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Monday, April 25, 2011

Netflix 1Q earnings soar on gain of 3.6M customers (AP) : Technet

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Netflix 1Q earnings soar on gain of 3.6M customers (AP) : Technet

Netflix 1Q earnings soar on gain of 3.6M customers (AP)

Posted: 25 Apr 2011 05:06 PM PDT

By MICHAEL LIEDTKE, AP Technology Writer Michael Liedtke, Ap Technology Writer – Mon Apr 25, 8:06 pm ET

SAN FRANCISCO – Netflix Inc. delivered another rousing performance in the first quarter, with its video subscription service attracting 3.6 million more customers to boost its U.S. audience to roughly the same size as the country's largest cable-TV carrier, Comcast Corp.

But the accomplishments announced Monday were overshadowed by a disappointing forecast for the current quarter, a period when Netflix's subscriber growth always slows because people are taking vacations and spending more time outdoors.

The cautious outlook rattled some investors already worried that Netflix's earnings will be squeezed as the company faces more competition in the Internet video-streaming market. Netflix's early success in streaming movies and TV shows over high-speed Internet connections has propelled a prosperous stretch that has increased the company's stock price by about eightfold since the end of 2008.

The shares backtracked Monday, retreating $13.27, or 5.3 percent, to $238.40 in extending trading after Netflix's first-quarter numbers and outlook came out.

After adding more than 3 million customers for the second-consecutive quarter, Netflix ended March with 23.6 million subscribers in the U.S. and Canada. Of that total, 22.8 million are in the U.S. — the same number of households subscribing to Comcast's cable-TV service at the end of December. Comcast is scheduled to release its March numbers next week when it reports its first-quarter results.

Netflix, which is based in Los Gatos, is now part of the entertainment menu in about one in every five U.S. households.

"What's really clear is consumers love Netflix streaming," CEO Reed Hastings said in a Monday interview.

Hastings, though, said he doesn't view Netflix as a threat to Comcast. He believes most consumers still consider cable TV to be more indispensible than video streaming.

As a result, he has been trying to position Netflix's video streaming service as an ally that could help Comcast and other cable providers attract and retain more subscribers for their high-speed Internet services.

But some Internet service providers are starting to crack down on heavy users of Netflix's streaming service by threatening to impose surcharges on households whose downloads exceed certain limits. Netflix responded to new limits imposed by Rogers Communications Inc. in Canada by reprogramming its streaming service in that country so it would devour less bandwidth.

Netflix earned $60.2 million, or $1.11 per share, during the first quarter. That was up 87 percent from $32.3 million, or 59 cents per share, at the same time last year.

The results were 4 cents per share above the average estimate among analysts surveyed by FactSet.

Revenue rose 46 percent to $719 million about $13 million above analyst estimates.

Netflix charges $8 per month to stream movies and TV shows over high-speed Internet connections. Most customers pay a little more per month so they can also rent DVDs delivered through the mail. The company's average subscription price stood at nearly $12 in the first quarter, down from $12.90 in the previous year, and management expects further declines as more customers stop renting DVDs.

The company is trying to nudge its subscribers to stream video more frequently to help lower its postal expenses. In the process, Netflix hopes to free up more money to buy more compelling material for its streaming library, which is currently stocked with more than 20,000 titles.

Netflix spent $192 million on streaming rights in the first quarter, nearly quadrupling the amount spent at the same time last year.

The company's recent success emboldened Netflix to expand its streaming service into Canada last fall. Netflix plans to enter another market outside the U.S. in the second half of this year and then move into another country early next year.

As usual, Netflix expects its growth to taper off in the spring and summer. Management is gearing up for an additional 1.3 million to 2.25 million subscribers in the second quarter, an improvement over the 1 million attracted during last year's April-June period.

. The company projected earnings of as much as $1.15 per share for the second quarter, below the average analyst estimate of $1.19, according to FactSet.

Nintendo says successor to Wii coming in 2012 (AP)

Posted: 25 Apr 2011 09:06 AM PDT

By PETER SVENSSON, AP Technology Writer Peter Svensson, Ap Technology Writer – Mon Apr 25, 12:06 pm ET

NEW YORK – The successor to Nintendo's hit Wii console will arrive next year.

