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Microsoft to add Disney films to Xbox’s download menu

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DisneyMicrosoft Corp closes a deal with Walt Disney Co. to add Disney films to Xbox 360’s download service, allowing Xbox gamers to watch Disney through their game system.

Joining the likes of Warner Bros, Home Entertainment, Paramount Pictures, among others, Disney now gets access to over 7 million gamers and consumers of Microsoft’s online gaming device. “This is a big endorsement for us,” Robbie Bach, president of the entertainment and devices division at Microsoft, said. “With this partner, we have 28 TV and movie studios on Xbox Live.”

Among the 35 movies from Disney to show up on Xbox are The Queen, Deja Vu and Bridge to Terabithia. While this deal is expected to give Disney a boost, it also empowers Microsoft’s goal to bring digital entertainment to millions of living rooms around the world.

Originally posted on July 11, 2007 @ 6:08 am

Ning closes $44M investment round

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Ning Social NetworkNing, the all-around social networking start-up launched sometime in February, has recently closed its first investment round worth $44 million.

Said to be led by Legg Mason, this Ning investment came to a close with a top-notched group of investors, and with the help of New York-based Allen and Company.

Prior to this, Ning’s operating on funds raised by owner Marc Andreessen and a group of colleagues and freinds.

“We will be investing that money in our business — in scaling our operations to accommodate our traffic and growth; in our product design and development efforts; and in our platform evangelism and support programs. Apart from those investments, we plan on staying as lean and focused as we possibly can,” Andreessen said in this blog.

With this latest development, Ning is geared towards expanding their platform and improving the products and services in the coming months.

Originally posted on July 10, 2007 @ 5:30 am

Buy blog comments, anyone?

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Buy Blog CommentsWhat can you say about buying and selling blog comments? Here’s a new online service to ponder upon.

BuyBlogComments.com is a startup that offers unautomated, human-made blog comments aimed for, as said on their site, “blackhatters who are looking for good quality backlinks”. (IMO, something’s seriously wrong about having the word “blackhat” and “good quality backlinks” in one sentence.)

This one-of-a-kind startup offers three packages, starting at $20 which gives you 100 blog comments, $100 for 500 comments, and $200 for 1000 comments. The company claims to have a group of trained professionals who do the commenting themselves, making sure that the comments are related to the blog post they comment on so that they “look completely like legit comments.”

While BuyBlogComments claims they’re NOT spam, Darren Rowse, the Problogger himself, thinks that the service is “sick” and “disturbing”. I think so, too. I’m very much aware that there are underground companies doing spam, but to go out in the open, offer your spamming service, and make it “look legit” is something else. I think it’s just odd to be selling a service aimed at blackhatters so that their sites would “rank better in the SERPs” when we all know well that black hat is the bane of every search engine’s existence.

Originally posted on July 10, 2007 @ 10:32 pm

Yahoo ranks most popular site in Asia Pacific, comScore study shows

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In a recent comScore study on the Internet behavior in the Asia Pacific region, Yahoo emerges as the most visited site, beating Google and MSN sites.

Represented by 10 Asia Pacific countries which includes China, Hong Kong, India, Japan, Malaysia, New Zealand, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan and Australia, the first comprehensive review of Asia-Pacific Internet Usage used panel-based measurement facilities comparisons across countries. The study reveals that in May, there were nearly 284 million people above 15 years of age who accessed the Internet. On the average, an individual in the Asia Pacific region logs in 13.8 days with about 20 hours viewing time in a month.

Apparently, Yahoo sites are the most popular in the region, ranking in the top three positions in 7 out of 10 countries included in the study, and emerging on top of Google and MSN. This can possibly be rooted to Yahoo’s initiative to localize their sites according to specific regional needs, something that rival Google and MSN has yet to focus on.

comScore's Asia Pacific Internet Behavior Study

“We all know that the Asia-Pacific region is large and that Internet usage is growing rapidly. What is fascinating about this study is that it allows us to compare Internet usage across countries using a consistent measurement methodology and to then determine where PC-based Internet engagement is most developed. We are looking forward to providing additional insight into the online dynamics of this important region in the future,” commented Bob Ivins, executive VP of comScore.

Originally posted on July 9, 2007 @ 9:24 am

Mozilla launches Firefox eBay edition

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Firefox eBay EditionMozilla launched an eBay customized version of its popular Firefox browser available for eBay users in U.K, France and Germany.

With Firefox eBay-edition bidders and sellers can now easily keep an eye on their eBay trades, whether their browsing other websites or whatever they’re doing online.

Some of the other features of this eBay browser include auction status alerts; a quick access sidebar that shows real-time notification on items being watched, bid, or sold; as well as eBay’s Account Guard which ensures users that they’re viewing the legtimate eBay site.

The Mozilla Firefox eBay Edition is available for download here. This, however, is not yet available for use in the U.S.

Originally posted on July 8, 2007 @ 1:53 pm