(* Source: Enigmax via TorrentFreak *) 

Despite collecting an estimated several hundred million dollars in P2P related settlements from the likes of Napster, KaZaA and Bolt, prominent artists’ managers are complaining that so far, they haven’t received any compensation from the labels. According to a lawyer, some are considering legal action.

Lawyer John Branca, who has represented the likes of The Rolling Stones and Korn, said: “Artist managers and lawyers have been wondering for months when their artists will see money from the copyright settlements and how it will be accounted for.”

Irving Azoff, who manages Christina Aguilera, The Eagles, Van Halen, REO Speedwagon and Seal (amongst others) says it’s hard for artists to get what they deserve from the labels: “They will play hide and seek, but eventually will be forced to pay something,” he said. “The record companies have even tried to credit unrecouped accounts. It’s never easy for an artist to get paid their fair share.”

 

More here 

Posted by brian tiong at 01:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

(* Source: Marta Strickland *)

Behold the amazing power of Sprout, a quick and easy way to build all those widgets, jukeboxes, and mini-sites you've been dreaming of, both for clients and personal projects. My first endeavor into using the service, aka my first Sprout, was a widget of passion.

Even before going on my big fall eurotrip, I decided that upon returning I was going to chuck out the idea of the traditional scrapbook and latch onto more web 2.0 ways of recording my experiences. By using Sprout, I was able to develop a "mini-site" of most of my digital vacation artifacts (music, photos, videos, maps, research) within a few hours, and to their credit, most of that time was spent in designing, collecting, and uploading.

The actual interface within Sprout Builder made the entire process intuitive and quick, and when I was finished, I was able to instantly bring my Sprout into my Myspace page, Facebook page, Netvibes account, and now here on ThreeMinds. Although it has a few bugs and limitations, I was more surprised at how much it COULD do and how much it did well. Any users of Photoshop or Flash will be able to dive right in, but I think it would be easy to pick up for most anyone.

Posted by brian tiong at 01:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

(* Source: Three Minds *) 

Posted by brian tiong at 01:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

(* Source: Michael Arrington *)

Mike says...

Google acquired hosted wiki service Jotspot in October 2006. The service immediately stopped taking new users, although existing users were supported. Now, nearly sixteen months later, Jotspot has been relaunched under the Google Apps team, as Google Sites.

Google Sites looks absolutely nothing like Jotspot, other than the fact that both are hosted wikis. All of the structured data templates launched by Jotspot in July 2006 have been stripped out. Users now have a choice between just five basic templates - a standard wiki, a dashboard where google gadgets can be embedded, a blog-like template for announcements, a file cabinet for file uploads, and a page for lists of items. Instead of creating structured templates, users will now simply embed spreadsheets, presentations and word documents from Google Docs, as well as Google Calendars, YouTube Videos and Picasa Albums.

Like Google Docs, Google Sites wikis can be made private, shared with others, or made public. Users can select from a variety of templates, but cannot yet customize the look and feel of the site. Somewhere down the road, Google says, they’ll release an API for the new service as well. Editing is done with a rich text editor that allows for basic formatting.

Google Sites is a free product, with limitations on support and storage (10 GB). Users can upgrade their Google Apps account to a standard edition, also free, and map their own domains to the site. A premier edition is also available for $50/user/year that includes a service level agreement, support and more admin capabilities.

All wiki pages have RSS feeds associated with them to allow users to track any changes.

Existing Jotspot users will continue to be supported on the old platform for the near future, and they will also be given instructions for porting their Jotspot wikis to Google sites.

In an interview today, Google’s Management Director of Enterprise Matthew Glotzbach called the combined products under Google Apps a “Microsoft Sharepoint killer” because it’s allowing businesses to collaborate without all that expensive Microsoft software. It may not be a Sharepoint killer yet, but Google Apps constitutes 2-3% of Google’s total revenues. Some point soon, its going to start hurting Microsoft.

