the next social networking migration?

probably not, but freedom has always attracted an audience on the web, and as the bigger players (like myspace) try and clean up their act to make themselves palpable to advertisers, sights without the restrictions will find an audience...

Young Turn to Web Sites Without Rules

SAN FRANCISCO, Jan. 1 — Popular Web sites like YouTube and MySpace have
hired the equivalent of school hallway monitors to police what visitors to their
sites can see and do by cracking down on piracy and depictions of nudity and
violence.
So where do the young thrill-seekers go?
Increasingly, to new
Web sites like Stickam.com, which is
building a business by going where others fear to tread: into the realm of
unfiltered live broadcasts from Web cameras.
The site combines elements of
more popular sites, but with a twist. In addition to designing their own pages
and uploading video clips, its users broadcast live video of themselves and
conduct face-to-face video chats with other users, often from their bedrooms and
all without monitoring by any of Stickam’s 35 employees.
Other social
networks have decided against allowing conversations over live video because of
the potential for abuse and opposition from child-safety advocates. “The only
thing you get from the combination of Web cams and young people are problems,”
said Parry Aftab, executive director of the child protection organization WiredSafety.org. “Web cams are a
magnet for sexual predators.”
The larger Internet companies have come under
increasing pressure to make their sites safer for children and friendlier to
copyright holders, so start-ups like Stickam are pursuing their own slices of
the market, often at the price of taste, ethics and perhaps even child safety.
“Letting people do whatever they want is one way for these sites to
differentiate themselves,” said Josh Bernoff, a Forrester
Research analyst. “It is the race to the bottom.”

Even if you're Google, you can't rest...

We often talk about how commoditized and crowded "search" has become, but it's important to remember that the competition, and possibly the innovation, is only going to continue to heat up.

In Silicon Valley, the Race Is On to Trump Google

SAN FRANCISCO, Dec. 29 — In brand-new offices with a still-empty game room
and enough space to triple their staff of nearly 30, a trio of entrepreneurs is
leading an Internet start-up with an improbable mission: to out- Google
Google.
The three started Powerset, a company whose aim is to deliver better
answers than any other search engine — including Google — by letting users type
questions in plain English. And they have made believers of Silicon Valley
investors whose fortunes turn on identifying the next big thing.
“There’s
definitely a segment of the market that thinks we are crazy,” said Charles
Moldow, a partner at Foundation Capital, a venture capital firm that is
Powerset’s principal financial backer. “In 2000, some people thought Google was
crazy.”
Powerset is hardly alone. Even as Google continues to outmaneuver its
main search rivals, Yahoo
and Microsoft,
plenty of newcomers — with names like hakia, ChaCha and Snap — are trying to
beat the company at its own game. And Wikia Inc., a company started by a founder
of Wikipedia, plans to develop a search engine that, like the popular Web-based
encyclopedia, would be built by a community of programmers and users.
These
ambitious quests reflect the renewed optimism sweeping technology centers like
Silicon Valley and fueling a nascent Internet boom. It also shows how much the
new Internet economy resembles a planetary system where everything and everyone
orbits around search in general, and around Google in particular.
Silicon
Valley is filled with start-ups whose main business proposition is to be bought
by Google, or for that matter by Yahoo or Microsoft. Countless other start-ups
rely on Google as their primary driver of traffic or on Google’s powerful
advertising system as their primary source of income. Virtually all new
companies compete with Google for scarce engineering talent. And divining
Google’s next move has become a fixation for scores of technology blogs and a
favorite parlor game among technology investors.
“There is way too much
obsession with search, as if it were the end of the world,” said Esther Dyson, a
well-known technology investor and forecaster. “Google equals money equals
search equals search advertising; it all gets combined as if this is the last
great business model.”
It may not be the last great business model, but
Google has proved that search linked to advertising is a very large and
lucrative business, and everyone — including Ms. Dyson, who invested a small sum
in Powerset — seems to want a piece of it.

