New Features Coming to YouTube?

President Obama said change was coming, and he was right, though we doubt he was referencing YouTube when he first made that speech. Regardless, Barack Obama's YouTube channel has been chosen by Google as the testing ground for a new download option, a feature famously missing from the video hosting sites repertoire. Considering that the projected traffic for the president's channel during the inauguration today is through the roof, Google has been presented with a once in a lifetime opportunity to experiment with the download feature. The question now becomes, will this lead to a change in YouTube policy and the addition of download buttons to other videos?

Whether or not this is just an exclusive deal involving Google that will eventually disappear forever remains to be seen, but just the fact that YouTube has allowed a download option to grace one of their channels does show that in some circumstances the site may be willing to loosen some of its restrictions. If you look at the Barack Obama YouTube channel (click here.), you can see a "Click to download" link on the left side underneath the video. The downloaded video is compressed to a MPEG4 format with H.264 coded, so the quality is about as good as what you're seeing in the actual YouTube browser.


If you take a step back, you can see all the reasons why a lot of video won't be given this function, such as anything released by a film or television studio. Even though Google themselves have come up with a decent audio and video fingerprinting technology that flags copyrighted content, quick-fingered YouTube users could still use the feature to download the material before the content authors pull it down. And once a few hundred people grab it, the copyrighted material will then start to reappear on YouTube and other file sharing sites more frequently, causing a major headache for studios and producers. Our money though is riding on a hunch that YouTube will instead develop a process for pre-screening potentially downloadable content that has been pre-approved by the author. Once the video is cleared by YouTube, it will then be made live and available to users. Hmm, maybe we should pitch that idea to them ourselves.

However, downloading isn't the only road that YouTube has opened its doors to. In yet another experiment using the political world, YouTube will be launching two new web pages in conjunction with Congress this upcoming Monday, one for the House of Representatives and one for the Senate. Each Congress member will be given the opportunity to create their own channel, and then allowed complete control over it, including the ability to host live events such as a community chat.

Live broadcasting on YouTube, if done successfully here with the Senate, could become a huge asset for all kinds of different outlets. Going live at other major events (such as doing a special YouTube presentation of the Superbowl) could really open up the future of the site and how other companies perceive the number of ways they can utilize YouTube. Millions of viewers equals millions of dollars in ad revenue. You know, we really should be writing all these ideas down…oh wait, we are.

Considering why YouTube was invented in the first place, it's actually pretty exciting to see the US government taking advantage of one of the Internet's premiere websites to reach a young demographic. Stay tuned to IGN for more on the progress of President Obama's channel and any announcements involving YouTube downloading.

Source : Click Here

Demographics now available in YouTube Insight

When we first announced YouTube Insight, our free video analytics tool for YouTube, we were excited to see just how users, partners, and advertisers might creatively use information about the viewing trends of their videos. We've since learned that some users and partners are modifying their upload schedules based on when they know their audience is tuning in, and advertisers are studying geographic traffic patterns to assess the effectiveness of regional ad campaigns.

Today we've added some new features to Insight. One is a new demographics tab that displays view count information broken down by age group (such as ages 18-24), gender, or a combination of the two, to help you get a better understanding of the makeup of your YouTube audience. We show you general information about your viewers in anonymous and aggregate form, based on the birth date and gender information that users share with us when they create YouTube accounts. This means that individual users can't be personally identified.

Insight now also displays statistics based on the combined total views of all the videos you've uploaded. Just as you can explore the view counts and popularity of individual videos, with this feature you can see your account's total number of views, and your relative popularity on YouTube compared to other users, based on geographic location.

As with Insight's other features, we hope this new information helps you learn how to create more compelling content that best engages the audiences you want to reach. You can find these new metrics under the "Demographics" tab within the Insight dashboard.

Source: Click Here

Mobile Social Networking on the Rise

Mobile media authority M:Metrics today released its first ever measurement of mobile social networking, revealing that 12.3 million consumers in the United States and Western Europe accessed a social networking site with their mobile device in the month of June.

