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SpiralFrog set to launch, finally

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SpiralFrogAfter almost 7 months of delay and some unpretty executive shuffling, SpiralFrog‘s launch is finally on its way.

Set to go live later this year, the company started sending invitation emails for private beta testers to have a taste of what the startup has to offer. Joe Mohen, founder of SpiralFrog, said that the startup will have 700,000 songs at launch date, all free for download.

SpiralFrog aims to offer ad-supported legal downloads of audio content licensed from the catalogs of the world’s leading independent record labels. With SpiralFrog, users can freely download music without worrying about copyright issues, lawsuits, or spyware.

The idea is to advertise to consumers during the download time which will run about 90 seconds for each song. Although they offer only 700,000 songs in its catalog, way smaller than the (at least) 2 million tracks that Apple offers, SpiralFrog’s list is composed of records from the largest record label to date, Universal Music Group. Now that sounds promising to me.

Originally posted on August 8, 2007 @ 8:15 am

Google Street View adds four cities

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Google Street View : Staples Center, LAGoogle Maps has recently added four cities on its revolutionary (and controversial) Street View feature.

With Google’s infamous black vans roaming the streets of the US, high quality street-level maps of San Diego, Los Angeles, Houston, and Orlando are now available for viewing. The latter three are using lower resolution images from Immersive Media, albeit unnoticeable. (The image on the right is of the Staples Center in LA). The first five cities that were experimented on Street View were New York, Las Vegas, Miami, Denver and San Francisco Bay Area.

Since its launch about end of May, Google now has 9 cities in its map with the street view functionality. I wonder how long until all the cities of the state would become available.

Coming attraction within the next few days: funny, controversial, candid, and weird pictures from Google Street View scattered all over the web. You bet.

Originally posted on August 8, 2007 @ 6:43 am

Forbes.com to acquire social bookmarking site Clipmarks

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ClipmarksSocial bookmarking site Clipmarks is in the process of being acquired by Forbes.com — still in the process, and not yet acquired as earlier reported, as the deal has not yet been closed.

Clipmarks, a New York-based startup, allows “clippers” to bookmark not an entire web-page but selected text, photos, and videos that capture their fancy. With this ongoing acquisition, Forbes.com plans to integrate the clipmarks technology into their system, as it helps their writers collect and share information to post on their site.

Eric Goldstein, CEO of Clipmarks, clarifies that the acquisition is not yet sealed. Along with this clarification, he also stated the real score between Clipmarks and Forbes as of the moment. “For the past few months we have been meeting with people at all levels of Forbes and the excitement and support they have shown for what we’re creating has been very meaningful to us. As many of you have probably seen already, a number of their writers are already clipping and our technology has been integrated on forbes.com.”

Apparently, the Clipmarks team has long been waiting for a partner who “fully understands their vision for marking news and information more portable and interactive”, and to financially support their technology. Clipmarks, so it seems, might have already found their match.

Originally posted on August 8, 2007 @ 3:57 am

Filed Under: Web

Online ads to overtake newspapers in 2011?

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VSSOnline advertising in the US is expected to grow bigger than newspaper advertising by 2011, as shown in the annual media research report by Veronis Suhler Stevenson (VSS).

In the study, VSS predicts that online advertising will increase by over 21% per year, totalling to over $62 billion by 2011, a few billion dollars bigger than newspaper advertising which is expected at $60 billion. Broadcast, cable, and satellite TV advertising still takes the biggest slice of the cake, foreseen to reach $86 billion.

“The path of online advertising and newspaper advertising is a continuation of what we’ve been observing for many years, but it is finally getting to the point where the lines will cross,” said James Rutherfurd, managing director at VSS.

As Americans spend more and more time online, one can’t help to ask if this gradual shift to digital media be the gradual death of newspaper production. Are we finally saving more trees?

Originally posted on August 7, 2007 @ 11:24 am

Dell acquires Zing Systems, re-enters mobile entertainment scene

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DellHardware giant Dell enters the portable entertainment scene again with its recent acquisition of technology and software startup Zing Systems.

Known for its “always connected” mobile entertainment, Zing currently provides the streaming audio technology for Sandisk Sana Connect wireless mobile mp3 player, and the Sirius Stiletto.

This acquisition is just one of the steps that Dell has taken to expand its retail catalog. “We’re looking at companies that can expand our capability to provide great product experiences,” said Frink. “We think this is a company that can provide a great technology and entertainment experience.

However, with the disappearance of the Dell DJ Ditty, Dell’s own-branded but now defunct portable media player, many are perplexed about this recent attempt. Then again, when all else fails, Dell could still continue effectively selling third party products anyway.

Originally posted on August 7, 2007 @ 12:08 pm