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Posts Tagged ‘cbs’

I don’t know about you, but I have a male geek crush on Cooliris, the startup behind this splendid technology that enables users to browse photos and videos from the Web, their desktops or their iPhone devices in a visually attractive 3D manner that one really has to try to get a feel of how amazing that can be.

Publishers are starting to notice that too, and are increasingly turning to the startup to make some of their own imagery and video content more visually appealing and browsing it, well, downright sexy.

Latest premium publisher to join the fray: CBS Interactive’s TV.com, one of the premier websites bringing episode guides, news, reviews, interviews, TV listings, and more to a primarily U.S. audience, is now using Cooliris technology to enhance its ‘Shows’ section.

If you’re not familiar with Cooliris and the Flash-based Embed Wall product that TV.com is now using for its website, go check it out on there or head straight to the Cooliris website to learn more. My guess is you won’t be disappointed, neither as a user or as a publisher.

Backed with about $18.5 million in VC funding, Palo Alto, CA-based Cooliris has also debuted an interesting way to generate advertising revenue with its service.

And with deals like this one with TV.com parent company CBS Interactive, more and more people will grow familiar with Cooliris products, which in turn will make them more interesting for publishers to add, and advertisers to promote their wares on.

Can’t help but root for this one – although I also can’t help but think they’re a bit over-funded.

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There is no love lost between CBS and Hulu. You won’t find any full episodes of CBS shows on Hulu, and CBS’s own site TV.com is so similar in look and feel that one might call it a product of envy. So it should come as no surprise that the knives are still out for Hulu at CBS Interactive.

An email with an article critical of Hulu from CBS Interactive CEO Quincy Smith that was passed around internally (excerpted below) landed in our inbox. Smith confirms that the email is real. Earlier today, he passed along an article from Contentinople titled “Execs Rip Hulu for Giving Away Content” which quotes media executives on a panel laying into Hulu for giving away TV shows for free. The panelists in the article also praise the cable industry’s proposed TV Everywhere model which will make TV shows and movies available online only to consumers who are already existing cable TV subscribers and can be authenticated as such.

Smith passed along the entire article to his executive team, along with a note wondering “how hard it would be to prove that some ratings declines are a result of reckless hulu streams.” CBS’s ratings for the Fall Season premiers have been doing relatively well, compared to other networks. The implication Smith seems to be making here is that maybe the other networks are down because their audience is going online. If he could prove that, it would make his strategy of shunning Hulu look smart.

But he then writes that “Authentication is a nice option.” And his SVP Anthony Soohoo later chimes in: “Authentication will play a huge role in 2010.” Hulu itself may add subscription and pay-per-view options to its service, according to Ruport Murdoch. Smith also mentions some “findings” that support “packing more ads” in online videos.

So what can we conclude from all this? CBS will either be more conservative with its full streams online, or pack them with more ads. Maybe that is what the findings are all about, that online audiences will tolerate more ads for quality content. It is certainly easier to put more ads in online videos than to try to put up an authentication wall (which is really just a pay wall by another name).

Here is the email except (the only thing I didn’t include is the full text of the Contentinople article which you can read at the link above).

From: Soohoo, Anthony
Subject: FW: hulu pricing
Date: September 24, 2009 8:26:44 AM PDT

fyi. Authentication will play a huge role in 2010.
——————————————-
From: Smith, Quincy
Sent: Thursday, September 24, 2009 8:23 AM
To: Soohoo, Anthony; Ashe, Neil; Lurie, Zander; Marquez, Michael; Cain, Sarah
Subject: hulu pricing

Nice way to put it.
We should think about how hard it would be to prove that some ratings
declines are a result of reckless hulu streams and that Authentication
is a nice option
We should also think about if we want to talk the walk on packing more
ads and our findings thus far.
-q

——————————————-
Execs Rip Hulu for Giving Away Content . . .

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When Twitter decided to start using Bit.ly as its default URL-shortener, usage exploded. But the service was able to handle the rise in usage, and has been steadily adding new features. And now other major players on the web are rewarding that reliability by also embracing it. Today on its blog, Bit.ly details a few of the new API uses and partnerships that they’ve been cooking up.