Not unexpectedly, America had the largest audience for mobile social networking sites with 7.5 million (3.5% of all subscribers) accessing a social networking site from their device at least once in June. The U.S. was followed by Italy (2.8%), the United Kingdom (2.5%), Spain (2.3%), Germany (1.9%), and France (1.7%). MySpace and Facebook were the most popular sites accessed in the United States and United Kingdom, while MSN reigned in the rest of the countries surveyed. MySpace’s U.S. and UK numbers were 3.7 million and 440,000 respectively, while Facebook came out to 2 million and 307,000 users, respectively. YouTube was third the United States with 901,000 mobile visitors, and Bebo rounded out the top three in the UK with 288,000 mobile users. Unsurprisingly, those under 25 are the most active users - the 13 to 17 demographic reigned in France, German, Italy, and Spain while the 18 to 24 college crowd were the most active in the U.S. and UK.

Of course, a lot of these numbers are dependent on the availability of these social networks across operator portals. MySpace had strong distribution, appearing on the Amo’d, AT&T, Helio, and NExtel decks. Facebook was distributed on Spting, AT&T, Virgin, and Amp’d decks and YouTube was available on the Verizon deck. YouTube’s numbers are likely to go up because of its inclusion in the iPhone deck, which was not released at the time of the survey. In the UK, MySpace has distribution on Vodafone and Bebo on 3, but interestingly MSN is not offered on-portal anywhere. This shows that while there is strong correlation between popularity and being on-portal, off-portal activity is emerging as well.

It’s clear that the industry is noticing the compatibility between mobile devices and social networking sites. Some more on this from Mark Sullivan at PC World:

“Still, a lot of people believe that mobile social networking is going to be huge, especially as faster wireless networks become available. Meanwhile, mucho venture capital continues to flow into mobile social networking tech in its many forms.

What is it about mobile devices and social networking that make them a match made in heaven? Is the urge to social-network so strong that we simply can’t wait to get home to do it? Or will new mobile social networking services simply do things that static, desktop-based sites cannot? Will mobile devices take social networking to a whole new level? If the future is really ‘unwired’ and ‘always on’ as they tell us, then people will demand it.”

We’ll have to keep our eyes open for the next advances in mobile social networking. Pretty soon we may see contact lists consolidated between Facebook and your phone book, for example. Either way, if you’ve ever felt that getting home to check who just posted on your wall takes too long to bear, rest assured that you’re not alone.

Source:www.searchviews.com

Mobile operators see 10 times more potential in social networking

The success of social networking sites such as Facebook, Bebo and even YouTube could represent the next boom for the mobile phone operators.

Revenues from putting so-called user-generated content - meaning content such as videos and blogs created by consumers rather than media organisations - onto mobile phones is expected to rise more than tenfold over the next five years, according to estimates by Juniper Research published yesterday.

Allowing the legion of bloggers, Facebook posters and comedy clip makers to upload and view each other's every movement on their mobile phone could be worth $5.74bn (£2.87bn) by 2012, according to Juniper, from just $576m this year.

"One of the most attractive elements of social networking on a mobile phone is that it's universally accessible so people can look up their friends, update their status or whatever on the move, which for the young demographic is particularly appealing," according to the study's author, Dr Windsor Holden.

Social networking has become one of the fastest-growing internet trends of the past two years. According to internet metrics firm Comscore, Facebook saw users increase 270% from June last year to June this year. It now has more than 52 million users worldwide. MySpace registered lower growth of 72% but still leads the market with 114 million users. Bebo, with a majority of users in Europe, grew 172% to more than 18 million users. The mobile phone companies reckon the people who are using sites like Facebook are exactly the sort of people likely to be interested in using the internet on a mobile phone.

Further research by Comscore shows that people who are already experimenting with the internet on a mobile phone are younger than users who access the web only on a computer. In Britain, more than 25% of mobile internet users are aged 15 to 24, compared with 20% who go online using a computer; a further 41% of mobile internet users are 25 to 34 compared with less than 20% using a computer.

The concern for the mobile phone companies, however, has always been that offering the sort of flat-rate mobile internet access packages likely to lead to an explosion of usage would leave them as little more than big dumb pipes in the air. Their worry has been that once they offer fixed-rate packages, all they can compete on is price and over time they will end up as sidelined as internet service providers (ISPs) have become in the fixed-line internet world.

Some mobile phone companies have tried to retain their position in the value chain by setting up their own UGC services. For instance 3 has scored with its SeeMeTV portal, which lets users upload clips and share them with other 3 customers. SeeMeTV has also created its own social networking service called Moko (formerly Kink Kommunity) with users paying £2.50 a month to keep in touch.

