• Video Site SeeSaw Squeezed Out In UK
    Are you familiar with SeeSaw, the British streaming TV service? Well, after less than two years online, the site’s been shut down. What happened? Despite offering solid content from BBC Worldwide, Channel 4, Channel Five and several production companies, experts tell BBC News that the business was done in by bigger online video players. It also didn’t help when Channel 4 pulled its content in September. In February 2010, SeeSaw was created by the media services company Arqiva. According to BBC News, “It used assets from the aborted catch-up TV platform, Project Kangeroo, which had been rejected by the UK's …
  • Twitterology Comes Of Age
    Will marketers soon be required to have in degrees Twitterology? I probably won’t hurt, but, wait, what’s Twitterology? The burgeoning study -- most by linguists, sociologists, and psychologists -- of language and human behavior on Twitter. “Twitter’s appeal to researchers is its immediacy -- and its immensity,” writes Ben Zimmer, a former On Language columnist for The New York Times Magazine, in the newspaper. “Instead of relying on questionnaires and other laborious and time-consuming methods of data collection, social scientists can simply take advantage of Twitter’s stream to eavesdrop on a virtually limitless array of language in action.” Two sociologists …
  • Consolidation Threatens Online Ad Cos.
    Ready or not, consolidation is coming to the supersaturated ad technology sector, reports Reuters. According to consultant and investment banker Luma Partners, the space is bursting with over 150 companies.  “There are simply too many competitors seeking too much of a return on capital,” Reuters writes. “Add in a drop-off in potential buyers and a declining appetite for public offerings, and the online advertising sector is due to stall, industry players and backers say.” As Will Margiloff, CEO of Ignition One, puts it: "It's just not a big enough market for all the money invested.” Adds the digital marketing tech …
  • Amazon Scores Content Deal With Disney-ABC
    Giving tablet shoppers another reason to consider the Kindle Fire, Amazon just announced a new licensing deal with Disney-ABC Television Group. Part of a larger effort to “bring the most popular TV shows and films to its Prime Instant Video service,” as The Next Web writes, the deal frees up content from ABC Studios, the Disney Channel, ABC Family and Marvel content to become available to Amazon Prime members. Coming on the heels of a partnership between Amazon and PBS, the latest pact “sees the world’s biggest online retailer broker an agreement with Disney-ABC Domestic Television,” The Next Web writes. …
  • HP Keeping PC Business In-House
    We don’t imagine Apple, or other PC makers, loosing sleep over the news, but Hewlett-Packard has decided not to spin off its personal computers unit. The idea, credited to recently ousted CEO Leo Apotheker, apparently would have cost the company billions  in expenses and lost business. Indeed, separating the PC unit would have cost the company $1.5 billion in one-time expenses and another $1 billion annually, according to HP’s newly appointed CEO Meg Whitman. “The retention of the PC business marks the latest flip-flop in strategy as the company had said earlier that its preferred option was to spin out …
  • Yahoo, Google Ready For e-Reader Market
    As if the news and social reader space was congested enough, sources tell AllThingsD that Yahoo and Google could debut their own service’s as soon as next week. “Memo to Flipboard, as well as Pulse, CNN’s Zite and AOL’s Editions: You might want to make some room,” quips AllThingsD. With possible names like Propeller and Currents, Google’s reader is reportedly an HTML5-based service for the Apple iPad and Android, or “essentially a souped-up version of similar apps such as Flipboard, AOL’s Editions, Zite (which was just bought by Time Warner’s CNN) and Pulse,” AllThingsD writes. With what will most certainly …
  • Samsung Takes Top Phone Seller Spot
    Well, that didn’t last long. In the last quarter, Samsung Electronics bypassed Apple to become the world’s top smartphone vendor, Bloomberg reports. Apple held the top spot for only one quarter after displacing Nokia earlier this year. Samsung shipped 27.8 million smartphones in the last quarter -- or 23.8% of the market -- according to Milton Keynes, U.K.- based Strategy Analytics. Meanwhile, Apple’s 17.1 million shipments represented 14.6% of the market. What’s Samsung’s secret? “Samsung’s rise has been driven by a blend of elegant hardware designs, popular Android services, memorable sub-brands and extensive global distribution,” Strategy Analytics wrote. Additionally, “Samsung …
  • Netflix Boasts Biggest Bandwidth Use
    Following several management blunders and disappointing third-quarter earnings, it’s nice to see Netflix get what could be interpreted as good news. According to the latest Sandvine Internet Phenomena Report, Netflix now creates 32% of peak downstream traffic -- making it the nation’s largest consumer of Internet bandwidth. For that honor, it beat out HTTP, YouTube and BitTorrent, which, along with Netflix, account for 64.4% of all network traffic nationwide, according to the report. “Real-time entertainment services are the primary drivers of traffic, with especially heavy bandwidth consumption for music and video content,” notes VentureBeat. The report also highlighted the rapid …
  • Livestream Ups Its Game
    Livestream, which came to popularity streaming video, has revamped its platform to help event producers publish real-time photos, text updates and video clips, as well as high-def live video. The idea, according to Livestream CEO Max Haot, is to take the video streaming experience to the next level by providing more interactive storytelling, and, ultimately, to lure users away from liveblogging tools like CoveritLive. “I doubt there are legions of underserved livebloggers in the world,” writes AllThingsD’s Liz Gannes, “but Haot argued that more detailed coverage will make for better experiences of any sort of event, from a conference to …
  • Google Has Insane Acquisition Appetite
    In case you’re keeping count, Google acquired a total of 57 companies of various assets through September, reports CNet, citing a newly released SEC filing. “With three months left to go in the year, anyone want to guess what else is on the radar?” CNet jokes. So far this year, the search giant has spent over $1.4 billion to purchase those companies of various sizes and persuasions. In a 10-Q filing with that Securities and Exchange Commission, Google revealed that it paid $941 million in cash for three deals alone. “That sum includes $676 million for flight software provider ITA …
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