The world’s largest streaming music service, Pandora, is finally adding some deep integration with the world’s largest social network, Facebook, giving its users a much easier way to socialize their musical activity with friends.

Following on the heels of yesterday’s Pandora Premieres announcement, the new Facebook integration adds a helpful social layer to the streaming music service, and may help assure investors that Pandora is moving forward despite a grim business outlook ahead of tomorrow’s Q1 FY2014 earnings report. Previously, Pandora’s now former CEO Joe Kennedy testified at a congressional hearing that Pandora would be unable to sustain its business if music royalty rates weren’t lowered, (and it doesn’t appear the rates will drop). There’s also the matter of increased competition in smart radio services from giant tech companies with lots of money to burn. Google recently launched its own Google Play All Access streaming radio service, while Apple and Amazon are rumored to debut similar offerings later in the year.

As for the new Timeline app integration, Pandora isn’t following other media companies that have provided deep integration with Facebook’s Open Graph, which allows people to see all of your activity from both the Facebook news feed and from an activity ticker. Streaming services like Spotify allow friends on Facebook to see songs you’re currently listening to, which I’ve never found very compelling.

Pandora’s Facebook integration is a bit different because it focuses on adding things to your Timeline under a music section. When people are exploring your Timeline page, they’ll see a record of your songs played, favorite artists, and custom radio stations that others can then listen to. It also pops up in the Facebook news feed, but as a past event that behaves more like a news story than an activity. And determining exactly what listening activity you want people to see is pretty easy — meaning I can hide most of the random 90s slow jams that pop up. You can toggle the automatic sharing on and off as needed, which I can’t really say about the fire hose of activity offered by other music services that integrate with Facebook. Those sharing controls are also available on Pandora itself.

The new Facebook Timeline integration is available across all of Pandora’s applications and platforms (iPhone, iPad, Android devices, Pandora’s website, etc.) today. Obviously, the company is committed to a more social Pandora experience, but the more interesting observation is in how it’s not at all trying to promote an increase in listening (or consuming) activity.

Media companies like Spotify, Viddy, Vevo, Ustream, and others all saw a “Facebook bump” in new users and time spent on their respective services after integrating with Facebook’s open graph. But that sort of move could actually hinder Pandora’s overall business strategy. It’s already one of the largest streaming music service almost to a fault, with 200 million total registered users and over 1.49 billion hours of music listened to per month.

Despite record growth, the company said it’s unable to generate revenue and grow long-term profitability without the aid of any “Facebook Bump” due to what it sees as unreasonably high music licensing fees. Those fees have forced Pandora to implement a 40-hour monthly music listening cap on users of its free, ad-supported service. Therefore it would appear that a large growth spurt would end up hurting the company’s bottom line, since its advertising revenue isn’t able to keep pace with Pandora’s operational growth and increasing music licensing costs. But preventing the service from growing and attempting to lower the amount of interaction spent on it from its most loyal would be a very backwards strategy — not that I think Pandora’s Facebook Timeline integration is an attempt to do either of those things; still, the addition focuses more on keeping current users than grabbing new ones.

We’ll have to wait until tomorrow’s earnings call to find out if recent developments (Kennedy’s departure back in March, the Facebook Timeline integration, and new unreleased album station Pandora Premieres) are enough to keep the company’s stock from taking a dip.

Tarun Wadhwa is a writer, researcher, and entrepreneur working at the intersection of technology and public policy.

You would think that it would be a terrible idea for a company accused of helping teenagers send each other sexually explicit images to feature bikini-clad young girls in their marketing. Most would avoid such direct associations, for good reason – it’s immature, and edgy when it doesn’t need to be.

But not the makers of the enormously popular app, Snapchat, which allows people to send images and videos that “self-destruct” after a few seconds.

The company claims messages are deleted once they are opened, but there have been a series of recent scandals showing that this may not be completely accurate.  Their product is far from perfect, and there are several ways to compromise the protection they offer.  It is never a good idea to send something over the internet that would damage you or your reputation if it became public.  While this may be common sense, it has little to do with how we actually act online.

The makers of Snapchat are right to reject the “sexting app” label — it’s not clear that this is what it is even being used for, and everyone deserves the option to communicate privately when they want, without automatically being branded as a pervert.

Within a few months of launching, the company has made an enormous and lasting impact on the culture of communication on the Internet, and we should all be grateful.

They have simplified a security process enough to the point that anybody can use it, while validating the market of the next generation of privacy-preserving ephemeral communication.  Most importantly, we may finally get a break from the forced permanence of the Facebook and Google world, where everything you do and share is a data point to be monetized and re-sold to the highest bidder.

And Snapchat isn’t even the best product out there — there’s a whole slew of communication tools that are more secure and functional making their way into the public eye.

One of those is Wickr, created by RSA veteran Nico Sell, a more serious security-focused app that uses “military-grade” encryption to send text, video, voice, and document files that can self-destruct after a given period of time.  Hospitals and law enforcement have expressed interest in a similarly functioning Android app, Gryphn.  Although it’s not “self-destructing,” keep an eye on the exciting and powerful suite of communication apps developed by encryption legend Phil Zimmermann’s Silent Circle company – they are not for “average” users, but they could provide enterprise and more serious clients a massive improvement in security.

What apps like these do is allow us a little bit more freedom to be ourselves, for better or worse.

In the copycat world of Silicon Valley startups and funding, expect to see a lot more “Snapchat for _____” type companies.  Finally, the lack of app creativity may work in the favor of consumers.  We have accepted the notion that what you do on the internet is permanent – a statement that is partially a truthful observation, and partially a threatening promise from the companies and entrepreneurs who are making it a reality – but it doesn’t have to be that way for everything.

Perhaps the greatest impact of this rising industry will be when the giants try to co-opt them, as Facebook attempted with Poke.  The issue of trust in these companies aside, it would be a winning situation for everyone for ephemeral features to be built into the services we already use.

We need more human-behavior-friendly default settings.

Privacy is complicated, and nothing is ever completely secure.  Nobody is immune from this, as Nicholas Weaver wrote in Wired, “even the head of the CIA can’t email his mistress without being identified by the FBI.”  But in the billions of messages already sent through Snapchat are a few people who didn’t have their lives ruined because of something they shouldn’t have shared.

The media can continue to ridicule the “sexting app” that so many young people are using, but they are entirely missing the point.  The same generation being blamed for the supposed “death of privacy” has become wiser than those who are criticizing them.

In a candid admission at the Milken Conference this year, former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair, when recalling his college days playing in a band, told the audience, “thank God social media didn’t exist then, because if it did, I wouldn’t be here.”  The Internet wasn’t built with security in mind, and we’re still dealing with the consequences of that.  The next generations are going to be the ones who pay the true cost of the design decisions we make today.

Tarun Wadhwa is a writer, researcher, and entrepreneur working at the intersection of technology and public policy. You can follow him on Twitter – @twadhwa – or contact him directly at VB@tarunwadhwa.com. Also, check out his upcoming book, Identified, which will be out later this year. 

