Digiboo kiosks have been offering downloadable movies in airports to customers with USB sticks and Windows devices.
The company has now announced the ability to replace the USB connection with wireless access, while unfortunately keeping the strict Windows-only option.
However, the switch to wireless “should make Digiboo’s next step — Android support, which is promised to come this month — a whole lot easier,” Engadget suggests.
According to the press release, the service offers more than 800 new releases and popular movie titles: “Rentals are $3.99 (new) or $2.99 (catalog) and can be viewed within 30 days of download up to 48 hours after the movie is opened. Purchased movies cost $14.99. New releases are largely available day-and-date with DVD and Video on Demand.”
“Digiboo has partnered with several studios, including Lionsgate, Paramount, Sony and Warner Bros., as well as Kingston Digital, Inc. (USB), PFU (kiosk), and FSH (MSP distribution partner) to provide the highest quality service to travelers,” notes the release.
The company is also looking to expand into more retail locations and new markets in the final quarter of 2012.
SoundExchange, which collects royalties for digital streams and Internet radio, has collected royalties for 50,000 artists and labels who stand to lose their payout if they don’t register with the company by October 15.
“The agency, created in 2000, pays performing artists and record labels when their music is played on services like Sirius XM and Pandora — a royalty that the music industry has long sought, since terrestrial radio pays only songwriters and publishers,” explains The New York Times.
Right now the company has 70,000 accounts for performers and 24,000 for labels and other copyright owners, but it has struggled to get those parties to fill out the required documents.
The agency has paid out $1 billion since its start. Although the amount owed to the 50,000 unregistered parties hasn’t been confirmed, the artists and labels could lose out if they don’t meet SoundExchange’s October deadline.
ReDigi is rebranding the terms “used” and “recycled” to apply to digital media, a concept that copyright owners are having a hard time accepting.
The online marketplace enables people to resell music files they’ve bought and it hopes to expand into e-books and games in the future.
“A user downloads its software to determine which of his or her music files are eligible for resale,” explains Technology Review. “The company uses digital forensic analysis to verify that the person legally owns a file (rather than having ripped it from a CD or pirated it online): its ‘verification engine’ looks at data associated with the file to determine what its original source is, who acquired it and when, and whether it has been moved from other computers.”
“The company then deletes all copies from the person’s synched devices while transferring the original to its own cloud servers,” notes the article.
But the Recording Industry Association of America has sent the company a cease-and-desist order and now EMI’s Capitol Records is suing ReDigi for copyright infringement.
The case will be determined by one essential aspect of copyright law and ownership: the copy. If ReDigi is copying a song to its cloud services, it could stand to lose big in the lawsuit.
However, the company has “adopted methods originally developed in the banking industry to ensure that a digital song or book, just like digital money, is never in two places at once. Once someone else buys a user’s file, ReDigi transfers the license and deletes it from its servers,” the article explains. “The technology can’t, however, ensure that someone hasn’t previously stored a copy elsewhere.”
Digital-copyright expert Jason Schultz believes ReDigi has a fair chance of winning this unprecedented case, which he says strikes “at the heart of the future business models of creative industries.”
Record companies are looking at a big hurdle with YouTube as they continue the transition to a digital market. Today, almost two-thirds of people under 18 use Google’s video site to listen to music, according to a new report from Nielsen.
“Among adults, the most popular ways to listen to music were radio (67 percent), CDs (61 percent), YouTube (44 percent), Pandora’s custom-radio service (32 percent) and Apple Inc.’s iTunes (29 percent),” reports the Wall Street Journal.
“Among 13-to-17 year olds, YouTube was the most popular way to listen to music, with 64 percent using it,” notes the article. “Radio was next, with 56 percent, followed by iTunes (53 percent), CDs (50 percent) and Pandora (35 percent).”
For the record industry, this creates a challenge for monetization. “Record companies and music publishers typically realize some revenue from advertising that appears with their videos on YouTube. But it is only fractions of a cent per play, and not nearly enough to replace the revenue that has been lost as CD sales have been decimated,” explains WSJ.
Additionally, the popular YouTube app on Apple devices — which will actually be removed on the latest iOS update — doesn’t run any advertising, which means no revenue for the record companies.
“Three of the four major labels make their videos through a company called Vevo LLC, whose videos play on the YouTube website but not on its smartphone app,” notes the article. “However, consumers don’t use Vevo much — or at least don’t realize when they do. Only 7 percent of adults and 11 percent of teenagers identified Vevo as a way they listen to music.”
