This guest post was written by Saran Chari, CTO and co-founder of Flixster. Flixster is a Lightspeed portfolio company. As the social web evolves and platforms like Facebook and MySpace open up to applications, many companies and developers are rushing to get distribution to their millions of users by “going viral”. For the successful applications, this can often present a problem (a high-quality one for sure) – how do you actually scale your deployment to handle that growth? At Flixster, we’ve been riding this growth curve for 2 years now – first with our destination site itself (www.flixster.com), and subsequently on our embedded applications on Facebook and MySpace. Across our properties, we now have over 1 million users logging in each day and we are approaching our 2 billionth movie rating. Like many others, we started out with just a single virtual server in a shared hosting environment. So how did we scale to where we are today?...Going viral without going down June 20, 2008
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Jun 21, 2008
NEWS: Going viral without going down
Media revenue to hit $2.2 trillion by 2012: PwC
By Kenneth Li NEW YORK (Reuters) - Global entertainment and media revenue is forecast rising by an average of 6.6 percent a year to $2.2 trillion by 2012, boosted by advertising-supported digital and mobile media and an explosion in the adoption of broadband. According to the PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) annual forecast released on Wednesday, advertising tied to the burgeoning interest in watching videos on the Internet and on devices, such as Apple Inc's iPod, will account for 24 percent of growth in the sector and is projected to grow fastest at a compound annual growth rate of 19.5 percent to 2012. Total entertainment and media revenue growth is seen outpacing global gross domestic product, which will increase 5.7 percent, according to the report. Despite the acceleration of digital businesses, revenue from traditional media venues such as television will still dominate global market share, if not growth. Digital and mobile revenue will account for only 11 percent of total spending, or $234 billion, in the next five years...Media revenue to hit $2.2 trillion by 2012: PwC
NEWS: Google Faces Off With Compete, Alexa, Comscore, Quantcast (And Soon Firefox)
Ed: Three sources: search, GA, and Google toolbar.
- Google has 70% of search, but nil data from email and social network users.
- Google Analytics is so slow that it captures only half of the real views.
- The toolbar represents a biased sample of tech workers.
- All have problems with unique user counting. User cookie settings on browsers and shared devices prevent accurate metrics.
Google Faces Off With Compete, Alexa, Comscore, Quantcast (And Soon Firefox)
Google has just introduced Google Trends For Websites, a new tool that lets users take a peek at the traffic data from sites around the web. The new feature pits Google against a number of well-established players in the traffic data space, including Compete, Comscore, Alexa, and a host of others...
AdNets Weekend
Business Wire (press release), CA -
Ad Chap is an advertising network geared to social networks such as Facebook, hi5, bebo and MySpace. Ad Chap enables advertisers to deliver targeted ...
Media Newsline, India -
One of the worlds largest international online advertising networks, .FOX Networks is set to revolutionize the online advertising industry in Asia through ...
Business Wire (press release), CA -
Millennial Media is the industry’s leading mobile media networks company – leveraging its quality advertising networks and extensive reach of the lucrative ...
Millennial Media
WCCO, MN -
Site owners participating in the WCCO-TV Minneapolis/St. Paul Network receive a portion of the advertising revenue generated by WCCO-TV, ...
FOXBusiness -
... is pleased to announce its alliance with PennySaverUSA.com, one of the nation's leading online local advertising networks and a business of Harte-Hanks, ...
kgw.com (subscription)
Bizjournals.com, NC -
The original business model for the network was a combination of free, advertising-supported access and advertising-free paid access, but MetroFi never got ...
Portland's Network Gets Shut Off Date
MetroFi ending Wi-Fi service in Calif., Ore., Ill.
Muni Wi-Fi player MetroFi warns users of shutdowns
RedOrbit, TX -
Undertone Networks, a premium online advertising network, announced today it has joined the Network Advertising Initiative (NAI), a cooperative of online ...
Washington Post, United States -
TV still represents the majority of advertising spending, and Microsoft needs to be a player there if it wants advertising to become a significant portion ...
The Money Times
The Money Times, India -
... advertising services, bought Waltham, Mass-based Navic Networks, an eight year old company that develops technology for digital TV advertisements. ...
Social Media Weekend
Law.com (subscription), CA -
Picher suggested that a Web site qualifies as a social media site when the majority of content is user-contributed. He also observed that these Web ...
Business Wire (press release), CA -
By empowering consumers, patients, physicians, employees, and their families with approved content to disseminate through social media channels, ...
bMighty.com, NY -
A recent study indicates that more than half of all adults rely on some form of social mediato communicate not just with friends and family, but also with ...
CNNMoney.com -
The recruitment and management of local blogs and social media sites that will form the core of the CBS 3 Philadelphia Network is being administered by ...
Search Engine Journal -
... itself under its Flickrization of Yahoo direction and open armed acceptance of Web 2.0 andsocial media years before Google even entered the scene. ...