Image credit: Shutterstock/Shocked man

If you had asked me last week to pick a single device that embodied everything Microsoft was trying to accomplish in 2013 and beyond, I’d instantly point to its Surface tablets. After yesterday’s Xbox One reveal, though, the answer is no longer as clear-cut.

Building on its experience with the original Xbox and Xbox 360 (and to a certain extent, its work on the Windows CE operating system for the Sega Dreamcast), Microsoft has fashioned a powerful gaming system in the Xbox One that will also serve as a media hub for the entire family. The Xbox One can integrate with your TV service, multitask like a computer, and give you instant access to media in the cloud.

It’s more a powerful home theater PC than it is a game console, making it a great tool for bringing Microsoft’s services into your living room. More so than the Xbox 360 — which started out as a simple gaming machine but evolved into an entertainment powerhouse thanks to a slew of regular software updates — the Xbox One is built to take advantage of Microsoft’s web services right from the start.

And it’ll only become more integrated over time.

Skype becomes a living room staple

While rumors have swirled for a while that Skype would eventually head to the Xbox 360, it turns out that the service is actually making its console debut on the Xbox One. You can thank the revamped Kinect sensor for that — it’ll be packed in with every Xbox One, and it also sports a much higher resolution camera than the initial Kinect (which essential for getting decent video from wide living room shots).

It’s not the first time Skype has hit the living room. The video chat app is also available on Google TV devices (with a special Logitech camera) and some smart TVs. But launching on the Xbox One will give Skype its largest living room audience yet, and it’s something no other video chat service will be able to easily match.

You’ll be able to participate in Skype group video chats on the Xbox One, and since the console supports true multitasking, you’ll also be able to jump into video calls while playing a game or watching a video. And of course, the Skype integration will let you easily chat with your friends using Skype on other platforms, like PCs and smartphones.

After two years, it seems like Microsoft’s $8.5 billion Skype acquisition will finally pay off with the Xbox One.

Azure brings console gaming to the cloud

Even though it was a fairly minor bit of the Xbox One’s announcement yesterday, the console’s integration with Microsoft’s Azure cloud computing platform has far-reaching potential over the next few years. It could be used to scale Microsoft’s Xbox Live service (the company is already adding 300,000 servers to power Live for the Xbox One, while it’s only running on 15,000 servers right now) and store your games and saves. Most intriguingly, Microsoft also mentioned that it could be used for offloading computational tasks to the cloud.

With Azure’s infrastructure, “Xbox Infinity” may have been a better name for the Xbox One.

The promise of cloud computation means that games on the console will only become more complex over time — imagine better in-game physics when you’re connected to the web or seamless loading for maps for massively multiplayer games. Console developers typically manage to eke out better performance from systems as they age, but with Azure’s cloud computing capabilities, Xbox One games could conceivably keep getting better indefinitely. The only limit will be our Internet connections.

Xbox with a touch of Windows

A simplified version of Windows is one of three operating systems powering the Xbox One, which means Microsoft’s new Windows platform now lives on your television in addition to tablets, PCs, and smartphones (Windows Phone 8 has a big chunk of Windows 8′s kernel, the main component of the OS). You can also see a hint of Windows 8′s flat live tiles on the Xbox One’s new interface.

On the Xbox One, Windows powers nongame applications like Skype and Netflix. This means developers can also create new apps easily — potentially with some of the code they’re using for existing Windows 8 apps.

Having Windows baked in makes it easier for Microsoft to integrate even more of its services into the Xbox One down the line. It also helps to power the Xbox One’s intriguing multitasking capabilities, a first for a console. While the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 often struggled just to do more than one thing at once, the Xbox One will let you snap apps to the side of the screen just like Windows 8. During Microsoft’s demonstration yesterday, moving between apps on the console was also incredibly fast.

Voice commands have also been greatly improved with the new Kinect, a combination of the Xbox One’s faster processing power and multitasking capabilities. You can command the Xbox One to turn on (which flips on your TV and home theater receiver at the same time) and switch from game to media environments. Instant and accurate voice commands remove the delays it currently takes to navigate the Xbox 360, and it opens the door for even more creative uses of the Xbox One (perhaps as a central hub for home automation, or to remotely give commands to your PC).

I’ve always been intrigued by Microsoft’s initial strategy with Windows 8. Rather than repeat what’s worked with Windows for so long, Microsoft took a radically different route and built an OS that’s optimized for touchscreens. Simply looking at the Surface devices tells you that Microsoft envisions a feature where tablets and laptops merge.

With Windows on the Xbox and Windows Phone 8, it looks like Microsoft’s future isn’t just focused on predicting what computers will look like in 10 years — it’s also attempting to unify its platform on every screen in your life.

What does this mean for Sony?

While Microsoft seems dead-set on showing us the many ways the Xbox One fits into your life with its many services, Sony seems more focused on appealing to gamers with the PlayStation 4. We saw plenty more games during the PlayStation 4′s launch event, and there was also more talk about how its hardware will improve the gaming experience.

I can’t blame Sony for making its pitch to gamers, but Microsoft may have had the better idea by focusing on a more general audience. Microsoft isn’t just targeting gamers — it’s targeting everyone who sits in the living room. And unlike Sony, it has a wealth of services to make that pitch stick.

---

GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

---

Disclosure: VentureBeat is one of Zite’s publishing partners, which permits us to place house ads within the VB publisher section of Zite free of charge.

Zite was one of the first companies to answer cries from loyal Google Reader users when the service was shuttered back in March, building a “replacement” in six hours. Yet in the news reader’s latest iOS app update, Zite’s management team makes one thing very clear: It’s time to let Google Reader die.

At its core, the CNN-owned Zite is sort of the anti-Google Reader, anyway. Google Reader pulls in RSS feeds from any news website as they become available, which creates an unruly fire hose of content that most people couldn’t possibly keep up with, and the design is bland and basic. Zite, on the other hand, curates news from the best publications on the web using your preferences and arranges them in a visually pleasing digital magazine layout.

“We realized we didn’t need to shift focus of the company for the next two months trying to build a Google Reader replacement, because we already did that in 2011 with Zite,” Zite CEO and founder Mark Johnson said in an interview with VentureBeat. “I think part of the reason Google Reader’s death was so prominently covered was because a large group of Google Reader users were people in the media. A very small portion of people — reporters, analysts, VCs and news junkies — are actually benefiting from seeing every single one of those articles in one place.”

I tend to agree with Johnson’s assessment, as I had a front row seat when my boss, Dylan Tweney, and colleague Sean Ludwig communicated their frustrations over Google Reader going away. I imagined them pulling their hair out trying to find a replacement. [Not counting Canadians, all the men on VentureBeat's editorial staff have -- or have the ability to grow -- full heads of hair, but Google Reader's death almost changed that -- Ed.]  But those that just want a good mix of articles from trusted sources that can reasonably be finished without having to block out half a day on the calendar, Zite already did a pretty good job of delivering. The latest update, however, makes some important tweaks to the user experience that will help ease those former Google Reader fans into Zite’s news curation service.