But Frédéric Huet, director at Greenwich Consulting, says that the mobile operators have a real opportunity to persuade more customers to use their mobiles to access the internet by "mobilising" sites such as Facebook.

"I would not be too dismissive of data revenues. If the mobile operators can start increasing take-up of data services they will increase revenues for quite a few years before commoditisation and price competition sees those revenues erode again," he said. "By then the operators will be in a position to offer other services such as mobile advertising.

"The trick is to start building an audience now and the mobile phone operators are starting to understand that."

Sensing this opportunity, several mobile phone companies - such as T-Mobile, 3 and Vodafone in Britain - have launched flat-rate mobile internet tariffs.

Facebook, in fact, is already available on mobile phones in the US through the AT&T, Verizon and Sprint/Nextel networks, with users able to update their profiles and check on their friends. Several of the UK's mobile phone networks are understood to be eagerly chasing deals to add Facebook to their mobile web offerings. In addition, Vodafone has signed an exclusive deal to put YouTube clips on its mobile internet service.

Juniper Research's Dr Windsor, meanwhile, points out that the transition from social networking on the fixed-line internet to the mobile internet could allow new entrants to muscle in.

One such new entrant is Itsmy.com, owned by German tech company Gofresh, which has already signed up more than half a million users.

But these new entrants are going to have a fight on their hands once people can easily update their Facebook status to "I'm on the train" using their mobile.

Source:www.guardianweekly.co.uk

Facebook and social networking sites drive web filtering technology

The latest internet phenomenon, social networking websites offer an interactive network of photos, user profiles, email and chatrooms.

Unlike MySpace, Bebo, Faceparty, YouTube and most other mainstream social networking websites, Facebook is currently favoured amongst young professionals and consequently take-up of the service within the corporate environment has been extremely swift, with many companies creating their own groups on the site.

Although there are undoubtedly some commercial benefits for using the service, particularly for smaller businesses, Facebook in particular relies heavily on email to inform users of new messages received and other activities taking place on site, thereby incentivising users to return to the site again and again for activity updates. With 40%+ of emails at work being non-business related already (IDC research) this adds significantly to un-required traffic.

The sites represents a number of other risks to business, with many staff choosing to use their time online to discuss their employer and air grievances in the public domain. Moreover, with users of social networking sites freely offering personal details to many, there is also an increased risk of identity theft.

As a result, adoption of web filtering technology is currently being largely driven by the phenomenal take up of social networking sites such as Facebook.

Indeed CTOs and IT administrators are increasingly choosing to specifically block access to Facebook, alongside the other chief time-sapping websites – hotmail and gmail. 47% of Email Systems’ web filtering customers have already blocked Facebook as an implicitly selected site and 83% have blocked it by category (social networking). Additionally, Email Systems has identified a trend for blocking viral video sites, such as YouTube, with over 53% of its customers choosing to block this site during work hours and 64% of customers blocking streaming and download video content from its users.

According to a recent survey, nearly one in five companies has disciplined an employee for violating blog or message board policies in the past year, while 7.1% of companies fired an employee for such infractions and 10% investigated the exposure of financial information via a blog or message board posting in the past year.

With several city firms – including Credit Suisse and Dresdner Kleinwort - having announced a ban on the site earlier this week and many of Email Systems new web filtering customers citing Facebook explicitly as one of the key catalysts for adopting web filtering, the issue is fast becoming a top concern.

It is estimated that over 60% of UK companies have no web filtering in place today. These social sites pose a real threat to business productivity, confidentiality and possibly reputation with many staff often discussing company issues and opinions in public.

According to the DTI: “Inappropriate web and e-mail usage is the second largest cause of reported security incidents”. The same report indicated that 52% of organisations have reported misuse of internet resources with the two most common being access to inappropriate websites (41%) and excessive web surfing (36%).

With child violence sites currently in the headlines as another example of undesirable web-content, Email Systems web filtering service allows customers to block internet access for specific sites, types of sites or users, whilst providing detailed real-time reporting.

Neil Hammerton, CEO of Email Systems commented: “Facebook is a growing concern for many of our customers, mainly because the site is so addictive and encourages constant, repeat usage throughout the day. Clearly many businesses have long considered webmail services to be a significant risk in terms of time, productivity and security – but Facebook is the latest incarnation to really get the industry stirred up.”

