One of the least-changed parts of AllThingsD since we started this site has been our “Voices” section, which has attracted robust and ever-increasing traffic over the years.

But today Voices gets a new look as we relaunch an updated section to bring you even more writing and information from outside sources. Voices will be run by senior editor Beth Callaghan, and will offer six regular features:

Must-Reads — formerly called Voices — will be the same daily compendium of links from around the Web. These are pieces we’ve selected editorially because we think they’re worth your time. We’ve made two changes in order to clarify the nature of the content and our role in suggesting them: We’ve renamed the links “Must-Reads From Other Web Sites” and we’ve simplified them to consist merely of outbound links. The links will appear in widgets across the site and in an archive — but when you click on a headline, you’ll be taken directly to the original Web site.

Voices is now made up of exclusive op-eds and posts from outside contributors who are well-versed in AllThingsD and have unique perspectives to share. We welcome and will evaluate all such pieces, and also plan to reach out to a range of industry experts on a variety of topics. Our goal is to spur debate and also give smart and engaging content a platform on our site.

Forum is conceived as an assembly of quick opinions from four or five well-known personalities on a single issue that is in the news. Topics can range from thoughts on the possible bubble in Silicon Valley to what’s the most interesting new trend to how possible privacy regulation will impact the tech industry. We hope to elicit a lot of different opinions and insights from a wide-ranging panel of execs, academics, venture capitalists, Wall Street analysts, entrepreneurs, bloggers and more.

Eye to Eye will be even more pointed, pitting a pair of often-opposing viewpoints on a controversial topic of the week — kind of like a Spy vs. Spy, but with words. The possibilities are endless here: Was $1 billion too much for Facebook to pay for photo-sharing site Instagram? Will Yahoo’s recent restructuring work? Do you think Google Glasses is a good idea? Where will Apple’s stock be in a year?

Numbers is a weekly story told by data — sometimes scientific, sometimes irreverent, always interesting. We will be working with many top research outfits, and will also be doing a number of our own polls of readers. We love infographics, surveys and pie charts at ATD and you’re going to get a whole lot of them.

Lastly, Ten Things About Me finds answers to entertaining and informative questions aimed at prominent people in the digital realm. It’s a little like the Proust Questionnaire mixed with the kind of queries that we are well known for at our D conferences, plus a whole lot of unusual ones, so you can get to know a variety of tech and media figures in a different way. First up: Twitter and Square inventor Jack Dorsey tells us what he’d be up to if he weren’t doing what he is doing now.

The new Voices will roll out all this week. Enjoy.

Here’s a handy helper for those following the fate of the Hulu premium online video service, whose noisy efforts to sell itself have gotten a lot of attention of late:

“In preliminary talks” = “hawking itself to one of a half dozen big moneybag tech companies who will visit with Hulu’s bankers and management to see its presentation at Morgan Stanley’s office in Century City in Los Angeles.”

Last Friday, for example, that meant a look-see for Microsoft execs, to show the software giant the story of how paying top dollar for the popular Hulu would be a great investment.

This week, sources said, Yahoo will get the expected gander at the books too, among the other companies targeted by Hulu as part of a sales process in its very early stages.

Among those companies on the short list, sources said, along with Microsoft and Yahoo are: Google, Verizon, AT&T and Amazon.

None of these should come as a surprise, since they all have a big interest in the digital distribution of content business.

Google is perhaps the most interesting and difficult of the group, due to both its massive YouTube unit and the even more massive interest by government regulators about its disturbing massiveness.

Amazon is the company that seems most suited as a Hulu buyer, since it already makes its business selling and distributing content. In addition, Hulu CEO Jason Kilar was a former exec — bringing a certain level of familiarity and presumably much less of the grumpy disgruntlement that he experienced with Hulu’s current media giant owners.

Microsoft seems like the longest shot and least enthusiastic, although it certainly could afford it.

As for Yahoo: Good lord, it needs something sexy to tell weary investors.

Not in the initial round, but other possible acquirers Hulu is targeting: Facebook, Netflix, Samsung and Liberty Media.

