Janus Friis, co-founder of KaZaA, Skype, Joost and Rdio (with partner Niklas Zennstrom) is working on a new online video subscription service that will be available soon in the UK.
According to GigaOM, Friis has been “assembling an A-team of media and Web technology experts to launch a site that seems destined to replicate the model behind their music subscription site Rdio in the video space.” Offices have been set up in Santa Monica and Europe.
From the follow-up Q&A: Vdio (Vee-dee-o) is in closed beta for the UK and is privately funded, while the assembled team’s experience comes from companies such as Netflix, Microsoft, TV Guide and Napster.
A spokesperson for Zennstrom’s VC company Atomico confirmed that Zennstrom is not involved in the project.
According to The Next Web, 90 of the 251 products (36 percent) that Google released in the past 12 years have been cancelled.
“Experimentation is a part of Google’s culture,” indicates TNW. “Launching in beta habitually creates a fearlessness that continues to serve them well. Even though Google knows that tons of their products won’t make the cut, their success is partially due to throwing a fist full of darts, and seeing what sticks.”
In a related TechCrunch post, the company plans to focus on Google+, and as a result will be killing off Google Buzz in a few weeks as well as iGoogle’s social features come January 15, 2012. Google Labs was shut down on Friday.
Additional services are also reportedly getting the axe by January 15: Code Search (for open source code on the Web), Jaiku (for users to send updates to friends), and the University Research Program for Google Search (available to select academic researchers).
Google has announced that through the new Merch Store feature, YouTube partners “will be able to sell artist merchandise, digital downloads, concert tickets and other experiences to fans and visitors.”
The Merch Store evolved from multiple partnerships: Marketing enabler Topspin will handle merchandise sales, while concert organizer SongKick will handle ticket sales. Amazon and iTunes will power transactions for music download transactions.
“The ability to add merchandise sales, ticket sales, digital downloads and more to an artist’s YouTube site definitely gives these sites more of an engaging presence for artists with their fans,” reports TechCrunch. “These destinations will now become more than just a way to discover music videos, but also a way to transact business and actually see the artist and buy their works.”
The feature should arrive in the coming weeks. YouTube will take a percentage of sales to cover costs.
According to The Wall Street Journal: “It turns out that Siri, the new voice activated personal assistant for Apple iPhone 4S has a dry sense of humor.”
For example, when asked “Who’s your daddy?” the phone answered: “You are” in an authoritative tone — and in response to “Beam me up,” the phone reportedly responded: “Sorry, Captain, your tricorder is in Airplane Mode.”
The article adds that in response to “Open the pod bay doors” (a reference to Kubrick’s “2001: A Space Odyssey,” which also features a “talking” machine), users say the iPhone responds in a frighteningly slow voice, “I’m afraid I can’t do that.”
Consumers are reacting to the artificial intelligence by asking the iPhone outlandish questions as websites dedicated to the concept are already emerging. The “personality” of Siri’s software could very well be the first step in driving consumer adoption.
The MoPix digital platform allows filmmakers and content creators to inexpensively distribute their projects as paid apps.
“Filmmakers choose from templates and customizable options to create a DVD-like experience that bridges video content with the interactivity, enhanced features, and extra content of an app,” according to the LAUNCH blog.
Filmmakers can target multiple devices including the iPad, iPhone, Kindle Fire and Android devices. The developers charge a one-time fee and a percentage of sales.
MoPix will demo the app at the LAUNCH PAD Tablet Conference this Friday in Mountain View, California.
A short story originally posted as a series of comments on social news site Reddit will become the basis for a Warner Bros. feature film.
“Rome, Sweet Rome” is an historical sci-fi tale written by James Erwin, a two-time “Jeopardy!” winner.
Erwin (as Prufrock451 on Reddit) was responding to another user who asked the community, “Could I destroy the entire Roman Empire during the reign of Augustus if I traveled back in time with a modern U.S. Marine infantry battalion or MEU?”
The posts Erwin subsequently composed as a short story became the top-rated comments on Reddit and “inspired fan-art, fiction spin-offs and even a mock-up movie trailer.”
Madhouse Entertainment caught wind of the RsR subreddit community and pitched the story to a Warner Bros. exec, who pushed to “move aggressively” to acquire the rights.
Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak likes the excitement of a new product release and tries to be first in line, despite the fact that Apple will ship him products.
He was #1 on line at the Apple store in Los Gatos, California and stayed up all night tweeting about it.
TechCrunch interviewed “Woz” (on iPhone video) as he discussed his enthusiasm for Siri: “This is the way I want all mobile devices to be in the future.”
“I’m so tired of pushing buttons, tapping things to get the right things done on a phone,” he added. “I just want to talk my thoughts to it.”
He also notes that he no longer wants to be sent somewhere that might have answers: “Google is known for search engines. I say search engines should be replaced by answer engines.”
Geek.com writer Will Shanklin believes Siri’s capabilities would be enormously expanded with access to third party apps. Currently, “Yelp and Wolfram Alpha appear to be the only ones in that elite group.”