ETCentric previously reported on Google’s investment in premium original content for its “channels,” drawing big names like Madonna and Ashton Kutcher to create episodes and Web series. In a related story, Wired explains how Google is hoping its channels will bypass cable and become the one-stop shop for all content needs.
“Cable has run out of space,” says Shishir Mehrotra, the VP of product management at YouTube. “If you’re going to broadcast content to everybody whether or not they watch it, you can only afford to broadcast a few hundred channels. But if you move to a world where you can broadcast on demand to only whoever wants it, now you can support millions of channels.”
Aimed to lengthen viewing times and boost overall number of viewers — not just hits — YouTube’s channels cover a variety of content from surfing to Olympics to live coverage of Ramadan in Mecca. “The average American watches five hours of TV per day,” notes YouTube product manager Noam Lovinsky, and Google wants them watching on their platform.
The company is working to build awareness of the channels. A large black bar on the left side of the site is intended to drive user attention to channel subscriptions.
YouTube’s top channels are getting millions of views and users are unsubscribing to channels. Even though that might seem like a bad thing, to Google it means people care what content is in their subscription lists. YouTube will also tap into other Google services to provide users with channel suggestions.
Also, YouTube has to make the content available to everyone everywhere and consistent across all devices. This means taking over app development instead of having partners build their own apps for the service. By making all future apps HTML-based, YouTube won’t rely on manufacturers to update them.
A group of technologists, lawyers and other interested parties have come together to do what most people don’t want to: read those horribly long terms-of-service contracts to which most simply click “agree.”
Called ToS;DR for “Terms of Service; Didn’t Read,” the project creates grades — from “Class A” (the best) to “Class E” (the worst) — based on peer-reviewed summaries, enabling consumers to make more educated clicks.
“For example, if you’re uploading photos to TwitPic, you might want to reconsider,” explains The Atlantic. “They give the site their worst grade, a ‘Class E.’ Why? Well, they have an easy-to-understand summary… If you click on ‘Read the Details,’ you get an extended explanation of these warnings and can also link back (almost like a Wikipedia page) to the ToS;DR discussion that led to the thumbs-down.”
The Atlantic post includes a screen shot which shows simple bullet explanations for Twitpic’s grade, like “Twitpic takes credit for your content,” and “Deleted images are not really deleted.”
“‘I have read and agree to the Terms’ is the biggest lie on the Web,” according to the ToS;DR site. “We aim to fix that.”
“The project hatched about a year ago at the annual Chaos Communication Camp event in Berlin as an outgrowth of the Unhosted project, which is a system for building Web apps that leave users in control of their data,” notes TechCrunch in a related post.
The ratings are based on German energy efficiency ratings for appliances, according to TechCrunch, which reports the site plans to officially launch later this month.
A new online survey from The NPD Group, “Kids and Consumer Electronics: 2012 Edition,” shows that kids are now starting to reach for tablets much more than before, challenging the long-standing popularity of gaming consoles.
“Video game console usage rates for children ages 4-14 are still higher than tablets, but this past year saw a strong increase in tablet usage among that age group: with a 13 percent increase in usage rate in 2012 vs. only 3 percent in 2011,” Mashable reports.
“Kids are using tablets to game, watch movies and TV shows, read books and listen to music — even occasionally for taking pictures — so they have embraced the utility of these devices quite rapidly,” according to Russ Crupnick of The NPD Group.
“Older kids also use the tablets for social media and communication, which squarely places these devices at the center for discovery and evangelism of new services and applications, as well as for brands and entertainment of all sorts,” notes Crupnick.
The study recommends that tablet makers start developing new tablets targeted specifically for children.
As for marketing, “…gaming systems and portable entertainment devices topped the list of devices over which children will have the most influence on future device selection,” explains the post. “And when considering a new purchase, ‘the type of technology and features offered by a new device is nearly as important as low price and good value,’ the survey noted.”
While social networks create traffic for ecommerce sites, they aren’t as successful in driving actual sales and revenue as traditional search and email, according to a report from online marketing provider Montate.
“Email was the leader in conversions to sales in the second quarter of this year, with 4.25 percent, ahead of search at 2.49 percent and social at 0.59 percent. When you look at average order value, search comes out on top with $90.40, followed by email $82.72 with social trailing with $64.19,” reports GigaOM per Monetate’s findings.
