VentureBeat

Does Hulu have a user attention problem?

Hulu has released yet another peek at its monthly performance from comScore’s Video Metrix report. Long story short, the premium video hub is still growing in terms of unique visitors, while the amount of time spent on the site seems to be dropping.

For March, Hulu claimed the number three spot in terms of popularity, beating out other online video contenders like Yahoo, Microsoft, and CBS. In terms of traffic, this came out to 41.6 million… Continue Reading

StumbleUpon adds Facebook, comments to its web-based recommendations

StumbleUpon, an application for discovering and rating web content, is fine tuning its web experience. As part of the app’s growth outside of its proprietary toolbar, StumbleUpon is announcing updates to its web-based interface, like Facebook compatibility and new content sharing tools.

In general, StumbleUpon works as a recommendation engine for web pages. Previously, users had to install a toolbar to rate sites (either with a thumbs up or down), or recommend them to other StumbleUpon… Continue Reading

Joost: For sale, or just fortifying?

The buzz in the online vid biz is that Joost, a once touted video portal, might be headed for a buyout. After two years of going it alone, the company is rumored to be in talks with Time Warner Cable and satellite providers for a possible deal, reports CNet’s anonymous source.

Though this is still considered speculation (a Joost spokesperson said the company doesn’t comment on rumors), it’s fair to say the company has seen its… Continue Reading

Netflix nails Q1, expects competition from kiosks

DVD rental company Netflix just blew the lid off its first quarter earnings. The Los Gatos, Calif. company netted $394.1 million in revenue in Q1 2009, representing a 21 percent leap year-over-year and a 10 percent bump compared to last quarter. These figures easily beat street estimates, which had the company pegged around $390 million for quarterly revenue.

Oh, but there are still a few dark clouds on the horizon.

In spite of this good news, the… Continue Reading

YouTube RealTime: Great for socializing and ads?

I have to admit, I was a little skeptical when I heard YouTube was working to bring real-time interactivity to the site. But now that I’ve tinkered with the feature (dubbed “YouTube RealTime”), it’s clear that the popular online video portal was ripe for social chops. After all, half the fun of discovering content on YouTube comes from sharing it with friends.

As I mentioned yesterday, the crux of YouTube RealTime is its omnipresent toolbar. After… Continue Reading

Government shakedown for music-sharing service LimeWire?

Congress is winding up to give LimeWire hell again. The peer-to-peer file-sharing service apparently still poses a risk to users who store personal information on their computers, according to the House Committee on Government Reform.

As a free service that allows users to share locally stored files over the internet, LimeWire has been a lightning rod for controversy. Over the years, the service has been scorned as a method for trading copyrighted content like music and movies,… Continue Reading

YouTube goes real-time with new notification toolbar

It looks like YouTube has been bitten by the real-time bug too. After the recent real-time overhauls of sites like Facebook and FriendFeed, YouTube is now tinkering with a similar notification feature imaginatively called “YouTube RealTime,” reports TechCrunch.

Much like Facebook’s news feed, YouTube RealTime allows users to track the activities of friends within the site. The feature aggregates actions like comments, online status, and viewing habits, and then broadcasts them to a persistently updated toolbar…. Continue Reading

eBay’s Q1 earnings dip despite Skype, Paypal boost

eBay has just released its first quarter financials for 2009, beating analyst estimates. But, like many other tech companies, the online auctioneer wasn’t exactly immune to the lagging economy.

By the numbers, the San Jose, Calif.-based company cleared $2.02 billion in revenue for the quarter, representing a $171 million loss year-over-year. Though a sizable decline, these figures still beat analysts’ predictions which pegged the auction site around $1.94 billion.

On a per-share basis, eBay’s Q1 net income amounted to… Continue Reading

Study finds file-sharers buy ten times more music

A new report from BI Norwegian School of Management shows illegal file-sharers are more likely to purchase music from legitimate sources than other web users.

I know, I know. The whole thing sounds questionable, but here’s how it comes together: Ars Technica reports that researchers monitored the music download habits of 1,900 web users age 15 and above. Over time, the study found that users who downloaded music illegally from P2P file-sharing sites like BitTorrent ultimately… Continue Reading

Report: Interest in online video up, channel loyalty down

Maybe Hulu’s expensive Superbowl ad wasn’t such a bad idea. Consumer interest in computer-based television viewing is on the rise, according to a recent study from consulting firm Accenture. Furthermore, as the number of ways to watch TV expands, consumers are caring less about channel loyalty and more about ease of access for their favorite shows.