In disclosing its plans Monday, Nintendo Co. didn't say what the new system will do. The Japanese company plans to show a playable model of the new console at the Electronic Entertainment Expo, which runs June 7-9 in Los Angeles.

Nintendo has dominated sales of video game consoles and sold 86 million Wiis since launching it in 2006. The Wii caused a splash with its innovative motion-sensing controller. Sports-style games such as baseball and boxing let players move their arms to simulate the pitching of a ball or the throwing of a punch. Nintendo also makes a step-board accessory, the Wii Fit, that allows players to try dance steps or yoga.

The Wii setup has been copied and elaborated on by the other major console makers since then.

But the Wii is showing its age. Even when it launched, it was behind the other consoles of the era, Sony Corp.'s PlayStation 3 and Microsoft Corp.'s Xbox 360, in not offering a high-definition image.

The modest hardware of the Wii has also meant that while Sony and Microsoft have been able to update their consoles with new capabilities, the Wii has seen only relatively minor updates, such as addition of the optional Wii Fit and the ability to play Netflix movies.

Microsoft launched its Kinect game-control system last fall. Using a 3-D camera, depth sensors and voice-recognition software, it recognizes your face, voice and gestures as you move around and talk, without requiring you to hold a controller or wear a headset. Sony, meanwhile, began selling a Move controller that is essentially a higher-tech version of the Wii remote.

Nintendo announced plans for the Wii successor as part of its financial results Monday. Nintendo said its annual earnings dropped for the second straight year as sales declined. It's expecting sales to increase again in the fiscal year that just started, thanks to its new handheld 3DS device, which launched last month.

Yahoo acquisition adds way to share TV show info (AP)

Posted: 25 Apr 2011 10:02 AM PDT

– Mon Apr 25, 1:02 pm ET

SUNNYVALE, Calif. – Yahoo Inc. has bought the maker of mobile software that makes it easier for people to let their friends know what TV shows they're watching.

The deal to buy IntoNow, announced Monday, is part of Yahoo's effort to provide more information-sharing services. The company, which is based in Sunnyvale, Calif., is trying to give people more reasons to stay on its website and services instead of increasingly popular online hangouts such as Facebook and Twitter.

Financial terms weren't disclosed.

IntoNow also lets viewers identify their favorite TV commercials, a feature that might open up ways for Yahoo to sell more ads in its online videos.

Although its website still ranks among the Internet's top destinations, Yahoo's growth in ad revenue hasn't kept pace with the rest of the Web.

The shortfall has hurt Yahoo's stock price, which has been in the doldrums since the company balked at a chance to sell itself to Microsoft Corp. for $33 per share nearly three years ago. Yahoo shares gained 41 cents, or 2.4 percent, to $17.26 in early afternoon Monday as investors reacted to the latest speculation that the company's struggles might trigger another takeover attempt.

IntoNow, which is based in Palo Alto, Calif., has seven employees. The 3-month-old startup is run by Adam Cahan, who formerly worked at Google Inc. and Viacom Inc.'s MTV.

Facebook's New Deals Product Coming to Five Cities Tomorrow (Mashable)

Posted: 25 Apr 2011 03:08 PM PDT

Jolie O'Dell Jolie O'dell – Mon Apr 25, 6:08 pm ET

Facebook is finally launching local Deals -- a feature that will compete with Groupon's core product, not Foursquare's -- in five cities starting Tuesday.

The five communities in question are San Francisco, Austin, Dallas, Atlanta and San Diego. Facebook revealed to The New York Times that the local offers made to Deals users will be delivered via email and will also appear in users' news feeds.

Any Facebook user can sign up for Deals notifications on the feature's landing page now; users in the five test cities will be able to see and use Deals within a few hours of the writing of this post.

UPDATE: We've now got screenshots of the all-new Deals.

Facebook's first local deals product was announced as part of Facebook's overarching locations feature, Places. Mobile check-ins were linked to deals; in this way, Deals served as an incentive for Facebook users to integrate Facebook Places in their daily lives -- and they were also an incentive for marketers and major brands to put more money into the Facebook platform. Facebook even briefly launched a page to let web users find these checkin-focused deals on the web.