Sony takes a stab at the digital book

It doesn't appear that Sony is the one to crack this problem, but it does seem that they are making progress. Whoever does figure out how to execute this concept and makes reading digitally as comfortable and convenient as listening to music digitally will reap enormous rewards. Unless, of course, someone figures out how to integrate this with what will someday be my personal phone/assistant/mp3 player/video player/blackberry/web browser.

REVIEW: Sony's Reader a step forward

By PETER SVENSSON, AP Technology Writer Tue Sep 26, 6:52 PM ET
NEW YORK - Books have been a bit of the orphan in the digital world. Music has the iPod. Video has YouTube. Books have, well, Amazon.com, where you can buy them printed on paper.
Sure, there are electronic books available for download at Amazon and elsewhere, but they haven't really caught on. Sony Corp (NYSE:SNE - news). is now tackling part of the problem with the U.S. launch of the first e-book reader that imitates the look of paper by using an innovative screen
technology. Is this the iPod for books? Not quite. But it is a step forward.
The Sony Reader is a handsome affair the size of a paperback book, but only a third of an inch thick. It goes on sale for $350 on Sony's Web site Wednesday, and in Borders stores in October.The 6-inch screen can be taken for a monochrome liquid-crystal display at first glance, but on closer inspection looks like no other electronic display. It's behind a thin pane of glass, but unlike an LCD it shows no "depth" — it pretty much looks like a light gray piece of paper with dark gray text. The display, based on technology from Massachusetts Institute of Technology spinoff E Ink Corp., is composed of tiny capsules with electrically charged particles of white and black ink. When a static electric charge is applied on the side of the capsule that faces the reader, it attracts the white particles to the face of the display, making that pixel show light gray. Reversing the charge brings the black pigments floating through the capsule to replace the white pigments, and the pixel shows as dark gray.
Like paper, the display is readable from any angle, but it doesn't look as good as the real thing, chiefly because the contrast doesn't compare well. The background isn't white and the letters aren't black. The letters show some jaggedness, even though the resolution is a very respectable 800 by 600 pixels.
It will display photos, though they look a bit like black-and-white photocopies.
But it's still a more comfortable reading medium than any other electronic display. The text is easy on the eyes in almost any light you could read a book by.
The other major advantage of the display is that it's a real power sipper. Sony says a Reader with a full charge in its lithium battery can show up to 7,500 pages, an amazing figure that I unfortunately didn't have the time to test.
The reason behind this trilogy-busting stamina is that the display only consumes power when it flips to a new page. Displaying the same page continuously consumes no power, though the electronics of the device itself do use a little bit.
The Reader's internal memory holds up to 100 books, depending on their size. The memory can be expanded with inexpensive SD cards or Memory Sticks.
To load books, connect the Reader with a supplied cable to a Windows PC running the accompanying software. You can transfer Word documents or Portable Document Format files to the Reader, download blog feeds, or buy e-books at Sony's online store. It will also play MP3 music or audiobook files.
The store is not live yet, so I was unable to test it, but the interface looks comfortably like that of iTunes. It should have 10,000 titles at launch, Sony said, with major titles from publishers like HarperCollins, Simon and Schuster and Penguin-Putnam. In keeping with the e-book market so far, there's no big price break: the electronic version will cost a dollar or so less than the printed book.
The Reader would be a perfect companion for the avid book reader, but for a few things.
First of all, navigation is fairly clumsy.
You can't just enter the page number and jump to the page, nor can you enter a word or phrase to search for, as you can when reading a book on a PC. To get around, there are 10 buttons that will each take you a 10th of the way through text. You can also jump to chapter starts, or return to bookmarks. Still, this is very much a one-way device, designed for reading a book straight through from cover to cover.
This lack of interactivity is partly because the screen is slow to change, since it takes time for the pigments to move through the capsules. It takes about a second to display a new page. That means no scrolling through pages, and no note-taking on the screen — imagine having to wait a second for each letter you write to appear.
Secondly, and less importantly, the Reader handles PDFs poorly. It doesn't allow you to zoom in on them, so if they're formatted for standard 8.5-inch-by-11-inch pages, the text will be illegibly small.
Thirdly, the Reader doesn't have a built-in light source, unlike PCs and personal digital assistants. A small clip-on light of the kind sold for books should work well, though.
Because of these drawbacks, it's hard to see the Reader as something that will bust the e-book market open. But it deserves a much better reception than the generally small LCD-based devices that hit the market a couple of years ago, some of which are already discontinued.
Other competition comes from cell phones and PDAs, but none of them match the Reader for screen size, legibility and battery life. Laptops, Tablet PCs and tablet-style Ultra-Mobile PCs have the screen size, but are heavier, more expensive, take time to boot up and have short battery lives. The real competition, though, will be printed books, which have so far defeated all digital contenders with their excellent "battery life" and "display quality." Sony's going to have to try a little harder before it can really start saving trees.
___
On the Web:
http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/ap/ap_on_hi_te/storytext/tech_test_sony_reader/20420009/SIG=10s71ln78/*http://www.sony.com/reader