Source:www.securitypark.co.uk

Yahoo Edges Out Google In User Satisfaction Poll

Is Yahoo (NASDAQ:YHOO) gaining ground on Google?

For the first time ever, Yahoo YHOO narrowly beat Google GOOG in the University of Michigan's annual American Customer Satisfaction Index report, which ranks business Web sites such as portals, search engines and news outlets.

According to the survey, released Aug. 14, Yahoo replaced Google as the top Web portal with a customer satisfaction score of 79, up nearly 4% over last year. Google's score slipped by 3.7% to 78. It's the second straight decline for the Web's top search site.

"With a 78 and 79 score, you don't declare a clear winner," said Larry Freed, chief executive of ForeSee Results, which sponsored the survey. "Yahoo has seen a great resurgence, and for Google the message here is that the competition is getting stronger."

The online survey polled 250 users in the second quarter of the year, then graded the results on a 100-point 19cale. Participants rated all of Yahoo's and Google's services -- such as maps, e-mail, information and entertainment features -- not just Web search.

Freed says Yahoo's jump is likely due to its home page redesign last year. The makeover created a one-stop shop that made it easier for consumers to find services such as weather, finance and videos.

"They are making solid incremental improvements," he said.

Unlike Yahoo, Google has resisted becoming a portal. Though it offers portal-like services through its personalized iGoogle page, Google's main home page consists of only a few links to services such as Google News and its Gmail e-mail service.

This spartan approach has worked well for Google. But that could be changing, Freed says.

"One of the reasons why Google's score went down is the consumer perception that nothing has really changed with Google over the years," he said. "The reality is that consumers expect change, they expect improvement especially when they see other sites like Yahoo making improvements."

That might be more perception than reality. Google continues to tweak its search service and has made several improvements to its stable of services. It recently added street-level views to its mapping service, for instance, along with 3-D outlines of buildings in cities.

Google's latest move is universal search. Launched in July, universal search allows consumers to search through text, photos, videos and other sources -- all at once.

Google wouldn't comment publicly on the survey results. But a spokeswoman said the company is always working to improve the service.

"The statement that nothing is changed on Google is not correct," said Greg Sterling, analyst for Sterling Market Intelligence, a research firm. "It's just that they have done a lot of subtle things."

Analysts say that subtlety could be part of its problem.

As a portal, Yahoo places links to all of its services on its home page, many of them prominently.

Google takes the opposite approach. It launches new services with little fanfare, then waits for user feedback to trickle in.

Google doesn't promote new services such as Google Finance or Google Base. Consumers have to hunt for them, says Freed.

"When you go to Google's home page you don't know about these other things," he said. "All you know is Google.com, the company's search service."

According to Web traffic research firm Hitwise, some 70% of visitors to Google went to use the company's search service in July. About 11% went for Google's YouTube video Web site. Nearly 6% visited Gmail. Google Video and Google Maps both received less than 2% of Google's total traffic. Google News got less than 1%.

Despite lower results in the satisfaction survey, Google continues to dominate search.

It accounted for 52.7% of all U.S. searches in June with 3.9 million searches, says market researcher Nielsen/NetRatings. That was up more than 46% over last year.

Yahoo ranked second with 1.49 million searches, up 46.3% over last year, and 20.2% of overall search traffic.

Another search service, Ask.com fared well in the University of Michigan survey. Consumers gave it a 75 score, up 5.6% from last year. The IAC/InterActiveCorp (NASDAQ:IACI) (OTCBB:IACPP) IACI subsidiary has only a 2.1% share of the search market, according to Nielsen/NetRatings.

"It does suggest some vulnerability on Google's part and some opportunity on the part of its competitors," said analyst Sterling.

Source:www.cnn.com

Google launches YouTube-style embeddable maps

Google Australia this morning showed a new iteration of Google Maps, launching about a week from now.

First up, if you know how to embed a YouTube video in your blog, you'll be able to embed Google Maps in your website, Google promises.

It'll be as simple as cutting and pasting a bit of HTML code into your website, just like a YouTube video.

The embedded maps have the full functionality of Google Maps -- they provide satellite view, map view or hybrid view, and users can click and drag the maps around.

The development has substantial ramifications for the web: any business will now be able to include a map of their location (or locations), and users going to their website will be able to get driving directions to the business in a couple of clicks.