Facebook, Twitter and other networks are useful for building customer relationships and promoting conversations around products. However, because most people aren’t necessarily looking to shop while they use social media, they won’t follow through with a purchase.
Around 73 percent of Facebook users will view one product detail page, but 45 percent will leave after one page. For those coming from Google searches, just 56 percent will view a detail page, but 26 percent leave after the first page.
“It doesn’t mean investing in social media isn’t worth it,” notes GigaOM. “Social can still drive a lot of new commerce that might not have come through other channels. And for some retailers who integrate social well, there’s still a lot of upside… But retailers should be aware of the current limitations of social in driving revenue.”
With 488 million users accessing Facebook on mobile devices, and with mobile ad click-through rates 14 times higher than desktop ads, the social network has potential in the mobile sphere. But it will need to revise its Wi-Fi strategy to stay relevant.
Moolah Media conducted a study across thousands of campaigns, finding ads served to users over Wi-Fi performed significantly worse than those delivered over wireless networks.
As Wi-Fi is expected to represent 51 percent of all Web traffic by 2016, this presents a problem for Facebook.
“A mobile user’s carrier reveals a lot about who they are and how they might interact with an ad — information that’s essential for an ad to reach its target audience and to ultimately be profitable,” AllThingsD explains.
“Wi-Fi is a growing barrier to the success of mobile ads,” suggest the article. “And Wi-Fi isn’t the only issue: third-party browsers also hide the device type, and since they use proxy IPs, they often conceal the country location of the user as well — which makes it impossible to accurately target relevant ads, and results in massive losses for mobile advertisers.”
Even so, Facebook has the ability to combat this issue with its expansive data voluntarily provided by users. “And in addition to information explicitly provided on Facebook, the social network recently announced that it will be looking at how mobile users interact with other apps in order to deliver ads more efficiently,” the article notes.
“Facebook has the power to create targeted market segments, ones that are significantly more focused than just carrier name. And the now-public social network also has the resources to focus on post-click actions and backend quality — the unseen aspects of mobile advertising that truly matter to advertisers and can generate real profits,” AllThingsD concludes.
In 2011, mobile and digital content accounted for 36 percent of the 11.3 billion euros spent on games in Europe, reports media analyst firm IHS Screen Digest. That number is expected to hit 44 percent this year and rise to over half of all shares by 2016.
For traditional game distributors, this growth begs the question of how games like “Call of Duty” can stand up to popular Zynga titles on Facebook.
At Europe’s biggest gaming fair, Gamescom, the traditional makers are considering the free-to-play model. Heralded by mobile developers, the model allows customers to try out games before putting money down while also allowing developers to test what gamers do and do not like before building out the whole game.
“We like this new model,” says Frank Gibeau of Electronic Arts. “It’s a lot more like a life operation that you continuously build. It’s a lot more like a service.”
“Although the gaming industry is usually fairly resilient in economic downturns, the free-to-play and online segment is actually helping it grow through the tough times,” Reuters adds.
However, there were two notable absences from the gaming fair. Of the top three console makers, only Sony — the maker of the PlayStation — has been present at Gamescom. “Microsoft and Nintendo, makers of the Xbox and Wii consoles, respectively, have decided to showcase their products later this year,” the article states.
Mobile gaming presents an extra challenge to console makers beyond just competitive, affordable games. “At the moment, it’s not only what you play that is important, but also where you play,” notes Jim Ryan, chief executive at Sony Computer Entertainment Europe.
Representatives from the top American carriers are coming together to form the Mobile Payments Committee (MPC), a task force aimed at consolidating competing platforms for mobile payments into a standardized solution.
“The committee will serve as a way to develop policy and business strategy for the mobile payments industry,” reports VentureBeat.
Starting later this month, the committee will meet to “help participants figure out the complex business relationships necessary to make mobile payment options interoperable; help legislators and regulators understand how to develop mobile payments public policy; and educate consumers and merchants about the benefits of mobile payments,” the article continues.
Commissioned by the trade group Electronic Transactions Association (ETA), the MPC includes representatives from AT&T, Verizon, Sprint and T-Mobile, which could help to end exclusive carrier payment offerings, such as Sprint’s deal with Google Wallet.
Visa is also a member of the committee. Square is not yet involved, but ETA CEO Jason Oxman says he would welcome the company.
A year ago, Facebook boasted 205 million gamers on its social network. Today, that number has risen to more than 235 million globally, CNET reports.