MySpace gets political, in a good way

MySpace has taken a lot of heat in the past few months for allegedly making youths vulnerable online. This is an unavoidable consequence of having one of the biggest youth drawing portals in the world. But what to do when one has the eyes of millions of young folks across the US (and other countries)? Get them involved in the political process, and create some positive publicity for yourself in the process. Well done.

MySpace launches voter-registration plan

By ANICK JESDANUN, AP Internet Writer 2 hours, 40 minutes ago
NEW YORK - The youth-heavy online hangout MySpace.com is launching a voter-registration drive to engage its members in civics. In partnership with the nonpartisan group Declare Yourself, MySpace is running ads on its highly trafficked Web site and giving members tools such as a "I Registered To Vote On MySpace" badge to place on their personal profile pages.
"Young people in this country ... are really engaged in what's happening in their community and want to make a difference," said Jeff Berman, MySpace's senior vice president for public affairs. "The key is to make it easy for them to get engaged. By putting these tools on MySpace and putting it in front of their eyes, you make it far more likely they will use them."
News Corp.'s MySpace is the leading online social-networking site, in which users stay connected by adding others as "friends" and expanding their networks by meeting friends of their friends.
MySpace offers message boards, Web journals and other free features its members can use to circulate links for video and other items they like.
Berman said the company was hoping its users would use such tools to encourage friends to register. He acknowledged MySpace was late in launching a voter-registration drive, but said he still hoped "thousands upon thousands of MySpacers will register to vote and spread the word."
Election Day is Nov. 7, and many states close voter registration up to a month before that. To register, members simply go to http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/ap/ap_on_hi_te/storytext/myspace_voter_registration/20425016/SIG=1188vo3fs/*http://www.myspace.com/declareyourself and enter a state or ZIP code. After entering the requested information, the site generates a PDF file that can be printed and mailed to state election officials. A Spanish version also is available.
Although MySpace has a heavy youth population, about 80 percent of its 114 million registered members are old enough to vote, according to the Los Angeles-based company.
MySpace is not alone trying to register Americans, particular youths voting for the first time.
A San Francisco-based nonprofit group called Mobile Voter offers a service for people to register via cell-phone text messaging.
Political campaigns themselves have also been turning to MySpace and similar sites to reach supporters, with many candidates creating profile pages they hope users would further circulate.
___
On the Net:
Election Assistance Commission: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/ap/ap_on_hi_te/storytext/myspace_voter_registration/20425016/SIG=10g84let6/*http://eac.gov
National Association of Secretaries of State vote site: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/ap/ap_on_hi_te/storytext/myspace_voter_registration/20425016/SIG=10p6ffu06/*http://www.canivote.org

Microsoft takes on YouTube, AOL

Internet/Technology companies continue to make their transition into media companies. AOL was the first to start streaming concerts, and YouTube was the first to do online video right. Microsoft, as usual, has decided to come late to the party, but arrived nonetheless. Their new service "Soapbox" is attempting to co-opt YouTube's success, with at this time, one major difference: it will stream live events. Currently, YouTube doesn't do this, but I'd be surprised if they didn't figure it out sooner or later.

