We broke the story of Hulu pulling the content plug out of TV.com earlier this week, and two days ago we also reported that content owners forced Boxee to stop streaming Hulu content as well. Now the owners of TV.com, CBS Interactive, have responded with a message that sparked the Wall Street Journal to headline an article on the reaction “CBS Strikes Back at Hulu”.
What did CBS Interactive’s statement say?
“CBS Interactive is well within its rights to stream Hulu video content on TV.com under its agreement with Hulu. We are evaluating our next steps at this time.”
Something is up at TV.com, the CBS-owned site that recently relaunched as a competitor to Hulu. Since last summer, when TV.com was owned by CNET and was still primarily a community hub, the site has featured content from NBC and News Corp through a partnership with Hulu. Now, only two months after TV.com relaunched as a CBS-supported direct competitor to the popular media portal, it looks like much (if not all) of the content served through Hulu is no longer working.
Both clips and full episodes formerly supplied through the agreement simply present a note stating “video unavailable”. It’s possible that this is just a technical glitch – TV.com would have likely removed any links to the episodes entirely if the agreement had come to an end. But the videos have been unavailable since at least this morning, which seems like a long time to fix a bug. And other video sites like Comcast’s Fancast and Sling.com seem to be serving Hulu content just fine. → Read More
Now the DTV Delay Act succesfully navigated through the US Capitol, there are some large, looming questions. Primarily, now that the analog switch-off is optional until June 12, what stations will switch off when? And is the Government going to pump more money into the bankrupt DTV vouchers program? → Read More
It is early days for HD video on the Web, but already we are starting to see jostling for position in this nascent part of the Web video market. Less than two months after YouTube started streaming high-definition videos in a major way, CEO Chad Hurley is now claiming bragging rights as the biggest HD video site on the Web. At a panel today at Davos, he said:
We feel we have the largest library of HD video on the Internet.
If you look at YouTube’s HD category, five pages with about 100 HD videos come up. Hulu’s HD gallery, in contrast, only has six videos. Vimeo’s HD gallery has 178 videos. But CBS has at least 1,000 (and it is not clear how many of those are on YouTube in HD quality). → Read More
Of the top 100 sites on the Web, which ones grew the fastest in 2008? In a report it is preparing to release tomorrow, The comScore 2008 Digital Year In Review (which you can sign up for here), comScore ranks the 20 fastest-growing Web properties. These are out of the largest 100 sites overall. They are shown below, as measured by growth in unique visitors. (Interestingly, in a separate list of the ten largest sites, only eBay showed a decline from 2007).
Most of the big gains among the fastest growers came because acquisitions (CBS acquiring Cnet, Everyday Health acquiring Revolution Health, JPMorgan Chase acquiring Washington Mutual) or traffic and business partnerships (Break Media, Glam Media, and Everyday Health with Drugstore.com).
If you strip out all of those, which denoted by asterisks, you get the sites that grew organically, including Infospace, Wordpress, Weatherbug, Answers.com Sites, Facebook, Hearst Digital Media, and Mozilla. Here is the full list by rank and annual growth rate (same as the first chart below) → Read More
Yet more evidence that the future of media is digital (in case there are still any doubters out there). In a report released this morning, boutique investment bank Jordan, Edmiston Group estimates that between 88 percent of the publishing and advertising industry’s revenue growth over the next few years will come from four sectors: Database & Information, B2B Online Media, Consumer Online Media, and Interactive Marketing Services. In other words, it will be coming mostly from the Web. In contrast, between 2001 and 2007, only 33 percent of industry growth came from these sectors. The other 67 percent came from traditional publishing businesses such as newspapers and magazines (formerly known as print media—the report does not cover TV, radio, or outdoor advertising).
To the extent that there will be any growth at all in the publishing industry, all you need to do is look at the multiples paid for different businesses to see where the growth is going to be. → Read More
The pink slips were passed out on Thursday throughout the various business duchies that make up CBS Interactive—CNET, CBS.com, CBSNews,com, CBSSports.com, BNET, GameSpot, TV.com, last.fm, and CHOW. While CBS confirmed to me and other reporters that layoffs did happen across the board, it refused to talk about how many total people are losing their jobs. That left us scrambling about gathering piecemeal information. There were about 20 layoffs at Last.fm; 8 editors, we hear, at CBSNews.com are out of a job; another set of “redundancies” were eliminated at CBSSports.com.