Sample screenshots:

Posted by brian tiong at 01:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

(* Source: Mark Hefflinger *) 

Internet advertising revenues from 2007 are expected to come in at $21.1 billion, in a year that saw record revenue levels in all four quarters that propelled the market up 25% over 2006's record $16.9 billion, according to data from the Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB) and PricewaterhouseCoopers. Still, the gain of $4.2 billion in revenue in 2007 was still less than the $4.3 billion in growth, and 35% revenue increase registered between 2005 and 2006.

The report estimates that fourth quarter 2007 Internet ad revenues reached a record $5.9 billion -- a 13% increase over the third quarter of 2007 and 24% increase over the fourth quarter of 2006.

"The continued record growth evidences the importance and uniqueness of interactive media to both consumers and the marketers that are trying to reach them," said David Silverman, a partner at PricewaterhouseCoopers.

Posted by brian tiong at 09:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

(* Source: Mark Heffliger *) 

Apple announced on Tuesday that its iTunes Store is now the second-largest music retailer in the U.S. behind Wal-Mart, having leapfrogged retail chain Best Buy in the latest figures from market research firm NPD Group. The company pulled ahead of then third-place U.S. music retailer Amazon.com last June, according to NPD's rankings.

Apple also announced that there are now over 50 million iTunes Store customers, and that the company has now sold over four billion songs -- including 20 million sold on Christmas Day 2007 alone.

"We'd like to thank the over 50 million music lovers who have helped the iTunes Store reach this incredible milestone," said Eddy Cue, Apple's vice president of iTunes.

Posted by brian tiong at 09:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

(* Source: Erik Schonfeld *) 

Erik reports... 

Daem Interactive has developed Skuair, new technology that it is calling the next generation of 2d code readers. Skuair isn’t limited to reading barcode lines and numbers but can read product logos or images. Skuair works with any mobile phone camera and is easy to operate. The user simply takes a picture of an advertisement or product logo and a low resolution image is sent to the recognition server and an associated URL is returned. The user can receive a variety of multimedia content from the company or person who owns the image

User generated tags will be launched later this year. A short demo of how Skuair works.

Posted by brian tiong at 09:43 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

(* Source: Mark Hefflinger *)

"The continued growth in legal download sites is encouraging, yet the industry struggles to improve the value of each digital customer," said NPD analyst Russ Crupnick.

"With so many baby boomers and gen-Xers entering the market, there are certainly opportunities to sell more digital albums, promote older catalog titles, or create bundles that will raise revenues.

Posted by brian tiong at 10:23 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

(* Source: Michael Arrington *) 

Mike says...

We covered Stage6, a DivX-owned site, in October 2006 as part of a roundup of up and coming video sites. The site, which allowed users to upload video in the high quality Divx format, streams video that makes YouTube look shabby in comparison.

The site won’t be around long, though, Uploads have already been shut down, and the site itself will go offline on February 28. The official reason: “So why are we shutting the service down? Well, the short answer is that the continued operation of Stage6 is a very expensive enterprise that requires an enormous amount of attention and resources that we are not in a position to continue to provide.”

Translated, that may be that the pirates took over the site. New movies and tv shows were constantly being uploaded and then taken down by the site staff. Sites like Joox.net took all that pirated content and repackaged it on their own site. The combined costs of hosting, plus all the monitoring for infringement, may have been more than Divx was willing to deal with.

Update: Ok, we’ve been shaking the trees on this story a little. According to one source, the planned spinoff of Stage6 from DivX apparently had $24 million or so in committed venture capital but negotiations with the DivX board broke down over ownership percentages. We’re still digging.

Update2: Comscore says Stage6 has 17.4 million monthly unique visitors and 360 million page views. We also hear that their monthly CDN bill from LimeLight is $1 million, about 11% of their revenues. That’s going to hurt them.

Posted by brian tiong at 03:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

(* Source: eMarketer *) 

Coming soon to a screen near you: Convergence.

