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Apparently, Google's YouTube video site has been in talks to allow video creators to charge viewers to access their content sometime later this year, said people familiar with the discussions.
The move would add a new revenue stream for YouTube and its thousands of content partners, and it could potentially help the site lure new video creators who want a subscription model rather than rely only on advertising, these people said. YouTube executives have long discussed such a possibility publicly, so the discussions aren't a surprise. "We have long maintained that different content requires different types of payment models," said a YouTube spokesman. "There are a lot of our content creators that think they would benefit from subscriptions, so we're looking at that." He declined to comment further.
Google's YouTube in Talks to Let Video Creators Charge Viewers
To reclaim its status as a $100 billion company, Facebook is re-engineering itself into a mobile business.
Such a transformation has been daunting for one of the world's most-trafficked websites. Just over a year ago, Facebook's mobile business barely existed. Less than two dozen engineers were working on mobile applications as the social network focused on growing its desktop business to a billion users. While Facebook was a popular mobile app on Apple’s iPhones, users complained the software was slow and frequently crashed. All of that began to shift in late 2011 when Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg realized he had miscalculated. Facebook's own data showed that a large number of users—the company declined to say how much—were going to their phones' Web browsers to access the social network. Meanwhile, mobile startups such as photo-sharing service Instagram were emerging as threats.
"If we are going to be a mobile company at scale, we needed to do something qualitatively different," said Mike Shaver, Facebook's director of mobile engineering. "We needed a nuclear option." Today, hundreds of Facebook's roughly 1,000 engineers are coding for mobile on any given day, including those acquired from Facebook's purchase of Instagram last year.
Even Facebook Must Change
The holiday season really was a taxing time for Amazon.
The company reported fourth-quarter sales of $21.27 billion; the slowest pace of growth since the second quarter of 2009. An increase in the number of states charging sales tax for online transactions might have something to do with it. Texas in July and California and Pennsylvania in September started collecting online sales taxes. Together, the three states account for a quarter of the U.S. population, so a fair-sized chunk of American shoppers had one less reason to buy online. There are other reasons to shop on Amazon, of course, like convenience and low prices. But to continue to gain market share on the basis of those factors may entail substantial investment that could continue to weigh on the company's margins.
Amazon's Growing Problem
According to new data from the Consumer Intelligence Research Partners (CIRP), the average monthly carrier bill of the typical iPhone user is the highest in the smartphone market.
iPhone owners spend more on wireless fees than owners of any other handset, be they Android, BlackBerry or Windows Phone. Almost 60 percent of the iPhone users CIRP polled during October-December 2012 spent more than $100 per month on their wireless plan, with 10 percent spending $200 or more. Just 6 percent spent $50 or less; for Android users in that category, the percentage was double. And only 53 percent of Android users fell into the “over $100 per month” category, with 7 percent landing in the “over $200 per month” category. Why do iPhone customers spend more? “We think it has to do with their data plans and carriers, rather than their usage habits,” CIRP co-founder Michael Levin explained. “They are all on expensive data plans, unlike Android users, some of which are on prepaid or unsubsidized plans with regional carriers.” That said, just because iPhone users on average spend more on their wireless plans doesn’t necessarily mean that the carriers are making more money. “Given the subsidies on iPhones, the carriers are working hard to make their money back during the course of the contract,” said CIRP’s Josh Levitz. “With the exception of perhaps the hottest Android phones, we think the subsidies on Android phones are lower, so the carriers make more money even with slightly lower per subscriber revenue.”
iPhone Users Rack Up the Highest Carrier Bills
They came from all over Silicon Valley, hundreds packing the pews of an old church to pay their respects to Aaron Swartz, the 26-year-old programmer and Internet activist who took his own life earlier this year.
They didn't just come to mourn a fallen comrade, they said. They came to carry on his fight. The memorial service held at the Internet Archive, a nonprofit group that occupies a former church in San Francisco, was as much political rally as solemn tribute. In death, Swartz has become a political martyr for the cause he championed in life: making scientific and scholarly research — much of it taxpayer-funded — freely available, not sequestered behind online pay walls out of the reach of the public.
A martyr in the fight for free online access to research
Apple’s $1.05 billion damages award against Samsung from its patent- infringement trial in San Jose, California, was left intact after a judge denied Apple’s bid to increase the award.