With Zite, you can “thumb” up or down articles, but now you’ll be able to see a prominent list of sources that you’ve “thumbed up” in the topic drawer (aka category or section) — sort of like a list of favorites. You’ll also be able to click through to any of those sources to read and vote on everything they’ve published recently. All the content you’ve read will now appear gray to signify what you’ve seen previously — a nod to Google Reader’s bold/gray headlines. And finally, Johnson said, Zite wants to fix the problem Google Reader had with burying really good content from sources that published something only once or twice a week (or month) by giving it a higher placement within Zite’s magazine layout. That means the algorithm for news curation is changing slightly to unearth what would be the best content from a Google Reader account with hundreds of headlines collected from lots of handpicked sources/publications.

“The goal is to give Zite more of a magazine feel that’s inviting, not a huge list of headlines and photos,” Johnson told me. Zite is also rolling out more diverse “story cards” that help break up what’s shown on the screen. For instance, some topic drawers will have only headlines and photos from sources, while others may feature a headline and a good pull quote from an article, which I’m guessing is similar to how Flipboard presents content. In other words, unlike Google Reader, there isn’t a flawed display that’s exactly the same for every story, since a one-size fits all approach really doesn’t work when dealing with content from more than a handful of publications.

Johnson said Zite’s strategy focuses on streamlining the news curation and consumption experience for new Zite users. He nicknamed this process “frog cooking,” a term I was previously unfamiliar with.

“It’s said that if you slowly raise the temperature of the water inside a pot with a frog inside, you’ll be able to cook [the frog] without it noticing,” he said.

I didn’t ask, but I’m quite positive no frogs were harmed during the development of Zite iOS version 2.3. And while Johnson was likening the “frog cooking” to new users unfamiliar with Zite (and walking them through the process with tutorials as shown in the screenshots below), I’d characterize most of the new tweaks in the iOS update to “Google Reader-er cooking.”

In addition to various UI and algorithm tweaks, Zite is also bringing on a slew of new publishing partners, including Atlantic Media (The Atlantic and Quartz), Business Insider, Fast Company, GigaOM, Salon, SAY Media (Remodelista and ReadWrite), and Serious Eats. Zite users can add any of these publications a separate section within the Zite app, as VentureBeat previously reported. And while the latest updates are only available on iOS devices, Johnson said the team is planning to launch a new version of its Android application later this year.

Zite’s iOS app update should be available for free later today via the iTunes App Store. Check out the gallery of screenshots below for a closer look at the latest version of the app.

Thanks to Amazon, writing fanfiction about popular television show characters just became more than a passionate hobby that earns you ridicule from friends and co-workers.

Today the online retail and digital media store announced a new publishing platform called Kindle Worlds that allows anyone to write their own, original stories based on licensed content from a number of TV shows currently airing on the CW and ABC Family — the two channels best known for angsty hour-long dramas adapted from young adult book series. Under a deal between Amazon’s publishing arm and Warner Bros. Alloy Entertainment division, fanfiction authors can publish stories about Gossip Girl, Pretty Little Liars, and Vampire Diaries within Amazon’s Kindle store. Not only that, but those authors will even earn royalties when people buy their work.

So to recap, Amazon just MONETIZED FREAKING FANFICTION. (I never thought I’d be addressing the idea of fanfiction writing as a profession, but here it is.)

Royalty rates are actually pretty reasonable under the Kindle Worlds platform. Amazon will pay copyright owners of the original work an undisclosed percentage, while the author of the new stories will get a 35 percent cut of net revenue on each sale, provided the work is at least 10,000 words. Amazon is basing net revenue on the sale price, not the wholesale price that traditional book publishers offer authors — meaning authors should get a better payout if successful. Authors of stories that are under 10,000 words can earn a royalty of 20 percent off net revenue, with most stories priced at $1 or less. And Amazon said royalty payments will come once a month.

Amazon said it plans to announce additional licensed works for the new Kindle Worlds platform in the near future. Kindle Worlds itself will launch on the Kindle store in June with more than 50 commissioned stories from bestselling authors like Barbara Feethy, John Everson, and Colleen Thompson. So even established authors wanting to write their own original stories derived from a licensed work can jump into Amazon’s new program.

Beyond the new opportunities Kindle Worlds creates for authors, Amazon also points out that this is a new revenue stream for licensed content. It allows the rights owners of those original works to generate money from good stories that they otherwise wouldn’t see if an author had to change all the names and affiliations of their story so it could legally be published. For example, as VentureBeat’s Ricardo Bilton just pointed out to me, mega-successful book series 50 Shades of Gray started as Twilight fanfiction. That said, every big book series or popular body of work (Star Trek, Star Wars) likely won’t be signing a deal with Kindle Worlds. Still copyright owners of franchises that don’t do much business with book publishing will likely be interested.

Top image via The CW

With little fanfare, Google has added its cool new conversational search feature to Chrome on desktops, following a demonstration last week at Google I/O.

Conversational search is a major upgrade from Google’s previous voice search feature, which merely dictated a search string. You can access it by clicking the microphone icon within the search box of the Google home page and asking a question in plain English (no more tweaking your search strings for a better result). Once Google’s search is complete, you’ll either get a list of results as usual, or get a single card at the top of the screen as well as a pleasant voice answering your query.

The best part of the new search is its awareness of context. Once you start a search, you can continue to have a conversation with Google to refine it. For example, I asked for directions to Atlanta, Georgia, and was able to follow up with questions about its population and weather. Just like talking to a human, you don’t need to keep specifying the query you’re referring to — Google’s conversation search is smart enough to understand that the pronouns you’re using refer to your existing search query.

You’ll need Chrome 27 to access conversational search — you can either update from within the browser as usual, or download it fresh from Google’s website.

If you’ve enabled the Gmail Field Trial for Google Search, which grants search access to data on your other Google services, you can also ask questions about your schedule. Conversational search also knows your location, so simply asking “What’s the weather tomorrow?” pulls up your local forecast.

At this point, it looks like Google is simply testing conversational search out on desktops. As Search Engine Land’s Danny Sullivan points out, it doesn’t yet support voice activation (simply saying “Okay, Google” to kick off a search, rather than hitting the microphone button). It’s also missing more complete Google Now integration — it doesn’t yet show cards for your packages, for example, and there’s no predictive searching yet.

Photo: I/O livestream

Streaming music service Pandora is launching a new radio station today that features songs from albums that aren’t available for sale yet.

The station, called Pandora Premieres, features a slew of unreleased music, interviews and other extra content from both established and emerging artists about a week before you can buy them via retail stores. You can listen to those songs as often as you’d like in any order, (so basically, its on-demand), and kicks off with music from John Fogerty and Laura Marling. The content itself receives a refresh once a week, in which case you’ll have to either buy the album to continue hearing those previously unreleased tracks or wait for them to get played on your custom smart radio stations.

