Huffington Post Acquires Pollster.com

By
Mark Hefflinger
-
0

Los Angeles – The Huffington Post has made its second
acquisition in a month, as The New York Times reported on Wednesday the online
publisher has purchased Pollster.com, an aggregator of poll data, from YouGov
Polimetrix.

Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

Pollster.com
has provided polling data to Atlantic Media’s National Journal.

"It’s
going to beef up our political coverage," Huffington Post founder and
editor-in-chief Arianna Huffington told The Times.

"Polling, whether we
like it or not, is a big part of how we communicate about politics. And with
this, we’ll be able to do it in a deeper way. We’ll be able to both aggregate
polls, point out the limitations of them, and demand more transparency."

The move follows The New York Times’ own deal to host polling analysis from
Nate Silver’s FiveThirtyEight.com.

 

Related Links:
http://tinyurl.com/2cabjy5

http://tinyurl.com/24h74n3
(N.Y. Times)

http://www.huffingtonpost.com

http://www.pollster.com

Settlement Talks Fail in Jammie Thomas File-Sharing Lawsuit

By
Mark Hefflinger
-
1

Duluth, Minn. – Settlement talks ordered by a judge have
broken down in the ongoing file-sharing copyright infringement proceedings
against Jammie Thomas-Rassett, Ars Technica reported. A joint motion in the
case notes that the settlement talks "have, unfortunately, been fruitless
because of the substantially divergent views of the parties regarding copyright
law and the merits of this case," adding that, "further settlement
efforts would be futile."

The Recording Industry Association of America
(RIAA) has twice won guilty verdicts against Thomas-Rassett, and the remaining issue now
is the amount of damages to be paid.

U.S. District Judge Michael Davis ruled
that the $1.92 million a jury ordered Thomas-Rassett to pay was too high, and
reduced it to $54,000.

The RIAA opted for a third trial rather than accept the
reduced damages.

As the interim settlement talks ordered by Davis have failed,
it now appears that the case will be headed to court again.

 

Related Links:
http://tinyurl.com/2em9vxe
(Ars Technica)

http://tinyurl.com/kr8ba2
(DMW previous coverage)

Google Ups Investment in Chinese Music Service Top100.cn

By
Mark Hefflinger
-
0

Mountain View, Calif. – Google (NASD: GOOG) has made an additional
investment in Chinese digital music service Top100.cn, PC World reported,
citing local Chinese media reports.

The reports indicate that both Google and
NBA basketball star Yao Ming participated in the second round of funding for
the service, which is said to have totaled about $1 million.

Google first
invested in Top100.cn in 2007, as it looked to challenge local search giant
Baidu for a piece of the digital music market in China.

PC World quoted China
Market Research Group managing director Shaun Rein as saying he was surprised
Top100.cn accepted Google’s funding, given its ongoing disputes with the
Chinese government over the censorship of search results.

 

Related Links:
http://tinyurl.com/3yca8j7
(PC World)

http://top100.cn

Borders Launches eBook Store, Aims for 17% Market Share

By
Mark Hefflinger
-
0

Ann Arbor, Mich. – Borders (NYSE:  BGP) announced on Wednesday the launch
of its branded eBook store, and a goal of securing a 17% share of the e-book
market by July 2011. The company partnered with e-reading service Kobo to power
the store, which at launch offers more than 1.5 million titles.

Borders
recently launched Kobo-powered e-reader apps for the iPhone and iPad, and today
announced the release of apps for BlackBerry and Android devices.

The company is
also selling the Kobo eReader and Aluratek Libre eReader on Borders.com.

"During
the past several months, we’ve been carefully crafting a digital strategy, one
that has great content and a device-neutral philosophy backed by the Borders
brand as its cornerstones," said Borders CEO Mike Edwards.

"We
believe we are very well positioned to come out strong and to ultimately claim
about a 17 percent eBook market share by this time next year."

 

Related Links:
http://tinyurl.com/2apuzmh

http://www.borders.com

Sirius Sees 6% Subscriber Increase, Ends Q2 With Record 19.5M

By
Mark Hefflinger
-
0

New York – Sirius Satellite Radio (NASD:  SIRI) announced on Wednesday
that it ended the second quarter with a record 19.5 million subscribers, an
increase of 6% from the same period a year ago. The company also raised its
subscriber forecast for 2010 by nearly 50%, now expecting 1.1 million new
subscribers.

New York-based Sirius said it added 583,249 net subscribers in the
second quarter, after losing 185,999 in the same period a year ago, while
subscriber churn fell from 2% to 1.8%.

"Our subscriber results mark the
best quarter of gross additions, deactivations and net additions since the
merger of SIRIUS and XM in July 2008," said Sirius CEO Mel Karmazin.