Posted by brian tiong at 03:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

(* Source: Yanqing Chen *)

Yiqilai.com released its new version in late September 2007 and jumped into China’s online music discovery battle field where 8box.cn, Yobo.com and dola.com.cn already compete against each other. We compared these services earlier here and here.

Like its competitors, Yiqilai.com’s goal is to copy the success of Pandora and Last.fm to China. Yiqilai is more like Last.fm in terms of features and design. It lets user create profile and customize their own music boxes. The music recommending feature is also included as well as some simple social network features. As far as legal issue goes, I don’t find anything in their help and FAQ pages. I assume they are using the similar approach as Yobo.com and other services.

There’s one interesting feature called “Yiqiali Music Assistant”. It is a windows media player plug-in which supports both local and online music lyric matching and all other features of its website. It is a very good feature for users who are still more comfortable listening music locally using media player while taking advantage of Yiqilai’s music recommending and other features.

I like the potential of Yiqilai and other similar services in this area considering China is going to be the biggest online community in the world down the road and online entertainment including online music services is a great area where startups can have success.

With that being said, they still have a long way to go. Alexa data shows the users in China are using the traditional music sites more than these new web 2.0 services. But I believe time will change everything and all these websites need to do right now is winning the user base battle. Right now I think Yobo is the front runner. It has the best design and best user community. Also it seems to me that Yobo.com has the fastest streaming speed. At least I can listen it here in US while having trouble listening to Yiqilai and other websites.

Posted by brian tiong at 01:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

(* Source: Marta Strickland *)

There was an interesting article today on Last100 about Apple and a new patent they have on a podcasting mash-up service.

It is a little embarrassing, but the idea of podcasts has never really appealed to me. I mean, I understand why they are great and I could honestly see a use for them in my daily life, but I have been intimidated to get involved. I felt kinda the same way when RSS first came out. I was excited, but the idea of searching for places that had feeds and incorporating them into this extra tool known as an RSS reader that I would have to remember to visit… it just seemed like too much of a bother. It wasn’t until RSS readers started to become integrated into anything and everything I was already using (browsers, start pages, mobile phones, etc), that I began utilizing RSS with a passion

Last100 suggests that the patent recently filed by Apple might mean that they are building a took that allows users to easily “look inside” podcasts for certain keywords, aggregate snippets together, and then publish that to a service that can be accessed by iPods, iPhones, and AppleTV. This finally perked my interest. Sure it will be a while before this service becomes more automated and available outside of the realm of Apple. But, the thought of being able to assemble my own daily “best of” on a topic that gets automatically pumped into my phone or car stereo (even better for commuters like me) is a tantalizing daydream that has finally got me seriously considering latching onto this whole “podcast” thing.

Posted by brian tiong at 01:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

(* Source: eMarketer *)

(* Source: Erik Schonfeld *)

The number of people who visit Facebook has been leveling off over the past few months in the U.S., and even dipped by about 800,000 individuals in January. According to the latest stats from comScore, Facebook attracted 33.9 million unique visitors in January, 2008, down 2 percent from 34.7 million in December, 2007. Maybe all that friend spam has something to do with the decline. Will the Facebook fatigue get worse, or is this just a temporary dip?

Worldwide, Facebook is still doing fine. It grew 3 percent in January over December, attracting 100.7 million unique visitors. (MySpace had 109.3 million visitors worldwide, up 2 percent month-over-month. And in the U.S., it was slightly down as well from 68.9 million visitors in December, 2007 to 68.6 million in January, 2008. Despite its larger size, though, MySpace lost fewer visitors in the U.S. than Facebook did).

Posted by brian tiong at 12:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

(* Source: Michael Arrington *)

Mike says...

San Francisco/Seattle based music service iLike launched a “news feed” for favorite artists this week. Users can now see exactly what their favorite artists are up to - when they go on tour, release new songs or videos, etc, the news is presented to them in the feed.