The move marks an important step in Pandora’s attempt to become just as vital to the music industry as the traditional radio stations were decades earlier. I’m curious about whether Pandora is paying for its users to play these tracks, or if Pandora Premieres is primarily a promotional vehicle that music companies can pay for to help sell new albums. And given Pandora’s problems with generating enough revenue, I’m guessing they probably aren’t paying for on-demand licensing, which is far more expensive than the digital radio fees.

If Pandora is getting paid for what it plays on Pandora Premieres (at least in part) by the music industry, then it could prove to be an extremely smart move, too — and one that traditional radio has turned into a source of revenue. This is also something that Grooveshark is exploring with the launch of their new Grooveshark radio service that debuted last month.

Navigating to the new station reveals that Pandora is maximizing its advertising by pulling in a sole sponsor, as you can see from the screenshot above. Beyond that, Pandora’s Tim Westergren only had this to say about the new station in a company blog post:

“Pandora Premieres is also a new and unique vehicle for artists, both established and emerging, to reach and expand their audience. Seeing the impact of Pandora on the careers of working musicians continues to be one of the most gratifying parts of this experience.”

We’ve reached out to Pandora for clarification about its strategy for Pandora Premieres and will update this post with any new information we find out.

For more on the Xbox One reveal, check out our complete coverage.

Microsoft has revealed its new console, the Xbox One, and it’s promising plenty of power.

The heart of the new all-in-one entertainment system is raw power, corporate vice president for Xbox Live Marc Whitten today claimed during a live event. The console runs on native 64-bit architecture and has 5 billion transistors and 8GBs of system RAM. Its predecessor, the Xbox 360, has only 500 million transistors and 512MBs of RAM.

The console reportedly has three operating systems in one. The first is the Xbox O/S, which Whitten claims gives game developers deep and instant access to the hardware. The second is a kernel of Windows. This gives Xbox One owners consistent access to web-powered applications in a way that Whitten says is flexible, powerful, and simple. The third O/S connects the first two, creating multitasking and the near-instantaneous switching between applications.

“Only Microsoft and Xbox could bring this level of power, performance, and sophistication to the living room. There’s no waiting. You can switch to your game like it’s a TV channel flip,” Whitten claims.

Xbox One also features USB 3.0, a Blu-ray DVD player, and Wi-Fi Direct, a standard that requires less setup by enabling devices to communicate with each other without a wireless access point. Whitten says the console runs quietly as well.

Microsoft seems to be doubling down on its Kinect motion control sensor. One comes with every new Xbox, Whitten says, and it’s completely redesigned to respond instantly to your voice and gestures. Voice commands are now more conversational. A simple “Xbox On” turns on the console, and commands like “Go to Music” and “Watch TV” let you switch quickly between multiple programs.

Whitten says the company’s new proprietary Time of Flight — a standard used to measure the time it takes for an object to travel a distance through a medium — is “rocket-science-level stuff.” “[It] measures the time, about 30 billionths of a second, that it takes individual photons to bounce off of you to create unprecedented accuracy and precision. Over 2 gigabits per second to understand your world.” The Kinect sensor itself is now 1080p and provides a wider scanning area. It understands the slightest rotation of a wrist or shoulder, Whitten claims, and tracks your balance as well. It even reads your heartbeat while you exercise.

“This is a modern, powerful box engineered to deliver now and well into the future,” Whitten says.

---

GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

---

With Microsoft’s introduction of the new entertainment watching experience through its new Xbox One console, one of the biggest winners will obviously be for those that love live sports.

The company announced a new partnership with the NFL that will see America’s most popular pro sports league bring original content to the Xbox. There was plenty of talk about being able to integrate sports scores, play-by-play views, socialization, and more into the TV screen as well as making fantasy football leagues more centralized to your experience. Specifically, we don’t know which games or sports shows will get the new Xbox One treatment, but I assume Microsoft and the NFL will reveal more in the weeks to come.

I got the sense that the NFL programming will seek to use all the available devices in interesting ways that either don’t overlap or take away from the central experience of the content.

The NFL programming isn’t the only nongame content that Microsoft revealed during today’s Xbox One event. The first was a new interactive Halo TV show produced by the legendary Steven Spielberg, who created roughly half the childhood favorite films for anyone born during the ’80s.

For more on the Xbox One reveal, check out our complete coverage.

Microsoft just blew the doors off of every integrated television experience with the reveal of its next generation Xbox One video game console.

The new Xbox will bring improved voice and gesture controls to watching TV. It also brings in live TV from the Xbox One (something you could do a bit clunkily on the Xbox 360 with Verizon FiOS and Xfinity TV from Comcast), Skype Internet calling, a new Trending feature that shows what’s popular among all Xbox Live community members and multitasking while watching programs.

Seriously, if the demonstration is any indication for how it’ll actually work, you’ll never watch TV the same way again.

Microsoft entertainment VP Yusuf Mehdi showed off how you’ll be able to turn on all the devices in your living room by speaking “Xbox On,” which pulls up your Xbox Live profile without the need to click through several sign-in screens or software updates. Apparently, the console will recognize your voice to do this, and it could possibly even distinguish between others that might use the console.

From there, Mehdi proceeded to change the channel by speaking. For example, you change from watching ESPN to Syfy by simply saying “Watch Syfy.” That’s right — no more “flipping” through the channels when you know exactly where you want to go. Mehdi didn’t make this clear, but I think this means those with a cable subscription (to Comcast at least, which was what they used in the demo) will no longer need to rent one of those crappy cable boxes that was probably made a decade ago.

As for the gesture controls, they seem to be utilized when switching between functions, like Live TV or another app. And speaking of other apps, the new controls make me think that multitasking on a television screen isn’t just an unnecessary pain in the ass. The demo showed off the ability to pull up sports stats during live games, chat rooms with friends, and pulling in a Skype voice call while you’re watching something.

For more coverage, check out our complete coverage and our liveblog and livestream.

---

GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

---

Streaming video service Crunchyroll has just rolled out a new platform that allows its viewers to purchase merchandise related to the shows they’re watching, the company told VentureBeat today.

Crunchyroll is well known among anime lovers because it’s the largest source of Japanese animation programming in the U.S, with over 15,000 hours of officially licensed content localized into multiple languages. The service provides access to content the same time it airs in Japan for those that sign up for premium subscriptions that cost between $5 to $12 per month. There’s also a free, ad-supported service that offers viewers access to content weeks after its initial premiere.

“Our goal is to bring our loyal viewers a surround-sound consumer experience with the ability to purchase DVDs, video games, figures, and other highly relevant merchandise related to their favorite shows,” said Crunchyroll COO Brady McCollum in a statement.

Selling products alongside a streaming video services is hardly a new concept, as Amazon is just now getting into this with its Prime Instant Video service and online store. However, Crunchyroll is worth paying attention because of how much its matured over the years and what it could predict about the future of the online video business. It started out as a company that enabled its users to upload bootleg copies of anime for others to watch without obtaining the proper licensing deals. Today, it’s got licensing deals, a successful streaming subscription (more than 200,000 customers), and ad-supported services with over 8 million monthly viewers and 127 million monthly views across the world.

