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New Media News Every Morning

eBay acquires StumbleUpon for $40-$45 million

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Techcrunch has the scoop: eBay has acquired social networking meets random surfing outfit StumbleUpon for $40-$45 million.

Valleywag does the figures and works out that whilst the deal is obviously good for the folks behind StumbleUpon.. they only ever took $1.5m in funding and never had a full venture capital round; the price means that sites like Digg may only be worth $100-$150 million, and the entire sector worth no more than $500million, which is probably significantly less than the sum total of funding that has gone into startups in Silicon Valley alone.

Originally posted on April 18, 2007 @ 7:49 pm

The End of Pandora and Last.fm?

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Last.fmWhile I’m not a big fan of Last.fm because their bloody software starts up on my computer without my permission, I am a fan of their concept, as well as a regular listener of Pandora. Both are streaming music recommendation sites, and very popular, if you judge by just Google PageRank and Alexa.

Unfortunately, a panel of copyright judges are ordering Internet radio stations like them to increase the royalties they pay to musicians and record labels. And for relatively young startups like them, the ruling means likely extinction. Pandora founder Tim Westergren, of course, thinks the decision sucks.

I’m inclined to agree but primarily because it means less diversity of music online, and an advantage for terrestrial radio stations. Without getting into too much detail, I’ll say that as a former community radio co-host and producer, I know for a fact that terrestrials don’t always pay all of the royalties an act is due. This is because of the way playlist data is analyzed at royalty payment time. At least in Canada, and at least the last time I checked, about 5 years ago. If this holds true for the United States and other countries, then Internet stations have a disadvantage since it’s relatively easy to determine the entire playlist and thus payable royalties.

If you are a fan of Internet Radio and live in the US, you can sign petition. See Save Net Radio for more details. [Note: Also read Duncan’s article on Vale Internet Radio.]

Originally posted on April 20, 2007 @ 10:46 am

Barbie gets it, finally

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barbie.jpgJust at a time when kids prefer to go online and join virtual communities and play with their virtual pets, Mattel is launching today its site for BarbieGirls.com as the first-ever global online community designed exclusively for girls and celebrates another “first” for the Barbie brand in launching new forms of media and entertainment.

“Since 2000, Barbie has been a leader in emerging media – from the launch of Barbie.com which now celebrates 65 million monthly visitors to the tremendous success of our direct-to-home entertainment, dating back to 2001 when toy-driven entertainment for girls was a breakframe idea,” said Chuck Scothon, general manager and senior vice president, Girls, Mattel Brands. “Barbie again leads with the introduction of Barbie Girls and what promises to be the next generation of girls’ play with a first-of-its-kind experience.”

Designed to be a safe place for girls to play and interact online, the beta version of BarbieGirls.com gives girls the creative power to customize their own virtual character, design their own “room,” shop at the mall, play games, hang out and chat live with other girls. Later this month, the entire Barbie Girls platform and the full range of the BarbieGirls.com web site features will be revealed at a global launch event.

Originally posted on April 19, 2007 @ 9:28 am

YouTube rival taps thePlatform

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thePlatform, a broadband video application service provider, announced that it has signed a deal to provide content publishing and distribution services for the Internet video venture to be launched by NBC-Universal and News Corp. The joint venture will include thousands of hours of full-length, premium content from major networks and film studios that will be distributed to hundreds of millions of consumers via some of the biggest portals on the Web.

“With a seven year history of managing online video on behalf of some of the most well known consumer brands, thePlatform has a proven record of success that should serve us well,” said George Kliavkoff, Chief Digital Officer, NBC Universal and interim CEO of the NBCU/News Corp. joint venture. “Together, we will provide our partners with an efficient system for managing, syndicating and generating revenue from broadband video.”

Originally posted on April 18, 2007 @ 9:28 am

New Media Wire – Wed Apr 18, 2007

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New Graphic AdSense Ads?
While doing my usually daily quick-check of my own websites this morning, I came across a 200×200 animated handbag ad (on my 2 yr old tech site, of all places). This is a Google AdSense ad, but it sure looks an awful lot like a Doubleclick ad. And why a handbag ad, considering pretty much every other AdSense ad on my site has been very targeted to the content?

Note: A quick browse of 901am shows the ads here, too, though not necessarily animated, and still not targeted.

SNL Funnyman Will Ferrell Launches Video Sharing Site
Will Ferrell, arguably the most talented SNLer ever (I’ve been watching since 1976) has teamed up with biz partner and comedian Adam McKay to launch a video-sharing site, FunnyorDie.com. VC firm Sequoia Capital, whose name I see all over the web, has funded this start up. [via Ars Technica]

The main page starts off with the following message in bright red:

Too many people are blowing off work to download our videos. If videos are slow or missing your boss wants you to go back to work and try later. – The Landlord

A Tax Upon You
It’s been a long time coming, but a number of US senators and others want retailers to be taxed for any online sales. That means they want those businesses to hand over data of any purchases. Some online retailers do not have to charge tax on the shipment of products to customers living in certain states.

This is going to be a dog’s breakfast of legislation. As I understand it, US states have the jurisdiction to decide whether or not brick-and-mortar businesses should charge tax to out-of-state customers. Can you imagine what’s going to happen to competing online businesses based in different states, with different sales tax percentages?

Originally posted on April 18, 2007 @ 11:12 am