Users can select their favorite artist via the iLike website or on their social network applications. Or the service decides what you like based on your playing habits on iTunes (they have an iTunes plugin - if you listen to a song ten times, it thinks you like the artist).

The news feed for favorite artists can be viewed via the iTunes plugin, the website, the social network applications, or via a new iPhone app (just go to iLike on an iPhone and log in).

The company continues to dominate the Facebook music scene. Their U2 page on Facebook has 1.9 million fans. Compare that to just 168,000 friends on the MySpace U2 page, and 933,000 on Last.fm. The fact that a previously unreleased U2 song was first heard on iLike didn’t hurt those numbers, either.

In July 2007 iLike had 4.5 million users of its Facebook application. Today they have 14 million. But more than half of their new members today are coming from their iLike.com site and other social networks - OpenSocial gave them access to Bebo, Hi5 and soon MySpace. On their website alone they see 3.5 million worldwide monthly visitors, which isn’t bad considering most users interact with iLike via their iTunes plugin, or on Facebook and other social networks. Last.fm, which was acquired last year for $280 million, has 4.7 million.

Posted by brian tiong at 04:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

(* Source: Tangos *) 

Tangos reports... 

According to the latest report by China Internet Network Information Centre (CNNIC), at the end of June 2007, Chinese Internet users has reached 162 million, which means an increase of 25 million in last six months, the biggest half-yearly increase ever. But it may because CNNIC report change the definition of Internet users, in all previous reports, Internet user means Chinese citizen aged 6 and above who averagely use the Internet at least one hour per week. However, in its latest report, Internet users are Chinese citizens aged 6 and above who use the Internet in last half year.

The following are my quick thoughts on the latest report:

• Mobile Internet will become more and more important, over 44 million users use mobile handsets to access Internet, an increase of 27 million (159%) in last six months.
• Over half of all Internet users(51.2%) are under age 25. The Internet penetration rate for users aged between 18 to 24 is 43.4%. Internet has become their lifestyle, that’s also part of the reasons that QQ and 51.com are so popular in China.
• The percentage of Internet users with high school education or below increased from 48.2% in half year ago to 56.1%. The percentage of users with an income below 1000 yuan increased from 47.6% to 51.7%. You need to understand these group of young users to become leading player in China’s Internet market.
• Over 37% users, increased from 32.3%, access Internet in Internet cafe. It is said that 51.com is very popular among Internet Cafe users
• IM is more important in China than email for communication. More netizens use IM than email (69.8% vs. 55.4%), while over 90% Internet users use email in US. IM usage rate is even higher (74.6%) among users under age 25, while the email usage rate is only 46.6% among them.
• Online entertainment demand is the most important demand among Chinese yougsters(under age 25), with 91.4% of them used online music, 79.6%% used online movies, and 67.1% played online games.

Well, from this data, you may find the characteristics of Chinese Internet is quite different from those of US, you should study the report in detail to understand Chinese Internet users better. The full report in PDF file can be downloaded (English version report) here.

Posted by brian tiong at 02:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

(* Source: Mark Hefflinger *)

Posted by brian tiong at 11:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

(* Source: eMarketer *)

MySpace and Facebook are less than five years old. Will widgets stick around that long?

Posted by brian tiong at 09:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

(* Source: Kristen Nicole *) 

The Gamers Developer Conference (GDC) 2008 began yesterday, and it’s been interesting to see some of the announcements that have come out of the conference so far. As you may have noticed, gaming (which was already huge) is creeping into our every day web activities more and more, on a more complex level. And by “more complex” I mean that it’s more integrated.

Today, we hear of Avatar Reality’s upcoming launch of an MMVW called Blue Mars. Those at GDC 2008 get a sneak preview of the virtual world, and you Mashable readers get a bit of a sneak preview as well. The graphics are probably the most noteworthy aspect of Blue Mars, especially at this stage of the game’s life, but equally as important are the platform options Avatar Reality will be extending to third-party developers for creating games of their own.

