Archive for: July 9, 2009

The New York Times is considering a five-dollar per month charge for access to its Web content, according to Bloomberg.

The newspaper floated the idea to its print subscribers in a survey, which also reportedly asked about a discounted $2.50 Web access rate for subscribers.

The Times already dabbled in subscription-based services back in 2007 with the now-defunct Times Select, which provided paid access to columnists' content. That section attracted 200,000 users, or about $10 million a year in revenue, at its peak, Bloomberg said.

The paper eventually abandoned that service, but dwindling ad revenue has prompted the Times and many other newspapers to look at other ways of bringing in money.

The Times is likely to start charging for access on mobile phones before it requests payment for its Web site, according to Martin Nisenholtz, the head of digital operations.

Are you pumped about Comic Con? I know I am. I'll be covering the show for Gearlog this year, because, let's face it, the show has grown into far more than just a comic convention over the past decade, a fact no better illustrated than by a recently announced Disney Panel. This thing is just nuts: Robert Zemeckis and Tim Burton will be joined by producers of the Tron remake. Comedian Patton Oswalt is moderating. Also, 3D.

The panelists will be showing off 3D clips from the forthcoming remakes of Tron, A Christmas Carol, and Alice in Wonderland. This is apparently the first time that 3D footage has premiered at a Comic Con panel. The 90-minute panel takes place July 23 at 11 a.m. Bring snacks and prepare to spend your morning in line.

It seems that Microsoft was as surprised as the rest of us about Google's latest announcement. While the rest of us are struggling to wrap our heads around the impact of the company's decision to enter into the OS space with Chrome, Microsoft is largely keeping quiet.

The Wall Street Journal painted a light-hearted scene at this morning's Sun Valley conference, when Google CEO bumped into Bill Gates shortly after the former Microsoft head issued a "no comment" about Chrome. "It would be better if you don't make that comment," Schmidt interjected, before shaking Gates's hand.

We got a similar reaction this morning when we attempted to reach out to Microsoft about the new operating system. The spokesperson refused to comment. Could it be that Microsoft didn't see this one coming? Or is the company just distracted by its own big announcement that's rumored for Monday?

In response to laundry lists of questions from reporters about its recently announced Chrome OS, Google today posted answers to a few cherry-picked FAQs. The company announced a list of hardware partners including Acer, Adobe, ASUS, Freescale, Hewlett-Packard, Lenovo, Qualcomm, Texas Instruments, and Toshiba. It also put out a call to developers...sort of.

Like Android before it, the newly announced OS will be open source, relying heavily on outside developers. Google will be opening up the code later this year. Something it addressed briefly, "We're looking forward to working with the open source community and making our own small contribution to the great work being done out there."

For those interested in playing a larger role (and making money/getting access to that sweet Google cafeteria), the Chrome team is hiring developers in 10 cities.

The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) on Wednesday championed this week's royalty deal between Internet radio stations and copyright holders as an equitable solution to paying artists what they deserve.

"Because Internet radio services are a great way to enjoy and discover (or re-discover) music, they are increasingly substituting for other ways artists and labels get paid for the music they create," Steven Marks, executive vice president and general counsel at the RIAA, wrote in a blog post titled "It's Licensing, Stupid."

After nearly two years of debate, Internet radio stations like Pandora reached a deal with copyright holders this week whereby Web radio will pay a percentage of annual revenue or costs, depending on their size.

The arrangement is a "flexible alternative" to the contentious rates set by the Copyright Royalty Board in 2007, Marks said.

Why should the RIAA care about Internet radio? Marks pointed to data that suggests people who listen to multiple sources of music (satellite, streaming, or online, etc) are buying less music as time goes on. As a result, the collection of royalty rates on things like Web radio is one way for artists (and the labels represented by the RIAA, naturally) to recoup their costs.

"Artists and labels must be compensated fairly by these new services as the market shifts from buying shiny discs to other models so that great music can continue to flow," Marks concluded.

The online availability of the Michael Jackson memorial combined with the power of social networking has made news surrounding the singer's death the "most buzzed about" event in Internet history, according to data from Nielsen.

News of Jackson's death broke Web records, capturing 8 percent of all conversations on the Internet on June 25. His July 7 memorial, which was broadcast online and on TV, captured 3 percent of all conversations. By comparison, President Obama's inauguration captured 5 percent of Web conversation.

Ironically, how the media covered the story was a big part of the story. About 15 percent of all online discussions about Jackson referred to a broadcaster or a social network.

On the network front, CNN was tops, with mentions in 5 percent of all online conversations. Twitter was the number one social network with 2.4 percent of all mentions, followed closely by Facebook with 2 percent.

"While events like the Jackson memorial, or the Obama inauguration are unique, the way consumers are multitasking between media is quickly becoming the norm," Charles Buchwalter, SVP of research and analytics at Nielsen Online, said in a blog post. "Even as recently as five years ago, the only choice for community was to gather around the TV screen with co-workers or friends for major events. Now, there are three screens to choose from and, as our research shows, online activity actually reinforces TV viewing."

More than 31 million viewers tuned in to watch the Jackson memorial on TV, Nielsen reported in a separate blog post.

Comcast will add content from cable channel Starz to its test of "On Demand Online"--a program that lets Comcast subscribers watch TV online free of charge.

The test, which will kick off in the next few weeks with 5,000 customers, will now include about 300 movies from Starz's lineup in standard definition, including Wall-E, Pineapple Express, and High School Musical 3. High-definition versions and additional content will be added in the coming months. Starz will also include original series like "Crash," "Head Case," and "Party Down."

Content will initially be accessible via Comcast.net and Fancast.com.