However, the new Deals will be less like a Foursquare coupon awarded to the user after a checkin and more like a Groupon voucher, which means the user will buy a certificate for a certain good or service at a steep discount, typically half off its retail price, then redeem it later.

Examples of the new breed of Facebook Deals from brands include "unlimited bowling with six friends for an evening for $60 (75% off)" and "luxury winery tour and 25% off all wine purchases for $50."

Perhaps most importantly, users will be able to buy Deals using Facebook Credits, paving a smooth path between a virtual currency and real-world goods and services. We suspected Facebook had plans to bring Credits to the real world since around the time of f8, the company's developer conference, when Facebook announced its ambitious Open Graph.

Users will also be able to buy Deals with major credit cards.

Stay tuned for more information, specific deals and screenshots in a few hours.

Image based on a photo from Flickr user nathangibbs.

PlayStation Network Outage Blamed on 'External Intrusion' (NewsFactor)

Posted: 25 Apr 2011 02:05 PM PDT

Barry Levine, newsfactor.com Barry Levine, newsfactor.com – Mon Apr 25, 5:05 pm ET

Sony's PlayStation Network and its Qriocity music service were still down Monday afternoon, with no word on when they will be back online. On Friday, the company reported that the downtime was caused by "an external intrusion" to both services.

Patrick Seybold, senior director of corporate communications and social media, posted on the company's PlayStation Blog on Friday that, "in order to conduct a thorough investigation and to verify the smooth and secure operation of our network services going forward," both PlayStation Network and Qriocity were turned last Wednesday. Sony has noted that it doesn't know the degree to which personal data might have been compromised.

'For Once We Didn't Do It'

On Monday, Seybold posted that he knows users are "waiting for additional information on when PlayStation Network and Qriocity services will be online." He added that, "unfortunately, I don't have an update or time frame."

With several major new game titles coming out this week, the timing of the outage is particularly suspicious. Many observers have speculated that the "external intrusion" was caused by the Anonymous hacker group.

But Anonymous denies involvement, while simultaneously posting updates to its Facebook page that suggest it could have been involved. On its AnonNews web site, where anyone can post, there is a notice dated Friday titled For Once We Didn't Do It. The posting noted that, while some individual Anons could "have acted by themselves," AnonOps was not involved and "does not take responsibility for whatever has happened."

The posting added that the "more likely explanation is that Sony is taking advantage of Anonymous' previous ill will toward the company to distract users from the fact that the outage is actually an internal problem with the company's servers."

'No Qualms'

However, on Anonymous' Facebook page, the page owner posted in a discussion of the outage last week that "we have no qualms about our actions."

In early April, several Sony sites were brought down by members of Anonymous, the hacker group known for its politically oriented online attacks. The sites included Sony.com, Style.com and the U.S. site for PlayStation.

Before the attacks on the Sony sites, Anonymous had announced it would target the company because of Sony's lawsuit against a user named George Hotz. Sony had filed and received a restraining order against Hotz and other hackers for allegedly jailbreaking the PlayStation 3 game console in order to run unauthorized software such as pirated games, and for providing software tools for others to do the same.

Sony had also sought and received access to Hotz' social-media accounts, and the IP addresses of visitors to his web site. The company also obtained access to his PayPal account to see donations in support of his jailbreaking efforts.

In an open letter to Sony, Anonymous said Sony "abused the judicial system in an attempt to censor information on how your products work." It added that the company "victimized your own customers merely for possessing and sharing information," and said these actions meant Sony had "violated the privacy of thousands."

Sony and Hotz reached a settlement several weeks ago. The terms of the agreement were not made public, although Hotz agreed to a permanent injunction.

U.S. surpasses UK in online coverage of Will and Kate (Reuters)

Posted: 25 Apr 2011 01:34 PM PDT

– Mon Apr 25, 4:34 pm ET

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – America's romance with royalty is blooming, just four days away from Prince William's marriage to Kate Middleton.

The Web sites of traditional media outlets in the United States have taken a front-row seat for Britain's royal wedding, outpacing the online coverage of their U.K. counterparts, Nielsen Co said on Monday.