Petrol prices plotted onto Google Maps

Find cheaper petrol via Google Maps: any third party data provider such as a petrol prices website can plot their data onto Google Maps using Mapplets

Google also showed how people can now integrate data such as petrol prices with maps. Google showed a Google Mapplet provided by a petrol prices website which shows the cheapest petrol stations and their locations in your area.

Mapplets can also be combined together. For example, a website that provides vineyard listings has the results plotted onto Google Maps, and this can then be combined with another Mapplet from a website called Panoramio, which shows photos from different places. Result? You can see photos from vineyards in a region to plan a scenic weekend away.

Paid listings for maps

Google also revealed that it is now be accepting paid listings for maps. Businesses will be able to go to the Google "Local Business Centre" and bulk-upload all their locations in an Excel spreadsheet.

Paid results will appear in mapping search and are clearly differentiated with a blue background, different icon and "sponsored links" label -- just like web search. However, the sponsored results do appear at the top of the list of map search results.

"The key thing here is you control your messaging," said a Google spokesman. "You get a huge branding opportunity, you get a great location element... at least 50% of search queries are of a local nature. You can take advantage of this and also stand out."

Google showed an example of Hertz located on a search for "car rental Melbourne", which included a Hertz special offer and logo appearing on the search result.

Paid results on Google Maps: Hertz has marked its territory in trademark yellow.

Google says it has already seen significant uptake of this kind of ad from advertisers. "Companies are taking this up at a very quick rate," he said.

Google working on integrating Australian public transport info

According to Google Maps' Carl Sjogreen, Google Australia is "actively looking for data in Australia" for Google Transit, which is a Google Labs product that provides public transport-based routing.

"We're somewhat dependent with local government agencies," he said.

"Some of them have expressed concerns about how frequently they can provide information to us so that it's accurate, so we're working on those issues."

However, Sjogreen said there were various websites that already provide public transport routing and that "mapplets is another great way to expose some of the existing transit routing sites in Google Maps."

Write reviews on businesses on Google Maps

Restaurant review: reviews have to be longer than a certain length as an anti-spam measure, according to Google.

Google is now allowing users to add reviews to any business or location listed on Google Maps.

However, it admitted that there is a challenge around defamation laws. Restaurants have been particualrly litigious

The challenge with reviews in general is it's hard for us to know in a one-off case whether it's a legitimate user or a competing business.

We have systems in place to stop widespread spamming of reviews, but we'll also look into complaints on individual reviews.

Google maps in cars and planes

According to Google Australia, BMW and Volkswagen are installing Google Maps and Google Earth into their cars, and Virgin America and JetBlue are also installing it into the back of their planes so that people can zoom in on the ground and see what exactly they're flying over.

Hi-res satellite imagery coming back to Australia: no APEC conspiracy

Google claims the disappearance of hi-res satellite imagery in Australia is not a conspiracy with the Australian government to protect the 21 world leaders, including US President George W. Bush, visiting Australia in September.

"It's a commercial issue with one of our photography suppliers," says Google Australia's Rob Shilkin. "We're really hopeful of getting high-res imagery for Sydney and other cities in Australia back up as soon as possible. I hate to ruin a good conspiracy theory, but that's the boring reality."

Source:www.apcmag.com

Orkut becomes 'media' popular social networking site

Pop singer Paris Hilton promoted her new music album 'Paris' on YouTube. Fashion brands, such Ralph Lauren, Gap, Victoria's Secret, Calvin Klein, Adidas and more are on YouTube connecting with the community through videos, commercials, behind-the-scenes, footage and fashion shows.

India is beginning to witness a similar trend, though it is at a very rudimentary stage. Orkut, a more popular social networking site, is attracting the attention of marketers. Naturally, brand advertising potential is huge. And some are already on board.

Meow 104.8 FM, the exclusive women FM station, is present on Orkut. Anil Srivatsa, COO, Radio Today, who also hosts Between the Sheets on Meow, enters into a discussion with the community and regularly updates audiences regarding his shows through Orkut. "It is an opportunity to engage with audiences, create a viral effect and spread the word about the brand," says Srivatsa.

Besides Orkut provides the ideal environment to promote a channel such as Meow, since it is positioned as a "talk format" radio station.