The biggest is probably Google Reader, which now makes use of Bit.ly shortened links for its new ability to send stories to Twitter. Another big one is CBS, which not uses Bit.ly to share much of its content and keeps a running list of stats here. SixApart has also added a new feature to its TypePad beta test which allows any post to also generate a Bit.ly URL. This will apparently become a part of the full product in the fall. And John Resig of Mozilla used the Bit.ly API to build a new retweet button, similar to the ones you see all over the web powered by TweetMeme, but this is independent.

Another big partnership for Bit.ly is yfrog, one of the leading Twitter picture and video services. The two are “joining forces to streamline link and media sharing on social media sites,” we’re told. Over the next few weeks, Bit.ly will apparently be adding a media upload feature on its main site using yfrog, while all media uploaded to yfrog will have Bit.ly links for sharing. This partnership should make both services even more popular on Twitter.

Bit.ly says that other new features are on the way as well in the coming weeks. We’re still waiting on its big link data aggregator to take on services like Digg.

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July was a pretty monumental month for Twitter in terms of news and events. The microblogging site got a homepage redesign, officially adopted the word Tweet on its site, launched Twitter 101 and had a pretty serious document leak fiasco. And all of that took place in the only half of the month!

Which is why it may be unsurprising that Twitter passed a fairly big milestone sometime in July: Twitter passed 50 million unique visitors worldwide, according to comScore, reaching 51.6 million unique visits worldwide at the end of the month. Twitter added 7.1 unique visitors from June to July. Growth dipped slightly, with visits increasing by 16 percent from June. Twitter’s visits grew 19 percent from May to June, and saw 16 percent growth from April to May. But Twitter’s highest rate of worldwide growth may have been in the month of March, when the site grew by 95 percent, from 9.8 million to 19.1 million visits, according to comScore. June’s number may have been buoyed by the Iran election protests.

Twitter saw a slight boost in U.S. visitors, growing to 21.2 million visitors from 20 million in June, representing 41 percent of traffic. International visits now represents 59 percent of traffic, increasing from 55 percent in June. ComScore now counts it as the No. 47 largest site in the world, increasing from the No.52 spot in June and (surpassing the BBC and Craigslist).

As we’ve said in the past, these estimates only count traffic to Twitter.com. Its important to note that since more than half of Twitter users don’t even go to the Website and use Twitter apps to consume and publish Tweets, Twitter’s total audience is even larger. But slealry Twitter is still growing.

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Well, we asked for a denial, and they’re giving us one. Russ Garrett, a Last.fm developer, issues another blanket denial of the Last.fm user data fiasco:

Nothing I can say will convince you that this didn’t happen, because allegedly CBS did the deed and not us. I hope that CBS will issue their own denial soon, but the wheels of large companies run slowly.

This accusation was made the evening before a three-day holiday weekend in both the UK and the US. Yet again, we were not given the opportunity to respond.

The article claims that “This source’s information comes directly from Last.fm employees who he has spoken with.” Nobody at Last.fm knows anything about such a leak. We didn’t when they last wrote an article, and we don’t now. Any suggestion that we were complicit in transferring user data to any third party is incorrect.

The exact nature of the data that was allegedly transferred is still not clear. It’s implied that the data linked scrobbles to IP addresses. That particular data is controlled tightly inside Last.fm and is only stored for a short period of time. Any request for such data would have to be approved by myself first. The suggestion that CBS’s ops team provided this data is just not possible - Last.fm operates as a separate entity and their operations staff do not have access to our system.

As Arrington points out, transferring personally identifiable data (i.e. IP addresses) from the UK to the US is against data protection laws. We wouldn’t risk a lawsuit to pander to the RIAA’s requests.

It really seems like someone is trying to slander us here.

Last.fm cofounder Richard Jones, the author of the “TechCrunch are full of shit” post from February, also quipped “busy sending data to the RIAA… Oh wait, no, that’s still nonsense.”