The royal wedding accounts for 0.20 percent of all news stories on the online versions of U.S. newspapers and magazines, compared to 0.08 percent for U.K. outlets, the research firm said.

U.S. media have devoted more coverage to the couple than media in the U.K. ever since their engagement was announced in November, when the number of online stories about their romance peaked for all news outlets.

Back then, news stories about the nuptials accounted for 0.31 percent of all online news content, compared to 0.19 percent for their U.K. counterparts, Nielsen said.

But that does not tell the whole story, because there are indications the British public remains more interested in the royal wedding than most Americans.

When Nielsen researchers looked at social media buzz, including blog posts and online message boards, the royal wedding at its peak accounted for 0.47 percent of all posts, compared to only 0.17 percent in the United States.

For media outlets and fans of British royalty, the waiting game is about to come to an end. William and Kate's wedding will happen on Friday at Westminster Abbey in London.

(Reporting by Alex Dobuzinskis: Editing by Dean Goodman)

Vick, Humane Society say app glorifies dogfighting (AP)

Posted: 25 Apr 2011 08:41 PM PDT

– 41 mins ago

SAN FRANCISCO – Michael Vick and the Humane Society said on Monday that an application built to run on Google Inc.'s Android software glorifies dogfighting.

The cellphone app is called "Dog Wars" and lets players feed, water, train and fight their virtual dogs against others.

"I've come to learn the hard way that dogfighting is a dead-end street," Vick said in a statement posted on the Humane Society's website. "Now, I am on the right side of this issue, and I think it's important to send the smart message to kids, and not glorify this form of animal cruelty, even in an Android app."

The app is by Kage Games, whose website features an illustration of a pit bull with a bloody muzzle next to the 'Dog Wars' logo.

A website where the app can be downloaded stresses that it is only a video game. "Perhaps one day we will make gerbil wars or beta fish wars for people who can't understand fantasy role play games," it says.

Humane Society President Wayne Pacelle said, however, the game could be used as virtual training ground for would-be dogfighters.

"Android should drop 'Dog Wars' from its online market and join the national movement to save dogs from this violent practice," Pacelle said in a statement.

The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals and other groups also called for the app to be pulled.

Vick was once the NFL's highest-paid player but was arrested in 2007 and convicted on dogfighting charges, for which he served 18 months in federal prison. He returned to the league in 2009 and is now a star quarterback for the Philadelphia Eagles.

Google did not immediately respond to messages seeking comment.

Android phones keep track of their owners, too -- but they ask (Appolicious)

Posted: 25 Apr 2011 04:30 PM PDT

Facebook launches deals program, rivals Groupon (AP)

Posted: 25 Apr 2011 09:08 PM PDT

By ELLEN GIBSON, AP Retail Writer Ellen Gibson, Ap Retail Writer – 1 min ago

What happens when you cross the world's largest social network with one of the hottest business models in e-commerce? Facebook wants to find out.

Facebook is launching a deals program Tuesday in five U.S. cities, following on the popularity of Groupon and other services that offer deep discounts — for example: $50 worth of food at a local eatery for $25.

By allowing small businesses to leverage the Internet while helping consumers score great deals, these group-couponing services have become some of the fastest-growing businesses in the world.

Facebook now wants a part of that. It hopes to exploit its existing networks of friends and family when it begins testing offers in San Diego, San Francisco, Atlanta, Dallas and Austin, Texas.

Many deals sites have a social component. For instance, if you get three friends to buy a LivingSocial voucher, yours is free. Groupon's offers become valid only after a certain number of people purchase them.

But the deals are circulated to users through email, and the community aspect is secondary.

Facebook is hoping to change that.

"We're building a product that is social from the ground up," says Emily White, director of local for Facebook. "All of these deals are things you want to do with friends, so no teeth whitening, but yes to river rafting."

Starting Tuesday, when Facebook users in the five test markets log into the site, they will see a deals insignia at the bottom of the page.

Clicking on it brings up a list of currently available offers. A user can buy one, click the "like" button to recommend it to others or share the offer with friends through Facebook's private messaging system. When users purchase or "like" a deal, it shows up in their friends' news feed.

That means "the discovery of the product can happen in lots of different places," White says.