Microsoft's MSN to air live webcasts of concerts

Tue Sep 26, 9:00 PM ET
NEW YORK (Reuters) - MSN, Microsoft Corp.'s (Nasdaq:MSFT - news) Web portal, said on Tuesday it will make a big push to stream live concerts to its users after signing an exclusive global partnership with Control Room, the company behind the web broadcast of last year's Live 8 event.
The move to offer major live performances online is the latest move by Microsoft to drive both consumer and advertiser growth on its sites with a range of new entertainment and media features to challenge or differentiate itself from rivals including Yahoo Inc. (Nasdaq:YHOO - news), YouTube Inc. and News Corp.'s (NYSE:NWSA - news) MySpace.
As part of the multiyear agreement, MSN will exclusively air 36 different live events which will also be available for on-demand viewing for an agreed period afterward. The shows will be available on MSN's 42 sites around the world.
The shows will be free to the viewer and supported by advertising, according to Rob Bennett, general manager of entertainment and video services for MSN.
MSN kicks off the partnership with Control Room on October 2 with a live performance from Sony BMG R&B singer John Legend delivered from London.
Control Room, formerly known as Network Live, produced the widely acclaimed Live 8 event webcast in partnership with Time Warner Inc.'s(NYSE:TWX - news) online unit AOL. It was part of a one-year contract with AOL which has now ended. Nearly 100 million people viewed the Live 8 video clips on AOL over six weeks in the summer of 2005.
Last week, Microsoft launched a Web video sharing service called Soapbox, which will allow users to upload their own videos like YouTube. In a separate announcement on Tuesday, Microsoft said it is backing a new social networking site called Wallop which will rival market-leaders MySpace and Facebook.

Buzz: Nintendo Wii

Despite the terrible name, I believe that Nintendo is going to be the run-away victor in this year's holiday video-games war. Look for the buzz to increase as thanksgiving approaches.

Nintendo's Wii on Toys "R" Us hot holiday list

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Toy retailer Toys "R" Us has unveiled its "hot toy" list for the upcoming holiday season, and this year it includes a video game console for the first time -- Nintendo Co. Ltd.'s (7974.OS) Wii.
Wii's inclusion in the list comes as electronics play an increasingly prominent role in children's toys.
Other hot toys chosen by Toys "R" Us include Fisher-Price's digital camera for children ages 3-years-old and up, and Hasbro's Inc.'s (NYSE:HAS - news) Designer's World, a plug-and-play TV game from its Tiger Games division that lets girls design their own fashion line. Nintendo's Wii will make its U.S. debut on November 19 in what is expected to be a hot holiday season for video game consoles, with Sony Corp.'s (6758.T) PlayStation 3 slated to hit U.S. stores November 17.
But Nintendo, with its "Donkey Kong," "Mario Brothers" and "Pokemon" game franchises, has found success with a younger audience.
"The PlayStation 3 is really geared to a savvy gaming enthusiast," said Kathleen Waugh, a spokeswoman for Toys "R" Us, of the decision to add the Wii to the list. "The Wii system appeals to young kids as well as adults."
The Wii, priced at $250, features a motion-sensing controller that operates like a television remote control and lets players simulate swinging a bat, sword or tennis racquet.
Waugh said one of Toys "R" Us' criteria of adding an item to its hot list is knowing it will have sufficient stock of the item for the holiday season, and she said that Toys "R" Us was able to ensure that by "taking a leadership position on the launch of Wii."
Other toys on the list include T.M.X. Elmo, or Tickle Me Extreme, made by Mattel Inc.'s (NYSE:MAT - news) Fisher-Price division. The doll, which hit stores on September 19 after months of secrecy, is the 10th anniversary edition of the Tickle Me Elmo red plush doll that created a craze when it was introduced. The T.M.X. doll has been flying off store shelves since its introduction last week, but Waugh said Toys "R" Us continues to get new shipments of the doll.
But not all of the toys on the hot list are electronic. The list includes the Speed Stacks StackPack -- a game by Jakks Pacific Inc.'s (Nasdaq:JAKK - news) Play Along division that involves stacking up and down Speed Stack cups in predetermined forms as fast as possible.
The following is Toys "R" Us' "Fabulous 15" list of hot new toys for the 2006 holiday season:
* Blue Man
Group Percussion Tubes from ToyQuest,
* Designer's World from Tiger
Games,
* Dora's Talking Cash Register from Fisher-Price,
* ESPN Fast
Action Football from Fisher-Price,
* Kid-Tough Digital Camera from
Fisher-Price,
* Laugh & Learn Baby Grand Piano from Fisher-Price,
*
Mindstorms NXT from Lego,
* My Scene My Bling Bling Styling Head from
Mattel,
* Pink Nitro Notebook from VTech,
* Power Rangers Deluxe
Manticore Megazord from Bandai,
* Speed Stacks StackPack from Play Along,
* Sound City Railway from Imaginarium,
* Tap Dancing Mumble from
Thinkway,
* T.M.X. Elmo from Fisher-Price, and
* Wii from Nintendo.

