Internet 20

MTV.com gets a makeover, drops Flash for HTML

admin — Fri, 18 May 2012 09:07:00 +0000

MTV.com has now dropped Flash for HTML. They experimented with the flash-based website for nine months and now have redesigned it in all HTML. Moreover, the home page won’t feature the auto playing video player. The re-launch in HTML is said to be a result of the users’ complaints. They say that the HTML version has given the users a better and easy interface to work with. The good thing is that they listened well to their users but it will be interesting to know whether users will love the all-HTML site or not. We better leave that to the time. New features: The new HTML version has reduced the page load time radically. Pull-down menus are there to simplify the navigation through the pages. They claim that the internal search has been taken to new levels and are further working to improve the same in the coming time. Although they have dropped the auto-playing Flash video player for the moment but they didn’t deny the fact that they won’t bring it back. Now, the videos will be embedded in the HTML pages. You can watch either a single video clip or watch many clips in a continuous-play mode. They will be adding more and more features on the site over the coming weeks. Rest is up to the users whether they appreciate it or not. Anyway, I love the way they have responded to the users’ complaints. Cheers!!!

Yahoo buys RightMedia for a whopping $680 million

admin — Fri, 18 May 2012 09:07:00 +0000

Yahoo knows very well the potential of transformative power of the Exchange. It has now acquired RightMedia for a whopping $680 million, equal parts of stock and cash.. For your info, Yahoo already had a 20% stake in the very ad marketplace. RightMedia takes this acquisition as one giant leap for the exchange and for the interactive advertising. The deal will surely add more supply and demand to the Right Media Exchange thereby boosting up iliquidity in the market offering more opportunities for the advertisers and publishers. This could be taken as a shrewd counter play to the Google’s acquisition of DoubleClick for $3.1 billion in cash.

Google’s Desktop 5 supports 29 languages, including Hindi

admin — Fri, 18 May 2012 09:06:00 +0000

Geek1 Search Engine giant, Google has released its latest version of Google desktop, named Google Desktop 5, which supports 29 languages including Hindi also. The company announced that its desktop search software will support 29 languages, including French, Spanish, German, Dutch, Japanese, Chinese, Russian, and Hindi. Google Desktop is an application for Microsoft Windows Vista, XP, or 2000. The Google Desktop 5 allows users to search documents on the hard disk through an interface. Even users can use Google Desktop 5 to preview documents without having to launch the applications used to create them. The applications a sidebar for the user’s desktop, which includes variety of gadgets or various range of functions including the time, photos and stock prices. The new version of Google Desktop 5 also includes previews of desktop search results, warnings about websites, which may contain malware. The new application is more visually enhanced for Windows Vista’s version.

T-Mobile teams up with ArtistsDirect to launch a new UK music website

admin — Thu, 17 May 2012 09:06:00 +0000

Who hasn’t head about T-Mobile? Now, they have launched a UK music site in collaboration with ArtistsDirect. The site hosts content from its Street Gigs events and broadcast with T-Mobile Channel 4 music series. The site lets the T-Mobile users download music via T-Zones while customers on all networks can have access to the latest news and tickets to forthcoming Street Gigs and Channel 4 Transmission shows. The site showcases exclusive content from Street Gigs artists, The Fratellis, Mika, Badly Drawn Boy and the Arctic Monkeys. Interestingly, there is nothing mobile-specific with the site. Anyway, they have incorporated the iTunes Widget that lets you browse through your iTunes playlist and gives you quick access to album info, videos, and downloads. With the ARTISTdirect Experience Messenger, you can connect to all your friends no matter which messenger they are using. The site also offers RSS feeds to stay up to date on the latest music headlines, content and top artists. They might add some good mobile-specific features too, hopefully. Overall, the design is good and the users will be at ease while navigating through the content.

ABC News relaunches, gets a touch of citizen journalism

admin — Thu, 17 May 2012 09:05:00 +0000

The up-to-the-minute coverage is always impressive, and citizen journalism has made it possible. ABC News online lately celebrated its tenth anniversary and announced a new citizen journalism-inspired redesign that lets the users find and contribute videos with an ease. The new design has a fairly impressive interface with more stress on the video news content. They say that the site has been redesigned to harness the power of what they call “citizen reporters.’ Other than simply filing a comment on some story, ABC News wants its readers to contribute video clips too. You have a chance here that your video gets hosted on ABC News online or gets broadcasted via television. This is certainly a step in the very right direction.