To get the program started, Facebook has enlisted 11 companies that already supply deals elsewhere. Restaurant reservation service OpenTable will broadcast offers for local eateries, while online ticket seller Viagogo will market events.

Not all offers involve discounts. Some are experiences people may not otherwise have access to, such as a backstage pass to Austin City Limits concerts, a tour of the Dallas Cowboys' new stadium, or a children's sleepover at the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco with live-snake demos.

In some cases, you'll get a "friend bonus" — an additional discount — if at least one other person in your social network buys a deal.

Leveraging social tools and direct sharing among friends will be "a key to success for daily deal companies" going forward, says Lou Kerner, social media analyst at Wedbush.

This is not the first time a social network has made a foray into disseminating deals. Twitter launched its own daily deal program called Earlybird Offers last year but canceled it after just two months. Last November Facebook launched a product called Check-in Deals that allowed users to "check in" via their mobile phones when they visit certain businesses and in turn receive discounts and other special offers. Location-based social network Foursquare has a similar program.

Offers through Facebook can last anywhere from a day to a week. The social network won't disclose how much commission it takes. (With Groupon and others, the deal site typically takes up to half the revenue.)

There are hundreds of Groupon copycats willing to accept lower commissions, but many small businesses prefer to partner with larger companies such as Groupon and LivingSocial because they reach more potential customers.

Facebook will bring deals to even more people. While Groupon has 70 million members and LivingSocial has 28 million, Facebook has 500 million people worldwide.

Add to that the fact that many small businesses already have a Facebook presence, and the social network becomes a good fit for daily deals, says Greg Sterling, senior analyst for Opus Research.

As a share of overall Web surfing, visits to group-buying sites grew ten-fold over the past year, according to research firm Experian. LivingSocial had 7 million unique visitors in March, up 27 percent from February, making it one of the 10 fastest-growing websites in the U.S., according to ComScore.

"Groupon and LivingSocial have shown how much demand there is out there," Sterling says. "Facebook, if they do this right, can have a big hit on their hands."

Nintendo CEO: alliances with other firms may be needed (Reuters)

Posted: 25 Apr 2011 08:22 PM PDT

– 1 hr 1 min ago

TOKYO (Reuters) – Nintendo said on Tuesday that alliances with other companies may be necessary, a day after the game maker reported its second straight fall in annual profit and said it would launch a successor to its aging Wii console.

"I now regret that we didn't tie up with someone outside the company to market the Wii. If we had done that, the fate of the Wii might have been different," Chief Executive Satoru Iwata said at a conference for investors and analysts.

"Now I am aware that we should not rely too much on ourselves. You will see what I mean by this when we market the 3DS and the Wii in the future."

(Reporting by Junko Fujita; Editing by Michael Watson)

Moguls, Your Industry Blog Has Arrived (Mashable)

Posted: 25 Apr 2011 12:18 PM PDT

Lauren Indvik Lauren Indvik – Mon Apr 25, 3:18 pm ET

Monday morning, Dan Abrams launched Mogulite, the seventh blog in the portfolio of niche content sites that make up Abrams Media.

Building off the success of Abrams's leading site Mediaite, which publishes stories about big-wig media personalities to an audience of 1.7 million unique viewers per month, Mogulite aims to chronicle the moves and attitudes of leaders in the tech, entertainment and finance industries, among others.

In tone, it most closely resembles The Observer; in content, Business Insider and Gawker. On Mogulite, editor Amy Terney says, one can expect to discover which luminary celebrated New Year's Eve 2005 by singing Johnny Cash songs with Usher, and learn about the financial titan who was able to sidestep a $900 million insider-trading suit by donating $100 million to his own charitable fund -- useful knowledge, it seems, to some.

Its target audience? Aspiring moguls, "those who simply like to gaze at wildly successful people from afar," and the moguls themselves of course, says Abrams.

Like the others Abrams Media properties, Mogulite will be produced by a small staff -- in this case, two editors, plus part-time consulting editor Peter Lauria -- and funded by display advertising. Men's clothing brand Bonobos is the launch sponsor, and Abrams says the site expects to have the support of a "major liquor sponsor" beginning mid-May.

Abrams Media has been in the red since its founding in 2009, but Abrams assures us that it will profitable this year.