Sony Adds GPS to cameras

I think that this pretty cool, and that we'll be seeing/hearing more about this development in the future... Also, for a company that's been dropping the ball lately in all sorts of ways, it's good that they're getting into the news for something positive.

Sony Launches GPS for Cameras

John Blau, IDG News Service 2 hours, 17 minutes ago
Ever been on a trip where you've visited a dozen places, taken hundreds of pictures but can't quite remember where you shot them? Sony has developed a pocket-size, Global Positioning System device and software that helps you identify the location of every picture you've taken within a couple of meters.
The Japanese consumer electronics giant announced the availability of the GPS-CS1 tracking system on the eve of the Photokina imaging trade show, which opens Tuesday in Cologne, Germany.
Specs
The device, which records location data every 15 seconds, can accurately pinpoint a shot to within two meters. The device measures 3.43 by 1.42 by 1.42 inches, can hold up to 31MB (equivalent to approximately one month of tracking and recording for 12 hours per day) and has a power-efficient design that allows up to 10 hours of continuous use with a single, alkaline cell battery.
How It Works
The GPS-CS1 doesn't connect to a digital camera. Instead, tracking data from the device is downloaded via a USB cable to a Windows PC running the Sony GPS Image Tracker software. Camera images are also downloaded to the same PC, which then "matches" the position data from the GPS tracking device with date and time data from the images.
Another piece of software, the Picture Motion Browser, which Sony now supplies with new cameras, allows users to view JPEG images with the appended location information. If they want a more visual view of the location, they can click the "Map View" function, which uses the online Google Maps services to show the geographic location.
"This is a device aimed at the amateur user," a Sony spokesman said at the company's booth. "It's lightweight, easy to use and affordable."
The suggested retail price of the GPS-CS1, now available in all major markets, is $166, the spokesman said.

Microsoft takes another shot at social networking

If someone, somewhere, is making money or might someday make money off of some type of Internet or digital property, Microsoft wants to have a piece of it. Enter their newest property, Wallop. Notice how they are trying to change the business model, by making this both invitation only, and by offering premium services for those willing to pay. It's kind of like the online equivalent of launching a country club, where plastic surgeries are offered to those who can afford to look prettier. Will it work? I doubt it.

Microsoft spinoff Wallop launches test

Tue Sep 26, 4:53 AM ET
SEATTLE - Wallop, a startup spun out of Microsoft Corp.'s research lab, is launching the test version of an online social networking site with the premise that people will want to pay extra to look good.
The company, which aims to compete with established brands like MySpace and Facebook, plans to sell graphics and other features people can use to decorate their personal profile pages.
Wallop says the plan to charge users for the decorations will supplant the advertising that supports many such free sites. The add-ons will initially cost somewhere between 99 cents and $4, said Karl Jacob, the San Francisco company's chief executive. The company will offer some elements for free.
People will only be able to sign up for the service if an existing member invites them, an approach Facebook is about to abandon.
Wallop has its origins in a Microsoft research project that goes back several years. In the interim, News Corp.'s MySpace has emerged as a market leader in the now-hot field of forging and maintaining friendships online.
MySpace already lets users customize pages for free, though users typically have to find HTML code elsewhere to post into their profiles. Some visitors have complained that flashy icons and colorful lettering in such customized profiles can make them difficult to read.
___
On the Net:
http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/ap/ap_on_hi_te/storytext/microsoft_spinoff_wallop/20411241/SIG=10r70n5td/*http://www.wallopcorp.com