From the looks of it, Blue Mars will be along the lines of Second Life or Sony Home, where individuals can create realistic representations of things that could occur in real life (shopping, home decor). It could be right up the alley for retailers and brands that would like additional options for integrated online marketing campaigns. I’ll admit, I’ll be anxiously awaiting the arrival of Blue Mars so I can try it out comparatively, though it won’t be available to the public until after Spore is scheduled to actually be released. We’ll see how much free time I have left after that!

Posted by brian tiong at 10:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

(* Source: Fvrit.com *) 

Businesses are beginning to wake-up to the fact that social networking sites such as facebook are no longer employee time wasters, but rather a new medium for extending their brand and communicating directly with consumers.

The social web has transformed marketing so that it is no longer a one-way transmission. Social media provides two-way communication between companies and consumers. It only takes a moment to realize why traditional media such as newspapers are losing readers and their appeal.

Most notably on facebook, this transformation has begun to take place. The reason being I believe is that facebook has become one of the most popular social networking destinations for web-savvy users and professionals alike. In addition, many corporations use facebook (and other networking sites) for employee recruitment. Since both are businesses and consumers are already there, why not take advantage of it.

Consumers are not stupid. With the popularity of the Internet, consumers are becoming even more knowledgeable. The interactivity of social media draws consumers and allows them to have discussions with each other. Businesses are getting to realize that they need to be where the consumers are.

I have been saying for quite a while that business should embrace social media as a means to communicate with consumers, and as a sounding board for understanding what customers want. Social media is currently one of the most underutilized methods of receiving customer feedback. Who needs a focus group or group study when there are millions of consumers willing to carry on a conversation with your business?

In order to embrace social networking companies must give up some control they previously wielded with an iron first via traditional media. Social networking and media is about giving the user a voice, opening dialogue and communicating with them. Media sites such as facebook, LinkedIn, Bebo and the like are perfect places to do so. Businesses are warming up to the idea that a conversation between them and consumers is ultimately a good thing.

Social networking for businesses can be a double-edged sword though. If a company produces crappy products, then they are going to hear about it from users of same social networks. Companies that produce excellent products can expect a far-reaching positive response that will extend their brand across the Internet.

I am still curious about one thing: How many corporations (of any size) still believe the traditional mantra that press releases, case studies, television ads and snazzy imagery reach farther than communicating directly with those that are buying their products through social media.

More here 

Posted by brian tiong at 10:40 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

(* Source: Shankar Ganesh *) 

Ok, you’ve got loads of music on your computer - but is that all cluttered, unorganized, unmanaged and simply not easy to access? May be you need to do something. Literally hundreds of free software let you play, organize, burn and do lots more with your digital MP3 music collection. Have a well tagged, sortable music collection that you can be proud of!

Here comes a carefully chosen list of free programs that might help you squeeze the best out of your MP3 collection.

Part I - Audio Players

The default audio player software on your Windows is probably not enough, when it comes to extensive features and customizability. Here’s a pick of the best media players that can let you sort through and efficiently play most audio formats on your Windows computer:

VLC Player - It’s more light on resources that you would imagine. VLC is a very versatile player - throw any odd format, and it plays them for you instantly (FLV included).

Winamp - Winamp has its own fans, it’s customizable to a large extent and can come as a great saver. If you listen to music every other day, you need to have Winamp installed. A similar player is Jet Audio.

Songbird - A feature rich application that has great looks, go for it if your Windows computer has got some memory to spare, it’s reviewed here. You can customize it by adding extensions (similar to Firefox).

Part II - Organizers/Taggers/Jukeboxes

Jukeboxes are music software that come with amazing capabilities. Go for them if you have huge music collections scattered all around - not just in your computer, but also in audio CDs.