Srivatsa says he has made 700 friends in 30 days, and through those 700, he now reaches 2000 people. "Being on Orkut creates a buzz." Srivatsa hopes to have a meaningful business partnership with Orkut in the near future and is in talks with prospective advertisers.

Harish Bijoor, CEO, Harish Bijoor Consults, says that social networking websites such as Orkut, YouTube, Fropper and Facebook give marketers a well profiled target audience. This is a golden opportunity for marketers, since traditional media is mostly mass, and one never knows if the money spent is actually leading to conversions.

"Segmentation allows the marketers to get close to its consumers, and therefore, targeting them is easier," says Bijoor

Research findings from JuxtConsult show enthusiasm amongst surfers to network. According to JuxtConsult's India Online 2007 survey communication, online networking is a hot trend, be it social or professional. Mrutyunjay, Director, JuxtConsult, says the popularity of social networking sites such as Orkut, Friends, Tagged, Fropper and Hi5 is a positive sign for Indian marketers.

For one, social networking sites are great way for spreading the word says Sachin Bhatia, co founder and chief marketing officer, MakeMyTrip.com. The travel portal is also present on Orkut.

"Users of social networks are a close-knit community, where opinions are trusted, or at least considered," Bhatia says. In fact, social networking sites can serve as great opportunities for the socially ostracized products such as cigarettes and liquor points out Bijoor.

But despite the potential of the medium, Indian marketers are sitting on the wall observes Bijoor. One worry is tampering of the content. Once the content is online, the brand owner has little control over the matter and could make the brand vulnerable.

Though there are technologies to prevent such a situation, marketers are in no hurry it seems. Another reason for the marketer's lack of enthusiasm is the size of social networkers. "It is small; just 11 million of the total of 30.23 million urban Internet users," says Mrutyunjay.

"Once these sites have the critical mass, marketers will begin to show interest," points out Bhatia of MakeMyTrip.com. On the other hand, Bhatia says that this is the best time to acquaint oneself with the medium, in terms of how best to exploit it in the future. MakeMyTrip has a two-member social networking team in place.

While social networking sites are yet to catch the fancy of advertisers, online communities of different brands such as sunsilkgangofgirls.com, Whisper's BeingGirl.co.in, ITC's website for Bingo Chips or Oktatabyebye.com, continue to get popular.

Source:www.televisionpoint.com

Google explains privacy policy on YouTube

Google has posted a video on YouTube that explains aspects of its privacy policy.

Peter Fleischer, Google's global privacy counsel, said in a blog post on Wednesday that Google had launched the video to explain "cookies, IP addresses, and logs" to "non-techies". YouTube is owned by Google.

ZDNet.co.uk understands that Google's privacy video is part of an attempt by the search giant to allay EU privacy concerns.

However, the official Google line is that an explanation of server logs and cookies is necessary in the interests of "transparency, and to empower you to make informed decisions about how you want to use our services".

In the video, entitled "Google Privacy Policy: Plain and Simple", Maile Ohye, a senior support engineer, says: "To improve [Google] search results, as well as maintain security and prevent fraud, we remember some basic information about searches. Without this information, our search wouldn't work as well as it does or be as secure."

The security reasons for retaining server logs are not raised in the video. However, a Google spokesperson said: "By being able to look at data trends over time, Google is better able to identify hacking attempts against Google systems and those of our users."

Fleischer has been unwilling to divulge any more information about Google security practices in the past, so as not to undermine those practices.

The video and Fleischer's Google blog post make no reference to EU privacy concerns over Google's server log retention period.

The Article 29 Data Protection Working Party in May published a letter saying it was concerned that the "storage period of 18 to 24 months on the basis indicated by Google thus far does not seem to meet the requirements of the European legal data-protection framework." The watchdog has also said that Google's cookie-retention period is "still too long", despite having been reduced to two years.

Besides Google, the EU is to also probe other major search engines' log-retention policies.

Source:www.zdnet.co.uk

Zamano in strategic link-up with Bebo

Irish consumer-focused mobile software company Zamano has developed a new mobile video messaging widget for Bebo users and has confirmed that it is investigating strategic deals with other social networking players, including MySpace and Facebook. “Our angle on it is that we think there’s a great need now to build on the confluence between mobile and fixed line,” explained John O’Shea, chief executive of the AIM-listed company.