Overall, Accenture’s report found that television viewership is quickly splintering across a number of platforms like computers, phones, and set-top boxes. But in… Continue Reading

TiVo’s still watching you, but by region now

It’s no secret TiVo has been watching its subscribers. But now the DVR company has announced it’s giving advertisers up-to-the-minute info on what users are watching (and fast-forwarding through) based on specific geographic regions.

As a web-enabled DVR/TV guide service, TiVo already collects a wealth of data on its users’ viewing habits on a national level. Today’s announcement is an expansion of those efforts by repackaging this data for advertisers and content providers on a local… Continue Reading

Adobe unleashes web video, widgets onto TVs

Adobe Flash, a platform for integrating animation and video into web pages, is making the jump to a television near you. Adobe’s newest take on Flash is slated to usher in a new era of enhanced living room gadgets – converting web-enabled TVs, Blu-ray players, and set-top boxes into web video-ready, widget-friendly powerhouses.

To date, Flash has mainly been used to create ‘containers’ (i.e., YouTube’s embeddable video player) for delivering rich internet media to websites. With the rise of the… Continue Reading

Rumor: Hulu’s iPhone app looks sharp, due soon

Hulu has done well as a browser-based video destination. So, it’s not surprising to hear (yet again) that the video site is headed to cell phones. An anonymous mobile industry executive says the video service will soon appear on Apple’s iPhone and iPod Touch, according to Business Insider.

Oh, and the source also says the forthcoming app is “badass.”

Hulu’s mobile iteration is expected to resemble its browser cousin for streaming prime time content, and will reportedly… Continue Reading

Best Buy breaking into movie downloads?

Anyone who has stepped into a Best Buy retail store has seen its rows and rows of DVDs. But as the physical media market starts to wane, Best Buy is setting its sights on a new frontier — digital downloads. Sources close to the studios say the electronics retailer is preparing to launch a movie download service as early as this summer, reports Variety.

Details are still sketchy, but Variety’s sources say Best Buy will probably… Continue Reading

MixerCast nabs $4.1 million for widget ads

As the display advertising market tanks, widget-based ad networks like MixerCast still seem to be netting cash. After raising $6 million last year, the San Mateo, Calif. company has announced the close of another $4.1 million round led by Intel Capital.

MixerCast’s business is essentially dual pronged. For end users, it provides a drag-and-drop platform for creating and publishing widgets on social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace. Dubbed MCast Suite, this platform essentially serves as… Continue Reading

SoundCloud raises $3.3 million for audiophile file-sharing

SoundCloud, an audio file sharing site for music professionals, has raised €2.5 million ($3.3 million) in its first round of funding. The Berlin-based startup entered the crowded file-sharing market last year with a private beta, but its executives say the service has since grown to 100,000 registered users.

The site works by providing a web-based platform for storing and sharing uncompressed audio files. But, rather than focusing on the average file sharer, SoundCloud targets its service… Continue Reading

Google defies economy, ekes out decent Q1

Google has announced its first quarter financial earnings, and so far the results look decent — given the economic climate. The search giant reported net revenue of $5.5 billion, or $5.16 per share. In terms of historic earnings, Google’s Q1 performance was actually down 3 percent compared to Q4 2008, and up 6 percent in comparison to Q1 2008.

The company’s net profit came in at $1.42 billion for the quarter, or $4.49 a share. Although hardly explosive growth, this… Continue Reading

Google’s Q1 forecast looks cautiously optimistic

The economy has been chewing up tech companies left and right, but tomorrow (Thursday) will reveal the quarterly fate of one of the industry’s biggest — Google. After a Wall Street-beating fourth quarter, the Mountain View, Calif.-based search giant will release its first quarter financial earnings to an undoubtedly anxious market.

Though the company is known for solid revenue growth (Q4 beat estimates at $4.22 billion, or $5.10 per share), the attention paid to Google’s Q1… Continue Reading

MOG relaunches, calling itself the “Huffington Post of music news”

MOG, a social networking and blog site for music lovers, is going through some cosmetic changes. Today’s relaunch is designed to leverage a new organizational structure, homepage widgets, and the site’s own editorial staff to transform MOG into a ‘Huffington Post’-like destination for music news.

To date, the bulk of MOG’s following stems from its wealth of music-related blogs. By offering users a free blogging platform and forging syndication agreements with over 300 popular music blogs,… Continue Reading

Tiseme brings Facebook-style feeds to the rest of the web

Tiseme bills itself as a ‘browser-based conversation platform.’ In practice, what it does is bring all the social parts of Facebook and Twitter — news feeds, comments, status updates and all — to regular old web surfing. After a few weeks of behind-the-scenes tinkering, site founder Brandon Powell tells us that the Indianapolis-based web app is ready for its public alpha, starting today.

Tiseme (short for “adverTISE ME”) lets users attach comments to virtually any content… Continue Reading