Media Monkey - The best piece of software out there that you’ll love using. Tag editor, format converter, CD recording, iPod support, you name it - it’s got all the tools that squeeze the best from your tracks.

J River Media Jukebox - Very pretty, has good features. And might serve as a good jukebox.

>> I missed out Foobar, thanks for the heads up Ashwin!

MP3 Tagger - The best ID3 tagger out there in the market, that’s free as well.

Magic MP3 Tagger - Update: Oops, sorry guys this is not freeware.

Part III- Rippers, Converters

Audio Grabber - Fantastic audio ripping software, with FreeDB tagging support included. Another similar ripper is FreeRip. Another one a few commenters have mentioned is Exact Audio Copy

Part IV - Audio Editors

Trust me, as far as I know, there’s no free editor as much capable as the professional ones out there. But still if you’d like to do some basic recording and effects, you could try these:

Audacity - Open Source, and is very light weight.

Wavosaur - Comes with no installer, and is a single exe file that does the job. Supports WAV format

Part V - Other

Last.fm - A social networking site for audiophiles out there. Listen, get interesting tracks based on what you’ve played, and add friends! More such music sites here.

Tunatic - A song is playing on your head, but you just can’t get it’s title right? Then download this, install, hum the song through your mic and let Tunatic locate info on the song for you! Quite cool for show off as well

Audio Files GDS Indexer - Google Desktop Plugin - Install this one if you have got Google Desktop installed. Adds a bunch of functionality to the Desktop Spider to make it more friendlier towards Audio files.

More here 

Posted by brian tiong at 10:33 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

(* Source: Ken Fisher *) 

Posted by brian tiong at 10:13 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

(* Source: Sean P Aune *) 

The Nintendo DS is the latest and possibly most popular handheld game system from Nintendo. As has become tradition with just about every game system, there is a large and active homebrew community making all sorts of tools and toys for it. We’ve gathered 20+ examples of some of the things your favorite game system for those on the move can do that you may never have known about.

Make sure to read the instructions for each as some require different homebrew installs than others. The DSWiki has detailed directions on how you can get in to the homebrew world.

Art

Animanatee - An animation program that allows up to 10,000 frames of animation, or until the memory runs out.

Colors! - A pressure sensitive art program that you can save your artwork via memory card or email it over Wi-Fi.

FlickBook - A simple animation program for making small animations.

Phidias - An art program that lets you create detailed images saved to the BMP format.

Communication

DS-AIM - A version of AIM for your DS.

IRCDS - Internet Relay Chat comes to your handhel.

SvSIP - A VoIP tool based on Session Initiation Protocol (SIP). Still in development and only handles basic phone functions at thi time.

Emulators & OS

DSLinux.org - If it’s electronic, somebody stuffs Linux in it, and the DS is no different.

DSMouse - Turn your DS into a wireless mouse for your computer.
Emulator-Zone.com - A repository of several emulators for the DS.

Goomba - An emulator to run original Gameboy games on the DS.

SnezziDS - Away to run Super NES games on the latest iteration of the Nintendo handhelds.

Utilities

DSFTP - Allows you to set up an FTP server on your DS, also includes instructions to incorporate it it into other homebrew programs.

DSLiveWeather - A client to access Weather.com’s weather information.

DSOrganize - A lightweight organizer for your DS that also includes a RSS reader, file browser, web browser, IRC client, text editor, calculator.

DSReader - Another popular ebook reader that also allows you to turn the DS sideways to read it in more in the orientation of a traditional book.

DSVNC - A VNC tool to allow you to control a computer over a private network from your DS.

Image Viewer - From the same homebrew group behind Moonshell, uses an app on the computer end to convert photos for better viewing on the DS and then gives you a viewer inside the DS.

Moonshell - A popular media player that can use MP3, OGG, MIDI, AAC and other audio file formats. Can also show JPG, BMP, GIF, PNG, TXT files and some videos.