"In January and February we were profitable but based on expenses and ad dollars we were not in March and April," Abrams says. "We will be back in the black in May and I hope, and expect, that we will stay there," he adds, noting that most of the company's revenue comes from ads on its flagship site Mediate, which has a staff of six.

The startup plans to expand its events business and begin selling spots on its job boards to supplement advertising revenues.

Mogulite is not the only site Abrams plans to launch this year. "We are going to launch two or maybe three more sites this year," Abrams says. "I have not made a final decision on what industries they will cover, but they will focus on discrete personalities within particular communities."

Get away fast with gorgeous Jetsetter for iPad (Appolicious)

Posted: 25 Apr 2011 05:00 PM PDT

AT&T to sell portable antenna (Investor's Business Daily)

Posted: 25 Apr 2011 03:28 PM PDT

– Mon Apr 25, 6:28 pm ET

The telecom giant's new cellular antenna will let users provide their own wireless service in remote or disaster-stricken areas. One product can fit into a suitcase and handle 14 simultaneous calls and data at less-than-broadband speeds. In a disaster, first responders could deploy the AT&T (NYSE:T - News) system immediately instead of waiting for a phone company to restore service with a truck that acts like a mobile cell tower. Shares slipped 0.4% to 30.55.

Amazon woes prove we can't have blind faith in the cloud (Digital Trends)

Posted: 25 Apr 2011 04:02 PM PDT

Molly McHugh Molly Mchugh – Mon Apr 25, 7:02 pm ET

cloud crashAs Amazon's cloud catastrophe stretches into day five, you can just feel the "I told you so's" about to make an appearance. The cloud has been getting a lot of attention recently, largely thanks to Google and Apple's forthcoming digital music services, and with the hype has come plenty of skepticism.

Amazon was able to restore service for the majority of its cloud customers but even today is still experiencing some issues. According to Amazon's service health dashboard, some accounts are being held up by its elastic block storage (EBS) service, resulting in slow site performance. CRN reports that Amazon attributed most of the problems to this glitch: "As we posted last night, EBS is now operating normally for all APIs and recovered EBS volumes. The vast majority of affected volumes have now been recovered. We're in the process of contacting a limited number of customers who have EBS volumes that have not yet recovered and will continue to work hard on restoring these remaining volumes."

While Amazon's cloud storage debacle is coming to a close, there's ample opportunity for repeat scenarios out there. We're seeing a variety of cloud-based services coming out of the woodwork: It's not just always-accessible music and video streaming in our midst either; there are cloud-dependent devices like Google's Cr-48 notebook. With the cloud come undeniable benefits, but as with anything new and innovative, there are some things to worry about. The last few days have underscored two major cloud vulnerabilities.

Privacy

It's universally accepted that if you want to keep something a secret, don't let it within 10 feet of the Internet. Dropbox has lost some user confidence lately for not thoroughly explaining its privacy policy when though it provides a home for millions of users' data and documents. Saving something to the cloud means you're sacrificing just a little control over its whereabouts, a scary idea depending on what you're saving. If it's the occasional file, like a resume or family photo, there isn't too much to worry about. But if you're deferring to the cloud as your storage weapon of choice, you know that you're taking at least a small security risk.

Of course, everyone's information is up for grabs. Even if you don't have an Internet connection and the FBI wants to get its hands on your files, it will obtain a warrant and seize your computer. That just involves a few more steps. Criminals can break into your home and take your social security card if they really want to – just like a determined hacker could possibly get to something you've saved with a cloud-storage system. The PlayStation Network has been down for days now after being hacked and there's concern user identity and information is in danger. That's just the reality of the situation.

Outages

Recent events have brought this concern into focus. Various websites saw their sites go without service for days, a frustrating and costly experience. And there's the distinct possibility that as these cloud-based options grow in popularity, there will be discount services. Services that might not have the capacity to meet demand, and then you've got a recipe for outages on your hand. It could simply mean you can't get to your media library for a few days and you'll have to wait to listen to your music or watch your movies until the site is functioning. Or you could lose access to work documents or flight information that you've saved to the cloud only.

