Survey: Moms Sharing Product Opinions via Social Media

By
Mark Hefflinger
-
0

San Diego
– A recent survey of 1,725 mothers found that 51% share their opinions about
products on Facebook, 39% posted reviews on retail sites like Amazon, 28% did
so on personal blogs, and another 15% used Twitter.

The survey was conducted by
ExpoTV, which recently launched a research service, but also operates a site that
lets users upload video reviews of products and services; respondents were
culled from visitors to its site.

The survey found that 89% of moms polled were
on Facebook, and 46% were on Twitter.

Some 92% of mothers said they trusted
consumer descriptions over brand descriptions, and 78% of moms said a video
review helped them in a purchasing process.

Half of respondents had uploaded a
video to YouTube, Facebook or another site, with 36% reporting having uploaded
a video talking about a brand or product.

Almost 90% said they "would"
upload a video talking about a brand or product in the future.

 

Related Links:
http://snipurl.com/u78d7

http://snipurl.com/u789a
(USA Today)

http://www.expotv.com

Report: U.S. Virtual Goods Market to Hit $1.6 Billion in 2010

By
Mark Hefflinger
-
1

San Francisco – The U.S. virtual
goods market is expected to surpass $1.6 billion this year, with social gaming
contributing $835 million of the total, according to a report from market
research firm Inside Network.

"2009 was the year that casual games like
Zynga’s popular FarmVille took over the major social platforms and changed the
way millions of people socialized with friends online," said Inside
Network’s Justin Smith.

"Casual games introduced a rich, new way of
interacting with friends on social networks, and saw the highest engagement
numbers that the online entertainment industry has ever witnessed."

"With
tens of millions of returning users, and millions of new visitors daily, it is
no wonder that the social gaming industry saw significant M&A activity: an
up-to-$400 million acquisition of Playfish by Electronic Arts, and hundreds of
millions of dollars in additional venture investments," added Charles Hudson,
vice president of business development at Serious Business, and host of the
annual Virtual Goods Summit.

"Social games are now impacting businesses
across the media landscape."

 

Related Links:
http://snipurl.com/u7819

http://www.insidevirtualgoods.com

Labels Lose $9 Million Suit Against Baidu Over MP3 "Deep Links"

By
Mark Hefflinger
-
0

Beijing
– A Chinese court has ruled that search engine Baidu (NASD: BIDU) is not infringing the
copyrights of major record labels by providing "deep links" to
unauthorized song download files on third-party sites, TorrentFreak reported.

Warner Music (NYSE: WMG), Sony (NYSE: SNE) BMG and Universal Music filed a $9 million copyright
infringement lawsuit against Baidu back in 2008 over its MP3 Search service.

A
statement from attorney Sun Yan cited by JLM Pacific Epoch said that the labels lost
the case because they failed to identify the third-party sites hosting the
unauthorized music downloads.

International record label trade group IFPI
previously sued Baidu in 2005, but lost in both a lower court and on appeal on
charges that Baidu was illegally offering some 200 tracks for download.

 

Related Links:
http://snipurl.com/u77vr
(TorrentFreak)

http://www.jlmpacificepoch.com/newsstories?id=1621873_0_5_0_M

http://www.ifpi.org

http://www.baidu.com

Vodafone Claims 450,000 European Music Service Subscribers

By
Mark Hefflinger
-
1

London – European mobile
network operator Vodafone (NASD: VOD) has attracted nearly 450,000 customers to its music
subscription services, including 100,000 in December alone, and now claims the
largest base of paying music subscribers in Europe.

The company signed DRM-free deals with all four major record labels during 2009,
and currently offers a catalog of over 2 million tracks.

The Vodafone service
plans include unlimited streaming, and monthly 10-download song bundles.

"We
are really excited by our customers’ reaction to these great music
offers," said Lee Epting, director of content at Vodafone Internet
Services.

"We expect to see continued growth in our music service
subscriptions driven by the increase in smartphone use, with their worry-free
data tariffs and great value add-ons such as music bundles."

 

Related Links:
http://snipurl.com/u77re

YouTube Gets Live Obama Interview; Will Ask Users' Questions

By
Mark Hefflinger
-
0

San Bruno,
Calif. – Google’s (NASD: GOOG) YouTube will
host a live interview with President Barack Obama next week, during which he
will answer questions posed by users during YouTube’s broadcast of the State of
the Union address and in days following.

In the days following the president’s
address, to be broadcast live on YouTube’s Citizentube on Wednesday, YouTube
users will be able to vote on their favorite questions.

"We’ll bring some
of your top-voted questions to the president in a YouTube interview from the
White House, which we’ll also broadcast live on Citizentube," Steve Grove,
head of news and politics at YouTube, wrote in a blog post.

