901am

New Media News Every Morning

Barack Obama next to participate in MySpace and MTV Presidential Dialogue Series

By

obama1.pngMySpace and MTV announced that U.S. Senator Barack Obama (D-Illinois) will be the next participant in their Presidential Dialogue series. The Dialogue with Sen. Obama will take place October 29 at 1:30 pm ET/10:30 am PT on the campus of Coe College in Cedar Rapids, IA and will be streamed live on MySpace, MTV’s ChooseOrLose.com and MTV Mobile, and exclusively premiere on air on MTV at 7 pm ET/PT that night. MTV News Correspondents Gideon Yago and Sway Calloway, as well as WashingtonPost.com political reporter Chris Cillizza, will serve as moderators. Industry-leading pollsters John McLaughlin and Geoffrey Garin will return to oversee the real-time polling data and questions submitted via MySpaceIM and Think.MTV.com.

The inaugural MySpace/MTV Presidential Dialogue, with former Senator John Edwards, reached a wide audience on-air, online and on mobile phones. Held last September 27, the event was broadcast live on MySpace and ChooseorLose.com, and since its online premiere, has been streamed approximately 350,000 times. The on-air broadcast (7-8 pm ET) was the top program for viewers aged 18-24 across all of cable for the time period, and was seen by a total of nearly two million viewers overall. Nearly 2,300 questions were submitted for Senator Edwards by online viewers during the course of the one hour Dialogue. Adding to its historical significance, the Dialogue with John Edwards was the first-ever Presidential forum to be broadcast live on mobile phones, via MTV Mobile.

The MySpace and MTV Dialogue series is the first in history to allow a national at home audience the opportunity to respond to candidate’s answers instantaneously – with that feedback piped back into the discussion and used to shape its direction – as well as the ability to pose questions in real-time, via MySpaceIM and ChooseOrLose.com. Throughout the event, online viewers can immediately register their approval or disapproval of a candidate’s responses via a revolutionary online polling tool, powered by Flektor (www.flektor.com), as they watch the Dialogue live. Instant results are displayed on the screen and viewers can compare their opinions to those of the entire community through a “popular vote” function. Poll results are available online live during each event and archived for future viewing.

Originally posted on October 18, 2007 @ 11:05 pm

SmugMug partners with Blurb

By

Blurb announced a strategic partnership with SmugMug, an online photo sharing and photo storage website. The partnership lets SmugMug customers create, publish, share, market, and sell professional quality books.

SmugMug customers can use Blurb’s new SmugMug Slurper to automatically “slurp” full-resolution photos from their SmugMug account into Blurb BookSmart software. Users then create a book on their own, or invite others to contribute to a community book project that captures their shared passions and experiences.

To publish a book, users download Blurb’s free BookSmart software straight from Blurb.com. Customers can keep their books private or announce them to friends and family, and include them in Blurb’s public bookstore for others to see and purchase.

smugmug1.png
In this photo, the SmugMug team celebrates a profitable company.

Originally posted on October 18, 2007 @ 11:16 pm

Userplane launches ‘Feeds’ to provide collection of APIs

By

userplane.pngUserplane, the application platform for online communities and a wholly owned subsidiary of AOL, unveiled Userplane Feeds– a collection of free APIs, making it easy for website developers and publishers to access and integrate applications that add content and function to their websites. Each “Feed” is offered as a free, ad-supported solution, and can be integrated with Userplane Money to generate revenue for the site.

Userplane’s first Featured Feed is AOL’s Truveo Video Search, available at www.userplane.com/feeds. Userplane soon will add MapQuest and real-time news stream Relegence to its collection. Separately, the company also is working to offer messaging interoperability with AIM.

The Truveo Video Search API allows developers to easily integrate a feature-rich video search service into their websites. The Truveo back-end is constantly indexing new videos from all over the web, including sites like MySpace, YouTube and AOL Video. Developers can access the data contained in the Truveo video search index to build a variety custom applications that feature video search functionality.

Originally posted on October 17, 2007 @ 9:30 pm

Howard Stern, most popular talk radio personality with web users for 7th consecutive year– Lycos

By

howard.pngLycos, Inc. announced its seventh annual list of The Lycos Top Talk Radio Hosts of 2007, based on Internet searches. Users can also voice their opinions on this year’s list, and weigh in on weekly Internet trends and pop culture on The Lycos 50 Blog.

For the seventh straight year, Howard Stern continues his reign as the most-searched talk radio personality with web users, generating more searches than Tom Joyner and Opie & Anthony combined. Stern’s online popularity remains strong, with search activity increasing 44% since making the move from terrestrial radio to Sirius Satellite in Jan. 2006. Tom Joyner takes the number two spot on this year’s list, more than doubling in search popularity over the past year. But shock jocks Opie & Anthony, coming in at number three, are the biggest movers and shakers with web users in 2007, generating four times more search interest than this time last year.

The one new voice making a first-ever appearance on the Lycos list of Top Talk Radio Hosts is Clark Howard, host of the nationally-syndicated consumer advocate program, The Clark Howard Show. Howard, also an author and a syndicated television consumer reporter, makes his debut on this year’s list at number 16.

The Top 20 Most-Searched Talk Radio Personalities of 2007 (numbers in parentheses reflect last year’s rank):

1. Howard Stern (1)
2. Tom Joyner (6)
3. Opie & Anthony (12)
4. Rush Limbaugh (5)
5. Lionel (7)
6. Chris Evans (17)
7. Emma B (14)
8. Wendy Williams (8)
9. Michael Savage (16)
10. Larry King (-)
11. Sean Hannity (15)
12. Bob & Tom (19)
13. Don Imus (4)
14. Mancow (-)
15. Clark Howard (-)
16. Dr. Laura (-)
17. Sara Cox (20)
18. Art Bell (10)
19. Kim Komando (-)
20. Paul Harvey(-)

Originally posted on October 18, 2007 @ 12:42 pm

ComedyTime, Dailymotion seal content licensing deal

By

dailymotion.pngDailymotion and ComedyTime, provider of original comedy content created for wireless handsets, announced a licensing deal to place content from ComedyTime on Dailymotion’s site.

ComedyTime’s original “funnysodes,” web shorts and stand-up comedy packages will now be available to Dailymotion’s global audience. The agreement includes current and future clips including Roscoe the Party Dog, Freestylin’, Booty Patrol, Dick Nobody and more. The content will be programmed by Dailymotion’s creative managers into the Funny channel, where it will appear alongside original videos from Dailymotion’s MotionMaker program for the creative community. Combining professional along with user-generated content around users’ areas of interest allows them to more easily discover, view and share the content they love.

Originally posted on October 18, 2007 @ 12:21 am