Pittsburgh
– Wizzard Media, a distributor of podcasts, announced on Thursday that it has
acquired exclusive distribution rights to "Gossip Junkie," which it
says is the top celebrity gossip application on Apple’s App Store for the
iPhone. The amount paid to acquire rights to the app from iPhone EZ Apps was
not disclosed.
Related Links:
http://snipurl.com/umw67
Reston, Va. – More people than ever are now accessing social
networking sites Facebook and Twitter from their mobile devices, with mobile
access to the sites growing 112% and 347% over the past year, respectively,
according to a new report from audience measurement firm comScore.
The study
also found that nearly a third of smartphone users accessed social networking
sites through their mobile browser in January, up more than 8% from a year ago.
"Social media is a natural sweet spot for mobile since mobile devices are
at the center of how people communicate with their circle of friends,"
said Mark Donovan, comScore’s senior vice president of mobile.
Related Links:
http://snipurl.com/umxu7
Somerville,
Mass. – The Echo Nest, the
developer of a music intelligence platform that helps music companies and
developers make online applications, announced it has been awarded a $500,000
Phase IIB SBIR grant from the National Science Foundation.
The company said the grant will be used to augment its existing "Fanalytics" capabilities, "providing
in-depth understanding of an artist’s existing and potential online fan
base."
Commercial applications of Fanalytics include targeted music
promotion, demographic and "psychographic" profiling of artist fan bases
and behaviorally-targeted advertising for online music applications.
The Echo
Nest was founded in 2005 by two MIT Media Lab PhDs.
Related Links:
http://echonest.com
Tokyo – Japanese electronics giant Sony (NYSE: SNE) is planning a
series of portable devices aimed at capturing a slice of the growing market
from Apple (NASD: AAPL), The Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday.
According to people
familiar with the matter, Sony is developing a smartphone capable of
downloading PlayStation games, as well as a multifunction device that would act
as a netbook, e-book reader and PSP game system.
The latter likely would rival
Apple’s recently announced iPad tablet computer.
Both are expected to be
released later this year.
Related Links:
http://snipurl.com/umxlv
(WSJ)
Alviso, Calif. – TiVo (NASD: TIVO) announced on Thursday that the
U.S. Court of Appeals has upheld a lower court’s ruling that found DISH Network (NASD: DISH)
operator EchoStar (NASD: SATS) guilty of continued infringement of its digital video
recorder patent. "This ruling paves the way for TiVo to receive the
approximately $300M in damages and contempt sanctions awarded to us for
EchoStar’s continued infringement through July 1, 2009," TiVo said in a
statement.
"We will also seek further damages and contempt sanctions for
the period of continued infringement thereafter."
EchoStar said in a
statement that it plans to file for an en banc review of the ruling by the full Federal
Circuit.
"We are disappointed in the Federal Circuit’s split decision, but
are pleased that Judge Rader agreed with our position," EchoStar said.
"Therefore, we will be
seeking en banc review by the full Federal Circuit. We also will be proposing a
new design-around to the district court for approval. At this time, our DVR
customers are not impacted,"
Related Links:
http://snipurl.com/umxdn
(TiVo statement)
http://snipurl.com/umx7x
(DISH/EchoStar statement)
Seattle – RealNetworks (NASD: RNWK) announced late Wednesday that it has
dropped its appeal of a federal court ruling that found its DVD-copying RealDVD
software infringed copyrights, and has agreed to pay the movie studios that
sued the company $4.5 million to cover legal fees. Seattle-based RealNetworks,
which first introduced the RealDVD software in September 2008, also agreed to
an injunction against further distribution or support of RealDVD.
As a result,
the company will also shutter the metadata service that feeds DVD cover art and
movie information for the existing approximately 2,700 users of RealDVD.
"We
are pleased to put this litigation behind us," said Bob Kimball, president
and acting CEO for Real.
"This is another step toward fulfilling our
commitment to simplify our company and focus on our core businesses. Until this
dispute, Real had always enjoyed a productive working relationship with Hollywood. With this
litigation resolved, I hope that in the future we can find mutually beneficial
ways to use Real technology to bring Hollywood’s
great work to consumers."
The DVD Copy Control Association (DVD CCA), which
represents studios and patentholders of anti-copying technology on DVDs, argued
that RealDVD violated the license of its Content Scramble System (CSS), and
made illegal permanent copies of copy-protected DVDs.
"Almost from the
moment this product was introduced, it was clear RealDVD violated the CSS
license," said Jacob Pak, president of DVD CCA.
"Now, after months of
arguments from both sides, the legal message is clear: making a DVD copier is a
breach of the CSS license."
Related Links:
http://snipurl.com/umwtx
(RealNetworks statement)
http://snipurl.com/umwu4
(DVD CCA statement)
http://snipurl.com/umx2j
(DMW previous coverage)
Laguna Beach,
Calif. – Makena Technologies, the
builder of virtual worlds and operator of online virtual world There.com, has
announced plans to shutter the 12-year-old service on March 9, VentureBeat
reported.
Founded in 1998, There.com has to date raised some $35 million in
venture capital financing.
Makena CEO Michael Wilson said in a blog post that
the company was hit by the recession, seeing revenues decrease.
The company
said that anyone who purchased "Therebucks" virtual currency after
Feb. 1 will have their purchases refunded in full.
In addition to There.com,
Makena has also created virtual worlds for MTV Networks.
Related Links:
http://snipurl.com/umwgo
(VentureBeat)
San Francisco
– Former MySpace CEO Chris DeWolfe, along with fellow MySpace co-founders Colin
Digiaro and Aber Whitcomb, on Thursday announced that they have teamed with
venture capital firm Austin Ventures to acquire MindJolt, an online social
gaming platform.
Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
MindJolt’s
catalog aggregates more than 1,300 casual online game titles, and its portal
counts more than 20 million unique users.
Based in San Francisco, the MindJolt executive now
includes CEO Chris DeWolfe, COO Colin Digiaro, CTO Aber Whitcomb and Richard
Fields, the founder of MindJolt, who will serve as head of product strategy.
"MindJolt
has quickly become an ‘onramp’ to the Internet for the world’s independent game
developers," said DeWolfe.
"We’re building out the company to become
the next generation platform for game developers. Our goal is to make it even
easier for developers to get their games noticed and make more money from their
work."
Related Links:
http://snipurl.com/umw7k
Reading,
England – Atex,
a provider of content management and advertising software for online publishers,
announced on Thursday that it has acquired a majority stake in online
classifieds service Kaango.
Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
PaidContent
noted that Atex purchased the shares from Hearst Corp. and MediaNews Group,
which paid $20 million for 80% of Kaango in 2007.
Founded in 2006, Kaango
serves classified ads for more than 200 U.S. Web publishers.
U.K.-based Atex
said it intends to expand Kaango’s services worldwide, while bolstering its U.S.
operations with its own sales, service and support infrastructure.
Related Links:
http://www.atex.com
Los Angeles
– Jammie Thomas-Rasset, the file-swapper twice found guilty of copyright
infringement in jury trials, will head back to court for a third trial on Oct.
4, which will decide whether the amount of damages she was ordered to pay the
record labels was fair, the Copyrights & Campaigns blog reported. The first
jury ordered Thomas-Rasset to pay $220,000, while the second jury awarded damages
of $1.92 million. The judge reduced this amount to $54,000, and the labels
offered to settle for $25,000 — but Thomas-Rasset refused, and the issue of
damages will now be decided at a third trial.
Related Links:
http://snipurl.com/umfkl
(Copyrights & Campaigns)
http://snipurl.com/umfld
(DMW previous coverage)
