Monthly Archives: June 2008
RealNetworks’ Rhapsody Now Supports The iPod
RealNetworks, Inc. (NASDAQ:RNWK) is opening up a new feature for Rhapsody, their iTunes competitor. Prior to launching this feature, Rhapsody offered subscribers streaming copy-protected audio for a monthly fee and the file format was incompatible with iPods and iPhones. But now Rhapsody will be selling DRM-free MP3s a la carte and they will be compatible with the iPod and iPhone manufactured by Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL).
Customers will be able to access 30 second samples of each track. Most of the tracks will be around $0.99 per song and $9.99 per album. Rhapsody currently has about 5 million songs provided by Universal Music, Sony BMG, EMI, and Warner Music.
To appease the demands of music labels, Real will provide “a strong emphasis on the digital album with merchandising centers for ‘new album releases,’ ‘old favorites,’ and ‘who’s on tour.’” Labels prefer to sell full albums rather than individual songs.
As part of the launch, Real offered the first 100,000 users to sign up for the MP3 store a free album. Real commands about 1% of the online music download market.
[Source: AppleInsider]
Categories Apple Inc., RealNetworks, Rhapsody
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Youku Raises $40 Million; Now At Over $80 Million In Total Funding
Youku.com is a popular video sharing website based in China. This website is known for hosting full movies, but has blocked certain regions from being able to play them. Youku has raised $30 million in funding from Maverick Capital, Brookside Capital, Sutter Hill Ventures, Farallon Capital, and Chengwei Ventures. Youku also received a $10 million loan for equipment from Western Technology Investment.
“This investment will enable us to advance the company’s rapid growth, expand our sales and marketing network, and most importantly, accelerate our monetization process as the online video market matures and consolidates in the coming year,” stated Victor Koo, President/CEO of Youku.com Inc. in a press release. ”With the new funds, we will be deepening our service to users, advertisers and media partners to give them the best and largest platform in China to distribute video content online.”
Youku receives 100 million unique visitors per month and each users spends about 300 minutes per month on the site. Youku is the #6 largest site in China in terms of the amount of time that is spent on the site.
“We are happy with Youku’s success and its progress in monetization,” stated Len Baker, Managing Director at Sutter Hill. “The Youku team has clearly demonstrated its excellent execution capability, and we believe Youku is in the right position as online video takes off on a massive scale in China.”
Youku has also recently partnered with Universal, China Film Group, Beijing TV, EMI, Huayi Music and several other media firms.Â
Youku’s last round of funding was $40 million. That investment was provided by Sutter Hill, Brookside Capital, Chengwei Ventures, and Farallon Capital.
Giggity Giggity Giggity Google
Google Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) is working wtih Seth MacFarlane on a new cartoon advertising project. This coming September, MacFarlane will be launching a new series called “Seth MacFarlane’s Cavalcade of Cartoon Comedy†which will only be available on the Internet.
Google will be syndicating the cartoon comedy series through AdSense. Instead of a static ad, Google will be laying out a video for the cartoon series on select websites that target the intended demographics. The videos will have ads embedded within them. The project will be in two minute clips in a series of 50 clips.
“We feel that we have recreated the mass media,†stated Kim Malone Scott, Director of Sales & Operations Google’s AdSense division.
The division of Google that handles these distribution services is called Google Content Network. Google provided MacFarlane with data regarding how long people tend to watch web videos before moving on to new content.
MacFarlane is the founder, voice actor, screenwriter and producer of Family Guy and American Dad. These two programs air on FOX. One of Family Guy’s most famous characters is Glen Quagmire. Quagmire is known for saying “Giggity, Giggity, Giggity” when he finds himself attracted to a woman.
Seth MacFarlane spoke at Harvard for Class Day a couple of years ago. The speech is available on YouTube.
[Source: NYT]
Categories FOX, Google
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6.9 Million iPhone-Related Searches Made In April 2008, Before 3G Was Announced
COMSCORE, Inc. (NASDAQ:SCOR) released a statistic a couple of days ago regarding searches for Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) iPhone products. This past April, “iPhone” was searched 1.5 million times, “iPhone update” was searched about 151,000 times, and “iPhone Web Apps” was searched about 118,000 times.
“Apple iPhone G3″ was searched 43,000 times and “Apple iPhone 3G” was searched 60,000 times. This occurred two months before WWDC, the event where the Apple iPhone 3G was revealed and confirmed. Now that the iPhone 3G is official, I wouldn’t be surprised if these search numbers double for the month of June.
“Speculation had been rampant in recent months that Apple CEO Steve Jobs was getting ready to introduce a 3G iPhone at Apple’s annual Worldwide Developers Conference on June 9, and indeed he did just that,†stated Dan Lackner, Senior VP at comScore. “Search is frequently a harbinger of purchase intent. The increase in volume of iPhone searches demonstrates just how heavy that interest has been for the next generation of Apple’s popular phone – even when its existence was still just a rumor.â€
Below is a list of iPhone-related searches in April 2008:
1. IPHONE (1,488,000)
2. IPHONE UPDATE (151,000)
3. IPHONE WEB APPS (118,000)
4. IPHONE MMS (101,000)
5. IPHONE 2.0 (75,000)
6. IPHONE 3G (60,000)
7. IPHONE 2 (59,000)
8. IPHONE G3 (43,000)
9. IPHONES (38,000)
10. IPHONE SPEAKERS (35,000)
About 88% of these searches were made on Google itself.
[Source: iTWire]
Categories Apple Inc.
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Chad Hurley Talks Of YouTube’s Beginning To Acquisition [NewTeeVee]
Liz Gannes Of NeeTeeVee has recorded the below video of how YouTube started all the way up until they were acquired.