And definitely not among those kicking the tires: Disney, News Corp. and Comcast, the trio of partners who own Hulu, along with Providence Equity Partners.

The big question, of course, is whether media-focused Apple — a notorious buyer of almost nothing — would be interested in Hulu.

These blind dates with the best possible buyers will presumably give each insight into Hulu’s business and give Hulu information on what they are looking for.

Sources who have heard the pitch said Hulu is positioning itself as an inevitable competitor to cable, which seems an odd position to take, unless it can get regular access to the kind of top-drawer content that consumers want.

And that will be the most important issue for anyone buying Hulu: The time and terms of rights to the television and movie content on the site, which has been a critical part of its success.

Buyers I have interviewed said Hulu has to offer at least an 18-month license for its content and a pile of rights to hit shows to differentiate itself from competitors.

As Peter Kafka wrote, Hulu buyers would indeed get exclusive content, but with strings attached.

He also noted that the latest content licenses for Hulu’s owner/partners — Disney’s ABC and News Corp.’s Fox — have recently been completed, deals that will stay intact if Hulu is sold.

Unlike Netflix, which has had to pay top dollar for a small pile of premium content while deftly using a large archive of older content to attract subscribers, Hulu’s success has had a lot to do with more access to popular current shows offered by its media giant owners.

Those shows include TV hits such as “The Office” and “Glee.”

That access has become a point of contention with those owners, who have differed with Hulu management about what comes next for the mostly advertising-supported site, even though its slick product has been a clear hit with consumers.

Of course, some speculate that Hulu might not sell at all, just as it never went public as it had said it might do previously. In that case, it will be interesting to see what will become of Hulu once the music stops.

(And, if anyone would like to email me the Hulu presentation or notes on it, please do, so I can formulate a bid myself!)

But, until this deal churns slowly, leakily and loudly forward — let’s enjoy some apt Hulu content. As usual, the fun version of ABBA’s “Dancing Queen” by the kids from “Glee” was not available on the site.

Thus, I selected frequent “Glee” guest star Gwyneth Paltrow belting out Joan Jett’s “Do You Wanna Touch Me” on the show, as a good alternate metaphor for the sales process:

IntoNow users can “check in” to a particular episode once it’s been recognized, like one would check into a restaurant on Foursquare. The goal is to enable conversations around the watercooler and on social networks by helping users connect around what they’re watching and discover new things to watch.

It’s common knowledge that the only thing people love more than watching TV is talking about it, but none of the many “social TV” start-ups–GetGlue, Miso, Philo, Comcast’s Tunerfish etc.–has emerged as a clear leader. Unlike the competition, IntoNow isn’t trying to provide a platform for conversations, but rather to show what people are watching.

Still, it’s not clear people want to download an app to tell themselves and their friends what they’re already watching on television.

IntoNow can recognize both live television and five years of archived U.S. TV airings. It constantly analyzes satellite feeds and matches them to TV listings to have current data.

Adam Cahan, the CEO of IntoNow, says his company’s TV recognition technology–which it calls SoundPrint–is akin to a GPS, which takes the hassle out of figuring out exactly which restaurant you’re at and matching it to something like Foursquare’s database.

Cahan’s company was very recently spun out of Auditude, a company where Cahan was also CEO. IntoNow’s seven employees and its technology were all formerly part of Auditude, actually. That company, which just raised $11 million from investors including Greylock Partners and Redpoint Ventures, has shifted away from video identification to video advertising management. IntoNow has yet to raise its own funding, but Greylock and Redpoint already have equity in the start-up.

In addition to creating a feed of what episodes they’re watching, IntoNow users can share on Facebook and Twitter, look up programs on IMDb, add shows to their Netflix queues and purchase episodes on iTunes.

The name “IntoNow” comes from the expression “What are you into now?” IntoNow hopes other companies will build SoundPrint audio recognition into their own social TV products. SoundPrint has 2.6 million airings in its catalog, is constantly recording 130 channels and needs four to 12 seconds of audio to make a match.