Sony lowers price of Playstation 3

Sony is freaking out over the costly delays and expensive price tag of its forthcoming system, and have decided to cut the initial price of the PlayStation in the hopes of keeping market share. Microsoft beat everyone to the field with a much more reasonably priced system (eating into Sony's US market share), and market analysts expect the Nintendo Wii to challenge and possibly beat Sony in the Japanese market. How much this move will help, I'm not sure. Sony will be taking an even bigger loss on these machines than they were before, it will be interesting to see if game sales and licensing can make up for the shortfall.

Sony cuts price of PlayStation 3 to $410

By HANS GREIMEL, Associated Press Writer Fri Sep 22, 6:22 AM ET
TOKYO - Sony Corp (NYSE:SNE - news). said Friday it will slash the price of its much-anticipated PlayStation 3 video game console in Japan by 20 percent, heating up the competition in the next-generation gaming war against rivals Microsoft and Nintendo.
The announcement comes just days after Microsoft Corp. announced that it would roll out an external high definition DVD player for its Xbox 360 in an effort to match the PlayStation 3, due to be released in November with its own Blu-ray DVD technology. Sony Computer Entertainment President Ken Kutaragi, speaking at the Tokyo Game Show in Makuhari, just east of Tokyo, said the move was in response to consumer complaints the upcoming console was too pricey.
Sony will cut the domestic price of its basic PlayStation 3 model to 47,600 yen, or about $410, from an originally planned 59,800 yen, or $515. That puts the PlayStation 3 in the same range as the combined basic Xbox 360 and HD DVD player in Japan, where the duo will sell for 49,600 yen, or $427.
There are no plans to lower prices in the U.S. or other markets, Sony spokeswoman Nanako Kato said. In Japan, the game will hit stores on Nov. 11.
In the U.S., it will go on sale Nov. 17 at $499 for a 20 gigabyte hard drive version and at $599 for the 60 gigabyte version. The decision could give Sony a badly needed boost at a time of embarrassing delays for the highly anticipated upgrade. Rival Nintendo Co. is also scheduled to release its next-generation Wii gaming system by year's end, while Xbox 360 has been selling in Japan since December 2005. PlayStation 3, initially planned for earlier this year, has been postponed twice. Sony now expects to ship only 2 million units by year's end instead of an original projection of 4 million.
The price cut affects the basic PlayStation 3 model, which comes with a 20 gigabyte hard drive. Another upscale version of the PlayStation 3 will have a 60 gigabyte hard drive, but Sony is leaving its pricing to retailers.
Xbox 360 was rushed to market last year to get a headstart on its rivals, but it has seen sluggish sales in Japan, which is one of the world's biggest video game markets but one in which players have a deep loyalty to homegrown Sony.
Redmond, Washington-based Microsoft's decision to launch an HD DVD peripheral in Japan on Nov. 22, based on a rival format to Sony's Blu-ray, is seen as one attempt to eat into that base. The basic Xbox 360 doesn't come with any high-definition DVD capability.
Nintendo said last week its new Wii game console will arrive on schedule in the final quarter of the year, priced below both rivals, the Xbox 360 and the PlayStation 3.

Yahoo! inks distribution/development deal with Current TV

Yahoo! is once again expanding its presence as an online content distributor. This deal is interesting, because Current is creating four new broadband channels, and they've got some talented and successful people lined up to help shape them. If this is executed correctly, it could help Yahoo! to keep pace with MSN and AOL, both of which have recently been expanding their media offering as well. This is also a coup for Current TV, as it could help them to greatly expand their presence.