Chicago Tribune, United States -
"Even our more conservative clients recognize the power of social media and are starting to put aside their uneasiness about loss of control in order to ...
Mediapost.com
Washington Post, United States -
... away from potential conflicts with media organizations by working directly with users. But 25 million people visited a social news site last month, ...
AP Tries To Save Face In Blogger Copyright Dispute
AP, blogger resolve dispute over copyright
AP, Blogger Controversy Leads to Dialogue
Business Wire (press release), CA -
Pluck SiteLife enables online properties to engage site visitors with a complete range ofsocial media capabilities including user comments, ratings, ...
Market Wire (press release) -
To help commuters "dump the pump" in support of National Dump the Pump Day, Cisco is encouraging workers to skip their commute with the near zero-carbon ...
PRWeek, NY -
LOS ANGELES: MySpace launched a redesign to help the social network appeal to new markets and shake off its image as an adolescent-only zone in response to ...
Blog Weekend
Earthtimes (press release)
Telegraph.co.uk, United Kingdom -
By James Quinn, Wall Street Correspondent Activist investor Carl Icahn has finally entered the world of blogging - five months after he said he would - with ...
Billionaire investor Icahn starts blog
Carl Icahn criticizes corporate accountability in blog
Carl Icahn launches blog
Nascar -
A blog is an online journal entry written by a Member of the Community. Every Member of the Community can create his/her own blog posts and read and comment ...
Detroit Free Press, United States -
Jamie Samuelsen blogs for freep.com. His opinions do not necessarily reflect those of the Detroit Free Press or its writers. ...
Detroit Free Press, United States -
Jamie Samuelsen blogs for freep.com. His opinions do not necessarily reflect those of the Detroit Free Press or its writers. ...
Scotsman, United Kingdom -
The hamster shot to local fame after appearing on Cllr Burns' popular online blog when she managed to escape her cage. An update on her activities was later ...
San Francisco Chronicle, USA -
Nearly 124 million people dropped by Facebook in May, compared with more than 114.6 million people checking out MySpace the same month, comScore, ...
Jun 19, 2008
NEWS: CBS 3 Launches Revenue Sharing Partnership With Local Blogs and Social Media Websites
Ed: Local TV station distributes news through widgets for blogs and anchors sale of local advertising.
CBS 3 (KYW-TV) today announced the launch of the CBS 3 Philadelphia Network, a first-of-its-kind partnership between a major media company's owned television station and local blogs and social media sites.
CBS 3 is one of thirteen CBS-owned television station sites across the country offering embeddable news widgets to a variety of local blogs and sites serving the Philadelphia area. In line with delivering breaking news, CBS 3 will supply the widgets with real-time news feeds of local headlines and images to ensure updated content on partner sites 24-hours a day. The headlines and updates link back to their full stories and videos, available on the CBS 3 site atwww.cbs3.com.
Site owners participating in the Philadelphia Network receive a portion of the advertising revenue generated by CBS 3, which is responsible for selling the advertising space within the widgets. There are three widget formats available, each with IAB standard ad units, and partners can select from six topical news feeds to provide the most relevant content for the publisher's site. The added personalization enables advertisers to better target their audiences so that advertisements complement the user experience.
The CBS 3 Philadelphia Network already has received support from a major advertiser, Grand Bahama Island. Julie Kimball, VP, Account Director for Media Contacts, said, "In order to support tourism to Grand Bahama Island, Media Contacts focused on the East Coast markets and looked to several local networks to deliver this audience. As we were evaluating our options, we were impressed by the CBS Local Ad Network. The presence of CBS in each local market provides access and knowledge of highly localized content and distribution. Media Contacts and Grand Bahama Island are relying heavily on the local expertise of CBS to build promotional awareness and expect great results."
CBS 3 President and General Manager Michael Colleran said, "CBS 3 is pleased to announce the launch of the CBS 3 Philadelphia Network. By using new media platforms, such as the CBS Local Ad Network, we can provide a new way to deliver quality local news to our community. At the same time, local business owners and advertisers can successfully reach the audiences most relevant to the services they provide."
The recruitment and management of local blogs and social media sites that will form the core of the CBS 3 Philadelphia Network is being administered by SyndiGO, a new division of Seevast Corp., a leading provider of advertising networks and network enabling services. For more information please visithttp://www.syndigonetworks.com/cbs/.
About CBS Television Stations
CBS Television Stations (www.cbslocal.com), a division of CBS Corporation (NYSE: CBS.A) (NYSE: CBS), includes 29 stations, including 16 CBS stations, nine affiliates of The CW, one MyNetworkTV affiliate and three independent stations.
NEWS: Will Indie Movies Crush YouTube? No.
Will Indie Movies Crush YouTube? No.