Comcast announced plans for On Demand Online last month, with Time Warner as its first partner. In addition to Starz, participating users will be able to access programming from Time Warner's Turner networks TNT and TBS, like The Closer, Saving Grace, and My Boys. Those shows will also be available on Comcast.net and Fancast.com, and will eventually expand to TNT.tv and TBS.com.

On Demand Online is expected to be available for all Comcast customers in the fourth quarter. The trial run, Comcast said, is primarily intended to test the company's new authentication technology, which will let subscribers log on and watch. Users will eventually be able to download content to go, Comcast said.

We all live busy lives and everyone knows what it feels like to not have enough hours in the day to take care of everything you need to do. Thankfully, Web services like Alice make sure that your house is in order by reminding you when you're about to run out of something like toilet paper, laundry detergent, and even food items before they're all gone. At the same time, the service hunts for bargains on the things you normally buy and provides coupons that can save you money on the things you usually buy.
If you're like me, you can run out of laundry detergent and completely forget to add it to your grocery list in the time it takes to walk from the washer and dryer to the closest for a pen and paper. Then, when it comes time to do the laundry again you realize the mistake you made and have to run out right then just to get what you're missing. Alice is designed to make sure you never have to do that again, and you don't have to make one-off trips to the store for one or two items at a time.

Alice gives you a way to manage your household items, how much of them you use, and how you buy refills and replacements when you need them. When you're running low on laundry detergent, body wash, or even trash bags, Alice alerts you that you're probably running low and that it's time to buy replacements. The service even allows you to buy those items online and have them shipped to your ...

Microsoft and Google have something in common. Both companies think the current state of the browser is broken.

In a paper describing the admittedly dense browser concept that is Gazelle, Redmond justified its involvement in the project, stating, "The time has come to apply decades-old operating-system experience to the browser-design space."  And in yesterday's announcement of its forthcoming operating system, Google echoed the sentiment, with a touch less subtlety: "The operating systems that browsers run on were designed in an era where there was no Web. So today, we're announcing a new project that's a natural extension of Google Chrome--the Google Chrome Operating System. It's our attempt to re-think what operating systems should be."
 
The premise here is essentially the same: Browsers and operating systems don't play nicely together. The companies' proposed solutions, on the other hand, are decidedly different. Microsoft wants to fix the browser, Google the OS.
Most analysts are regarding Google's announcement as a direct shot at Microsoft. And why not? Google has largely built itself on a strategy of taking down Microsoft product by product--and MS, in return, has spent much of the last decade responding to the shots. And if anyone is going to lead a successful grassroots (well, more like astroturfing) movement against the software giant, it's going to be Google.

To fix the communication--or miscommunication--between our PCs and the Web, Google is suggesting something of a complete teardown of the OS. Redefine the concept by tailoring the basis of the operating system to the Web. In a sense, it's an OS that behaves like a browser. Microsoft is suggesting that, given its many years designing operating systems, why not ...

The Weather Channel has upgraded its mobile Web site to include animated radar weather maps and a revamped current conditions page, according to MediaPost. It's the fourth most popular mobile site according to Nielsen Mobile (after Google, Yahoo Mail, and Gmail).

As before, the site is located at wwww.weather.com/mobile. Essentially, users can now customize the home page to feature the weather content they want. That content can include flight delays, current conditions, severe weather alerts, and pollen activity, according to the report.

The mobile site can also display weather forecasts in hour-by-hour, 36-hour, and 10-day increments, along with weekend and school closing reports.  That's on top of the usual local video forecasts and Hurricane Central pages.

The Weather Channel also has a BlackBerry app (pictured), two iPhone apps, and an Android app available.

Google's evolution follows an interesting trend. And if the line holds true, I think we can guess what comes next.

I tweeted as much earlier this afternoon, (with a timeline error or two; blame the doctor's office)  but I'll recap it here and extrapolate out further.

Google began as a search engine using the stanford.edu domain (1996); emerged as Google.com, a Web site (1997); as a toolbar (2000); then evolved into a home page (2005, later rebranded as iGoogle in in May 2007); followed by the mobile version of its Android operating system (Nov. 2007); then the Chrome browser (2008); followed finally by the Chrome OS in July 2009. In between, Google has rolled out a number of services that it has lumped under  the heading of "Google Apps".

In each iteration, I think it's fair to say that Google has pushed "out" of the PC, jumping up layer by layer from the Web to the browser to the OS, and taking a larger and larger share of your attention span. I'm not really sure how to graph a trend like this, but I think Google's evolution is fairly directed.


(You may see a post or two tonight with attributions to sources close to Google. This is another. For whatever reason, Google representatives declined to talk on the record, letting the company's blog post represent the public position of the company.)

Google apparently feels that it's not enough to wait for a minute or two to allow your PC to boot up for a menial task like accessing your email or surfing the Web. A lightning-quick Linux-based OS would ...

Facebook on Wednesday unveiled a new widget that will let users with a Facebook Page place more of their social networking content on outside Web sites.

The "Fan Box" lets public figures, musicians, communities, and local businesses with Pages (rather than Profiles) place a box on their external Web sites, which keeps fans up to date with their Facebook activity.

Cyclist Lance Armstrong, Coca Cola, and the (Red) campaign have already added the Fan Box widget to their sites via Facebook Connect.

"If you're not yet connected to their Facebook Page, you can become a fan directly from their Facebook Fan Box and begin receiving updates on Facebook as well," Facebook wrote in a blog post.

The move comes several weeks after Facebook launched the Live Stream Box, which lets any webmaster incorporate a Facebook chat box into their Web site.