Some of the interesting points in the video are:
- YouTube initially used ServerBeach’s $129/month unlimited data plan
- YouTube didn’t have a presentation when presenting to VCs on Sand Hill Road… just product stats
- YouTube had about 8 people working for free before funding. Hurley just told them that they’d work it out after funding.
- Making the decision to be acquired was tough. They could have pushed for more funding, but it would have been threatening a lot of other services. Google helped them refine their model.
- The day that they were acquired, YouTube moved offices. The press showed up at the old office.
How To Effectively Utilize Digg Shouts 101
When Digg first introduced shouting capabilities, I ruled it out as a stupid feature because I thought it was nothing but e-mail spam. In many circumstances it is still spam, depending on the users that you allow shouts from. But now I have realized that shouts have value to them.
Eye-For-An-Eye / Frienemies
I treat digg shouts as an eye-for-an-eye system. If you digg my interesting stories, I digg back your interesting stories. Simple as that. Now you have to be careful with who you add as friends. I’ll call the bad friends “frienemies.” Frienemies are the ones that send you shouts in your inbox and you digg the interesting stories that they send, but they don’t reciprocate. You have to become skillful at identifying who the frienemies are right away and remove them from your friends list.
This can be monitored after submitting articles and finding out which of your friends dugg your story and which of your friends have not within 48 hours.
Categories Digg
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Active Napster Shareholders Believe Company Is Worth At Least $280 Million
In May 2007, Last.FM was acquired by CBS for $280 million. Based on that acquisition price, major active shareholders in Napster Inc. (NASDAQ:NAPS) argue that the company should be worth just as much if not more. The shareholders that have been pushing for management shifting and strategy changes at Napster are Perry H. Rod, Thomas Sailors, and Kavan P. Singh.Â
Napster actually has over 700,000 paying customers, yet their market value is zero (market cap of about $69 million minus their saleable assets). The reason why Napster is trading low is because of a “lack of confidence in governance” stated the shareholders.
Last.FM was a private company with a close-knit community of users when they were acquired. Napster is a public company that was a has-been music sharing site in the early 2000′s back when it was making Metallica and Dr. Dre mad and Shawn Fanning was one of the most well known people in the tech industry. CBS acquired Last.FM because they were ramping up their Radio services and even signed a partnership with AOL. Last.fm currently has over 21 million active users in 200 countries.Â
Should Napster be worth close to $280 million? I’m not an active shareholder, but I’d have to say no because their user-base just isn’t that big.Â
[Source: paidContent]
Categories Napster
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AniBoom Has Confirmed $10 Million Funding Series B
“The new media content space and specifically animation, is growing at an explosive rate,” stated Andreas Stavropoulos, Managing Director at DFJ. “aniBoom created a disruptive model harnessing the power and reach of digital distribution to generate tremendous opportunities for animated content created by a massive network of independent professionals around the globe.â€
aniBoom, an animation social network for creative minds to collaborate on cartoons has raised a big round of funding at $10 million Series B. AniBoom is based in Israel and the funding was led by Draper Fisher Jurvetson. DFJ Tamir Fishman Ventures and previous investor Evergreen Venture Partners also participated in this round. aniBoom raised $4.5 million in February 2007.Â
aniBoom was started in 2006 by Uri Shinar. Uri is also the CEO of the company. aniBoom wants to become the YouTube of animation according to TechCrunch.
aniBoom has over 4,000 independent creators across 70 countries. These artists are all working together to help making a music video for songs on Radiohead’s “In Rainbows” album through a contest.
“In teaming up with DFJ and DFJ Tamir Fishman Ventures, we are proud to partner with one of the top venture firms in the world,†stated Uri Shinar. “aniBoom is the innovator of the now very hot virtual digital animation studios and animation incubation model, and to see the major media and entertainment powers following suit is a strong endorsement of our vision.â€
Aniboom is located at www.aniboom.com
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Categories aniBoom, Draper Fisher Jurvetson
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Rumor: Control iTunes Using iPhone or iPod Touch App
One of the latest rumors regarding Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) is that the company will be introducing a free Application that will enhance the iPhone or iPod Touch experience. Essentially the application will allow your iPhone or iPod Touch to act as a remote control for the iTunes player on your Mac or PC.
The speculation about the rumor came about when Apple pre-released a version of iTunes 7.7 for developers. In the Readme file that came with the software, part of the statement read the following:
“Use iTunes 7.7 to sync music, video, and more with iPhone 3G, and download applications from the iTunes Store exclusively designed for iPhone and iPod touch with software version 2.0 or later. Also use the new Remote application for iPhone or iPod touch to control iTunes playback from anywhere in your home — a free download from the App Store.”
The application will most likely work over a Wi-Fi connection network. What makes this rumor even more plausible is that Apple filed for a patent that would allow a portable media player to act as a remote.
[Source: MacRumors]
Categories Apple Inc.
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Songkick Raises Around $1.1 Million To Help You Find Concerts
Songkick is a website that does everything to help you find concerts. They can find concerts near you by having you entering your location. They can e-mail you alerts when concerts come up. They’ve got a plugin that helps you find concerts of the artists that you have in your iTunes, Winamp, iTunes, and Windows Media Player libraries.
“We’re always adding more listings because we want to make sure we have every single concert in existence—no matter how obscure the band or tiny the venue,” states the company’s About page. “We even index bands’ MySpace pages to make sure we have all their dates.”
Songkick is based in East London and was founded by Ian Hogarth, Pete Smith, and Michelle You. The investment was provided by several personal investors. One of the investors is Saul Klein, founding partner of The Accelerator Group. Y-Combinator provided Songkick with their initial funding.
The company website is available at: www.songkick.com. VentureBeat broke the funding news.
Categories Songkick, The Accelerator Group, Y Combinator
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