“Facebook also noted that its total gamer userbase has grown 8.4 percent since the beginning of 2012 and that last month alone, it drove its users to Apple’s App Store and Google’s Play marketplace over 170 million times,” the article continues.
Its App Center has also seen good traffic, hitting 150 million people in just the last month. The company said the App Center drives 2.4 times more installs than the network’s earlier app/game dashboard.
An increase in gaming means good revenue for Facebook, which takes 30 percent of the profit from transactions using its virtual currency, Credits.
“Facebook relies heavily on Zynga, creator of popular titles such as ‘FarmVille’ and ‘CityVille,’ to drive its Credits transactions. But after a few disappointing quarters, Zynga has decided to reorganize its operation and focus more on mobile gaming. That move could eventually spell real trouble for Facebook,” CNET suggests.
Buying the latest technological system used to mean buying a competitive edge on rival companies — but no more.
“Without question, some start-ups are producing cutting-edge technology and some customers are taking advantage of their wares to one-up rivals,” Businessweek reports. “On the whole, however, corporations now seem to prefer, whenever practical, to rent the same computing services their rivals do, rather than try to build custom systems.”
Nick Carr predicted this phenomenon back in May 2003 with the publication of his Harvard Business Review article “IT Doesn’t Matter,” which was met with a strong backlash.
“The very companies that bashed Carr back in the day did very little to prepare for the cloud-computing era,” the article states. “Technology giants such as Oracle, SAP, and IBM failed to create attractive Web-service versions of their major software franchises, while HP, Dell, and others opted not to rent out computing power to their customers. Only recently has this started to change in a meaningful way.”
The start-ups that have been successful in the cloud, like Box and Salesforce, aren’t looking to sell to these bigger, older companies. At least not yet, the article suggests.
“The bad news for the big guys is that the cloud companies have shown a major reluctance to being acquired,” according to the article. “It’ll be interesting to see which cloud high-flyer gives in first — and just how high that acquisition price will be.”
Google has announced that sites receiving numerous valid copyright removal notices will start appearing lower in Google search results so that legitimate sources will appear at the top.
The new policy shows Google’s commitment to promoting high-quality media sources and upholding the rights of creators.
Examples of sites likely to be pushed down the search totem pole are filestube.com, extratorrent.com, torrenthound.com, bitsnoop.com and isohunt.com.
“The ranking change,” Google blogged, “should help users find legitimate, quality sources of content more easily — whether it’s a song previewed on NPR’s music website, a TV show on Hulu or new music streamed from Spotify.”
The MPAA issued an approving, yet cautious, statement: “We are optimistic that Google’s actions will help steer consumers to the myriad legitimate ways for them to access movies and TV shows online, and away from the rogue cyberlockers, peer-to-peer sites, and other outlaw enterprises that steal the hard work of creators across the globe. We will be watching this development closely — the devil is always in the details — and look forward to Google taking further steps to ensure that its services favor legitimate businesses and creators, not thieves.”
“Google has signaled a new willingness to value the rights of creators,” the RIAA added in a press release. “That is good news indeed. And the online marketplace for the hundreds of licensed digital services embraced by the music business is better today than it was yesterday.”
With the rapid adoption of touchscreen mobile phones and tablets, an increasing number of suppliers have entered the touchscreen market, which is expected to double to $31.9 billion in 2018, according to DisplaySearch.
The market has grown significantly in the last few years: $4.3 billion in 2009 to $11 billion in 2011 to $16 billion in 2012. Unfortunately, this year saw a 27 percent oversupply for the touchscreen module industry. The smaller demand equates to drops in prices for suppliers.
“As you can probably guess, it’s hard to make money in the display business with so many suppliers. The overall display industry still loses tens of billions of dollars a quarter, particularly due to the saturation of flat-screen TVs,” VentureBeat reports.
DisplaySearch calculates that more than 200 suppliers have entered the touchscreen market. In addition to major players such as Corning (Gorilla Glass) and cover lens finishing supplier Fuji Crystal, companies including Atmel, Synaptics, Cypress, EETI, and Elan manufacture touchscreen controller chips.
According to DisplaySearch’s Jennifer Colegrove, new technologies will expand the touchscreen demand. “Those include putting the sensor for touch on the cover, or a third piece of glass that protects the actual screens that sandwich lighting materials in a liquid crystal display. Other methods include in-cell and on-cell technologies that, like sensor-on-cover, reduce the cost, thickness, and weight of touchscreens,” notes the post.
