Roundup: New Android G2 makes an appearance, layoffs hit 300,000, Apple sales slowing
Here’s the latest action:
HTC’s G2 Android phone – Sites like Gizmodo are giving the new Android phone the thumbs up based on working demos available at the Mobile World Congress.
Hacking Caller ID – A service dubbed TrapCall from TelTech Systems of New Jersey lets people figure out who is calling them, even if that caller is trying to stay anonymous by using Caller ID. Now what will obscene pranksters do to hide?
Lots of cash, but no buying… Continue Reading
Apple TV is at a crossroads
It’s nothing new for pundits and bloggers to say what functionality they think should be included in the Apple TV. The device, which brings iTunes and other digital content into the living room by hooking up to your TV, has the potential to be Apple’s next big thing — if it makes the right moves. Today brings two long reports about Apple TV’s future that take what are basically opposite stances.
On one side, you have… Continue Reading
ABC dreams up the way to halt growth in online streaming: Double the ads
I was just as surprised as anyone to find that Hulu, the online video streaming site backed by NBC and Fox, is actually really good. It works because it lets you watch your favorite TV shows when you want to watch them, with commercials that aren’t too intrusive — all for free. The other TV networks have their own systems for online streaming, which, while not as good as Hulu, also work to varying degrees…. Continue Reading
The “secret” behind Hulu in a Super Bowl ad?
Video site Hulu sent an email out today telling people to watch Super Bowl XLIII (that’s 43 for you non-Romans) for the launch of Hulu’s ad campaign. That, in and of itself, is somewhat interesting because the video site backed by two television studios (NBC and Fox) is spending millions of dollars (or rather losing millions of dollars since NBC is airing the Super Bowl) to promote a medium that may ultimately kill television as… Continue Reading
Boxee now lets you get “Lost” in ABC content
The new season of ABC’s hit show Lost premiered last night. Some people (me, for example) were busy and missed it. I was all set to buy the season pass on iTunes — but it’s $50 (in HD). I’d rather watch it for free, streaming at ABC.com, but that leaves me chained to my desk. Or it did until today, because media-center startup Boxee just added ABC support.
The addition expands an already impressive roster of… Continue Reading
Roundup: The Jobs saga continues, Circuit City razed, Hulu apologizes and more
Here’s the latest action:
The Steve Jobs saga continues — Talk about the Apple chief executive and his health issues remain everywhere you look. Newsweek columnist Dan Lyons says the media’s coverage of Apple “bites.” As you might expect after their heated exchange the other day, Lyons focuses on CNBC’s Jim Goldman. Meanwhile, the blog which Goldman criticized for its reporting on Jobs’ failing health initially, Gizmodo, featured a profanity-laced post from its editorial director, Brian Lam,… Continue Reading
Cisco study: U.S. wins TV and mobile-watching world olympics
Cisco Systems has released results from its new Visual Networking Index survey looking at video consumption habits around the world, and some of them may surprise you. Among other things, it gauged people’s attitudes toward online, mobile and television viewing of video content in the U.S., China, Germany and Sweden. Below, we’ve broken down the report’s findings for optimum factoid digestion:
American internet users spend 2.5 as much time watching professionally-produced content (shows and movies created… Continue Reading
YouTube still rules online video, U.S. viewing time leaps 40 percent
The number of videos viewed by Americans increased by 34 percent over the past year with 12.7 billion videos viewed in November 2008 versus 9.5 billion the previous November, according to the latest report from comScore Video Metrix. That means Americans spent a whopping 40 percent more time watching online videos over the course of the year, notes NewTeeVee.
Seventy seven percent of the U.S. internet audience watches online video — that’s a lot of couch… Continue Reading
Hulu traffic not actually suffering from post-Palin depression
Professional video site Hulu saw its traffic plummet after Election Day — a drop as high as 10.8 percent, according to earlier comScore reports. Even though statistics classes emphasize that correlation doesn’t equal causation, it seemed that viewers, who flocked to the web site in droves to watch Saturday Night Live’s hilarious Sarah Palin-skewering skits, lost interest after Tina Fey retired her gun-slinging, caribou-hunting impersonation and Barack Obama t-shirts became even more scarce. Now it… Continue Reading
Hulu will live-stream New Year’s Eve in Times Square so you don’t have to freeze
Hulu will be streaming live coverage of the New Year’s Eve festivities in New York City’s Times Square on Wednesday night starting at 10 p.m. ET. This means you can theoretically watch the famous ball drop from the cozy confines of your couch or bed and be thankful you’re not part of the huddled, freezing masses. But I’m sure you have more exciting plans than that, right?