While it’s only iOS for now, IntoNow and SoundPrint are in development for Android and Web-enabled televisions.

IntoNow eventually hopes to help content owners validate that their watchers are participating with live content, and help the TV industry measure advertising and viewership metrics without relying on a panel.

Here’s one–instead of selling digital versions of paper magazines people can already get in their mailbox or at newsstands, cobble together special-edition apps using stuff you’ve already made.

That’s what Condé Nast has tried with its new “Best of Italy: Condé Nast Traveler” app. It’s a $4.99 compilation of the magazine’s earlier articles, and based on a brief flip-through, it works quite nicely.

And because it’s not a literal translation of a current title, the app sidesteps some of the problems that have plagued magazine apps: Print subscribers don’t feel like they’re being gouged by paying for something they’ve already bought. And jaded iPad owners can’t compare it to an existing issue and utter a bored sigh.

Meanwhile, Condé has signed on pasta maker Barilla to sponsor the app, so there’s not a whole lot of money at stake here for the publisher.

Condé already sells some paid iPhone apps, and has a couple of in-app purchases available for some of its free apps, but you should expect to see more paid, standalone apps this year, most of which will utilize stuff the publisher already has in its archive.

Meanwhile, more optimistic publishers hold out hope that Google’s Android will give them what they want–the ability to sell subscriptions for magazine apps, and keep most of the revenue and all of the consumer information. And that once that happens, Apple will come around, too. Theoretically.

But even if magazine subscriptions get resolved, I’m not sure that solves publishers’ magazine app problems. The industry’s hope, at least for much of the last year, was that the iPad and other tablets would allow them to roll back not only the “content = free” ethos of the Web, but also the “subscriptions = really, really cheap” precedent they’d set up on their own.

But since publishers are still giving away print magazine subscriptions at fire-sale prices, it’s going to be hard to convince tablet owners to pay a penny more. And you can’t blame that one on Steve Jobs.

I am considering buying an iPad, but am wondering if I should wait for the second edition which is rumored to be coming soon. What do you advise?

A:

I regard the current, original iPad as an excellent product, and can’t say you’d go wrong with it. But while Apple is famously secretive, I’d be surprised if there isn’t a new model announced in the next few months that will have added or improved features. There’s wide speculation, for instance, it will gain a camera or two. The company has a long history of improving its products, and, in the case of the iPad, must keep making it better to deal with a host of coming tablet rivals. So, if you can wait a few months, I’d do so.

Q:

I see that many of the newer wireless routers with attractive features do not support printer sharing. Does that mean you cannot connect a printer via Ethernet cable to the router and be able to access that printer through the wireless network? Why do so many of the newer routers not support printer sharing?

A:

In the context you seem to be using it, the term “printer sharing” referred to plugging in an otherwise non-networkable printer via USB to a router, which would then make the printer usable over the network. I presume that this feature has declined in popularity as more home printers now have wired or wireless networking built in, and the latest Windows and Mac operating systems make it much easier to share even a printer without its own network features through the computer’s connection to the network. If the printer has wired networking built in, you should be able to plug it into one of the Ethernet jacks on most wireless routers and make it usable on your wireless network.

Q:

I have an almost two-year-old MacBook Pro. The hard drive is nearly full, and I wondered if you knew of any tricks to free up some space. I’m particularly interested in cost-effective fixes.

A:

One useful free utility for freeing up space on a Mac is called Monolingual, and is available at http://bit.ly/dqTCSC. This little utility allows you to remove all the obscure files on a Mac that allow the computer to operate in languages you can’t read or don’t use. For instance, if you only speak and read English, you can erase the files that enable the computer to run in, say, Albanian and Portuguese. Its maker says this can free up hundreds of megabytes of space. I have tried it and it works. Of course, whether you have a Windows PC or a Mac, you can free up space in many other ways, such as by deleting files and programs you don’t use, archiving or deleting old email, and removing temporary browser files.

Email mossberg@wsj.com.

