Roundup: Yahoo and Microsoft, Eminem sues Universal, and more
YAYED: Yet Another Yahoo Executive Departs — This time it’s Marco Boerries, the executive vice president in the company’s Connected Device Division, ahead of a pending reorganization under new chief executive Carol Bartz.
Eminem aims lawsuit at Universal Music Group — The successful rapper says the record label owes him $1.6 million in unpaid royalties from digital sales. Hypebot has more.
Ballmer: “I don’t want to wind up being known as the Jerry Yang of this market” — Microsoft chief… Continue Reading
DRM close to extinction on iTunes?
One of my key predictions for 2009 was that Apple’s iTunes store would go DRM-free. There are always a lot of Apple rumors out there, but I was so confident in this one that I actually made the prediction twice. It turns out that may have been a good call, as Apple and the major music labels have come to terms on a deal, reports CNET’s Greg Sandoval.
Sandoval’s source is very specific on the details… Continue Reading
YouTube’s video revolution will be monetized (if the numbers hold)
The online video sharing site YouTube is a great product with a rich community. To say it has a stranglehold on the online video space would be putting it lightly. Yet, as with most things in the tech world, all anyone seems to ever want to talk about YouTube is its monetization. Today, Google, which bought YouTube for $1.65 billion back in 2006, is doing some talking of its own.
In what has to be considered… Continue Reading
Holiday Roundup: Apple devices for store purchases? Digg, and more
The VentureBeat team is mostly taking a much-needed holiday break this week. In the meantime, here’s some of the latest news:
1. Apple devices to offer payment service?
2. Digg tells BusinessWeek that “no acquisitions are in the works” but we’re sticking by our story
3. Amazon Music Store to sell Warner Bros. music
4. Apple’s iTunes to rent Fox Studios movies
5. Web analytics service Compete examines Kayak-Sidestep travel site merger
Apple devices to offer payment service? — The company… Continue Reading
Amazon surges to #3 music store – and four online music stores could be roadkill
Amazon’s music store has only been in business for a month, and rumors are flying that it’s already the #3 online music seller.
It’s still far behind Apple iTunes, but that might change. One rumor even pegs Amazon passing the second largest download site, eMusic, in revenue by the end of this year.
That leaves companies that don’t have a large online presence in a difficult position. Napster, Wal-Mart, Rhapsody and eMusic are all looking vulnerable and… Continue Reading
Roundup: Google’s RSS search, VC sells blog, Veoh sued, Groxis and more
Here’s the latest action:
Google adds search to Reader — In an obvious but very useful move, Google Reader, the company’s web-based RSS feed reader, has added the ability to search through your RSS subscriptions, or the categories and tags you use to organize them. So you can search for words in articles in RSS feeds you’ve subscribed to, without actually having the articles on your screen. Cool!
First venture capitalist to sell his blog: Rob Day… Continue Reading