Time Warner announced it is investing $583 million for a 10 percent stake in Hulu, joining forces with existing owners Disney, 21st Century Fox and Comcast’s NBCUniversal. However, Time Warner does not plan to offer its television programming via the current version of Hulu’s video service, which features repeats of recently aired shows. Instead, the media giant will license its content for the new pay TV service that Hulu plans to launch in 2017. That means channels such as Cartoon Network, CNN, TBS, TNT and Turner Classic Movies would be available to viewers through the planned live TV service. Continue reading Time Warner Invests in Hulu with Plans to Join Pay TV Service

To compete with YouTube, social platforms Facebook, Instagram and Twitter have set their sights on attracting Internet celebrities, also known as creators, to their sites. Internet stars with millions of followers bring audiences and ad dollars, a major incentive for all three platforms to rethink their current business models. They all want original, unsponsored content, but also have to deal with sponsored content that doesn’t generate revenue for them. The solution all of them are arriving at is to split revenue with creators. Continue reading Social Platforms Offer Ad Revenue Share to Lure Influencers

After hinting for months that it might introduce commercial breaks inside live video streams, Facebook has started testing this concept with some of its top publishers. This marks the first time the company has served ads directly from inside videos, and follows on the heels of its new policy of paying some publishers and digital influencers to post video. The payments provide a financial incentive to post on Facebook since the platform so far lacks an advertising model that could generate shared revenue. Continue reading Facebook Live Tests Mid-Roll Ads as Potential Revenue Model

Last week, when Facebook launched a project — Create React App — to help React developers begin new projects, it became the first to live in the Facebook Incubator on GitHub, the company’s new process for releasing open-source projects. Facebook has already open-sourced almost 400 projects, and, with the Incubator, the company wants to make sure it could manage new programs efficiently and create the best chance for their success. Facebook has hundreds of thousands of followers on GitHub. Continue reading Facebook Debuts GitHub Incubator for Open-Source Projects

After a federal appeals court upheld the Federal Communication Commission’s net neutrality rules, the NCTA, CTIA, USTelecom and the American Cable Association — all the trade organizations representing U.S. Internet service providers — challenged that ruling. They did so by filing a petition for an “en banc” rehearing with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. En banc hearings are to rehear a case in front of all the judges (rather than a panel), usually in cases of “exceptional public importance.” Continue reading Trade Groups Petition for Rehearing on Title II, Net Neutrality

As soon as September, IBM will unveil a real-world use of blockchain, the online ledger that records peer-to-peer bitcoin transactions. Since IBM will be one of the largest organizations ever to apply bitcoin to actual business transactions, the move also goes far in validating the nascent cryptocurrency. Currently, IBM Global Financing has $100 million in capital tied up, and the move to blockchain is expected to free up some of it. Blockchain, by removing the middleman, is intended to make financial dealings more efficient. Continue reading IBM to Debut Blockchain for Financial Unit Dispute Resolution

Following its $4.8 billion acquisition of Yahoo, Verizon announced it is purchasing Dublin-based telematics company Fleetmatics for $2.4 billion in cash. Fleetmatics will become part of the subsidiary Verizon Telematics, which primarily handles fleet management, mobile enterprise solutions and Internet of Things initiatives. Verizon’s AOL and Yahoo purchases will help build its media and advertising businesses, while the Fleetmatics acquisition points to the company’s enterprise mobility ambitions. The deal is expected to close by Q4 2016. Continue reading Verizon to Ramp Up Telematics with Purchase of Fleetmatics

After two years of spending big to succeed in China, Uber has thrown in the towel and made a deal with rival Didi Chuxing. As a result, for a 20 percent stake, Uber China will become part of the larger Chinese company, which is valued at $35 billion. Prior to the deal, Didi was valued at $28 billion. Uber purportedly spent more than $2 billion in China. Meanwhile, Uber is using some of the $13.5 billion raised recently from investors to double-down on its global mapping project, with a $500 million investment. Continue reading Uber Inks Deal with Chinese Rival Didi, Focuses on Mapping

Google plans to use the approach of acquired Webpass to more cost-efficiently develop and rollout its Fiber fast Internet business. The San Francisco-based Webpass, founded by Charles Barr, is known for using wireless technology to build fast broadband service in cities in a speedier and most cost effective manner. Verizon, Comcast and AT&T, meanwhile, have spent billions of dollars digging up streets to lay fiber cable. Google will pair Webpass’ approach with wireless technology it is currently developing. Continue reading Google Pairs Webpass with its Wireless Tech for Fiber Rollout

Research out of the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, led by Professor Ethan Mollick, revealed that, since its 2009 founding, Kickstarter has been used to raise $5.3 billion, leading to the creation of 8,800 new companies and non-profit organizations and generating 29,600 full-time and 283,000 part-time jobs. The study, funded in part by the Kauffman Foundation, relied on data from Kickstarter and only looked at successfully funded projects. Kickstarter had no involvement in the study. Continue reading Study Examines the Significant Impact of Kickstarter Projects

A Pandora listener will now be shown concert recommendations based on the music she listens to, and a click on a concert will forward her to Ticketfly’s app or website. This is the first step in integrating Pandora’s streaming music service with Ticketfly, a concert ticketing service Pandora bought for $450 million in October 2015. Concerts are shown via the app’s feed, push notifications on mobile devices and a weekly email. Ticketfly generates notifications as soon as a concert promoter creates an event. Continue reading Pandora Integrates Ticketfly, Adds Concert Recommendations

T-Mobile’s Binge On service, which lets subscribers stream selected services without the content counting towards their data cap, just quadrupled its offerings with Fox Now, ABC, Apple Music, NatGeo TV and Disney Jr. among others. With these additions, the Binge On program hosts more than 100 content partners, including Netflix and YouTube. The program is catching on with users, whose streaming hours increased 50 percent between June and July. Video quality for Binge On programming is downgraded to 480p. Continue reading T-Mobile’s Binge On Expands Content with ABC, Apple, Fox

Facebook added 220 million monthly users in the past year, for a current total user base of 1.71 billion people. More than 90 percent of those users access Facebook via their mobile devices, where Facebook reaped 84 percent of its $6.2 billion in advertising revenue in the last quarter. The company saw 80 percent growth in Q2 from mobile ads, from an overall 59 percent growth rate in advertising. WhatsApp and Messenger, both of which have 1 billion users, are part of the company’s next move into video. Continue reading Facebook Touts Major Growth, Driven by Mobile Advertising

Facebook just put the blueprint and software for its 17-lens Surround 360 stereoscopic 3D camera on GitHub, fulfilling a promise the company made earlier to make the camera design, assembly instructions, control software and stitching software available for free. Facebook’s move is seen as an effort to enable more people to create 360-degree immersive videos. By open-sourcing the camera’s construction and operation, developers will be able to create products and speed up the development of the marketplace. Continue reading Facebook Open-Sources Designs for Surround 360 Camera

Chinese tech company LeEco (formerly LeTV), has paid $2 billion for California television seller Vizio, which presently controls about 20 percent of the U.S. market. The Beijing-based company is often referred to as the Netflix of China, although it sells hardware devices such as TVs, set-top boxes, smartphones and electric cars in addition to its streaming services. With the acquisition, LeEco can now bring its services to the U.S. “Our strategy is to integrate our platform — including software and services — with devices,” said LeEco exec Winston Cheng. Continue reading LeEco Acquires Vizio to Bring its Streaming Services to U.S.