But how big exactly were the layoffs, especially at Cnet, where most of the employees reside? CBS, which is at heart a news organization, doesn’t want the public to know how many layoffs just occurred at CBS Interactive. As of this writing, Cnet didn’t even report the fact that there were layoffs on Thursday. Neither did CBSNews.com. And it’s not because they didn’t get the memo (from CBS Interactive CEO Quincy Smith, reprinted below). → Read More
Today, CBS Interactive is laying off people across several of its properties, I’ve confirmed with the company. CBS is not saying which divisions or how many people are affected. It is positioning the layoffs as part of the integration process it began six months ago when it bought CNET for $1.8 billion. But it is not just the CNET businesses that are being cut.
I’ve also confirmed that earlier today employees at social music site Last.FM were let go. CBS bought Last.fm in 2007 for $280 million. One source puts the number of layoffs at as many as 40 people, mostly from LAst.FM’s London HQ, which has a total staff of 95. A spokesperson for CBS Interactive says that number is inaccurate on the high side, but won’t provide the correct number. In any case, it is likely a small fraction of the overall number of employees being laid off across CBS Interactive. Update: CBS says the number of Last.fm layoffs is less than 20, which would put it at about 20 percent. → Read More
Yahoo continues to outsource lots of businesses it previously built and maintained directly. Especially in music – In February they shut their subscription music service, and in September they announced a deal to allow full song playbacks through the Rhapsody service.
Next up is Yahoo’s radio product, http://music.yahoo.com/launchcast. The site today, which draws 3 million monthly unique visitors says Yahoo, allows users to listen to music based on preferred genres and artists. But Launchcast is limited only to Windows users on Internet Explorer, shutting out a large percentage of the Internet.
Next year they’ll shutter the service and relaunch with CBS Radio, much as AOL did earlier this year. CBS provides streaming for 144 owned radio stations, as well as providing some Internet-only content. → Read More
Fire up iTunes and you’ll find, for the first time, TV shows from the four major networks (ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox) in HD. It’s still $2.99 per HD episode, and that includes a standard-def version of the TV show for your iPhone or iPod. HD shows now include hits like Lost, CSI, 30 Rock and The Office. But we all know The Shield is the best show on TV now, so whatever. → Read More
CBS Labs, which has been testing new HD streaming products, has also rolled out a labs version of a new product called Social Viewing Room. The idea is that you show up to the site, pick a show that’s on right now, and watch it with your friends or whoever is there. You can comment, LOL or take quizzes for points.
The link is live, but I’m not able to see any actual shows going on right now.
Given how awesome on demand TV is, I don’t see this kind of thing being very popular. With one big exception: live broadcasts, which are by definition shown at a certain time and watched by everyone then. Apart from live content, it seems like asynchronous comments are a great way to go, as YouTube, Hulu and Joost have done. → Read More
CBS on Monday announced that Eyemobile for iPhone is available now in the iTunes App store for those users that want to submit photo and video content to the company’s new citizen journalism site, CBSeyemobile.com.
Eyemobile for iPhone lets users upload content from their iPhones and view what others are uploading while on-the-go. If they so choose, users can comment on the uploads, as well.
CBS Eyemobile is a direct competitor to similar services already offered from cable networks. CNN has enjoyed some success with its iReport service and Fox News employs UReport for those looking to make a statement and report on the important issues of the day. And with services like IAMNEWS cropping up, citizen journalism is making progress as a way for traditional news outlets to expand their content and the average person to have a say in what’s being covered. → Read More
Your Facebook ID is about to be accepted at a whole lot more sites than just Facebook. Developers have been hacking away with Facebook Connect since last May, and now partner sites are getting ready to launch. CBS’s celebrity gossip site TheInsider is the first to do so. Anyone can log in using their Facebook ID, and then can choose to have any comments, article votes, or poll responses show up in their Facebook feed. CBS is testing Facebook Connect on TheInsider, and if the response is favorable plans on rolling it out across other CBS.com and Cnet properties.
