertisers can reach gays and lesbians directly. Earlier this week, a new vertical venture known as the Gay Ad Network launched on over 200 Web sites representing more than two dozen online publishers, including local gay newspapers, national gay magazines, independent content sites and social networking services. The network was founded by PlanetOut/Gay.com guru and gay online ad sales pioneer Mark Elderkin, who left the gay online publisher in July 2006--and is now competing against his former company on the ad sales side. Top-tier advertisers running across the network include AllState, Ford, eBay, and Atlantis Events. Catering to gay and lesbian viewers on a national scale, MTVN's launch of Logo in 2005 was seen as a gamble. Some cable operators were reluctant to carry the channel, while only three advertisers signed up as charter sponsors, including travel Web site Orbitz, Subaru, and the Paramount film studio. Since then, the brand has thrived--with distribution deals with every major cable operator, and over 80 advertisers, including American Express, Intel, Kodak, Lexus, Pepsi and Sears. Link to MediaPost Article

ABC Pushes 'Desperate Housewives' Via Music Videos

ABC is once again promoting some of its popular TV shows with music videos.

The videos promote the new season of returning shows, including “Grey's Anatomy,” “Desperate Housewives,” “Ugly Betty” and “Dancing with the Stars.”

The “Desperate Housewives” music video set to Sean Kingston’s single “Beautiful Girls” shows scenes from all three seasons.” It is available at ABC.com and includes a sneak peek at the upcoming season.

The “Ugly Betty” video, which debuts today, features artist Mika’s recording “Betty Girl” with snippets from the originally titled “Big Girl” music video and season one of the series. On-air spots also support the new season, ABC said.

The music videos follow six others than ran last season promoting "Grey's Anatomy," "Ugly Betty" and "Lost."

Link to PROMO Article

Subaru Makes Lifestyle Link With Rockfest

Subaru is sponsoring a local concert series in the Dallas-Fort Worth area to connect with prospective customers on a lifestyle level and kick-start regional sales.

The 2007 Subaru Rockfest Concert Series at the Smirnoff Center in Dallas brings Def Leppard, Projekt Revolution, Rush and the Dave Matthews Band to music fans who can enter online in a sweepstakes to win concert tickets and a 2008 Subaru Tribeca. People can register at WFAA.com/contests/Subaru.

The first-time sponsorship grew out of a regional initiative, but is part of an “over-arching” strategy to reach consumers where they recreate, Subaru of America spokeswoman Lisa Fleming said.

Company research on Subaru owners indicates that attending concerts is among their five favorite activities, she said.

“Trying to be more engaged with customers has always been our strategy as a brand,” since Subaru is a “niche manufacturer” with limited marketing resources, Fleming said.

Subaru is looking to improve sales in the sunbelt and in its Tribeca—billed as a progressive crossover SUV. The Tribeca is proving to be a particularly popular model among Dallas-Forth Worth consumers.

The grand prize Tribeca will be on hand when Def Leppard takes the stage for the first concert on Aug. 28. Dave Matthews caps the series with his appearance on Sept. 18. That’s the deadline to register to win the car, with the winner to be announced at the concert that night.

Link to PROMO Article

Sophos Facebook ID Probe Finds Users Reveal Too Much

More than four of tenFacebook users (41%) agreed to become “friends” with the fictional Freddi Staur and allowed access to personal data, according to new research by Sophos into the risks of identity and information theft occurring through Facebook (via CNET News Blog).

Users often divulged personal information - such as email address, date of birth and phone number - to a complete stranger, greatly increasing their susceptibility to ID theft, Sophos said.

The Sophos “Facebook ID Probe” involved creating a fabricated Facebook profile, then sending out friend requests to randomly selected persons across the globe. Sophos set up a profile page for ‘Freddi Staur’ (an anagram of “ID Fraudster”), a small green plastic frog who divulged minimal personal information about himself. Sophos then sent out 200 friend requests.