 

Related Links:
http://youtube-global.blogspot.com/2010/01/your-state-of-union.html

http://www.youtube.com/citizentube

Workaround Brings Google Voice Service to iPhone, Palm Pre

By
Mark Hefflinger
-
1

Mountain View,
Calif. – Google (NASD: GOOG) on Tuesday
introduced a workaround to getting its Google Voice service, which has not been
accepted by Apple (NASD: AAPL) for use on the iPhone, to work on the device.

Instead of
incorporating Google Voice into a downloadable application for the iPhone,
Google has instead designed a new HTML5 Web page that users can bookmark and
visit in order to access the service.

The trick, which also works for the Palm (NASD: PALM)
Pre, fixes problems with a previous workaround, such as displaying a user’s
Google Voice phone number on a recipient’s caller ID.

Google submitted an
actual Google Voice app to Apple for inclusion in the iPhone App Store last
summer, but has yet to receive approval from the company.

"We haven’t
heard back from Apple on this," Vincent Paquet, senior product manager for
Google Voice, told The New York Times.

 

Related Links:
http://snipurl.com/u7760
(Google blog)

http://snipurl.com/u775f
(Wired.com)

http://snipurl.com/u775t
(New York Times)

http://m.google.com/voice

Google Cyber Attacks Sought Targets via Social Networks

By
Mark Hefflinger
-
2

Beijing – Those who conducted
the recent cyber attacks against Google (NASD: GOOG) in China first sourced employees on
social networks to identify their friends, and then pose as those friends in a
bid to get the employees to click on a malware link, the Financial Times
reported.

"We’re seeing a lot more up-front reconnaissance, understanding
who the players are at the company and how to reach them," George Kurtz,
chief technology officer at security firm McAfee, told the Financial Times.

"Someone went to the trouble to backtrack: ‘Let me look at their friends,
who I can target as a secondary person.’"

The report also states that
Google is investigating the possibility of whether the hackers were helped by
insiders at its offices in China.

After the attacks, Google decided to stop censoring its search results in China, and is
currently mulling a complete exit from the country.

However, the Associated Press reports that, even if it should exit the search
market in China,
Google wishes to maintain a development center, advertising sales operation and
mobile phone business in the country, and is currently in delicate negotiations with China towards those ends.

 

Related Links:
http://snipurl.com/u772a
(Financial Times)

http://snipurl.com/u774c
(AP)

Report: Apple in Talks with Networks on 99-Cent TV Episodes

By
Mark Hefflinger
-
0

New York – Apple (NASD: AAPL) is negotiating with U.S. television
networks to lower the price tag of standard-definition TV show downloads from
its iTunes Store from $1.99 to 99 cents, the Financial Times reports, citing
people close to the discussions.

The networks are said to be resisting the move
by Apple to lower prices, which was described in the story as an integral part
of the strategy for its forthcoming tablet PC, expected to be introduced
tomorrow.

The company has also reportedly held talks with the networks on
offering a video subscription service for TV shows.

 

Related Links:
http://snipurl.com/u76u2
(Financial Times)

Apple Profits Up 50% in Q1; iPhone Sales Near 9 Million

By
Mark Hefflinger
-
0

Cupertino,
Calif. – Apple (NASD:  AAPL) sold nearly 9
million iPhones during its fiscal first quarter ended Dec. 26, while iPod sales
fell 8% to 21 million as the company reported a 50% jump in profit and 32%
increase in revenue for the period. Apple posted a profit of $3.38 billion for
the quarter, while revenue hit $15.68 billion. While iPod sales were down for
the holiday shopping period, iPhone sales actually increased 100%
year-over-year.

The company attributed some of its positive results to a change
in the way it accounts for subscription revenues from iPhone and Apple TV
sales.

"If you annualize our quarterly revenue, it’s surprising that Apple
is now a $50+ billion company," said Apple CEO Steve Jobs.

"The new
products we are planning to release this year are very strong, starting this
week with a major new product that we’re really excited about," Jobs
added, referring to the expected introduction of a tablet PC by the company at
a media event in San Francisco tomorrow.

 

Related Links:
http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2010/01/25results.html

Liberty Media Looks to Boost Live Nation Stake to 34.9%

By
Mark Hefflinger
-
0

Englewood,
Colo. – Liberty Media (NASD: LINTA), the media
conglomerate controlled by John Malone, whose holdings include Starz, Overture
Films and QVC, on Tuesday announced its intention to increase its stake in the
newly merged Live Nation Entertainment (NYSE: LYV) by purchasing up to 34.5 million shares.

Liberty
currently owns about 14.6% of Live Nation.

The company’s offer price of $12 per
share represents a premium of 14.3% over the closing price of Live Nation
shares on Monday.

If the deal is completed, Liberty would own about 34.9% of the
outstanding shares of Live Nation.

Live Nation won U.S. antitrust approval of its $870
million merger with Ticketmaster Entertainment on Monday.

Liberty characterized its purchase of Live
Nation shares as "for investment purposes," and will attribute any
shares it purchases to its Liberty Capital group.

 

Related Links:
http://snipurl.com/u76k7

http://www.libertymedia.com

http://www.livenation.com

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