TextViewer - Can read several file formats and allows for text bookmarking so you don’t lose your place.

Treasures of Gaia - A Google Maps application that works both in French and English.

TxtWriter - This allows you to create simple txt files using a modified on-screen keyboard. Can be saved to a memory card for transfer.

Posted by brian tiong at 10:09 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

(* Source: Kristen Nicole *) 

Avatar creation tool Meez is announcing the gold launch of its distributed gaming service, and a related API platform, which had already been in use for casual games, and other social networking uses, as seen with the recent integration with AOL’s instant messaging tool.

This particular initiative touches on both of these aspects of online communication, to be used for casual games and social networks. It enables game publishers to tap into Meez’s existing user base across the social networking landscape, including Facebook and Friendster. Similar to the deal between Meez and Sears, this API offering can also provide additional monetization options for game publishers. From Meez:

* In-Game Avatars (“Meez Inside”) – Users can import their avatars into a game and use it to represent them as they play, creating a highly personalized gaming experience, which was formerly available only in high-end console gaming. Game players can become the bartender serving friends in Bar Room Blitz, now available at http://apps.facebook.com/meezroomz/, and will be able to have their Meez avatar bring down the house as a DJ in Dance Floor Destroyer later this week.

* Emoticon Avatars (“Meez Enhanced”) - For games without human characters, the user’s individual Meez sits next to the game, reacting with a wide range of emotions as the user plays, such as falling “dead” when the game ends, or giving the thumbs up when the player gets a high score. This experience can now be seen across the games at Meez, as well as at Friendster Games and Perfspot Games.

The interesting thing about the Meez API is the interaction options that provide an added networking element in accordance to whatever the game publisher has created with their casual game. For those that would like to layer in social networking tools for their existing games, the use of Meez avatars may be a viable option.

In response to initiatives like Meebo’s API offering, which provides an option for layering in chat tools for casual games, Meez’s interactive avatars looks to extend its interactive tools in order to provide alternatives to the larger trends occurring within the gaming industry. As the bigger game networks like EA Games look to offer more casual games on the web, the casual gaming trend is really beginning to take advantage of tools offered across the Internet.

Posted by brian tiong at 09:48 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

(* Source: eMarketer *) 

Posted by brian tiong at 02:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

(* Source: eMarketer *) 

So far, widgets and applications are garnering far more attention than actual ad dollars. Although consumers are increasingly using them, eMarketer estimates that US companies will spend only $40 million in 2008 to create, promote and distribute widgets, up from $15 million in 2007.

The Web Widgets and Applications report tracks the trends that are driving this unique and intriguing, but not yet lucrative, area of Internet development.

Widgets are popping up everywhere online. Since Facebook opened up to third-party applications in May 2007, nearly 15,000 applications have been developed. Overall, some 100,000 developers are working on widgets and applications worldwide.

Widgets are new, hot and fun. But there are already raising concerns, including “application burnout,” measurement difficulties, distribution challenges and deceptive techniques used by some widget developers to increase their installation rate.

The widget and application business can really grow—it has some growing up to do.

More here 

Posted by brian tiong at 02:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

(* Source: Kevin Riley *) 

According to data at Alexa.com which ranks websites according to their visitor traffic, Web 2.0 video sharing site Youtube.com has now overtaken Google.com as the world's second most visited website. Is this proof that video search marketing has come of age and is becoming a threat to traditional online search?

After noticing a massive spike in popularity and traffic at video sharing sites such as Youtube.com starting early last year, internet marketer and website traffic expert Kevin Riley decided to see for himself if online video had more than just entertainment value.

 
"As someone who had previously focused on online marketing through traditional search using PPC and SEO, I initially assumed that video sharing sites were going to be a fad with little marketing potential," explains Riley. "But when I noticed niche content videos posted to these sites were getting a massive number of views and also showing up high in the search engine results pages for relevant keywords, I knew the potential for marketing with videos was about to explode."

 
"Although I w