Third party apps could enable users to play music among different streaming services, quickly use music ID, combine data from multiple services (“How about a combination of Netflix and IMDb data?”), get real-time navigation and a range of other convenient possibilities.
Siri access to Facebook could expedite posts, messages and notifications and quickly get information from friends’ profiles.
“As much as you might be blown away by Siri’s capabilities now, we will likely look back at this as ‘Siri 1.0’ five years from now,” writes Shanklin. “In much the same way that the first iPhone’s single-paged homescreen – with no third-party apps – looks primitive now, this introductory version of Siri will pale in comparison to where ‘she’ will be then.”
Last month saw a surprise boom in home entertainment as Blu-ray sales surged 156 percent over the previous year during the week of September 18.
Sales were also up 131 percent for the week prior and 60 percent the week before that.
The release of high-profile titles including “X-Men: First Class,” “Thor,” and “Star Wars” made significant sales, boosting overall numbers.
The $140 six-movie “Star Wars” collection was the biggest seller, possibly due to retailers such as Amazon and Walmart heavily discounting the set to as low as $80.
“Studios are starting to bring the crown jewels out of the vault for BD release,” said IHS video analyst Jan Saxton. “That, coupled with the first releases from a very strong summer box office, has the potential to turn the movie disc market around. Weak DVD sales have continually dragged the market down in 2011.”
“It might sound crazy, but I think there’s an argument that Facebook could become a leading enterprise software vendor for the webscale world if the social-networking kingpin is so inclined,” writes Derrick Harris for GigaOM.
“As we continue to consume web applications and cloud services and webscale data centers become more common,” he adds, “Facebook’s tools and expertise could be a cash cow.”
The article details a few examples of new tools and systems Facebook has integrated to manage its massive infrastructure.
“Facebook could stand to make a lot of money by consulting with customers on how to build their data centers and architect their applications, and then selling them the software tools to keep those apps up and running,” writes Harris, also noting there is no indication that Facebook will ever pursue selling webscale software.
Innovative Icelandic musician Bjork is combining technology and music with her release of the first ever “app-album.”
The collection features games, visualizations and songs that allow fans to interact with the music in a unique way.
“The main ‘Biophilia’ app is available for free,” reports CNN Tech. “Each sub-application, which contains a song and some sort of interactive game, costs 99 cents, or $9.99 for the whole album. A non-app version of the album also is available.”
“Apps and iPads are just tools — they have to be human and they have to have soul,” comments the singer.
Article includes podcast and transcript of CNN Radio interview with Bjork.
Check out this fascinating TED presentation on data visualization, crowd-sourced collaborative art projects, and the interface as a narrative device.
“We’re collecting and creating all kinds of data about how we’re living our lives and it’s enabling us to tell some amazing stories,” says digital artist Aaron Koblin. The TED description suggests, “his works brilliantly explore how modern technology can make us more human.”
Compelling tweet from the opening: “19th Century culture was defined by the Novel, 20th Century culture by Cinema — the culture of the 21st Century will be defined by the Interface.”
The second half ties in with interactive, collaborative music videos featuring Johnny Cash and Arcade Fire, earlier reported by ETCentric.
Google is expected to roll out its own music store in the next few weeks.
It will reportedly tie into the company’s Music Beta service that allows users to upload and store their music collections.
Music Beta was announced after launch of Amazon’s unlicensed service, Cloud Drive. Also worth noting: “Apple got licenses for iTunes Match, which will instantly link a user’s songs to Apple’s master collection.”
“Its earlier negotiations with music companies, for a so-called smart locker service — a Web storage system that lets people link their digital music collections to a vast central database — broke down over financial terms and the music companies’ complaints that Google was not doing enough to curb piracy,” reports The New York Times.
Oren Jacob, Pixar’s former CTO, talks about the company’s keys to their success: Honesty about the quality of their films, a willingness to address problems quickly, looking at the source of problems, storyboarding out the issues, and hiring people that fit the company culture.
The story behind the overhaul of “Toy Story 2” was presented regarding the importance to: “Be honest with yourself. When the work isn’t great, say so. Then get to work making something you can believe in.”
Fast Company also points out the company’s hiring philosophy: “When Pixar is evaluating potential hires they look for three traits: humor, the ability to tell a story, and an example of excellence.”
And one of the more interesting lessons (applicable to a range of businesses): “Sketching storyboards and acting out scripts are the currency of ideas at Pixar. Try a variety of different media to find what works best for you and your organization.”
After months of bidding, Hulu’s owners — News Corp., NBCUniversal, Disney and Providence Equity Partners — have decided to stop its sale.
“Since Hulu holds a unique and compelling strategic value to each of its owners, we have terminated the sale process and look forward to working together to continue mapping out its path to even greater success,” explained the partners in a short statement. “Our focus now rests solely on ensuring that our efforts as owners contribute in a meaningful way to the exciting future that lies ahead for Hulu.”
In a related TechCrunch post, it was suggested that media companies saw more value in retaining licensing fees than selling them.
Bidders were not willing to pay more for Hulu knowing that the costs for content rights would increase dramatically after the two year period being sold. (Google reportedly bid $4 billion, but wanted streaming rights for longer than the guaranteed “couple of years.”)