Yesterday–presumably so as not to be left out of the dueling press gatherings that Apple (AAPL), Google (GOOG) and Facebook have all had in recent weeks to show off fancy new stuff–Twitter lobbed out an an invite for an event this afternoon:

We’d like to invite you to come to Twitter HQ for an event tomorrow afternoon (Sept 14)…Please be there by 3:45pm. RSVP below.

See you there.

So, what, oh, what are those little elves at the microblogging service going to show off?

It could be a lot of things, from a new advertising shiny object to the results of recent promoted tweet efforts to updated mobile products.

Or perhaps it is introducing some more video capability into its tweets.

And maybe Twitter bought some pretty little start-up or is annoying a whole new fascist country.

So, because BoomTown always reads to the last page of mysteries to get to the ending first, here is my best spoiler guess of what Twitter could announce: An updated search offering.

Well, at least, I hope the company will finally fill in what has become what I consider to be one of the very biggest holes in its service.

Right now, Twitter’s real-time search engine uses technology from Summize, which it bought in 2008.

And, simply put, it remains pretty lousy–with an index that only holds tweets from a few days and has no massive archive.

In fact, results have been better from others, such as Google and the Microsoft (MSFT) Bing search service, both of which did deals to license Twitter’s flood of tweets about a year ago.

And Google recently upped the ante with its dedicated real-time search offering, made up, in large part, of Twitter’s index archive and including a coolio timeline.

It is long past time for Twitter to keep up here, in terms of simple innovation, given these tweets are its own content.

What would be interesting to see is if Twitter needed the help of a search giant such as Google or Microsoft to help power such a service–sources said its execs had been putting feelers out many months ago on the subject of such aid.

Then again, it could all be home built, too.

In any case, let’s hope Twitter gives its tweets the respect they deserve.

Or else introduces its own mobile device called the Tweetphone that vibrates every time you are mentioned on Twitter.

Until then, here is the video of the very funny “Tweet Tweet” rap song from Jimmy Kimmel and Drake that debuted in late June:

Before Steve Jobs unveils his latest and perhaps greatest creation–which is expected to be a tablet computer–today at a massively hyped event in San Francisco, you might want to peruse this video clip, unearthed from our archives by the crack All Things Digital team, in which the legendary Apple CEO said he was glad he did not do another single-screen PDA-like device after the Newton debacle.

In an interview with Walt Mossberg at the second D: All Things Digital conference in May 2004, Jobs said definitively: “I’m as proud of the products that we have not done as the ones we have done.”

He specifically referenced calls to create a new version of the Newton, an innovative personal digital assistant hardware/software platform that Apple (AAPL) tried to make a success of throughout the 1990s and ultimately shuttered.

While it is not exactly the kind of tablet Apple is likely to unveil later this morning, the Newton MessagePad is is widely considered influential to the development of the iPhone. Wikipedia, in fact, notes, “Some refer to the Newton as the iPhone’s grandfather.”

Since the iPhone is kind of the son of the iPod, that would make it the father of the upcoming tablet. Thus, the new device is the Newton’s great-grandson.

We’ll see if it is a Silicon Valley chip off the old block or not very soon.

Here’s the video from D2:

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20100127/before-the-tablet-apples-steve-jobs-in-2004-talks-about-not-doing-another-newton-video/feed/ 2 http://allthingsd.com/20090831/rolling-stones-web-failure-wasnt-so-shabby-after-all-but-now-what/ http://allthingsd.com/20090831/rolling-stones-web-failure-wasnt-so-shabby-after-all-but-now-what/#comments Mon, 31 Aug 2009 20:32:55 +0000 Peter Kafka http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/?p=10554 Conventional wisdom of the day: Magazine mogul Jann Wenner, the man who made his mark with Rolling Stone in the ’60s and ’70s and then again with US Weekly this decade, has blown it on the Web. And now it’s too late for him to catch up.

And who knows? It may even be true. But here’s one bit of nuance to chew on: Magazine mogul Jann Wenner has made money–as in, a profit–on the Web for the last five years.

