Blockbuster On Demand Service to Ship on HTC HD2 Smartphone

By
Mark Hefflinger
-
0

Dallas – Video rental giant
Blockbuster (NYSE: BBI) said on Wednesday that its Blockbuster On Demand movie download
service will ship embedded on HTC’s new HD2 smartphone in the U.S. The deal
marks the first download and multi-screen mobile movie application for
Blockbuster, and will give HD2 owners access to more than 100,000 movies, TV
shows and games, downloadable over a Wi-Fi connection. The HTC HD2 is expected
to be offered by T-Mobile (NYSE: DT) this spring.


 

Related Links:
http://snipurl.com/uefhz

http://www.sticktogether.com/htchd2

Turner Broadcasting Taps Brightcove for Web Video Delivery

By
Mark Hefflinger
-
0

London – Brightcove, a
provider of video delivery services for content producers, announced on Wednesday
that Time Warner’s (NYSE: TWX) Turner Broadcasting will use its services to support its online
video content throughout Europe. The first
Turner sites in Europe to launch on the
Brightcove platform include Cartoon Network, Boomerang and Adult Swim, which
will receive localized video experiences for various countries.


 

Related Links:
http://snipurl.com/uefkh

http://www.brightcove.com

Veteran Game Designer Richard Garriott Forms Portalarium

By
Mark Hefflinger
-
1

Austin
– Veteran video game designer Richard Garriott ("Ultima Online") on Wednesday
announced the formation of a new social media company, Portalarium, which will
initially develop online game applications. Garriott says the new venture
"has a broad-based, open-social mission that will also see it expanding
into content that includes open learning, open health, open
science/environment, open government and much more." Portalarium’s first
product is a cross-platform Web browser plug-in that enables gamed developed on
disparate platforms to run inside the major social networks.


 

Related Links:
http://snipurl.com/uefik

http://www.portalarium.com

Polish Authorities Raid Operators of Rapidshare Link Forum

By
Mark Hefflinger
-
2

Los Angeles – Authorities in Poland have
conducted a raid on the operators of Filmowisko, an Internet forum where users
post links to download copyrighted materials on file-hosting service
Rapidshare, TorrentFreak reported.

Following an investigation conducted with
local anti-piracy group the Foundation for the Protection of Audiovisual
Creativity (FOTA), police arrested three alleged operators of the site — two
of whom are teenagers.

Authorities also conducted searches on locations
connected with three of the site’s estimated 30,000 members.

While the
Filmowisko site itself hosted no copyrighted content, but instead provided a
forum where users posted links to files hosted by Rapidshare, those arrested
face copyright infringement charges that come with a maximum five-year prison
sentence.

 

Related Links:
http://snipurl.com/uef5v
(TorrentFreak)

Google: 60,000 Android-powered Phones Shipping Daily

By
Mark Hefflinger
-
0

Barcelona – Google (NASD: GOOG) and its
manufacturing partners are now shipping 60,000 Android-powered mobile phones
every day, according to remarks made by CEO Eric Schmidt this week at the
Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.

That figure works out to about 21.9 million Android-powered handsets shipping
per year.

In addition to Google’s own HTC-manufactured Nexus One, an
Android-powered handset, HTC also offers a range of its own Android handsets.

 

Related Links:
http://snipurl.com/uef3w
(TechCrunch)

http://mashable.com/2010/02/17/60000-android-phones

AOL Planning Major Expansion of Patch Community News Sites

By
Mark Hefflinger
-
1

New York
– Eight months after acquiring local news and information firm Patch Media, AOL (NYSE: AOL)
is now planning to substantially expand its network of community news blogs,
Silicon Alley Insider reported, citing an internal memo.

The company currently
runs 33 localized Patch sites in New Jersey, New York and Connecticut,
but plans to grow that number into the "hundreds" by year’s end.

In
the memo, AOL said that the expansion is part of its effort to "be leaders
in one of the most promising ‘white spaces’ on the Internet."

AOL acquired
New York-based Patch Media last June.

At the time, CEO Tim Armstrong vowed to
make local sites "a core area of focus and investment for AOL."