Al Gore's Current TV, Yahoo join forces

NEW YORK - Al Gore's Current TV is going into partnership with Yahoo, Inc. to create four new broadband channels that debuted on Wednesday with a video made by Bono during U2's last concert tour.

Like the Current TV network that the former vice president created with Joel Hyatt, the new broadband channels will focus on disseminating video created by young viewers. "We expect this will be the premier video online experience," Gore told The Associated Press.

One of the four channels, Yahoo! Current Buzz, is being produced by Madeleine Smithberg, co-creator of "The Daily Show," and will "showcase the best of what's buzzing the world and the Web," the companies said.

The other channels will focus on action sports news, automotives and adventure traveling. The latter is where Bono's video — mostly about experiences with fellow band member The Edge — is being featured.

Yahoo was attracted to Current because it shares the goal of giving young people a voice on the Web, said Dan Rosensweig, Yahoo's chief operating officer.

The four channels are separate and distinct from Current's TV network, Gore said. But with Current only available now in 30 million of the nation's 110 million homes with televisions, the deal promises to greatly increase the visibility of its content.

"The distribution reach and community of online viewers that Yahoo serves gives an unparalleled opportunity to connect the online video experience, including video-related content, with a mass audience," Gore said.

The best user-created videos on the Yahoo! Current Network will be featured on Current TV each Monday afternoon.

Four more Yahoo! Current channels are expected to be added by the end of next year, the companies said.

MySpace to enter China, maybe

Surprise, surprise. Well, not really. I'm not sure if expansion into this market would be very smooth, for a host of reasons, the first of which being how China's government is very sensitive to and controlling of any means in which the Chinese people communicate/connect with each other.

News Corp. may start Chinese MySpace

BEIJING - News Corp. chairman Rupert Murdoch says his Chinese-born wife, Wendi Deng, is in China with the company's executives to help launch a Chinese version of its popular MySpace social networking Web site, a newspaper reported Wednesday. Murdoch, speaking in New York, said the company is trying to find a way to enter the Chinese market without running into political obstacles and the "heavy weather" that Google Inc. and Yahoo Inc. (Nasdaq:YHOO - news) have encountered, the London-based Financial Times said. Murdoch bought MySpace last year. The site allows users to share text, pictures and video. "We have to make MySpace a very Chinese site," Murdoch was quoted as saying Tuesday at a conference organized by investment bank Goldman Sachs Group Inc. "I have sent my wife across there because she understands the language." Murdoch said MySpace in China was likely to have local partners, who would own about 50 per cent, the Financial Times said. He said that would ensure the content was suitable for a Chinese audience, while the partners would deal with complaints. News Corp. has tried to expand in China but has been stymied by restrictions on foreign media ownership. China has the world's second-largest population of Internet users after the United States, with 123 million people online. The communist government promotes Internet use for education and business but tries to block the public from seeing material considered subversive or pornographic. Dozens of people have been jailed for posting political essays online. Google, Yahoo and other companies have been criticized by human rights activists for cooperating with government efforts to censor Internet content. MySpace is adding about 1.5m new users every week and recently surpassed 100 million registered users, according to News Corp.

Yahoo! reports smaller than expected ad revenue growth

Personally, I see this as more of a sign of a slowing economy than a slowing internet category.

Yahoo Says Ad Growth Is Slowing

NEW YORK (AP) -- Yahoo (NASDAQ:YHOO) Inc.'s third-quarter results will be hurt by what appears to be a slowdown in the growth of auto and financial advertising, the Internet company's chief financial officer said Tuesday. Its stock fell 12 percent. As a result, Yahoo is likely to report results in the lower half of the range it had forecast in July for revenue. Other key financial measures, such as cash flow, also are expected to be impacted. Sue Decker, speaking at an investor conference sponsored by Goldman Sachs (NYSE:GS) , said it was too early to tell whether the slowdown would spread to other areas or how long it would last.