"The strong execution in both adding subscribers and retaining them
resulted in our record-high 19.5 million subscriber milestone, despite continued
economic uncertainty. The further improvement in our guidance reflects the
attractiveness of satellite radio but maintains a cautious outlook for
continued improvement in the economy."

 

Related Links:
http://tinyurl.com/2f2rebl

http://www.sirius.com

Report: AT&T iPhone Users See Upload Speeds Drop

By
Mark Hefflinger
-
0

San Francisco – AT&T’s (NYSE:  T) network has seen upload speeds
for iPhone users in a number of cities plummet in recent days, in some cases
below 100 Kbps, Wired.com reported.

Reports of degraded upload speeds began on
Saturday.

Speed test data from 3 million iPhones provided by Ookla shows that
in Seattle, average iPhone upload speeds fell from 525 Kbps on Friday, to 97,
131 and 101 on Saturday, Sunday and Monday, respectively.

Similar drops in
speed were seen in Baltimore; Boston; Cincinnati; Cleveland; Columbus, Ohio;
Denver; Des Moines, Iowa; Detroit; Fairfax, Virginia; Houston; Kansas City,
Missouri; Las Vegas; New York; Orlando, Florida; Phoenix; St. Paul, Minnesota;
Salt Lake City; and Washington, D.C.

AT&T recently reworked its data plans
for iPhone and iPad users.

A spokesman for the company told Wired.com that
"the company will explain the situation soon."

Update: An AT&T spokesperson emailed this statement to DMW:

"AT&T and Alcatel-Lucent jointly identified a software defect — triggered under certain conditions – that impacted uplink performance for Laptop Connect and smartphone customers using 3G HSUPA-capable wireless devices in markets with Alcatel-Lucent equipment. This impacts less than two percent of our wireless customer base.

"While Alcatel-Lucent develops the appropriate software fix, we are providing normal 3G uplink speeds and consistent performance for affected customers with HSUPA-capable devices."

 

Related Links:
http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2010/07/att-iphone-upload-speeds

Mobile Games Publisher Glu Raises $13.5 Million

By
Mark Hefflinger
-
0

San Mateo, Calif. – Mobile games publisher Glu Mobile
announced on Wednesday that it has raised $13.5 million through a private
placement of its shares with ten existing and ten new investors.

The investors
included Greenway Capital, GGV Capital and New Enterprise Associates.

Founded
in 2001, San Mateo, Calif.-based Glu has created mobile games based on brands
from partners including Hasbro, Konami, Microsoft, Sony and Warner Bros.

"We
are very pleased with the support of our stockholders in this private
placement," said Glu CEO Niccolo de Masi.

"The proceeds will
significantly improve our capital structure as well as enable us to continue to
execute on our new strategic plan of persistent, cross-platform mobile
games."

 

Related Links:
http://tinyurl.com/27xgesp

http://www.glu.com

Ad Analytics Firm AudienceScience Acquires Wunderloop

By
Mark Hefflinger
-
0

New York – AudienceScience, a provider of analytics for
behaviorally-targeted online advertising, announced that it will acquire
Wunderloop, a Germany-based provider of online ad targeting services.

Financial
terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

The deal follows New York-based
AudienceScience’s acquisition of Consorte Media, a digital marketing agency
targeting U.S. Hispanic consumers.

AudienceScience says it has delievered over
50,000 targeted campaigns since its launch in 2003.

 

Related Links:
http://www.audiencescience.com

http://www.wunderloop.com

AdSafe Media Gets $7.5 Million for Online Ad Verification

By
Mark Hefflinger
-
0

New York – AdSafe Media, a provider of online advertising
verification services, has raised $7.5 million in its second round of venture
capital financing, led by Atlas Venture with participation from previous backer
Founder Collective.<--break-->

Launched in May 2009, New York-based AdSafe says its
service "uses proprietary machine learning to rate the brand safety of
content on commercial webpages, enabling advertisers to ensure the proper
placement of their display advertising."

The company will use the funds to
expand its product portfolio, and for international expansion.

 

Related Links:
http://www.adsafemedia.com

Google to Help Web Browsers Determine Device Orientation

By
Mark Hefflinger
-
0

San Francisco – Google is working to add the ability for Web
browsers to determine at which orientation a computing device is being held,
for use in games and other applications, CNET News.com reported. The
orientation interface would reportedly be compatible with both Google’s own
Chrome browser, and Apple’s Safari. Mozilla is also working on orientation
support, expected to be included in Firefox 3.6.


 

Related Links:
http://news.cnet.com/8301-30685_3-20009679-264.html

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