Among the Sophos Facebook ID Probe findings:

• 87 of the 200 Facebook users contacted responded to Freddi, with 82 leaking personal information (41% of those approached).
• 72% of respondents divulged one or more email address.
• 84% of respondents listed their full date of birth.
• 87% of respondents provided details about their education or workplace.
• 78% of respondents listed their current address or location.
• 23% of respondents listed their current phone number.
• 26% of respondents provided their instant messaging screenname.
• Sophos also “poked”* another 100 random Facebook users to see whether it would elicit similar responses, allowing Freddi to access their details:However, just eight people responded, with only five revealing personal information.

“Freddi may look like a happy green frog that just wants to be friends, but actually he’s happy because he’s just encouraged 82 users to hand over their personal details on a plate,” said Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant at Sophos.

“While accepting friend requests is unlikely to result directly in theft, it is an enabler, giving cybercriminals many of the building blocks they need to spoof identities, to gain access to online user accounts, or potentially, to infiltrate their employers’ computer networks.”

In the majority of cases, Freddi was able to gain access to respondents’ photos of family and friends, information about likes/dislikes, hobbies, employer details and other personal facts, Sophos said. In addition, many users apparently also disclosed the names of their spouses or partners.

“What’s worrying is how easy it was for Freddi to go about his business. He now has enough information to create phishing emails or malware specifically targeted at individual users or businesses, to guess users’ passwords, impersonate them or even stalk them,” explained Cluley.

“It’s important to remember that Facebook’s privacy features go far beyond those of many competing social networking sites. This is about the human factor - people undoing all that good work through carelessness and being preoccupied with the kudos of having more Facebook friends than their peers, which could have a serious impact on business security, if accessed in the workplace.”

*”Poking” is a way for Facebook users to interact with one another. According to the Facebook website, it is a feature designed “without any specific purpose.” When a user is poked an icon appears on their Facebook homepage, with the option to “remove poke” or “poke back.” By choosing to poke back, the user allows the initial sender to view their profile information for the next seven days.

Link to Marketing Charts Article

Deal Puts VideoEgg on Facebook Apps

by Gavin O'Malley, Tuesday, Aug 14, 2007 6:00 AM ET

ONLINE VIDEO TECHNOLOGY COMPANY VIDEOEGG has reached a deal with Facebook to sell ads directly into applications developed by the popular social network's community. The move represents an effort by VideoEgg to expand its ad network, the Eggnetwork, which launched last year. "Aggregating dozens of application owners together in our network will give advertisers reach they need to go deep in any demographic," said Troy Young, chief marketing officer, VideoEgg. Early advertisers include Discovery Networks, Electronic Arts, Fox Searchlight, FX Channel, Paramount Pictures and Universal Pictures. VideoEgg is not alone in its access to Facebook's application developers. Three competing ad networks--Lookery, fbExchange and RockYou--presently vie for their attention. With the Eggnetwork, application providers on Facebook can expect to receive 60% of ad revenue earned, with ads presently selling at above $10 CPM. Larger application Facebook developers like Rock You, J. Squared Media, Graffitii, Renkoo and Flixster have already signed onto the Eggnetwork. "The Eggnetwork ad units work very well with the Facebook platform," said Jia Shen, chief technology officer and co-founder of Rock You, Inc., developer and publisher of Facebook applications and widgets. Founded in 2005, VideoEgg manages the Eggnetwork, along with offering clients opt-in ad technology that stands in contrast to unpopular pre-roll video advertising. "Our ad units bring targeted, invitation-based rich media experiences to social environments," said Young. Today, VideoEgg powers 680 million video plays per month, from 23 million unique users. Including more than 80 social networks, its better-known clients include AOL and Bebo. Video networks in general are booming, with U.S. online video ad expenditures expected to total $775 million in 2007--up 89% from last year, according to market research firm eMarketer. Still, that number only represents about 4% of the projected 2007 U.S. online ad spend of $19.5 billion. In April, WPP invested an unknown sum in VideoEgg with the intention of exploring its various ad-serving methods. Link to MediaPost Article