And now that Crunchyroll is starting to generate revenue by selling merchandise from the programming it offers could point to the future of the streaming video service business in general. For example, Hulu could easily adopt this model in the near future should the licensing first-run TV episodes become greater — especially if Hulu finds itself sold to a company that doesn’t own one of the major broadcast networks (ABC, NBC, Fox).

As for Crunchyroll, the move to sell merchandise isn’t actually a huge gamble, as the company points out that 70 percent of revenue for companies that produce anime comes from merchandising. The merchandise itself is being sold via deals with Asian distributors that aren’t partnering with any other U.S. companies.

Founded in 2008, the San Francisco-based startup has offices in Los Angeles and Tokyo. It’s previously raised $4.8 million in funding from Venrock and TV Tokyo.

HasOffers, a company offering tools to help companies track the performance of their online ads, has raised a Series A led by Accel Partners, with additional funds from RealNetworks founder Rob Glaser and Founder’s Co-op’s Chris DeVore.

HasOffers is based in Seattle and has 79 employees. It has been bootstrapped, growing on revenues without investment to date, since its founding in 2009. Fun fact: Its co-founders, Lucas and Lee Brown, are twins.

“We really didn’t need to raise money based on our current cash flow and ability to keep growing, but this partnership with Accel changes the game for us,” said Peter Hamilton, the chief executive of HasOffers, in a canned statement.

According to the press release that the company will be issuing tomorrow morning, HasOffers has two products, both delivered as a SaaS (software-as-a-service):

• White-labeled software for networks and agencies to manage their performance advertising programs.
• MobileAppTracking.com (MAT) attributes installs, in-app engagement and purchases back to ad partners (such as social networks, publishers, and mobile ad networks).

Clients for the white-labled product include Bucksense, Tapjoy, SponsorPay, Applift, PocketMedia, OfferMobi, Crobo, and Tapit.

Clients for MAT include SuperCell, HotelTonight, Spotify, LivingSocial, Electronic Arts, Square, and Yahoo!

We contacted Accel’s Rich Wong, who will be joining the board of HasOffers, for an explanation of what motivated the investment.

“In our investment thesis from Accel, we are now in a third phase in mobile advertising,” Wong told us. The first phase included “walled gardens” controlled entirely by mobile carriers. The second phase includes ad networks such as AdMob, Quattro, and others. The third phase, Wong said, is marked by the rise of real-time-bidding (RTB) networks and programmatic buying, and that’s where HasOffers fits in.

“In this phase, the ‘machines are taking over’ and more and more of the ad spend in mobile is going to shift towards a programmatic buying solution, buying across multiple traffic sources, instead of two or three primary ad networks in the previous phase,” Wong said.

The key to that working, Wong said, is having a trusted, independent third-party measurement system, so ad buyers can tell where their clicks are really coming from.

“The days of the CMO not knowing ‘which 50 percent of their advertising was wasted’ is ending,” Wong concluded.

Top photo: The HasOffers executive team. Photo courtesy HasOffers.

NEW YORK CITY — Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer just announced a stunning redesign of photo-sharing site Flickr, a property Yahoo let languish for years. But the announcement comes the same day as the $1.1 billion acquisition of Tumblr, another beloved property with a missing vowel and an “r” at the end of its name.

Naturally, some Tumblr fans want to know how Yahoo plans to avoid the fate of Flickr, Geocities, and other failed acquisitions.

So I asked Mayer what changes she has made inside Yahoo to ensure that what happened to Flickr won’t happen to Tumblr.

Mayer said first and foremost that the hiring of new top-level management would help make sure Tumblr doesn’t become Flickr: Part Two.

“It all comes down to people,” Mayer said. “We have an all-new executive management team.”

She also said she had learned from past major acquisitions, including Google’s buy of YouTube and eBay’s purchase of PayPal. Those deals worked because the companies remained independent and kept their own culture, Mayer explained.

“When we look at superscale acquisitions like eBay, PayPal, Google, YouTube, a meme arises,” Mayer said. “Those companies have so much momentum and they often do better when operated independently. Learning from that history is why we made the commitment to operate Tumblr independently.”

Earlier in the event, Mayer said that Yahoo would be moving all 500 of its New York employees to a new office in Times Square. Notably, all Tumblr employees will stay isolated in their own offices, which shows Mayer is serious about them maintaining some independence. That independence will (hopefully) keep the company young and inspired.

“The idea is for Tumblr brand to continue with its vision — a vision that appeals to millennials,” Mayer said.

You can also look to the announcement today to revitalize Flickr as a sign that Mayer won’t let Tumblr meet a similar fate to Flickr.

“I think Flickr is awesome again with these new announcements,” Mayer said. “Photos make the world go around. Flickr was awesome once. It languished. But now it’s awesome again.”

Photo via Sean Ludwig/VentureBeat

Just a day shy of it’s superimportant and highly publicized event to showcase the next-generation home video game console, Microsoft’s Xbox team has announced a new interactive TV show that’s definitely worth paying attention to.

The show itself, called The Music Room, is a two-part program hosted by Laura Jackson and Carl Barât, and will feature music from Everything Everything, Don Broco, and Swim Deep. Much like accessing other entertainment services on the console, you’ll need to be an Xbox Gold subscriber to watch the show, which premieres May 29 at 8:30 p.m. Eastern.

What’s interesting is that Xbox users will be able to vote on the outcome of the program as it airs, which could signal Microsoft’s future approach to original content through the Xbox Live platform. Of course right now its only a two-part music show you can interact with, and we really won’t know more about the company’s entertainment plans until after tomorrow’s big event.

For a closer look at the new show, check out a video preview embedded below.

Via Engadget

Streaming video and TV programming guide startup Dijit just released a new web app version of its NextGuide app that’s every bit as useful as the mobile versions.

The NextGuide web app brings a universal search feature to the web, which allows you to find what’s available across tons of streaming video services such as Hulu Plus, Amazon Prime, and Netflix. And if what you want to watch isn’t available on those services, you’ll be able to see options to buy or rent it on iTunes or Amazon. And that’s on top of its ability to pull up channel listings and DVR controls for your local TV service provider (Comcast, Time Warner Cable, DirecTV, etc.).

Another refreshing thing the NextGuide web app carries over is the universal watchlist (aka queue). This is something that pretty much always bugs me whenever I’m watching stuff across lots of services, because I can’t remember what I added and if I watched it or when. (More often than not, this pushes me to use a single service like Netflix on a single device like my Xbox.) But the NextGuide app pulls all those shows into a single list for you to check out quickly.

But probably the biggest thing you’ll notice is the new social interaction tools that mimic functionality from social TV check-in service Miso, which Dijit acquired back in February. The service now allows you to follow your friends or others with similar interests in TV shows and movies. These tools help power a new social recommendation engine as well.