These aren't entirely unexpected, but they are manifesting somewhat rapidly as the cloud trend catches on. It's enough to reaffirm your belief in external hard drives – not that ours ever wavered.

Why Was Yahoo So Hot To Acquire iPhone App Maker IntoNow? (PC World)

Posted: 25 Apr 2011 04:20 PM PDT

Lisa Greim Lisa Greim – Mon Apr 25, 7:20 pm ET

Yahoo just paid $27 million for iPhone app maker IntoNow.

What in the world is IntoNow? Why does Yahoo want this company, which launched 12 weeks ago and has all of seven employees? And why should anybody care?

Short answers first:

  • IntoNow makes an iPhone app that enables you to tell your network of friends about the cool TV show, movie, game or commercial you're watching.'
  • Yahoo wants it because it dovetails into all the areas people are talking about right now: Mobile, video and connected TV.
  • You should care because it tells the immediate universe that you just watched an Audi commercial.
Personally, I would only be impressed with such a feature if it sent a brand-new, fully loaded Audi A6 up my driveway. Pulling a trailer with a pony. Driven by the Old Spice Guy. For free. But I digress.

Scripps Network's Wes Williams, who blogs at Interactive TV Today, described the IntoNow app as "like Shazam meets TV meets Foursquare." It picks up audio of the TV show you're watching, identifies it, tags it and shares the information on social networks. CEO Adam Cahan says the Yahoo cash will enable IntoNow to move into new parts of the world and extend the app to Android, iPad and other platforms.

The technology, a proprietary indexing system called SoundPrint, is genuinely cool. According to IntoNow, its database contains the equivalent of 266 years of indexed video, and its algorithms can identify programming "down to the episode" in 4 to 12 seconds, even if the show is brand spanking new.

You don't have to be friends with people to look at their profiles or see what they're watching. In fact, IntoNow runs a Twitter-like feed right there on its homepage that tells me Mario G. is watching "Sports Center" while Jim C. is watching "Good Will Hunting."

The "Why?" is more complicated. From the IntoNow blog: "We want you to connect with your friends to make television more social, engaging and personalized. It's what you're into, what you're doing right now, and there should be an easy way to share that with your friends. Along the way we hope you discover more shows you should be into... we certainly have."

Here Come the Ads

That's the consumer "Why?" The business why is more insidious, especially if you've been paying attention to last week's news that Apple iPhones and Google Android devices reveal where you've been. Several companies previewed automatic content recognition apps at this year's National Association of Broadcasters confab. One, called Vobile, said "Mobile applications that integrate with Vobile ACR technology will drive advanced advertising models and enable synchronization of content between TV and mobile devices, such as smartphones and tablets."

Yes indeed! Advertisers will be able to push content to your smartphone or tablet, so you get the groovy cola game or coupon for pizza while the commercial is still smacking your eyeballs. It's everything an adman could want: Immediacy, reach, frequency, personalization, monetization and a whole bunch of other -ations that may or may not have anything to do with "making television more social, engaging and personalized."

Doesn't that make you want to run screaming into the night? It made Yahoo want to spend $27 million.

This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

Verizon Partners With BoxTone on Mobile Management (PC World)

Posted: 25 Apr 2011 12:40 PM PDT

Nancy Gohring Nancy Gohring – Mon Apr 25, 3:40 pm ET

Verizon Wireless on Monday said it is now offering enterprises BoxTone's mobile device management software, allowing some customers to pay for the software on their Verizon Wireless bills.

BoxTone offers mobile device management software as well as an automated service desk product and compliance tools.

BoxTone's software lets IT administrators remotely monitor the health of phones in the enterprise. They can look up the real-time status of a phone, see what applications are running on it, monitor the connection between the phone and the enterprise, check on the wireless connection and see other performance metrics, said Brian Reed, chief marketing officer for BoxTone.

BoxTone also offers software that IT administrators can use to serve as a help desk for employees. "It's hopeless to expect a junior IT person to support hundreds of devices. You'd never be able to train all your people to support all these different devices," he said. Last week, BoxTone released a new version of the product that lets IT staff access compliance information from the service desk console.

The support feature is one that BoxTone argues many mobile-device-management service providers ignore. "They're missing the fact that it's not 'set it and forget it.' Once you have 90 percent of employees using mobile devices, they will call your help desk," he said.