You can watch the stream here on the site,… Continue Reading
Roundup: Cisco’s digital stereo, Twitter gets authority search, and more
Here’s the latest action:
Cisco offers digital stereo — The shift to digital entertainment is a big change from the company’s roots in routers and Internet pipes.
The Internet does another round of arguing about Twitter — Loic Le Meur, founder of video site Seesmic, sparked a discussion about the micro-blogging site Twitter by suggesting that the service should allow users to search by something he calls “authority.” Frankly, I got bored with the debate pretty quickly, but hey… Continue Reading
Watch this: Our top ten videos of 2008
The best viral videos of 2008 weren’t necessarily the ones that got the most page views, in my humble opinion. Or the list below would feature Fred — whose helium and sugar-fueled antics often make me want to chuck my dying laptop out the window — a music video, or Paris Hilton.
Here’s the final countdown, with more videos after the jump. While you’ve likely seen a few on the list, there should be a couple… Continue Reading
Hulu’s holiday gift to you: three documentaries
When anyone says “holiday specials,” I think of of Charlie Brown, Frosty the Snowman and Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. Hulu’s Holiday offering, however, is a bit more educational — the site is adding three new documentaries to its rapidly-growing roster of films.
Today, Hulu is premiering its second exclusive film, Speed and Angels, which follows two Navy fighter pilots over two and a half years, from training in Nevada to their deployment to Iraq.
Amos ‘n’ Andy:… Continue Reading
SNL’s Andy Samberg rules YouTube, not Hulu
Hulu is an online joint venture between NBC Universal and News Corp, but it’s not the site that’s fueling the traffic for one very popular NBC video, according to a report in AdAge.
Saturday Night Live star Andy Samberg’s production company, The Lonely Island, uploaded its “Jizz in My Pants” music video to Google-owned YouTube. The not-safe-for-work video (at least not without headphones) has gained more than seven million views and more than 28,000 comments, making… Continue Reading
Boxee adds Netflix support, but not for the Apple TV…yet
As set-top boxes that stream content over the internet to your TV become more popular, certain elements are starting to stand out to differentiate the best ones. Recently, the most popular of these elements is Netflix support. Roku has it, TiVo has it, some Blu-ray players have it and now even the Xbox 360 has it. So it makes sense that Boxee, the digital interface software company that hopes to land deals to get on… Continue Reading
You’ll love Sling.com if you have a Slingbox or can’t live without CBS — otherwise you’ll still love Hulu
Sling Media, makers of the Slingbox, have just opened up their television streaming site, Sling.com, to the public. The service, which is not only just like Hulu but actually streams some of Hulu’s content as well, also allows you to watch any content you have on your Slingbox at home right on your browser. That’s a nice feature, but it’s hardly enough to make the masses turn to Sling.com rather than Hulu. That will only… Continue Reading
Hulu could catch YouTube in 2009 — in revenue, not traffic
Maybe you’ve read some of the headlines this morning about the NBC and Fox-backed online video site Hulu “catching” or getting “bigger” than YouTube. Hopefully you read deeper into those articles, because while the headlines suggest that Hulu is catching YouTube in traffic, that’s not the case. What they mean to say is that Hulu could match YouTube’s U.S. revenue by next year, according to The Financial Times.
And really, that’s not all that surprising. Everyone knows… Continue Reading
NewTeeVee Live: CEO Jason Kilar explains why we are so addicted to Hulu
Jason Kilar, chief executive of Hulu, the online streaming video site backed by NBC and Fox, delivered a keynote at the NewTeeVee Live conference in San Francisco today.
Kilar’s talk focused on what drives the Hulu team, what inspires the product they create and what they believe has contributed to the site’s astounding success and results. It reinforced the ongoing trend that a lot of advertisers are gravitating towards this market, especially because they can better… Continue Reading
MySpace’s Primetime App launches, Hulu invades homepages and profiles
MySpace has just launched its internally developed Primetime Application, a free video service that it hopes will keep users glued to their screens. How? Four words: Every. Video. On. Hulu. That’s right. MySpace users will now be able to view every single video from online video service Hulu on their MySpace homepages and profiles, plus MySpaceTV originals, and videos from more than 150 licensed content partners, including Warner Bros and Sony. The app embeds the… Continue Reading
Finally, I can avoid watching Bulletproof Monk on YouTube too
YouTube is set to announce a deal with movie studio MGM that will allow for some of its content to be viewed on the extremely popular online video site, The New York Times reports. This deal, which had been previously rumored (though the studio involved wasn’t clear at the time), will bring feature films to YouTube — legally. That’s big news, but it’s not all great news.
While it always seemed likely that any studio would… Continue Reading