Google Considers Selling Ads Within 'Street View' Photos

By
Mark Hefflinger
-
0

Mountain View,
Calif. – A new patent filing from
Google (NASD: GOOG) indicates that the company is looking into offering advertisers the
ability to buy ads on the photos displayed on the "Street View" feature
of its Maps service, ReadWriteWeb reported. The technology would identify
buildings, posters and billboards in the photos, and allow business owners to
pay to update the ads in the photos with new ones, as well as possibly allow
third-parties to bid on unclaimed properties.


 

Related Links:
http://snipurl.com/u28if
(ReadWriteWeb)

Attendance Up at 2010 Consumer Electronics Show

By
Mark Hefflinger
-
0

Las Vegas – Attendance at
this year’s Consumer Electronics Show last week in Las Vegas was up from 2009 figures, while company participation fell slightly. The
Consumer Electronics Association said that 120,000 came to CES last week, up
from the 113,085 who attended in 2009, but still down from the 141,150 who were
at the trade show in 2008. Meanwhile, fewer companies were present at the event
this year, as the CEA said 2,500 were represented last week, down from 2,700 a
year ago.


 

Related Links:
http://ce.org/Press/CurrentNews/press_release_detail.asp?id=11866

eMusic

By
Mark Hefflinger
-
0

eMusic Signs Warner Music Group; Eyes Streaming Service

By
Mark Hefflinger
-
0

New York
– Digital music service eMusic on Tuesday announced it has signed a licensing
deal with Warner Music Group (NYSE:  WMG), which joins Sony Music as the second major record
label to make its tracks available on the subscription-based download service. Similar
to eMusic’s deal with Sony (NYSE:  SNE), Warner is limiting its involvement so far to some
10,000 catalog albums, and will not be providing popular new releases to the
service.

The new tracks from Warner will also only be available in the U.S.

Meanwhile,
eMusic CEO Danny Stein told Reuters that the company is in new licensing talks
with labels with an eye toward launching a new streaming music service.

Recent
reports also indicated that eMusic parent company Dimensional Associates was considering
a sale of the company.

"There is no impending sale," Stein told
Reuters. "We’re very bullish on 2010 and 2011 and if someone came along
and paid us upfront for a successful 2010 and 2011 I think you’d have to do that
as a responsible shareholder."

 

Related Links:
http://snipurl.com/u28a9
(Reuters)

http://www.wmg.com

http://www.emusic.com

Social Media Firm Bright Things Lands $800K for SocialGo

By
Mark Hefflinger
-
1

Redwood City,
Calif. – Bright Things, a social
networking technology firm founded by former senior executives of video game
publisher Eidos, said on Tuesday that its flagship venture, known as SocialGo,
has landed an $800,000 investment from Gibraltar-based Veddis Ventures.

Vikrant
Bhargava of Veddis, who previously co-founded PartyGaming, has joined the
company’s board.

Redwood City, Calif.-based Bright Things also said that it has
acquired Get On With It (GOWIT) Ltd., which has been providing development and
support services for SocialGo since 2007.

Financial terms of that deal were not
disclosed.

 

Related Links:
http://snipurl.com/u288f

http://www.brightthings.com

http://www.socialgo.com

Labels Petition Swedish Court Make Pirate Bay Pay Fines

By
Mark Hefflinger
-
0

Stockholm, Sweden – The four major record labels have petitioned
the courts in Sweden to compel two operators of file-sharing hub The Pirate Bay
to pay fines resulting from their convictions on charges of copyright
infringement last year. The court ordered Gottfrid Svartholm and Fredrik Neij
to cease operating the site, or else face fines of $71,000 each.

While the Pirate Bay
soon after opted to shutter its own file-sharing tracker service — stating
that decentralized trackers had taken up the slack — the labels argue that the
service continues to operate unabated.

"The changes in the tracker
function haven’t changed the file sharing services function," the labels
said in a court filing, according to Sweden’s the Local.

"Fredrik
Neij and Gottfrid Svartholm Warg have seen to it that users can use the new
tracker by making sure that TPB’s Web site automatically provides links to the
trackers to all the torrent files which are on or are uploaded to TPB."

For his part, defendant Fredrick Neij denies any involvement with The Pirate
Bay anymore.

"I am no longer involved in the operation of The Pirate Bay,
so there is no opportunity for the penalty to be issued," Neij told Sweden’s
Aftonbladet.

 

Related Links:
http://snipurl.com/u27s0
(Billboard)

http://snipurl.com/u27sd
(TorrentFreak)

http://www.aftonbladet.se/nyheter/article6410044.ab

Yahoo Sells Zimbra Unit to VMware

By
Mark Hefflinger
-
0

Palo Alto,
Calif. – VMware, a provider of virtualization
technology, announced on Tuesday that it has acquired Yahoo’s (NASD: YHOO) Zimbra email and
collaboration software unit.

Financial terms of the transaction were not
disclosed.

Yahoo acquired Zimbra in 2007 for $350 million; Zimbra had at that
point raised over $30 million in venture capital financing.

The company offers
Web-based email and calendar applications with collaborative features that
counts over 55 million mailbox users.

VMware said the acquisition will further
its mission of "taking complexity out of the datacenter, desktop,
application development and core IT services, and delivering a fundamentally
more efficient and new   approach to IT."

 

Related Links:
http://www.vmware.com/company/news/releases/zimbra.html

http://www.zimbra.com

Vudu

By
Mark Hefflinger
-
0

Report: VOD Firm Vudu Seeks Buyer; Wal-Mart is Likely Suitor

By
Mark Hefflinger
-
0

New York
– Online video service Vudu is in "meaningful" acquisition talks,
sources told All Things D, and Wal-Mart (NYSE:  WMT) is believed to be the "likely
buyer." Founded in 2004, Santa Clara, Calif.-based Vudu offers a Web-based
movie and TV episode distribution service, which can connect directly with
televisions via set-tops and other devices.

The company’s service uses
peer-to-peer technology to help distribute large video files.

Vudu has raised a
total of $21 million in funding to date, from backers including Benchmark
Capital and Greylock Partners.

All Things D noted that Wal-Mart already
suffered a failed attempt to launch its own media download service in 2007.

Vudu declined to comment on the story for All Things D, while Wal-Mart hadn’t responded by press time.

 

Related Links:
http://snipurl.com/u26yc
(All Things D)

http://www.vudu.com

Shanda Games to Acquire Mochi Media for $80 Million

By
Mark Hefflinger
-
0

San Francisco
– Shanda Games, the Chinese online games publisher, announced on Tuesday that
it will acquire Mochi Media, an ad network for online games, for $80 million.

Founded in 2006, San Francisco-based Mochi offers an ad network that includes
more than 15,000 online games.

Shanda intends to use Mochi’s platform to help
monetize its Chinese Web traffic; the company operates over 30 multiplayer game
titles and counts nearly 10 million active paying accounts.

Mochi will continue
to operate as a standalone company within Shanda Games.

"This relationship
opens up a new market for Shanda Games and gives them a footprint outside of China while
opening up the Chinese market for Mochi Media and gives our community access to
Shanda Games’ strength and expertise in virtual goods," Mochi Media
co-founder Jameson Hsu wrote in a blog post.

The company had raised a total of
$14 million in venture capital financing.

 

Related Links:
http://snipurl.com/u26do

http://www.mochimedia.com

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