With the service desk console, an IT person can look up an employee who calls for help and see what kind of phone the worker has. The IT person will be able to see when it's not configured correctly, which would explain why the caller isn't receiving voice mail, for example. IT administrators can remotely repair the issue.

The new version of BoxTone also adds a compliance engine that monitors for risk and enforces corrections so users stay in compliance. The software integrates with existing IT policy management software and Active Directory, so IT workers don't have to treat mobile like a separate system.

For instance, when an employee quits, the IT department should cut off the employee's remote access to corporate data. With the new version of BoxTone, "when you cut off all user access, it propagates out to the mobile device and makes sure the mobile device is cut off and company data is wiped," Reed said.

Without a product like BoxTone, cutting off that employee's mobile device would require an IT administrator to log into a separate system and manually make the permission changes.

Enterprises can opt to use individual components of BoxTone's offerings, including the mobile device management software, the help desk capabilities or the compliance tools.

In a statement, Verizon said that as enterprises start using more mobile phones and from a variety of vendors, they must be able to control the devices and BoxTone can help them do that. Some enterprises will be eligible to add BoxTone's software license cost to their Verizon Wireless bill, it said.

IT managers are increasingly looking for ways to manage both the growing number of phones in the enterprise and the different kinds of devices employees are using. "It used to be 10 or 20 percent used phones and they were BlackBerrys," said Reed. "Now there are 100 different kinds of devices with a half a dozen mobile operating systems connecting to the enterprise."

Nancy Gohring covers mobile phones and cloud computing for The IDG News Service. Follow Nancy on Twitter at @idgnancy. Nancy's e-mail address is Nancy_Gohring@idg.com

Amazon EC2 Outage Shows Risks of Cloud (PC World)

Posted: 25 Apr 2011 12:36 PM PDT

Tony Bradley Tony Bradley – Mon Apr 25, 3:36 pm ET

Amazon's EC2 cloud went dark last week--knocking sites like Foursquare, Reddit, and Quora offline, and affecting hundreds of Amazon cloud customers. The outage is a black eye for the young cloud services industry and gives businesses a reason to think twice about trusting servers or data storage in the cloud.

The sales pitch for the cloud is like a travel brochure, or a military recruiting speech. They tell you all of the features and benefits--cost-effective, scalable, resilient--but fail to mention the down sides like the fact that if the cloud data center is offline, so is your business.

So, does that mean that the cloud is just too risky, and that you should avoid using cloud servers or storage? No. Not at all. There are still benefits to using cloud-based servers and storage, but the cloud has to be treated like any other technology your company relies on.

Box.net CEO Aaron Levie commented, "At Box, we run our site from multiple data centers, so in the event of an outage we're still able to successfully serve the application and data to our customers without interruption."

Obviously, Amazon has to determine the root cause and has some explaining to do to the affected customers. But, rather than simply embracing the cloud and entrusting your business-critical processing and data to it, you need to have a plan in place for situations like the Amazon outage. Don't use cloud services unless you can adequately answer the question "what happens to my business if the cloud service in unavailable?"

SmugMug managed to avoid being affected by the Amazon outage, and CEO Dan MacAskill explains in a blog post, "Any of our instances, or any group of instances in an AZ (Availability Zone), can be "shot in the head" and our system will recover (with some caveats - but they're known, understood, and tested)."

While Amazon's AZs do offer some level of redundancy for your cloud services, the Amazon outage proved that it is possible for multiple AZs to be impacted at once, making that solution inadequate in some situations. An alternative approach would be to contract cloud services from multiple vendors and implement your own redundancy to protect your business from any one cloud service outage.

Levie summed up, though, with a reminder for those who might be gun-shy about the cloud as a result of the Amazon outage. "It's also important to keep in mind that the overall uptime of cloud services greatly outperforms on-premise infrastructure in the case of vendors like Google, Salesforce and Box, freeing up IT departments to focus on strategic initiatives rather than maintenance."

So, the cloud is imperfect, but if you plan for failure and treat the cloud as you would any other server or data storage on your network, there is no reason your business can't safely enjoy the benefits the cloud has to offer.
at 9:41 PM

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