How so? By licensing Rollingstone.com to RealNetworks (RNWK) and letting that company bear almost all the costs of running the site. True, the site didn’t blow anyone away. But it has generated cash. I’m told the RealNetworks deal is worth “several” millions in profit per year.

That kind of performance wouldn’t be very meaningful for a title owned by a big public company like Time Warner’s (TWX) Time Inc., where it would be important to show Wall Street that you’ve harnessed the power of the Web and turned it into your own personal growth engine.

But for Wenner’s privately held company, which owns all of three titles, a few million bucks a year in profit is a few million bucks a year in profit. And that profit has come in handy the last couple of years, when the Internet growth engine has turned out to have problems of its own.

Let’s be clear: Wenner’s cautious, cash-flow-positive strategy has now left Rolling Stone far behind everyone else on the Web when it comes to market share. Which is why I’d suggest that his company not try to replicate its print strategy–which aims to straddle an uneasy line between modern pop culture (“The Hills”!) and golden oldies (“The Beatles”!)–and forgo the idea of becoming “The Rolling Stone of Web.”

Even if Wenner had tried this years ago, I don’t think it would have worked; the Web is too diffuse and pop culture tastes too fractured for any single site to gain the kind of traction that his magazine got during its heyday. And if any site does have that power, it’s Google’s (GOOG) YouTube, and no one’s going to displace that now.

My two cents: Turn RollingStone.com into an amazing online archive that capitalizes on the magazine’s glory years, when it really was the hub for popular culture. The magazine should have a treasure trove of stuff at its fingertips–interviews, articles, photos,  etc.–but you’d be hard pressed to find any of it on the site now.

Take the interviews that Wenner himself conducted with John Lennon and other luminaries, for example: Great stuff. But if you’re looking for, say,  Wenner’s 1970 interview with Lennon, you can’t find them on his own site. You’ll have to look over on…YouTube.

It should be relatively easy, and inexpensive, to cull this stuff, make it searchable, figure out ways to recycle, repackage, and redistribute it, right? It won’t necessarily do blockbuster numbers, but it won’t cost much, either. Get lucky, and you could even turn a profit.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20090831/rolling-stones-web-failure-wasnt-so-shabby-after-all-but-now-what/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20090828/a-data-deluge-swamps-science-historians/ http://allthingsd.com/20090828/a-data-deluge-swamps-science-historians/#comments Fri, 28 Aug 2009 16:42:42 +0000 Robert Lee Hotz http://voices.allthingsd.com/?p=14844 In a vault beneath the British Library here, Jeremy Leighton John grapples with a formidable challenge in digital life. Dr. John, the library’s first curator of eManuscripts, is working on ways to archive the deluge of computer data swamping scientists so that future generations can authenticate today’s discoveries and better understand the people who made them.

His task is only getting harder. Scientists who collaborate via email, Google (GOOG), YouTube, Flickr and Facebook are leaving fewer paper trails, while the information technologies that do document their accomplishments can be incomprehensible to other researchers and historians trying to read them.

Read the rest of this post on the original site

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20090828/a-data-deluge-swamps-science-historians/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20090701/sony-celebrates-an-unhappy-birthday-the-walkman-is-30-years-old/ http://allthingsd.com/20090701/sony-celebrates-an-unhappy-birthday-the-walkman-is-30-years-old/#comments Wed, 01 Jul 2009 10:54:55 +0000 Peter Kafka http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/?p=8844 The Walkman is 30 years old today, but Sony isn’t throwing the iconic gadget much of a birthday party. More of a somber memorial, really: There’s a special exhibit at Sony’s archive, but that’s about it.

Why so reserved? Maybe it’s because Sony (SNE) is struggling through yet  another restructuring, so a big party would seem inappropriate. Maybe because Sony views the Walkman’s birthday as a lot of middle-aged people view their birthdays: Markers of bygone eras and missed opportunities. Or else it’s just Apple’s (AAPL) fault. Associated Press:

The manufacturer, which also makes Vaio personal computers and Cyber-shot cameras, hasn’t had a decisive hit like the Walkman for years, and has taken a battering in the portable music player market to Apple Inc.’s iPod.

