Nine Internet giants (Google, eBay, AOL, Facebook, Yahoo, Zynga, LinkedIn, Mozilla and Twitter) have joined forces to place full page ads in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Washington Post and The Washington Times expressing their objection to the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the PROTECT IP Act.
The measures protect against copyright infringement by requiring “technology companies and Internet service providers to block access to any website that the entertainment industry believes ‘engages in, enables or facilitates’ copyright infringement,” reports Digital Trends.
The proposed pieces of legislation “have strong bipartisan support in Congress, as well as backing from the Motion Picture Association of America, a variety of Hollywood union organizations, and even Master Card and Pfizer.”
In a related post, The Next Web reports that the Business Software Alliance (BSA) supports SOPA and commends Congress for “curb[ing] the growing rash of software piracy and other forms of intellectual property theft that are being perpetrated by illicit websites.”
Member of BSA include Adobe, Apple, Dell, Intel, Microsoft and 24 other tech companies.
HTML5 is quickly becoming the standard online programming technology, with support from the likes of Amazon, Rovio Entertainment, Pandora, Zynga and various online publications. The trend has also been fueled by browser support from competitors Apple, Google, Microsoft and Mozilla.
Last week, Adobe announced it would stop development of the rival Flash format for mobile devices.
“HTML5 is a major step forward,” says Netscape creator Marc Andreessen. “HTML5 is going to put power back in the hands of creative people,” adds Silicon Valley investor Roger McNamee.
“Some 34 percent of the 100 most popular websites used HTML5 in the quarter ended in September, according to binvisions.com, a blog that tracks Web technologies,” reports The Wall Street Journal. “Resume searches by hiring managers looking for HTML5 expertise more than doubled between the first quarter and the third quarter.”
“If you want to be delivering a Web experience around multiple devices, you have to be doing it in HTML5,” explains Danny Winokur, Adobe’s general manager for interactive development.
The technology is also being used for media-rich ads and games for social network apps. The article suggests this is only the beginning.
Facebook has informed media executives that it will begin allowing online music services such as Spotify and Rdio to publish user activity on Facebook pages and could allow music playback without leaving the site.
The announcement is part of Facebook’s efforts to become a social center for media including music, games and movies.
According to The Wall Street Journal: “CNBC reported Wednesday that Facebook was working to create a music platform. In response, Facebook said: ‘Many of the most popular music services around the world are integrated with Facebook and we’re constantly talking to our partners about ways to improve these integrations.'”
Facebook was reportedly encouraged to pursue the music plan following success with social games such as “FarmVille” by Zynga Inc. The social media site is also integrating movies through deals with the likes of Warner Bros.
The Zynga Game Network, maker of online video games, is expected to file for its initial public stock offering this week.
The company’s games, including “Cityville” and “Farmville” are immensely popular on Facebook, with 270 million active users.
The stock sale is expected to value the company between $15 and $20 billion, making it one of the largest technology offerings since Google’s IPO in 2004.