• Facebook Expected To Launch Open Graph App
    As part of a larger effort unveiled last year, Facebook is expected to launch a new slate of Open Graph applications on Wednesday. “These are the apps, made by outside developers, that ‘frictionlessly’ and continuously share users’ actions back to Facebook after a user has given permission once,” AllThingsD reminds us. “One thing that businesses should note about these apps and actions is that they will open the door to some new advertising opportunities, which combined with some other ad-related efforts on Facebook’s part, should fuel revenue nicely ahead of the company’s IPO,” according to WebProNews. …
  • Hulu Invests In Original Shows
    Hungry to beat Netflix at its own game, Hulu is getting into original programming, and might raise money to support the cause. The online TV service owned by ABC, NBC and Fox, said Sunday that its plans to release its first scripted show, “Battleground,” on Feb. 14, and is weighing options to raise cash this year, Andy Forssell, chief content officer of the company, tells Bloomberg. Hulu also ordered 10 new episodes of Morgan Spurlock’s “A Day in the Life,” a documentary series that returns in March, and a six-part documentary from Richard Linklater, director of “The School …
  • Hulu Biz Grew 60% In 2011
    In the face of strong growth numbers, Hulu’s health remained a cause for contention on Friday. “Hulu didn't end up getting sold in 2011, but it nonetheless turned out to be a pretty big year for the premium video streaming service,” reports ReadWriteWeb. “Hulu had a big year in 2011 and they want everybody to know,” writes WebProNews. Overall, Hulu said its business grew by 60% year-over-year, and raked in $420 million in revenue. The company also said it now has more than 1.5 million Hulu Plus subscribers. “That’s good news for the company that looked …
  • Microsoft May Restructure Marketing, Sales -- Again
    Sick of losing ground to Apple, Google, and Amazon, Microsoft is reportedly ready to restructure its marketing and sales operations -- again.   With hundreds of jobs on the line, Bloomberg reports: “The changes would eliminate overlap in job responsibilities and are designed to help the company better respond to threats from Apple and Google Inc. and Amazon.com Inc., which are increasingly targeting Microsoft’s corporate-computing customers.” Having seen this all before, The Register remarks: “Another year and another shake-up is coming to Microsoft. A restructuring of the team responsible for how Redmond is perceived and sells itself …
  • Twitter Slams Google+ For Not Playing Fair
    As was widely predicted, social networks are taking issue with Google’s move to bake Google+ into users’ Google search results. In a statement, Twitter complained that “people, publishers, news organizations and Twitter users” would suffer from not being able to quickly see tweets in search results.  “Twitter's criticism … underscored the growing competition between the Web companies,” writes Reuters. “And it comes at a time when Google is facing antitrust scrutiny for favoring its own services within its search results.” “Twitter makes an absolutely valid point here when it says that surfacing its own content over trusted publishing …
  • Google Folds Personal Data Into Search Results
    Taking search to another more social level, Google is now folding users’ personal data into search results. “The personalized search results pull data from users’ Google accounts, such as Picasa and Google+, and offers users the option to toggle between searching their own personal data and searching the Web as a whole,” The Washington Post reports. “Google says that the new feature, which it calls Search Plus Your World, is one of the biggest changes it has ever made to its search results,” reports The New York Times. “These days, the company has concluded, Internet users …
  • Netflix Streams To UK
    It’s CES week, and, so far, the biggest news is Netflix bringing its streaming service to the UK. The move is “certainly one way to try to get the company’s 2012 off to a strong start,” GigaOm writes. The expansion, as TechCrunch reminds us, had been help up by video content licensing deals with BBC Worldwide and MGM. Over the weekend, The Next Web reported that Netflix was close to finalizing a number of content deals and would soon debut a new marketing campaign to accompany the imminent launch of its UK streaming service …
  • Netflix, HBO Do Battle
    Netflix is having a bad week. First, as AllThingsD reports, a new deal between Warner Bros. and Netflix -- along with Redbox and Blockbuster -- will double the time users must wait to rent movies after they’re put on sale in DVD form. “That means the services will now have to wait 56 days after the discs first go on sale to offer them to their customers, instead of 28 days.” Then, according to CNet, HBO stopped providing DVDs of its shows to Netflix, due to mounting competition between the two. Though unlikely to disrupt rentals …
  • Will Google Sell Cheaper Android Tablet?
    Though still a rumor, reports of Google developing a modestly priced Nexus Android tablet have pundits in a lather.  “With prices of other Android tablets hovering around the iPad’s $500 entry point … a $199 tablet from Google would likely render partner offerings obsolete,” writes BGR. DigiTimes is reporting that the Nexus tablet will be a 7-inch device running Android, and will be priced to compete with Amazon's $199 Kindle Fire. “If this rumour is to be believed, Google is targeting Amazon directly, and Apple may not be planning on introducing a shrunken iPad,” TheNextWeb notes. …
  • Industry Uncertain About Yahoo's CEO Choice
    Web watchers are weighing in on Yahoo’s signing of Scott Thompson -- president of eBay’s PayPal business -- as its new CEO. “He is a genuine Internet geek,” remarks AllThingsD’s Kara Swisher, who broke news of the appointment late Tuesday. Yahoo’s board, Switser notes, had been looking to hire someone with deep tech experience at a large public consumer Internet company in Silicon Valley. “Thompson proved, with his time at PayPal, that he was capable of growing an Internet-based financial service into a global entity that now has more than $4 billion in revenue,” writes Vator …
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