Sony has sold 385 million Walkman machines worldwide in 30 years as it evolved from playing cassettes to compact disks then minidisks — a smaller version of the CD — and finally digital files. Apple has sold more than 210 million iPod machines worldwide in eight years….

The archival exhibit shows other Sony products that have been discontinued or lost out to competition over the years — the Betamax video cassette recorder, the Trinitron TV, the Aibo dog-shaped robotic pet.

I do remember hearing some Sony folks mutter hopeful words about a new line of Walkmans that came preloaded with music from Sony artists like Beyoncé and were supposedly flying off the shelves at Wal-Mart (WMT). But that was a while ago, come to think of it, and I haven’t heard about it since.

In any case, just because Sony’s being bashful about the Walkman’s history doesn’t make it less interesting. You can learn more about it at Sony’s online archive, which is compelling despite the fact that it’s a stilted corporate hagiography. Start reading at Chapter 17, part 2: “Listening to Stereophonic Sound While Walking.”

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20090701/sony-celebrates-an-unhappy-birthday-the-walkman-is-30-years-old/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20080430/whitehouse-emails/ http://allthingsd.com/20080430/whitehouse-emails/#comments Wed, 30 Apr 2008 16:49:05 +0000 John Paczkowski http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com/20080430/whitehouse-emails/ So that “technical issue” that caused 5 million to 10 million White House emails to disappear from its archives? A botched migration from Lotus Notes to Microsoft Exchange. Seems even the blame for the current administration’s failure to obey the Presidential Records Act can be laid on Microsoft (MSFT).

In written testimony to the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, Steven McDevitt, a former information technology specialist at the White House, explained that the administration began migrating its email to Exchange without having an adequate records-management solution in place. Worse, its email-retention process was as laughably primitive as it was insecure. To quote McDevitt:

The initial email-retention process involved a manual process of copying messages from the Exchange journals to .pst files for storage and retention.”

The White House refers to this process as “journaling,” which is most likely a euphemism for “interns handled our email backups.” And, in this case, without the proper access and logging controls to prevent tampering or even note that it had occurred.

All of this is quite troubling, to say the least. But not to worry–the White House is at this very moment developing a new archiving system. Too bad it’s unlikely to go live before the end of this administration.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20080430/whitehouse-emails/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20070518/microsoft-aquantive/ http://allthingsd.com/20070518/microsoft-aquantive/#comments Fri, 18 May 2007 13:47:04 +0000 John Paczkowski http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com/20070518/microsoft-aquantive/ Lest there be any doubt that there is a bubble in the online advertising business, consider Microsoft’s planned purchase of aQuantive. After losing DoubleClick to Google, Right Media to Yahoo and 24/7 Real Media to WPP, Microsoft offered a jaw-dropping $6 billion in cash for aQuantive. That’s $66.50 a share–an 85% premium over the previous day’s selling price and about 14 times aQuantive’s 2006 revenues of $442 million. It’s also a hell of a lot more than the $3.1 billion Google paid for DoubleClick–10 times its $300 million revenue–which Don Dodge, the head of Microsoft’s emerging business team, criticized as being “way out of line” when it was first announced. Wonder how he feels about aQuantive’s $6 billion purchase price.

Regardless, Microsoft’s not sweating it a bit. “We’re happy with the price we paid. We believe it’s exactly the right company to buy, so we’re willing to pay the value we are paying today,” said company CFO Chris Liddell during a call with analysts today. “We will use the strength of our balance sheet when we think it’s necessary to drive growth going forward. This deal takes our advertising business to a new level. This allows us to take a bigger piece of that $40 billion pie that is still growing.”

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20070518/microsoft-aquantive/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20070504/ddv20070504/ http://allthingsd.com/20070504/ddv20070504/#comments Fri, 04 May 2007 20:21:10 +0000 John Paczkowski http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com/20070504/ddv20070504/

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