A careful read of the post turns up very little actual information. There’s indignation over the story, indignation over us not giving them a heads up, and a statement that it’s impossible for data to be sent to CBS without Garrett’s knowledge. They also say “Any suggestion that we were complicit in transferring user data to any third party is incorrect.”

We need more than that.

First, it’s correct that we didn’t talk to Last.fm or CBS before posting this story. Our efforts to do so in the past have been met with a brick wall. CEO Felix Miller has outright refused to have any direct conversation with us, instead pointing to Last.fm’s New York based PR group. We’ve been trying to have an off or on record conversation with him for months.

But to the meat of our post and the story as told by our sources, we need direct answers. A blanket denial can easily be issued if even some small part of the story we reported is inaccurate or up for discussion. Given the seriousness of the story, we think its fair to ask Last.fm and CBS exactly what did happen:

1. Are they claiming that the initial story, including the email allegedly from a former CBS employee, was completely fabricated by our source? Was there no data request by CBS in February? If there was one, was data transmitted to CBS? Did CBS pass it on to the RIAA or one or more music labels?

2. You say “Any suggestion that we were complicit in transferring user data to any third party is incorrect.” Ok. How about a suggestion that you were innocently involved in transferring data to a third party, and subsequently outraged when you discovered what happened?

3. We believe Last.fm staffers have been agreeing with our story in private conversations for some time. Why the private agreement and the public broad denial?

4. We believe Last.fm put in broad new data policies following our February story. If the original story was completely untrue, why did they put new data policies in place?

5. What is CBS’ position on this story?

We all understand that Last.fm is upset and “rather pissed off.” But what we really want to know is exactly what happened in February. Was data requested? Was it supplied? Can CBS pull data directly from Last.fm without Last.fm’s involvement?

We remain open to on or off record conversations with Last.fm, which has been our position throughout this story. The phones are ringing. They’re just not answering.

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Think you’ve found the ultimate fitness regime to attain the body of a Greek god? ZodBod, a new fitness startup that launched last month, wants to help you share your secrets to success - and possibly make some money in the process. The site invites users to write up and sell their own fitness guides, in which they can instruct visitors on diet and exercise regimes designed to whip them into shape.

Guides on the site run around $5 each, and are an average of 20-25 pages long. Plans can include images, diagrams and tables detailing the exercises and meals guidelines you should be following. To decide which plans to follow, you can read through an extended bio of the author, browse reader reviews, and download a sample excerpt from the guide.

My intitial reaction was that this seemed a little silly - after all, every guide (at least the ones that work) is going to be a variation on the old “diet and exercise” mantra. Then again, having seen the diet section at the local book store, it’s clear that people will pay for nearly anything that might somehow lead to some weight loss. And while there’s some risk of buying a wonky guide with no basis in reality, ZodBod claims that all guides are checked by a “health and fitness pro” prior to publication.

I’m sure the site will wind up seeing more than its share of worthless diet fads, but presumably the real quality guides will bubble up to the top. And when it comes down to it, I’d rather take dieting tips from a real person (hopefully with a similar body type to mine) who has actually had to eat the foods they’re recommending instead of relying on the word of some famous bodybuilder who probably uses liposuction and steroids to maintain their physique.

ZodBod is going to be fighting an uphill battle: it will be competing with countless other diet sites on the web, which include startups like WatchMEmelt and more established weight loss sites and forums, many of which are free. It’s also going to be facing off with self-publishing sites like Scribd, which just opened a new document marketplace last week.

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A couple of months ago Erick Schonfeld wrote a post titled “Did Last.fm Just Hand Over User Listening Data To the RIAA?” based on a source that has proved to be very reliable in the past. All hell broke loose shortly thereafter.