The NextGuide Web app is currently operating in closed beta right now, but does allow you to invite three friends. Dijit said it plans to make the new app available to Miso users within the next month. We’ve embedded some screenshots of the new service below for a closer look at NextGuide’s web app.

While rumors have been swirling for days, Yahoo finally confirmed this morning that it has acquired popular blogging service Tumblr for about $1.1 billion. Notably, Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer promises Yahoo won’t ruin the Tumblr experience.

“We promise not to screw it up,” Mayer said in a blog post today. “Tumblr is incredibly special and has a great thing going. We will operate Tumblr independently. David Karp will remain CEO. The product roadmap, their team, their wit and irreverence will all remain the same, as will their mission to empower creators to make their best work and get it in front of the audience they deserve. Yahoo will help Tumblr get even better, faster.”

Tumblr is a huge platform for blogging and sharing content. The service hosts 105 million blogs, and 900 new posts go up per second. It has 300 million monthly unique visitors and 120,000 signups each day.

The big weakness for Tumblr is actually making money. It only pulled in $13 million in revenue in 2012. But that’s where Yahoo can come in and help the company find more ways to make cash through advertising.

“The two companies will also work together to create advertising opportunities that are seamless and enhance user experience,” Mayer wrote.

Tumblr CEO Karp has previously been vocally resistent to advertising, but Yahoo plans to find ways for advertising to find its way into the platform. All signs point to Yahoo adding opt-in advertising so bloggers can enable ads and potentially get a slice of revenue for ads on said blogs.

Yahoo will pay approximately $1.1 billion for Tumblr — all in cash. Prior to today, New York City-based Tumblr had raised $125 million in funding from investors including Union Square Ventures, Sequoia Capital, Greylock Partners, Insight Venture Partners, The Chernin Group, Spark Capital, and CrunchFund.

Karp describes the deal as “awesome” and insists that Tumblr won’t change much. “We’re not turning purple,” Karp wrote in a blog post. “Our headquarters isn’t moving. Our team isn’t changing. Our roadmap isn’t changing. And our mission – to empower creators to make their best work and get it in front of the audience they deserve – certainly isn’t changing.”

Marissa Mayer photo via Sean Ludwig/VentureBeat

Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer held a press conference today to flesh out more details about its $1.1 billion acquisition of blog platform Tumblr, which was confirmed yesterday after days of rumors.

“Tumblr prides itself on being a home for brands, established and emerging, we at Yahoo are all about brands,” Mayer said on the call. She also compared some of the more obvious talking points about the new companies, such as Tumblr skewing a much younger audience to Yahoo’s very aging populace. Yahoo has about 700 million to 1 billion users to Tumblr’s 300 million users, so there will be some spillover, but not in terms of how people are using these two services since both are very different. She also said eight of the top 10 most valuable brands are using Tumblr to promote themselves on Tumblr, which should continue in the future.

But the biggest thing Mayer touched on was Yahoo’s commitment to monetizing Tumblr, which is something the blog platform struggled with as it grew. Mayer highlighted that she would bring the company’s newly launched streaming ads product to the site, which are now featured on both Yahoo’s homepage and its newsfeed. Not only that but Yahoo’s commitment means hiring new engineers and ad sales people to boost revenue from Tumblr.

“You only do an acquisition of this size and scale if you find an exceptional company… and find an exceptional fit,” Mayer said, adding that Tumblr is that company. Yahoo plans to keep the entire Tumblr team in place with founder David Karp in place as CEO. Both brands will also stay separate with Karp reporting directly to Mayer.

“We want to let Tumblr be Tumblr, she said.

“In terms of advertizing, David and I both share a love for pop culture and… [he] talked wistfully about the ads he saw as a child that would make him want to see a movie or want a particular car. Where are the ads that are like that [online]? Where are the ads that are great content in and of themselves?,” Mayer said of the deal. “The current state of Internet advertising doesn’t aspire to be as good as the content itself. We think that should change.”

Any new ad products that Yahoo introduces to Tumblr will likely be native-based, and enhance the whole experience. That’s nice to hear if it ends up being true, because the last thing Tumblr users want is to notice is Yahoo’s strategy to grab cash.

Image via Marissa Mayer/Tumblr

While it may be too early to tell how Tumblr users will ultimately respond to Yahoo’s $1.1 billion acquisition, we’re seeing signs that they’re jumping to other blogging services.

Matt Mullenwag, CEO of WordPress parent company Automattic, points out his service saw more than 72,000 imported posts from Tumblr in one hour on Sunday night, following the hoopla around Tumblr’s acquisition. Typically, WordPress sees around 400 to 600 imported posts from Tumblr every hour, he said.

The massive import increase is a sign that more astute Tumblr users would rather have their blogs on an independent service than on one owned by a giant (and honestly, not that cool) company. But by leaving the Tumblr platform, they’re also leaving behind Tumblr’s social benefits, like its simple ability to “like” and reblog other Tumblr posts. (WordPress now allows similar social features, but they were initially popularized by Tumblr’s tiny blogs.)

“News like this, whether from a friend or a competitor, is always bittersweet: I’m curious to see what the creative folks behind Tumblr do with their new resources, both personal and corporate, but I’m more interested to know what they would have done over the next 5-10 years as an independent company,” Mullenwag wrote on his blog. “I think we’re at the cusp of understanding the ultimate value of web publishing platforms, particularly ones that work cross-domain, and while Yahoo’s all-cash deal by some metrics, like revenue, is very generous, I think it’s a tenth of the value that will be created in these platforms over the coming years.”

Photo: Peregrino Will Reign/Flickr

A full 7.5 million years later, it arrives at the answer: 42.

Google appears to be referencing that bit of geek cult humor in a new device, the H2G2-42, that it is currently submitting to the FCC for regulatory testing. H2G2 is a Wikipedia-ish guide to “life, the universe, and everything” inspired by Adams’ books.

There’s little data available about the device, but Google does say it is a “media player,” and a “fixed base station” with 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi, which would make it almost certainly a replacement for Google’s failed Nexus Q. The Q was Google’s ”first social streaming media player” that met with almost universally negative reviews, underwhelmed users, and is no longer for sale.

Source: FCC

Google device H2G2-42 is in FCC testing

One change that seems likely: It appears that the H2G2-42 will allow users to plug in external monitors via provided USB ports:

Source: FCC

Google’s H2G2-42 may be connectable to external monitors

As The Verge notes, Google’s new streaming music app broke compatibility with the Nexus Q. The Google Play Music All Access product is impressive, enabling personalized “radio stations” and inexpensive streaming music. Google calls it “radio without rules,” and it seems reasonable that Google would want a shiny new device to go with this major new music push.

Photos are not yet available and more details will have to wait until 45 days after certification. And it’s unlikely that a music streaming device will be the ultimate answer to the ultimate question.

But meanwhile, enjoy:

Image credits: Google, FCC

The popular and fast-growing blog service is mulling a $1.1 billion acquisition offer from Yahoo. But while the massive blogging powerhouse only pulled in $13 million in revenue in 2012, and raised $125 million at a lower $800 million valuation, Tumblr CEO David Karp feels $1.1 billion is too little.