Half of the Europeans watching TV on the net

admin — Thu, 17 May 2012 09:05:00 +0000

While newspapers are loosing ground to online news sites in the States, the traditional TV is loosing the ground to the internet TV in Europe. A study conducted by Motorola lately promulgated the fact that 45 percent of the European broadband users are watching TV online. France topped the list with 59 percent of the online viewers with Spain at number two with 48 percent. UK was placed at number three with 43 percent of the viewership while Germany secured the fourth place with 33 percent of the total. Interestingly, two-thirds of under 25 year old people throughout Europe prefer to watch selected TV shows online while the same is less customary among the over 55-year olds with only 30 per cent watching TV via the internet. With the launch of more and more internet TV services, and online video sharing sites, more and more users prefer to go for online TV watching. Approximately 45 percent of the Europeans think of making video calls via their home TVs by the 2012 Olympics. The study was done with 2,500 broadband customers across Europe. Well, the launching of Joost and BBC’s iPlayer will yet add to the scenario. No doubt, online TV industry has a great future.

Consumer product review site Testfreaks launches in alpha

admin — Wed, 16 May 2012 09:04:00 +0000

TestFreaks, which is in alpha for now, is the place where you can find the best products and prices through reviews, forums, blogs, and news. The site has been created by the guys who developed PriceRunner, which is also a consumer product review site. Testfreaks has already received $2.8 million in funding from Northzone Ventures. The site has nothing much to offer at the moment but they claim to offer detailed information about any gadget. Other than the reviews from expert publications, blogs, and users, the site will also incorporate some social aspects by using wikis, forums, user profiles, and video reviews. If you want to take part in the development process, you can join the site’s beta development forum to help them build a strong consumer information site. Testfreaks is ought to face a healthy competition from Buzillions and Wize, which aggregates expert reviews and Krillion and ExpoTV, which focuses on video reviews.

Goodbye Yahoo Photos, Flickr will be the sensation now

admin — Wed, 16 May 2012 09:03:00 +0000

Yahoo is being reported to shut down Yahoo Photos in favor of Flickr, the site which was acquired by Yahoo in March 2005. Yahoo PhotosUsers will be encouraged to move their photos to Flickr but they won’t be forced to do that. Instead, they will be given the option to choose among other photo sharing services such as Photobucket, Snapfish, Kodak Gallery or Shutterfly. Users can download full-sized original photos or order prints and CDs at a cut-rate price. For your info, Yahoo Photos has around 2 billion images on their server while Flickr has a mere 500 million. But, considering the swift growth of the socialized Flickr in terms of traffic, Yahoo is giving a push to Flickr. It’s surely an interesting move by Yahoo considering the fact that Yahoo Photos is currently the largest photo sharing site on the Internet.

YouTube follows Revver, will pay selected users

admin — Wed, 16 May 2012 09:03:00 +0000

YouTube has started a new program to pay its selected creators like LonelyGirl15, for their content. Jamie Byrne, head of product marketing stated that the company will promote a selected group of content creators as they are media entities in their own right. The company generates funds from banner ads and now it will be distributing a cut from the income among its creators so that they can earn money from their content. The company will initially choose 20 to 40 most popular users but soon it will be promoting more creators as well. The company has not made any specific comments on how much a creator can expect from the site for the content, but we sure will keep you posted on that. Other video sharing sites like Revver already incorporate the same program as they distribute a cut from their revenues among the creators of the content.

Bloggers can soon be covered under ‘reporter’s shield’

admin — Tue, 15 May 2012 09:02:00 +0000

Bloggers have always expressed a desire that even they should be protected by the shield that protects reporters from divulging confidential sources. The bill that proposes the act is pending in both chambers of Congress. Rep, Rick Boucher, one of the House bill’s primary sponsors told CNET News.com that the intent is that bloggers should also be protected by the so called ‘reporter’s shield’ legislation as they also are spending their time gathering and reporting news. As per the updated version of the Free Flow of Information Act (PDF), introduced earlier this week, journalism is the act of gathering, preparing, collecting, photographing, recording, writing, editing, reporting or publishing news or information that concerns local, national or international events or other matters of public interest for dissemination to the public. The earlier versions of the act made a shield for only reporters who were publishing books, newspapers, magazines and periodicals in print or electronic form, on the other hand the new bill offers protection to anyone who is engaged in journalism. The author of the bills are not going to extend the privilege to everyone in the society, however, the language of the bill does not actually require that a covered person do journalism as an occupation or even on a regular basis. Virginia congressman stated that the definition is a good source that can serve as a direction for the court to make those kinds of practical determinations based on the facts in individual cases. Longtime advocates of a federal shield law for reporters have stated that one of the biggest challenges in grafting such legislation has been defining who would be covered. The bill also comes with a risk that it could unknowingly sanction irresponsible behaviors by people claiming to be journalists.