Before posting Erick reached out to the RIAA, Last.fm and parent company CBS for comments. The only response was from CBS - “To our knowledge, no data has been made available to RIAA.” The CBS spokesperson, Katie Gunion, subsequently emailed us to say “would you please attribute the statement to Last.fm, it is currently reading as though CBS issued the statement” Gunion’s email lists her title as Public Relations, CBS Interactive, and her first statement did not name Last.fm (this is important, see below). A subsequent statement by Shannon Jacobs, VP of Communications at CBS: “this is a last.fm issue, as far as I am concerned. It is not a corporate issue. This is a last.fm issue, not a corporate issue. The posting represents last.fm’s response.”

After the story broke all concerned parties had no problem commenting publicly.

Last.fm cofounder Richard Jones said “I’m rather pissed off this article was published, except to say that this is utter nonsense and totally untrue.” He followed up with a blog post “Techcrunch are full of shit, “I denied it vehemently on the Techcrunch article, as did several other Last.fm staffers. We denied it in the Last.fm forums, on twitter, via email – basically we denied it to anyone that would listen, and now we’re denying it on our blog.” One blog called us a “tabloid masquerading as a legitimate news outlet.” Lots of others piled on.

Apart from updating the original post we’ve been quiet on this story. The person who first leaked the news was terminated from CBS for the leak, says our original source, and threatened with legal action. He understandably went very quiet. But the outrageously shrill denials by Last.fm just didn’t ring true. Once you got past the personal attacks, the denial language itself was too carefully worded.

Now we’ve located another source for the story, someone who’s very close to Last.fm. And it turns out Last.fm was telling the truth when they said Erick’s story wasn’t correct.

Last.fm didn’t hand user data over to the RIAA. According to our source, it was their parent company, CBS, that did it. That corresponds to what our original source said in conversations we had after our initial post and before CBS lawyers became involved. But we didn’t want to update until we had an independent source for that information, too.

Here’s what we believe happened: CBS requested user data from Last.fm, including user name and IP address. CBS wanted the data to comply with a RIAA request but told Last.fm the data was going to be used for “internal use only.” It was only after the data was sent to CBS that Last.fm discovered the real reason for the request. Last.fm staffers were outraged, say our sources, but the data had already been sent to the RIAA.

Here’s an email from the original source, partially redacted. A screenshot of this email is here.

Re: touching base

From: [redacted, a CBS employee]
Sent: [redacted]
To: [redacted]

[ _____] We provided the data to the RIAA yesterday because we know from experience that they can negatively impact our streaming rates with publishers. Based on the urgency of the request they probably just wanted to learn more about the leak but who knows. Seriously, can you blame them? [______] Our ops team provided the usual reports along with additional log data including user IP addresses. The GM who told them to do it said the data was for internal use only. Well, that was the big mistake. The team in the UK became irate because they had to do it a second time since we were told some of the data was corrupted. This time they transferred the data directly to them and in doing so they discovered who really made the request. Shit really hit the fan, I even got a call [______] Obviously, I can see their POV but what they don’t understand over there is that we are in the analytics business and it’s not like this is the first time we’ve provided this data to a third party. Someone over there should be more forthright with users about the data policy instead of complaining about BD to upper management like I’m here trying to destroy the business. We’re just trying to help them stay afloat here it’s not like Pro memberships are earning any revenue! [______________] So if you hear of anything, I’m even open to possibly moving West now for the right opportunity, let me know.

Our new source, which hasn’t seen this email, says much the same: that Last.fm didn’t know the nature of the CBS request until after the data was sent and that the data was in fact subsequently sent by CBS to the RIAA. This source’s information comes directly from Last.fm employees who he has spoken with.

It’s important to note that while sources are in agreement that it was the RIAA that made the request, it may have been one or more music labels acting independently. The suggestion in the email above that the compliance was made because of the ability for the requester to negatively impact streaming rates suggests it was a label request. But the end result is the same.

We believe CBS lied to us when they denied sending the data to the RIAA, and that they subsequently asked us to attribute the quote to Last.fm to make the statement defensible. Last.fm’s denials were strictly speaking correct, but they ignored the underlying truth of the situation, that their parent company supplied user data to the RIAA, and that the data could possibly be used in civil and criminal actions against those users. We believe that the outrage they aimed at us for reporting the story, which was materially correct, should have been aimed at CBS instead. But Last.fm never spoke publicly of the real facts of the story.

