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Technorati acquires Personal Bee

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technoratiBlog search provider Technorati has acquired Personal Bee, an unknown news aggregator for under $1 million.

According to Valleywag, Personal Bee’s founder will come in as VP of business development at Technorati and the acquisition will allow Technorati to build Techmeme style pages.

My question is why? I can buy access to Megite’s code for $10k (at least that’s what they’ve previously offered me for it); why buy a crappy looking news aggregator when the barrier to entry in terms of doing it yourself is very, very low? Weird.

 

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Originally posted on March 13, 2007 @ 6:20 pm

Rivera launches Short Movement

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shortmovementMinic Rivera, the former Editor of The Blogging Times (and 901am contributor) has announced the launch of The Short Movement, a monthly online video festival based on themes.

Video entries are limited to 10 minutes, with voting undertaken by site users, with a “theme prize” being awarded to each monthly winner.

The site launches with theme of “Who Am I?” for March.

“We would like to start a movement of people who love sharing short videos and at the same time provide incentive through the festival,” Rivera said.

Definitely one to watch.

Disclosure: Minic is a contributor @ 901am however I was not asked to write this post.

Originally posted on March 13, 2007 @ 6:07 pm

YouTube’s Lifeline: DMCA Section 512

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While much attention has been paid to Viacom’s high profile filing of a lawsuit against Google for “massive copyright infringement” little has been said about the grounds on which YouTube currently legally operates, and why the lawsuit is frivolous unless an amendment is made to the 1999 Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

DMCA Section 512 which covers liability relating to online material contains the following notable points:

[A] provider shall not be liable for…direct infringement, based solely on the intermediate storage and transmission of material through a system or network controlled or operated by or for that provider, if the transmission was initiated by another person; the storage and transmission is carried out through an automatic technological process, without any selection of that material by the provider;

Furthermore,

[M]onetary relief under section 504 or 505 for contributory infringement or vicarious liability, based solely on transmitting or providing access to material over that provider’s system or network, other than conduct described in paragraph (1), if the provider…does not have actual knowledge that the material is infringing or, in the absence of such actual knowledge, is not aware of facts or circumstances from which infringing activity is apparent;

At the same time, another part of the same section may land Google in trouble if Viacom is able to prove beyond doubt that YouTube’s success is directly attributable to infringing material and that YouTube is doing nothing in spite of being able to control this activity.

[D]oes not receive a financial benefit directly attributable to the infringing activity, if the provider has the right and ability to control such activity.

Whether YouTube is found to be guilty or not, the ruling in this case will most certainly get lawmakers to take another look at the DMCA.

Read more.

Originally posted on March 14, 2007 @ 8:45 am

SponsoredReviews launches, yes another one

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SponsoredReviewsHaven’t we had enough of sponsored post services? PayPerPost, ReviewMe and now SponsoredReviews adds to the pack. At least they’re requiring full disclosure, that’s something I guess.

SponsoredReviews is the the first paid-blogging system to allow advertisers and bloggers to be both passive and proactive. Advertisers can post opportunities to attract bids from bloggers, or they can search through bloggers profiles and purchase reviews directly.

There’s a launch post and all. Will you use it?

Originally posted on March 13, 2007 @ 3:35 am

The TradeDoubler-AOL deal likely to fall through

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TradeDoublerWe’ve been covering the AOL offer on the European affiliate network TradeDoubler previously here on 901am. The latest in this affair is that the deal is likely to fall through as more shareholding funds are backing out. This according to a Reuters report.

That same report states that it expects AOL to raise its bid and extend the deadline for the deal.

I personally think this deal will fall through. AOL isn’t prepared to pay enough for TradeDoubler, and since the company is doing more than fine on its own it can afford to wait. But we’ll see.

Originally posted on March 14, 2007 @ 2:09 am