“Most people spend time online but would like to stay in contact with their social networks when they’re away from the desk, and the mobile phone is the way to do that. We are investing in creating linkages with social networking sites.

“We’ve developed a widget you can download on to a Bebo profile and you can send and receive video, voice and text messages. It’s beginning to be as popular as text messaging.

“It’s the next step forward and people are leaving video messages all the time. It’s a free upgrade to a widget that more than 20,000 people are using. They can leave a video or voice mail on your Bebo page. The future development will see them be able to leave these messages on your mobile,” O’Shea explained.

O’Shea said the ability to leave Bebo voice and video messages on mobiles is currently being held up by high data costs among mobile operators. “But from what we’re seeing Irish mobile operators are following the lead of UK operators and are reducing the costs of mobile data. Soon people won’t have to think too much about their WAP usage on handsets.

“They will soon be spending lots of time browsing on their handsets without fretting about costs.”

O’Shea described Zamano’s relationship with Bebo as a commercial relationship whereby Zamano’s activity helps to drive advertising to its site. “The widgets we develop cost only €2 to buy as well as revenue from premium SMS traffic that is generated.”

O’Shea concluded by confirming that Zamano is investigating similar arrangements with social networking sites MySpace, YouTube and Facebook.

On Friday Zamano reported strong trading and expects to report approximately 15pc EBITDA growth for H1 2007 versus the same period last year. EBITDA in H2 2007 will benefit from a full six months’ contribution from the successful integration of mobile firm Eirborne, which is performing ahead of expectations.

Source:www.siliconrepublic.com

Music Publishers Sue YouTube

In September 2006, the same group won a judgment against a peer-to-peer filing service, StreamCast Networks.

The National Music Publishers' Association this week joined a class action lawsuit alleging that YouTube and its parent company Google have committed massive copyright infringement.

The group announced Monday that it is rallying along with the Football Association Premier League Limited and others in the suit filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.

"Copyrighted music is a huge draw for YouTube's users," the NMPA said in a prepared statement. "This music can be found in many of YouTube's clips, in both pre-existing commercial content and videos."

A spokesperson with Google was surprised and disappointed that the NMPA has elected to take this route.

"We have concluded historic licensing agreements with several NMPA members and have been in licensing discussions with others," Google Managing Litigation Counsel, Michael Kwun said. "Many song writers and music publishers view YouTube as a promising promotional platform for connecting with their fans and as a unique revenue opportunity. "

NMPA President and CEO David M. Israelite said the group is "very concerned about YouTube's approach to copyright."

"We are joining the lawsuit to protect the interests of music publishers and songwriters, whose creative works are being used without permission or compensation by YouTube, he said."

The NMPA is a music publishing industry trade association promotes and advances the interests of music publishers and their songwriting partners, while fostering a business creative and financial growth for more than 600 members. It was established in 1917, and is active globally in terms of protecting copyrights.

In September 2006, the group won a judgment against a peer-to-peer filing service, StreamCast Networks.

The Football Association Premier League, a British soccer division with an estimated 2.6 billion spectators, filed the lawsuit against YouTube in May. The lawsuit is one of many that Google and YouTube are currently defending.

Source:www.informationweek.com

YouTube Becomes Free For Helio Users

This won’t change the world, but it’s a nice gesture: Helio (“don’t call us a phone company”) has stopped charging its users for access to YouTube. The “mobile brand” is even refunding customers who already sent over some cash.

“Helio, a small mobile carrier that sells to younger users with features designed for MySpace and YouTube, was charging a $5.99 monthly fee for a YouTube application,” writes Nathan Weinberg, recapping the situation.

“Helio’s application, while powerful and allowing you to upload and watch YouTube videos, still came off as overpriced when YouTube started working with Apple TV and the iPhone, and released its own mobile site, and worse so when Helio actually tried to block access to YouTube’s mobile site so they could keep charging their customers,” he continues.

There’s also the upcoming YouTube phone to consider.
But, whether it saw the error of its ways or just made a smart business decision, Helio corrected its course. Gizmodo even carries a picture of a note from “Customer Care,” and the many comments that follow prove Helio is back in users’ good graces.

In related news, Helio is apparently still in its investors’ good graces, as well. Reuters reports that the company will receive $100 million apiece from SK Telecom and EarthLink, and “SK expects Helio to become profitable in 2009.”

Source: www.webpronew.com