I guess it depends what yardstick you use.

If you look at an Instagram-style deal, which was originally around a billion dollars but eventually, due to Facebook’s stock market woes, came in a little lower, he might be right. But that deal had one thing going for it that Tumblr does not.

Instagram chief executive and co-founder Kevin Systrom had multiple suitors, while Tumblr only has one.

That’s because, as Forbes reveals, Yahoo is currently negotiating under a lockup. So even though Facebook, Microsoft, and potentially other acquirers are interested, Yahoo has at least a period of time in which it is the only one on the dance card.

In addition Tumblr, which famously hates advertising and only started trying to make money after five years in existence, is in a bit of a pickle, as its $125 million in funding is running out, giving the service only a few-month window in which to raise a new round or find a sugar daddy.

That’s likely a strategic error on Karp’s part, who has said that advertising “really turns our stomachs.”

Tumblr only started to get serious about ad revenue in mid-2012, and is only planning to roll out its third major ad product — pay per view, in which you pay to get others to view — sometime later this year. Being more aggressive on monetization would have given Tumblr more runway to make a leisurely decision about an acquisition, or made the company more attractive to investors if it tried to raise another funding round.

There’s no question, however, that Tumblr is a traffic powerhouse. It ranks ninth on the list of most-popular U.S sites, and with 217 million global monthly unique visitors and 74 million million posts each and every day, the site is both huge and fast-growing. Few companies could monetize its 108 million blogs, 51 billion posts, and 16 billion monthly pageviews as well as Yahoo.

So while Yahoo is likely to come up a little, Karp could pick worse partners. And he might do well to finalize a deal sooner rather than later.

Yahoo invited press today to a product event in New York saying only that it will “share something special” soon after reports that the company is going to buy blog platform Tumblr.

It seems Yahoo has been very product-focused in the months since Marissa Mayer both took the chief executive corner office and demanded that critical employees not work from home. It has done a lot on the mobile front, releasing apps for the weather as well as Yahoo mail, which VentureBeat’s Jolie O’Dell called gorgeous.

The company also recently integrated Summly, a content summarizing technology, to its mobile homepage, providing a summary of a story to help people decide if they want to read it.

In the past month Yahoo has also acquired a number a companies including GoPollGo and Milewise, a polling app and frequent flyer app respectively.

Yesterday, rumors broke out about what would be the biggest acquisition for Yahoo next — a $1 billion deal to buy Tumblr. We may hear more about this deal at the event, which is set for 5 p.m. Eastern on Monday.

Photo credit: earcos via photopin cc

This Boston-based startup provides agencies, brands, media, and retail customers with a platform to publish and effectively distribute content. It has a database of more than 20,000 professional writers that publishers can use to recruit and manage freelancers and keep track of workflow.

“The art of content marketing is in the beauty and quality of the writing itself – its voice and ability to speak to an audience in a personal and compelling way,” the company said on its site. “To excel at the science of web content creation, you need a technology framework to adhere to the 3 Ses of successful content.”

The three in question are “searchable, snackable, and shareable.” Once content is created, Skyword recommends keywords and suggestions for SEO and provides built-in tools for sharing across social media. Skyword also includes analytics so publishers can track marketing and writer performance, social media metrics, and search engine rankings and make editorial decisions accordingly.

Clients include IBM, MarketWatch, and AutoTrader.com. Cox Media Group led this round which will expand the team and help the company meet increasing customer and partner needs, “as content marketing becomes an integral part of brand marketing initiatives.” Skyword was founded in 2010. This brings its total capital raised to $12 million.

Photo Credit: Mike Cogh/Flickr

Electronic Arts’ football franchise is celebrating its 25-year anniversary, and the publisher is teaming with Amazon to start offering preorders for a special version of the new game.

Exclusively at Amazon, players can start preordering the $100 Anniversary Edition. This version comes with bonuses that will get players special in-game items each week of the NFL season. It’s big draw, however, is a special offer from satellite-television service DirecTV.

Gamers that grab the Anniversary Edition will get a coupon that will save them $10 a month on new DirecTV service and a free year of the company’s NFL Sunday Ticket Max. That channel package gives DirecTV subscribers every NFL game of the entire season.

EA claims the $100 box packs over $400 worth of value. DirecTV prices NFL Sunday Ticket Max at $300 on its website.

If you already subscribe to the satellite provider and the standard (non-Max) NFL Sunday Ticket, DirecTV and EA will upgrade your account so that you can watch NFL games on your computer or mobile device.

Finally, if you are unable to subscribe to DirecTV services, the Anniversary Edition will come with a code that will gain customers access to an NFL Sunday Ticket Max trial on computers, tablets, and smartphones. With this, football fans can watch every game of the regular season.

“We’re delighted to offer our fans this special edition to celebrate the franchise they helped build over the last 25 years,” EA Sports senior marketing direct Anthony Stevenson, Sr. said.  “Pairing the ultimate football video game experience with the ultimate viewing experience in DirecTV NFL Sunday Ticket Max will deliver incredible value and excitement all season long.”

---

GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

---

The advertising industry’s top kudos show, the Clio Awards, gave Google the advertiser of the year award for 2013 for creativity and excellence in advertising this week.

Here are some of the best examples:

Google Fiber — and toy cars:

Build with Chrome — and Lego Sydney Harbor Bridges:

100,000 stars (go forth and explore):

And, of course, no gallery of great Google ads would be complete without Dear Sophie:

Image credit: Google; Hat tip: Mashable

Stitcher Radio is rolling out a new feature on its iOS app today that makes it much easier to use the streaming service while driving in a vehicle — which is exactly where radio belongs.

Unlike the majority of streaming audio services, Stitcher focuses entirely on radio shows and podcasts. The company said about 60 percent of listeners are already using the app in their cars, which is why it decided to add a “Car Mode.” Essentially what you’re getting is a new interface that makes the audio player controls easier to see, with larger buttons and very little clutter. Because when you’re driving, you don’t want to be screwing around with a hitting the wrong buttons on a touchscreen.

You can flip on Car Mode by hitting the Stitcher logo at the top of the screen, and you can operate in both landscape or portrait orientations. The new app update also includes a revised front page view with top headlines, access to an archive of favorite shows, a sleep timer, and various improvements that make playback quicker.

The updated Stitcher Radio app is available for free via iTunes App Store.

Working with video rental stores in Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, Domino’s stamped DVDs with heat-sensitive thermal ink and scented varnish. Since DVDs and Blu-Ray players tend to get hot during operation, the discs warm up throughout the movie. By the time the movies ends and you pull the disc out, you’re both seeing an image of pizza on the DVD … and smelling what you could be tasting.

And, in thermal ink, a message invites you to enjoy your next movie with a “hot and delicious” pizza from Domino’s.

Here’s the video:

That’s simply a brilliant marketing campaign. And a very savvy mixture of both high and very standard technology.