 

Related Links:
http://snipurl.com/uef11

http://www.patch.com

Digital Comics Publisher Graphic.ly Acquires iFanboy

By
Mark Hefflinger
-
0

Boulder,
Colo. – Graphic.ly, a digital
content delivery platform for comics and other publications, announced on Wednesday
that it has acquired iFanboy, an online news and community site for comics and
graphic novel enthusiasts.

Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

The
founders of iFanboy will join Graphic.ly, while their site will remain intact
and editorially independent from Graphic.ly.

"As community and content
become more and more entwined, Graphic.ly wants to be at the forefront of the
new digital comic age. By acquiring iFanboy, we become part of one of the best
communities in the industry," said Micah Baldwin, CEO and co-founder of Graphic.ly.

 

Related Links:
http://www.graphic.ly/press/ifanboy

http://ifanboy.com/content/articles/iFanboy_Joins_Forces_With_Graphic_ly

Survey: 24% of Internet Users Are Social Gamers

By
Mark Hefflinger
-
0

Seattle – More than 24% of U.S. and U.K. Internet
users say they play social games regularly, making for a total of approximately
100 million social games players across the two countries, according to a
survey conducted by Information Solutions Group on behalf of social games
publisher PopCap Games.

Among nearly 5,000 respondents, more than 1,200 said
they play games on social networking sites and platforms at least once a week.

The survey found that 55% of all social gamers are female and 45% are male. The
average age of social gamers is 43; 46% of U.S. social gamers are 50 or older,
while just 6% are 21 or younger.

The vast majority (95%) of social gamers
player multiple times per week, with 64% saying they play at least once a day;
61% said their average gaming sessions lasts more than half an hour.

Surprisingly,
just 17% of U.K. social
gamers and 28% of their U.S.
counterparts cite "connect with others" as their most popular
motivation for playing.

"Fun and excitement" was the most popular
reason (53%), while "stress relief" (45%), "competitive
spirit" (43%) and "mental workout" (32%) were also cited by respondents.

Facebook was the most popular destination for social gaming, cited by 83% of
social gamers, followed by MySpace (24%), Bebo (7%) and Friendster (5%).

 

Related Links:
http://snipurl.com/ueekn

http://snipurl.com/ueek3
(PDF of report)

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13577_3-10455002-36.html

NBCOlympics.com Draws 13.6M Visitors in First 4 Days

By
Mark Hefflinger
-
0

New York
– NBC Universal’s (NYSE:  GE) NBCOlympics.com website drew 13.6 million visitors in the
first four days of the games, an increase of 250% from the traffic seen during
the opening weekend of the 2006 Winter Olympics, NewTeeVee reported.

The site
also served a total of 8.1 million video streams in the first four days,
compared with 1.8 million for the same period back in 2006.

NBC Universal also
reported that its mobile Olympics application has generated 18.1 million page
views.

On television, the Olympics have drawn an average of 27.9 million
viewers each night, a rise of 25% from 2006.

 

Related Links:
http://snipurl.com/ueefk
(NewTeeVee)

Privacy Group EPIC Asks FTC to Compel Google Buzz Changes

By
Mark Hefflinger
-
0

Washington
– An online privacy advocacy group on Tuesday filed a complaint with the U.S.
Federal Trade Commission, asking the agency to compel Google (NASD: GOOG) to bolster privacy
protections for Buzz, the new social media features on its Gmail service.

"This
complaint concerns an attempt by Google, Inc., the provider of a widely used
email service, to convert the private, personal information of Gmail
subscribers into public information for the company’s social network service
Google Buzz," reads the complaint from the Electronic Privacy Information
Center (EPIC).

"This change in business practices and service terms
violated user privacy expectations, diminished user privacy, contradicted
Google’s own privacy policy, and may have also violated federal wiretap laws."

Google has already made several changes to the service, following many
complaints on privacy issues.

However, EPIC deemed these changes — such as
moving from an "auto-follow" to "auto-suggest" model for
adding a user’s Gmail contacts to Buzz — to be unsatisfactory.

EPIC believes
that Google should make Buzz completely opt-in, and that Buzz should not have
access to a user’s Gmail contacts.

 

Related Links:
http://epic.org/privacy/ftc/googlebuzz/Google_Buzz_Press_Release.pdf
(PDF)

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