US District Judge Lucy Koh in San Jose declined to increase the award after she found Samsung’s infringement wasn’t willful. The ruling was one of many post-trial decisions Judge Koh issued denying both companies’ bids for a new trial and leaving largely untouched the jury’s finding in August that Samsung infringed six mobile-device patents. Judge Koh rejected Apple’s argument that jurors erred by finding Apple’s trade dress, or how a product looks, for the iPad and iPad 2 wasn’t protectable. The judge also denied Apple’s request that she overrule jurors’ conclusion that Samsung’s Galaxy Tab 10.1 didn’t infringe one patent covering the design of Apple’s iPad tablet computer. She found that two claims, or elements, of Samsung’s patent covering data transmission over wireless systems were invalid. The judge also denied Samsung’s request for a new trial. Judge Koh also rejected Samsung’s argument that Apple’s patents may be “indefinite,” meaning that its claims, or elements, aren’t particular enough in describing the technology they covers.
Apple’s $1 Billion Verdict Against Samsung Left Intact Judge Says Samsung’s Infringement of Apple Patents Not Willful, But Denies Bid For New Trial (WSJ) Samsung denied new trial and Apple more damages in patent suit (IDG News Service) Apple’s bid to raise Samsung fine rejected (Financial Times)
Labor unions and Hollywood donors are open to bankrolling Organizing for Action, the outside group that has been formed in support of President Obama’s second-term agenda.
Even if corporate cash stays on the sidelines, Organizing for Action has a number of donor bases that it can tap for cash, including Hollywood stars and executives. “While donors are still catching their breath from the election, we expect they will be very generous in support of the president’s ambitious agenda,” said Kevin Ryan with Andy Spahn & Associates, a Los Angeles-based consulting firm that works with Hollywood donors. The entertainment industry was a fundraising juggernaut for Obama during his reelection campaign, and has shown a willingness to make the six-figure donations that are the lifeblood of outside groups.
Unions, Hollywood open to bankrolling Obama’s advocacy arm
Internet video ads, long a sideshow in the online advertising market, are gaining in importance to marketers and Web publishers as they look to capitalize on consumers' changing viewing habits and tap a $70 billion television market.
The ever-expanding array of gadgets that display online video, from tablets to Internet-connected TVs and DVD players, along with technology such as social media that facilitates distribution, has spurred new interest. The growing trend means websites like Google' YouTube, Yahoo, AOL and Hulu have a better shot at tapping the mother lode of television advertising budgets, though video ads have a long way to go before they become as dominant a part of the marketing landscape as TV ads. Research firm eMarketer says video is the fastest growing form of online advertising, with spending increasing 46 percent last year, and outpacing popular formats such as search ads and display ads.
Video ads growing at fastest rate on Web as TV-viewing habits change
The future of television will be driven by Internet networks, and traditional cable TV companies will inevitably morph into Web-based content providers, Netflix CEO Reed Hastings predicted.
The flexibility of Internet programming is already attracting content creators, and even online video providers are getting into the production game themselves, Hastings said during a meeting at POLITICO as part of a D.C. swing to promote his company’s Washington-based TV series, “House of Cards.” “What we’ll see in the Internet is most cable networks will become Internet networks — we’ll still call ESPN a cable network, but it’ll be mostly delivered over the Internet in 10 or 20 years. The fundamental advantage of the Internet is individualization, control, being able to watch on any screen. It’s just a much better technology substrate for video.” Personalized advertising streams will help drive the move to the Web, Hastings said, as will the roll-out of very high-speed broadband networks. But just as cable networks grew from running others' content to also commissioning their own, the TV and movie distributor is following the same path.
Netflix's Hastings: Online steering TV's future
2-1-1 is a three-digit telephone information and referral service that connects mainly low-income, unemployed and uninsured people to health and social service agencies available in their communities. Currently, the national 2-1-1 system reaches over 90% of the entire U.S. population and is accessible in all 50 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico. It is used heavily, with 16-17 million telephone interactions (and almost as many web inquiries) nationwide every year. Across the country, knowledge of the service is growing and the number of people calling 2-1-1 is increasing dramatically every year.
2-1-1 to Eliminate Health Disparities