While broadband has killed the video rental store in North America and much of Europe, Brazil’s Internet is not quite so robust, according to the marketing agency that created the campaign for Domino’s. So unless you’re wealthy or in a neighborhood with good Internet, chances are, you’re still using DVDs.

photo credit: bunchofpants via photopin cc

If you’re like me, you’re wondering who actually uses Yahoo newsfeed service when there are plenty of popular competitors available. However, for the second time in the last month, the company is making some changes to its newsfeed that will presumably attempt to boost interest and improve the overall experience of reading the news.

Crazy, I know. But this sort of strategy (of doing something instead of, well, nothing) is part of Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer’s plan to revitalize the company’s products through building, buying, and partnering. Back in April, it debuted newly built Yahoo newsfeed advertising units. And now, Yahoo has forged a partnership with Twitter that will bring embedded tweets directly into Yahoo’s U.S. newsfeed service. (See screenshot below.)

“Updates direct from politicians, celebrities, media outlets, and other publishers have become an important source of real-time news and information. 140 characters can connect athletes with their fans, capture live chatter from the red carpet, and inspire global debate,” Mayer wrote on the company’s blog today. “Tweets have become an important information source for many of our users, so we are thrilled to announce our partnership with Twitter to bring Tweets directly into the Yahoo! newsfeed.”

Essentially, that means the news feed will now feature tweets from important people (or even random users if their tweets are relevant) from each respective news genre (celebrity, sports, politics, etc.), lovingly curated by the newsfeed’s editors. Overall, it seems like a pretty good way for  the Yahoo newsfeed to pull in new users, who don’t have time to review all the important updates in their Twitter feed and keep up with the daily news.

The new Twitter integration into Yahoo newsfeed is rolling out now in the U.S., and I’d suspect other regions to follow if this partnership proves successful.

Microsoft employees poked fun at Google this week in a mock advertisement that was never meant to leave the Redmond, Wash. company’s walls.

Of course, it did, and now it’s available for everyone’s (except Google’s) enjoyment.

The video mimics Google’s Chrome advertisement that attendees of Google I/O, the company’s developer conference happening in San Francisco, saw yesterday. The original shows a bouncing Chrome icon that takes you around all the devices and places on the Internet that Chrome connects you. Microsoft’s version, however, has that same icon showing you all the places Google tracks you and makes advertising revenue off of you.

A Microsoft spokesperson confirmed to VentureBeat that the video was, in fact, Microsoft’s doing and that it was intended to remain internal.

Yesterday Google told Microsoft that it needed to remove its YouTube app from the Windows Phone app store. Microsoft created the app independently of Google, which obviously didn’t rub the search giant the right way. Whether this video was a quickly thrown together reaction this or just a product of the general competition between the two companies is unknown. Microsoft and Google compete deeply on many different levels: search products, e-mail services, phones, and cloud storage services.

Here’s the original Chrome advertisement from Google:

Featured image via Microsoft video

Media company and cable TV provider Time Warner Cable is rumored to be reviewing a deal to buy an equity stake in streaming video service Hulu, according to a Wall Street Journal report that cites unnamed sources familiar with the matter.

Hulu’s current owners — News Corp., Disney, and silent owner Comcast  — have disagreed on the best way to grow the service, which initially led to them trying to sell Hulu last year for around $2 billion. When no one came close to that asking price, the Hulu sale was officially terminated. However, renewed interest from several potential buyers made the owners flip-flop once again on the idea of selling.

But not much has changed between now to drastically increase Hulu’s value in the eyes of buyers, which means either the asking price is lower or the owners are exploring alternatives. One of them is apparently adding Time Warner Cable as a minority shareholder. I’m not entirely sure how bringing in another decision-maker to Hulu would be the best idea, especially since News Corp. and Disney already can’t agree on the site’s future business strategy. At the same time, it would give them less liability should Hulu fail.

If true, TWC would definitely get the better end of the deal. Hulu is a great brand when it comes to streaming current prime time TV shows legally. Hulu is seeing record growth in paid subscribers, advertising revenue, and users — not to mention its original content strategy. Time Warner could also forge a deal to offer its cable TV subscribers free access to Hulu, just as other cable providers have done by having them authenticate that they subscribe to a cable TV service package.

But Time Warner Cable isn’t the only company expressing interest in purchasing Hulu. Other potential buyers of the site include Yahoo, Amazon,  Guggenheim Digital Media , and former News Corp. president Peter Chernin with a rumored $500 million offer. WSJ‘s report also indicates that another large TV media company could be interested in buying a partial stake in the company along with Time Warner.

h/t a Bloomberg

This sponsored post is produced by SF MusicTech Summit.

Are you an innovator at the convergence of Internet, music, and technology? One of the entrepreneurs, investors, developers, or press who are building a better future for musicians and fans? If so, the 13th SF MusicTech Summit is for you! It takes place on Tuesday, May 28 at San Francisco’s Hotel Kabuki.

With close to 1,000 attendees and 100 speakers, the SF MusicTech Summit is the best place to connect and do business with the industry leaders who are productively moving the music/technology ecosystem ahead.

See old friends, connect with new ones, do business, and have a great time. Participants come away energized and ready to take on the world. There will be dozens of panels and presentations, elevator pitches, speed networking, and an expo hall and all-day lounge where deals will get done.

Parties the night before and the night of the event also offer ample opportunities to make connections.

Our amazing speakers include mega-producer Jermaine Dupri, Ime Archibong of Facebook, Ken Jordan of The Crystal Method, Judy Estrin of EVNTLive, Jack Conte of Pomplamoose, Stephen Phillips of Twitter #Music, Nick Adler of The Roxy, Nate Auerbach of Tumbler, Mahbod Moghadam of Rap Genius, Caroline Burruss of Austin City Limits Live, Larry Marcus of Walden Venture Capitol, Lewis Gersh of Metamorphic.VC, and many more. View the speaker list.

And the conference participants are just as amazing as those onstage. View the attendee list.

Are you a developer or startup? Here is your chance to showcase your work at our next summit! Enter the “Startup Innovators Showcase Challenge” here: Apply now! Winning startups will be invited to do a one-minute live demo in front of our community members, including: investors, marketers, biz dev, and more, which could lead to great opportunities.

For example, the CEO of Boombotix performed during our recent Elevator Pitch Session. Larry Marcus of Walden Venture Capital was in the crowd, loved what he saw, and went on to lead an investment round.

Will you get those same sort of results at the SF MusicTech Summit? Not guaranteed, of course, but if you aren’t there, it’s guaranteed that you wont.

Use discount code “venturebeat” for 20 percent off, and we’re thrilled that VentureBeat’s own Christina Farr will be hosting the Demo sessions! Hope to see you there. More information, please visit www.sfmusictech.com

Sponsored posts are content that has been produced by a company, which is either paying for the post or has a business relationship with VentureBeat, and they’re always clearly marked. The content of news stories produced by our editorial team is never influenced by advertisers or sponsors in any way. For more information, contact sales@venturebeat.com.