Motorola Leads Investment in Social Music Player TuneWiki

By
Mark Hefflinger
-
0

Schaumberg,
Ill. – Motorola (NYSE: MOT) Ventures
announced on Monday that it has led a new investment round in TuneWiki, a
provider of social media music players and related applications.

Other
participants in the round, financial details of which were not disclosed,
included Benchmark Israel,
Intellect Capital Ventures, HillsVen Capital and Novel TMT.

Founded in 2007, TuneWiki’s
social media music player integrates licensed song lyrics, combining subtitled
lyrics translated into over 45 languages with music and music videos.

It also
offers real-time mapping, geographical charting and social networking features.

The company will use the investment to expand and enhance its product offerings
for mobile and Web platforms.

 

Related Links:
http://snipurl.com/ub1yv

http://www.tunewiki.com

Hachette Joins Macmillan in Seeking Variable E-book Pricing

By
Mark Hefflinger
-
0

New York
– A second large publishing house has joined Macmillan in seeking a variable
pricing model for e-books, challenging Amazon.com’s bid to set an industry
standard price of $9.99 for e-books, The Wall Street Journal reported.
Lagardere’s Hachette Book Group said in a letter to book agents that it would
seek a pricing formula from all retailers like the one that Apple has proposed,
where publishers could set prices ranging up to $14.99 for some titles.


 

Related Links:
http://snipurl.com/ua75x
(WSJ)

TechCrunch Fires Intern Who Sought Compensation for Coverage

By
Mark Hefflinger
-
0

Palo Alto, Calif. – Technology blog TechCrunch said that it
has terminated an intern who asked for, and in at least one case received,
compensation in exchange for including certain companies in articles. Founder
and co-editor Michael Arrington said that the intern, who was not a full-time
writer, asked for a Macbook Air in exchange for a post about a startup, and
actually received a computer on another occasion. The blog has deleted all of
the intern’s posts.


 

Related Links:
http://www.techcrunch.com/2010/02/04/an-apology-to-our-readers

HBO Plans Series on Female Showbiz Blogger; Nikki Finke?

By
Mark Hefflinger
-
0

Los Angeles – Time Warner’s (NYSE: TWX) HBO has announced plans to
develop a series about "a powerful female online showbiz journalist with a
no-holds barred style," leading many to speculate the subject is Nikki
Finke, the one-time LA Weekly columnist who started her own successful blog
before being hired by Mail.com Media Corp. to run Deadline.com. Gawker
contacted Finke for comment, who said she would be posting on the news on her
own site shortly. The Hollywood Reporter, meanwhile, said HBO did not obtain
Finke’s life rights before moving forward with the project, and does not plan
to work with her on the show.


 

Related Links:
http://gawker.com/5465079/

http://snipurl.com/ua7jv
(Hollywood Reporter)

http://www.deadline.com

Microsoft to End Xbox Live Support for Original Xbox

By
Mark Hefflinger
-
0

Redmond,
Wash. – Microsoft (NASD: MSFT) announced on
Friday that, as of April 15, its Xbox Live online game service will no longer
support its original Xbox console, which first went on sale back in 2002. "We
did not make this decision lightly, but after careful consideration and review
we realize that this decision will allow us unprecedented flexibility for
future features," the company said. The company has sold a total of over
24 million units of the original Xbox, which was discontinued in 2006.


 

Related Links:
http://gamerscoreblog.com/press/archive/2010/02/05/gh789.aspx

http://snipurl.com/ua7oy
(VentureBeat)

Facebook Dumps Microsoft for Display Ads; Expands Search Deal

By
Mark Hefflinger
-
0

Redmond,
Wash. – Microsoft announced on
Friday that it will no longer sell display ads on Facebook, while it has
expanded its search advertising partnership with the online social network.

Microsoft
had already stopped selling display ads on Facebook sites in a number of
foreign markets.

"Given the kinds of advertisements that make sense within
a product as unique as Facebook, it just made more sense for them to take the
lead on this part of their advertising strategy," Jon Tinter, general
manager of Bing at Microsoft, wrote in a blog post.

The expansion of the search
partnership will see Facebook provide "full access to great Bing features
beyond a set of links, including richer answers combined with tools that help
customers make faster, smarter decisions."

Bing will now also power search
on all of Facebook’s properties worldwide, instead of just in the U.S.