We believe Last.fm and CBS violated their own privacy policy in the transmission of this data. We also believe CBS and Last.fm may have violated EU privacy laws, including the Data Protection Directive, and should be investigated by the appropriate authorities.

And to the CBS employee who was fired and threatened based on this story - we believe certain U.S. Whistle Blower laws may protect you from retaliation from CBS in this matter. We’d like to provide you with legal counsel at our cost.

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CBSNews.com is undergoing a major overhaul and redesign of its sites to make them easier to navigate, more visually compelling, faster and more focused on driving users to content.

The new home page features a rotating list of top stories on the left, next to the list of the latest and most important headlines. CBS News programs, as well as the latest videos, photo galleries and blogs, are all highlighted on the page. CBS News also plugs its program sites, including Evening News, Face the Nation, 60 Minutes, 48 Hours, and Sunday Morning, on its homepage. CBS says that the company applied technology from its sister site, CNET.com, to deliver pages from its servers to users’ screens more rapidly. Dan Farber, CNET’s editor-in-chief, oversaw the redesign.

Here’s what CBSNews.com used to look circa 2000 (left) and currently (right):

As you can see from the screenshot of the new design at the top of the post, this is a big improvement. The additional of images definitely make the site more aesthetically pleasing and easier to scroll through. But it seems that the new site is now a little too cluttered with pictures. Farber says the news site has undergone two major redesigns over the past ten years. A small percentage of random visitors to CBSNews.com will see the new look for pages on the site. CBS Says the site is still a work in progress and is undergoing changes and upgrades frequently.

This new redesign may be part of an effort to catch up to ABCnews.com and MSNBC.com (NBC’s news site). CBSNews.com only drew 3.2 million unique visitors in U.S. in April compared to 4.4 million for ABCnews.com and 30.7 million for MSNBC.com, according to ComScore.

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Short version: We’ve loved the MiFi mobile router since we first laid eyes on it back at CES. After a few days of playing with the Verizon MiFi 2200, we still love it just as much - but with one hangup: the nasty monthly bill. After a trivial hiccup with the activation, we had 4 computers up and running in minutes. Speeds in our area are about average for the local EVDO Rev-A network, and we’ve had absolutely no connectivity drops in our 2 days of testing.

One of the neat little sub-features of Amazon’s Kindle is being able to subscribe to blogs on it. You have to pay for the privilege, but for heavy Kindle users, it makes sense as you can get the content delivered to you wirelessly for your favorite blogs. You know, like TechCrunch.

But the biggest limiting factor of this so far is that only the big blogs have been included in the blog directory. Starting today, anyone can make their blogs available via the new Kindle Publishing for Blogs Beta program.

All you have to do is make your blog’s feed available to the Kindle Store, and Amazon will do the rest, formatting your content for the device. According to the email from Amazon, after a few easy steps, your blog should be up and ready to go in the Kindle Store after about 12 to 48 hours of processing. Not bad.

As with blogs currently in the program, these new blogs will get 30% of the monthly blog subscription price for every subscriber Amazon signs up. In a world where mobile app developers traditionally keep 70% or more of the revenues, 30% seems awfully low.

And exactly how much Amazon will charge for each blog isn’t totally clear, other than Amazon says it will “define the price based on what we deem is a fair value for customers.” Most blogs currently go for $1.99 a month. Unfortunately, even if you want to, you can’t give your blog away for free on the device. Amazon has that WhisperNet to maintain, after all.

As a Kindle owner, I currently subscribe to a few of my favorite blogs, but for most of the rest I use Instapaper to bookmark articles and sync them over email to my device (which does cost a ridiculous $0.15 an email unfortunately — but Instapaper sends only one digest a day). The bottom line is that with 30% of the subscription price going to publishers, this isn’t likely to be a big source of income for most sites. There are simply too many blogs and the Kindle market is simply not that big. And the people who will pay for blogs on it is even less.

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