So YouTube (GOOG) has opened its doors to filmmakers who want to upload long-form video. The new limit for partners, with whom YouTube splits ad revenue, is 1GB per file. That's enough for hours of video at YouTube's bit rates, and even enough for some (shortish) DVD-quality Hollywood films.
So will the move crush YouTube under the weight of the masses watching movies? Short answer: no -- because YouTube is really big (and parent company Google is even bigger), so it can shrug off concerns that might flatten another competitor. And it might well make money on the deal.
Longer answer: Because YouTube bypasses CDNs and peers directly with big Internet exchanges, YouTube pushes data on the Web more cheaply than anyone. Their cost of streaming is a tiny fraction of a penny per user per hour. If it were 1/4 of a cent, we're talking about $250 to stream an hour of video to 100,000 users -- and we can make informed guesstimate that YouTube is paying even less than that. Meanwhile, assuming YouTube can sell at least one Adsense For Video ad at a $15 CPM, that's $1,500 in revenue.
Storage costs? Yes, there are some, but they're tiny. The going rate is $175 per terabyte (1,000 gigabytes), and that's subject to Moore's Law, so it should likely drop by half every two years or so. Meanwhile Assuming YouTube can sell at least one Adsense For Video ad at $15 CPM, that's $1,500...
STATS: Comscore May Search Data
Click image above for a larger view. Comscore has released its May search market share numbers (prior data through April is here)...Comscore May Search Data: Google, Yahoo Up; Microsoft Slides
STATS: Social Media by Age Groups
From MySpace to Facebook to Flickr to LinkedIn, here’s looking at you
Rapleaf, a company that provides people-focused search services to corporate clients, spends a lot of time mining social networking data. It has just released a survey studying the social networking habits of the 49.3 million people it has information about, divided by age. Sample sites include MySpace, Facebook, LinkedIn and Flickr...
Friendster’s growth in Asia could make it the top social network in the world, once again
NEWS: China Web Boom: .CN Now More Popular than .Net
The VeriSign report didn't break down domain numbers, but the running total from Germany's DENIC shows that China's .cn domain has about 11.8 million active registrations -- good enough for 3rd place and 230,000 more than fourth place .net domains. Germany's .de extension is in second place, about a quarter million registrations ahead of China, and the grand daddy of all domain extensions, .com, is comfortably in first place with 76.5 million domain registrations...China Web Boom: .CN Now More Popular than .Net
Jun 18, 2008
Apple: Mac Unit Sales Grew 50% in May
Apple: Mac Unit Sales Grew 50% in May
Apple had a solid May for both Mac and iPod sales. As Lehman analyst Tim Luke points out in a note today, new data from market research firm NPD shows Mac unit sales grew 50% on a year-over-year basis in May, ahead of the 37% Q2 growth Lehman had expected. Sales of iPods in the month were up 11.6% for the month in units, slower growth than the 14.6% gain in April, but well ahead of the 2% year-over-year decline Lehman has been modeling for the quarter.
iPhones Could Drive a Third of Apple's Revenue Next Year
From Clusterstock: Good news for Apple (AAPL) fans. In 2009, iPhone sales should start to become material to the company's overall financial performance -- possibly very material.
Morgan Stanley expects iPhone sales to at least double in 2009, to 27 million units. At $200 a phone, that's $5 billion of revenue. Despite the recent price cuts, Morgan Stanley uses an average unit price of $550 per phone. This seems far too high to us, but 27 million units at this price would yield almost $15 billion of revenue.
IPhone rumors: Could Adobe lose out on its slice of the Apple pie?
Adobe Flash, the popular platform for web applications and media, may finally be coming to the iPhone. “May” is the operative word here — it sounds like development is still in the early stages, and Apple might not even be interested...
Firefox 3
Firefox 3
PRODUCT SUMMARY
- CNET EDITORS' RATING8.0/10ExcellentEditorial policies >>
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The good: Firefox 3 touts faster rendering, vastly reduced use of system resources, clever new data-mining tools for your bookmarks and browser history, and more security features than any other browser.
The bad: Firefox 3 will no longer support Windows 95, 98, and Me; same with Mac OS X, versions 10.2 and earlier.
The bottom line: If only for the speed, lightness of being, and security alone, Firefox remains our Editors' Choice for best Internet browser.
CNET EDITORS' REVIEW
Firefox Demand Exceeds Supply as Mozilla's Servers Melt Down
Mozilla's servers reach a two-hour-long tipping point as demand for the new Firefox 3 web browser exceeds supply.
Firefox 3: 6.4 6.5 Million Downloads and Counting …
Looks like Firefox 3 Download Day will be one for the record books after all. Though its servers were initially overwhelmed by the volume of download requests Tuesday, Mozilla soon had the Firefox 3 download site humming along nicely. And within 5 hours it had broken Firefox 2’s single-day record of 1.6 million downloads and by 5 AM PDT — 18 hours into its world record attempt — it had already blown the doors off the 5 million mark it had set for itself with 6,424,790 downloads.
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