"Whether this is temporary, or whether this spills over into other categories, we just don't know," Decker said. "We're going to watch and wait."

Following the disclosure, Yahoo's shares lost $3.47, to $25.53, in midday trading on the Nasdaq Stock Market.

Decker did not specify how much the growth was slowing down in those areas but stressed that the growth rates were still "very positive."

She cited "budget adjustments" among advertisers in those categories. Ford Motor Co. (NYSE:F) recently replaced its chief executive and accelerated a restructuring plan which calls for job cuts, plant closings and new products.

Yahoo in July estimated revenue of $1.11 billion and $1.22 billion for the third quarter.

AOL reports customer growth after becoming free.

Duh. Of course people are more likely to use you when it doesn't cost anything, and the fact that this might be surprising to some people only reinforces the depths to which AOL's brand has fallen. I'll be curious to see if all the new eyes lead to revenue growth at the end of the year.

AOL gains more new customers after going free

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Time Warner Inc. on Tuesday said a strategy to offer most of online unit AOL's services for free was making faster-than-expected progress in attracting new Internet users and cutting costs. Jeffrey Bewkes, Time Warner's chief operating officer, told investors at a Goldman Sachs media conference that its strategy had attracted new users beyond those who were once paying customers of the online service. Some 40 percent of new users were not former subscribers, Bewkes said. "That means there is demand for AOL beyond the existing base," he said. In addition, subscribers who formerly paid for AOL services were moving to its free services at a quicker rate than originally predicted by AOL management, Bewkes said. Bewkes said advertising sales at AOL were "very robust," without elaborating. Advertising growth would be unlikely to offset a drop in subscription revenue for another year or two but is a more profitable source of revenue, he said. In August, AOL said it aimed to boost its online advertising sales by attracting more users to its services including e-mail, instant messaging and online video by offering most of its services at no charge. It continues to maintain a dial-up Internet access business, but it no longer plans to market the service. AOL, once the reigning king of online services, had lost millions of paying subscribers over the last few years as subscribers defected to providers that offered faster speeds." People weren't leaving AOL because they didn't like it; they were leaving because they wanted to go to (high-speed) broadband," Bewkes said. By offering it for free, former subscribers who had already relinquished their e-mail accounts are offered an opportunity to come back and reclaim old e-mail addresses. Time Warner shares were up 27 cents, or 1.58 percent, to $17.40 on the New York Stock Exchange in afternoon trading.

Fox decides not to distribute its content through online portals

Murdoch Fox is a little puzzling to me; he decided to jump into the Internet head first by acquiring mySpace and launching beefed up Internet ventures for several of his properties, but now decides to not take the logical next step and distribute content from his entertainment empire through online portals:

News Corp. may not use Internet portals

NEW YORK - Rupert Murdoch told an investor conference Tuesday that he didn't see a need to distribute programming or other media content from his News Corp. conglomerate through Internet portals. Murdoch, asked why he hadn't made deal with large aggregators of online content like Yahoo Inc. (Nasdaq:YHOO - news) or Microsoft Corp.'s MSN portal, said he didn't see that strategy as necessary for building Internet traffic. "We're not sure the portal model is the way of the future at all," Murdoch told a conference sponsored by Goldman Sachs. "We think people are going straight to the sites." Murdoch, whose acquisition of the hugely popular social networking site MySpace.com has inspired envy among other media moguls, cited the example of Yahoo's HotJobs employment site, but noted that Internet users might go to any number of other Web destinations that also carry job listings. The Times newspaper in London, which is owned by News Corp., has a site that is far smaller than the BBC's, Murdoch said, but he noted that it still has 6 million monthly visitors that didn't necessarily have to get there through a portal site. "I don't think you have to say you have to go to Fox online to find The Times online," Murdoch said. Fox is another News Corp. property. Murdoch also said that since the Chinese advertising market is smaller than that in the United States, the Chinese version of MySpace would have to seek other ways of generating revenues. Murdoch's Chinese-born wife Wendi Deng is in China helping with the launch, he said.

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- Stephen