 

Related Links:
http://snipurl.com/ua6ud
(Bing blog)

http://snipurl.com/ua6uj
(PaidContent)

Copy of "Avatar" Leaked to File-Sharing Networks

By
Mark Hefflinger
-
1

Los Angeles
– A copy of Academy Award-nominated movie "Avatar" has been uploaded to
file-sharing networks, TorrentFreak reported. Nominees were announced earlier
this week, and one of the "screener" DVDs typically sent to Academy
members who vote on the Oscars is thought to have been posted online.

TorrentFreak noted that a lower-quality copy of the film that has been available on file-sharing networks for over a month has been downloaded over two million times.

Back in
2005, an Academy member was expelled for turning over his screener DVDs to
another man who posted them online.

The uploader was ordered to pay over $300,000
in damages, but was found dead in his jail cell while awaiting sentencing; he
could have faced up to three years in prison.

 

Related Links:
http://snipurl.com/ua6n0
(TorrentFreak)

http://snipurl.com/ua6p1
(DMW previous coverage)

Court Dismisses EMI Charges Against Seeqpod Founders

By
Mark Hefflinger
-
1

New York
– A federal judge this week dismissed copyright infringement charges brought by
major record label EMI against the founders of streaming music site Seeqpod,
GigaOM reported. U.S. District Judge Laura Taylor Swain granted Seeqpod’s
motion to dismiss the case, citing lack of jurisdiction.

In addition to Seeqpod
CEO Kasian Franks and two co-founding investors, EMI also sued a developer who
built a service based on Seeqpod.

While the dismissal resolves the case against
the Seeqpod principals, GigaOM noted that EMI reached a separate settlement
with Ryan Sit, the developer of playlist-sharing service Favtape.

GigaOM also
reports that it’s possible but unlikely that EMI would choose to pursue the
case against Seeqpod’s founders in another jurisdiction.

It was reported in
December that Seeqpod was in the process of selling its assets to a large
Japanese media company

 

Related Links:
http://snipurl.com/ua6hr
(GigaOM)

http://snipurl.com/ua6k9
(DMW previous coverage)

http://snipurl.com/ua6kh
(DMW previous coverage)

http://www.seeqpod.com

Facebook Hits 400 Million Users; Debuts Redesign

By
Mark Hefflinger
-
0

Palo Alto,
Calif. – On its sixth birthday
yesterday, online social network Facebook announced that it has surpassed 400
million members, and launched a redesigned home page for its users.

"Today we’re celebrating our sixth birthday, and this week there will be
400 million people on Facebook," CEO and founder Mark Zuckerberg wrote on the company’s blog.

"Just one year ago we served less than
half as many people, and thanks to you we’ve made great progress over
the last year towards making the world more open and connected.

The
redesign adds more navigation features to the top and left-side menus. The top
navigation menu now includes notifications, requests and messages, while the
left-side menu offers a Photos dashboard and a Friends dashboard.

The page that
users will see when they log into Facebook will now also more prominently
feature Chat, Games and Applications.

 

Related Links:
http://blog.facebook.com/blog.php?post=287542162130

http://blog.facebook.com/blog.php?post=287459122130

Justice Dept. Objects to Revised Google Books Settlement

By
Mark Hefflinger
-
0

New York
– The U.S. Justice Department has voiced its objection to the revised
settlement between Google (NASD:  GOOG) and authors over the Internet giant’s plans to create
a digital index of the world’s books. While the Justice Dept. appreciated the
"substantial progress" made between the two sides since it objected
to the first version of the settlement submitted in September, it said this
week that "class certification, copyright, and antitrust issues
remain" with the revised settlement deal.

The Justice Dept. believes the
deal as structured would still give Google an unfair advantage in the digital
books marketplace, and also an unfair boost to its search engine business.

Also
at issue is the service’s policy of asking publishers and authors to opt-out should
they not want their works included, while U.S. copyright law requires that authors
opt-in to users of their works, the Justice Dept. said.

The agency did provide
guidelines to Google that it said could help to gain its approval of a
settlement.

The Justice Dept.’s filing was praised by advocacy group Consumer
Watchdog, as well as by the Open Book Alliance, a group that includes Google
rivals Yahoo, Microsoft and Amazon, as well as a number of writers’ groups and
library associations.

A hearing is scheduled on Feb. 18 in New York for U.S. District Judge Denny Chin to
consider the revised settlement agreement.

 

Related Links:
http://snipurl.com/ua5vr
(AP)

http://snipurl.com/ua69x
(Consumer Watchdog statement)

http://snipurl.com/ua6a3
(Open Book Alliance statement)

http://snipurl.com/ua6an
(DMW previous coverage)

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