Expect more sites not owned by CBS to launch next week. More importantly, Facebook Connect could end up replacing Facebook’s Beacon service on CBS and elsewhere. → Read More
It’s been just a little over a month since CBS completed its acquisition of Cnet and some of the first outward signs of the deal can be seen in a forthcoming logo for CBS Interactive that we obtained and a new design for Cnet’s Websites that it is testing in random batches. Judging purely by the design shifts, it appears that the cultures of the acquirer and the acquiree are moving towards each other. CBS Interactive is ditching its corporate black-and-blue logo for a friendlier orange and white one. (Assuming the version shown here is the one it ends up going with). At the same time, Cnet is testing a new design in beta that is much sleeker, and replaces the familiar hippy-school-bus-yellow backdrop with a more serious CBS black. (I was randomly selected to see the sneak peek, which is how I found out about it). The new design is an improvement. The site is less cluttered, and on News.com blogs are featured prominently throughout. The blog-centric approach is a direction News.com has been going in ever since it named blogging journo Dan Farber editor in chief last February. But now the navigational tabs on top all link directly to blogs such as Crave and Webware. How do you like the new look? Check out the screen shots below. Here’s the old nav bar: Update: And of course, CBSNews.com is already republishing stories from Cnet’s News.com. (Kind of makes you wonder whether those two brands will just merge at some point). CrunchBase Information CBS CNET Networks Information provided by CrunchBase → Read More
Music-streaming service Last.fm is now paying unsigned artists royalties for every song played on its service. Since the company announced the program last January, 170,000 70,000 artists and small music labels have signed up for it and uploaded 450,000 tracks. What Last.fm is doing here is creating an alternative to the official royalty-collecting organization for musicians (i.e., SoundExchange). Last year, the royalty rates for music streamed over the Internet were raised, making it more difficult for ad-supported music startups to stay in business. Last.fm got bought by CBS, so it’s not in danger of going under. And for any song owned by a label or artist who participates in SoundExchange, Last.fm continues to pay the going Internet radio royalty rate. But it is beginning to bypass Sound Exchange by giving new, unsigned artists an alternative. By cutting out the middlemen (labels, SoundExchange), Last.fm claims that artists that sign up for the program will receive more than twice the royalty rate they would see if the same song played on commercial radio. That’s because the money goes directly to the artist. (The total royalty, though, is less than what it pays SoundExchange). The royalty that Last.fm is paying unsigned artists is equivalent to 10 percent of the advertising revenues associated with their songs (update: in certain cases, see below). Musicians get a quarterly check, and can withdraw the money once it reaches $10. We’re not talking a lot of money here, a few fractions of a penny per song. But as the online music industry grows, and along with it online advertising targeted at music listeners, these numbers in aggregate could start to become meaningful. More importantly, it creates a direct economic link between Last.fm and up and coming artists that have not yet been discovered or signed by a label. The program is also appealing to tiny labels that don’t participate in SoundExchange because they are too small or it is too much of a hassle. (Anyone who already collects royalties through SoundExchange is not eligible for the program). Of the 170,000 signups so far, 30 percent are labels. And daily artist account creation in general is up 60 percent since the announcement in January. Since it is Last.fm’s program, it controls the royalty rates it pays out, which it can adjust according to how much advertising revenues these songs generate. Now, does anyone actually want to listen to these → Read More
Which Companies Do You Trust Or Admire The Most? ( surveys) Who do you trust more, Google or Toyota? The answer might depend on where you live. In its annual corporate reputation survey of 60,000 people worldwide, the Reputation Institute finds that Google scores highest in the U.S., but is No. 2 worldwide after Toyota. On the global list, Ikea is No. 3, Johnson & Johnson is No. 5, and Walt Disney is No. 12. Apple doesn’t even make it into the top 25 (see below). Using the same data, Forbes breaks out the top 75 companies in the U.S. In the U.S. alone, Apple is No. 17, HP is No. 18, Intel is No. 19, Dell is No. 25, IBM is No. 35 and Microsoft comes in at No. 43. Bringing up the rear is Motorola at No. 50, Cisco at No. 55, CBS at No. 62, and American Express at No. 75. (See partial list below). These rankings are based on an opinion poll, but they just don’t seem right to me. How can Dell be No. 25, with all of its customer service issues last year? And why is American Express, which regularly ranks as one of the most admired companies in the world and one of the top brands, dead last? It is instructive to compare some of these rankings to the top 100 brands, as measured by an estimate of brand value. (See below). Google, again is No.1. Microsoft is No. 3, IBM is No. 6, Apple is No. 7, Toyota is No. 12, HP is No. 16, American Express is No. 20, Intel is No. 27, and Dell is No. 41. About the only company the two rankings agree on is HP. These brand rankings feel like a better measure of reputation to me than the Reputation Institute’s survey. What do you think? Take our own poll. Vote for the companies you trust or admire the most. Multiple answers are allowed. Editor’s note: I put in BMW twice by mistake in our poll, so please only vote once for BMW if you vote for it at all. I’m keeping the existing poll up rather than put up a new one and throwing away the votes that have already been cast. → Read More
CBS announced the closing of its acquisition of CNET today. The deal, first announced last month, will bring CNET under the control of Quincy Smith’s CBS Interactive division, “the premier online content network for information and entertainment.” An email to all CNET employees from Smith and CNET CEO Neil Ashe (now CBS Interactive President) is below. It’s interesting that there’s no mention of Dan Farber, CNET News.com’s editor-in-chief, in the leadership section. Just an oversight, or is CBS just making it clear that they don’t think much of CNET’s newsroom? Read the full email below. Update: We’ve added a second email from CBS CEO Leslie Moonves to all CBS employees. He at least mentions that CNET is in the news business, listing “news” before business but after technology, entertainment and sports. → Read More
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