AllThingsD » MSNBC

Chute Gets $2.7M for User-Generated Media Developer Tools

Liz Gannes — Tue, 24 Jul 2012 11:30:57 +0000

Chute, which helps publishers and developers coordinate user-generated photo and video uploads, has raised $2.7 million from investors including Freestyle Capital, USVP, Battery Ventures, Salesforce and Klout CEO Joe Fernandez.

The company offers infrastructure services for media uploads — so Web sites and mobile apps use Chute’s APIs, SDKs and prebuilt tools to add components rather than building their own versions of standard features like admin panels or “Likes” and comments.

This is similar to how apps might use Twilio to add SMS or SendGrid to send out email notifications.

Often developers just incorporate Chute using the tools it posts on its site, but more recently the company has been “moving up the food chain,” as co-founder Ranvir Gujral put it, to help brands and publishers more directly.

So, for instance, MSNBC used Chute to power a page of user photos of the recent annular eclipse, both via direct upload and by aggregating the tag #eclipse2012 on Twitter and Instagram (pictured here). And the new TNT show “Dallas” has a Chute meme-generator tool — think lolcats, with big, all-caps text layered on a photo — on its Tumblr account.

Other examples are on Chute’s Pinterest account.

Chute has 13 employees and is based in San Francisco.

Microsoft and NBC Call It Quits, for Real: Here's the MSNBC.com Divorce Filing

Peter Kafka — Mon, 16 Jul 2012 01:46:54 +0000

The MSNBC.com divorce hasn’t gotten quite as much ink as Tom and Katie, but it’s certainly been well-covered.

Now both sides are making it official. Official statements below, but here are the relevant details:

*Microsoft and NBC created MSNBC as a joint venture all the way back in 1996, in an era when NBC was owned by GE, and Microsoft was the world’s most powerful technology company. NBC took back control of the TV network in 2005. Now Comcast’s NBC also gets the Web site, which it will rebrand as NBCNews.com.
*No financials disclosed. (Update: Microsoft gets $300 million for its 50 percent stake, says the NYT’s Brian Stelter.)
*NBC gets full control of MSNBC, but also gets a commitment from Microsoft to keep featuring the site’s content via MSN, which will be crucial to sustaining its traffic.
*Microsoft, meanwhile, will no longer be bound by an exclusivity agreement with NBC, so it can play around with other news sources (assuming it is interested in playing around with other news sources).
*The MSNBC.com team stays in Seattle for now, but most of the operation will eventually move to NBC’s New York base. Within NBC’s org chart, MSNBC.com gets folded into a new tent called “NBC News Digital,” to be overseen by newish hire Vivian Schiller.

Here’s NBC’s statement:

NBC NEWS ACQUIRES FULL OWNERSHIP OF MSNBC DIGITAL NETWORK

Leading Television News Organization Takes Control of its Digital Businesses to Become An Integrated Multi-Platform News Provider

Current msnbc.com Site Becomes NBCNews.com; MSNBC TV Gets New Home on the Web in 2013

NEW YORK, NY—July 16, 2012—NBC News President Steve Capus announced today that NBC News is now the full owner and operator of Msnbc Digital Network, which includes msnbc.com,TODAY.com, NightlyNews.com, BreakingNews.com, Newsvine.com, EveryBlock.com, and the existing apps and digital extensions of these respective properties. On July 13, 2012, NBCUniversal, the parent company of NBC News, acquired from Microsoft its 50 percent share of the joint venture that was formed in 1996. All of NBC News’ digital businesses, including the Msnbc Digital Network properties, theGrio.com, NBCLatino.com, EducationNation.com, social media and all of the network’s digital initiatives will combine to form a new division entitled NBC News Digital. Under the NBC News umbrella, NBC News Digital joins the news network’s television properties including “TODAY,” “NBC Nightly News,” “Meet the Press,” “Dateline” and “Rock Center”; its cable arm, MSNBC TV; its radio and mobile arms, NBC News Radio and NBC News Mobile; its educational arm, NBC Learn; its production arm, Peacock Productions; and over 200 of its local affiliate stations across the country.

As part of the transition, the current msnbc.com site will become NBCNews.com, and the site will continue to provide users with the highest quality news and information from the network’s trusted on-air and online journalists, editors and producers. NBCNews.com will also provide access to a new, expanded and higher-quality local news experience by partnering with NBC’s Owned Television Stations—providing users a wide offering of local, regional, national and international news.

MSNBC TV will launch a new digital home in 2013. The digital presence will be an extension of the MSNBC TV on-air brand, creating in-depth content and a community for the passionate audiences of MSNBC programs. Until then, MSNBC TV’s digital content will continue to be available on its current platforms.

Msnbc Digital Network properties will be fully incorporated into NBC News’ current operational structure, and some staff will be co-located at NBC’s headquarters in New York in order to create unified multi-platform teams and promote the sharing of resources and cross-platform reporting between the network’s broadcast and digital properties. NBC News plans to keep a substantial presence in the Seattle area, building what will become the “NBC News Innovation Center.” This center will focus on digital innovation and technology and incubate new ideas for NBC News and NBCUniversal.

As the teams begin to combine, NBC News will continue to invest in the growth of its digital businesses, focusing on a model of user engagement through social networks, and creating more premium content with an emphasis on video.

“When msnbc.com launched over 15 years ago, it set the standard for how people consume news online—creating trends and leading the marketplace. Today, NBC News enters a new phase of its history better positioned to compete and grow in a digital environment, as well as deliver consumers and clients a multi-platform news experience unlike anything else in the industry.” said Capus. “We’d like to thank Microsoft for everything they’ve done for this partnership and for helping us build these properties into what they are today.”

In the coming years, MSN will remain an important distribution partner for NBCNews.com, featuring NBC News links to content on the MSN homepage and other properties.

“After years of working together with NBC to successfully build msnbc.com into a leading online news outlet, we are excited to explore future innovations, relationships and opportunities that will continue to provide the most relevant news and conversations at MSN,” said Bob Visse, general manager of MSN. “We are looking forward to seeing how the msnbc news team thrives under NBC, and we will continue to feature the great stories from NBC News as well as expand our news offerings to best serve the evolving interests of our broad global audience.”

NBC News Digital will be overseen by Vivian Schiller, SVP & Chief Digital Officer of NBC News. Charlie Tillinghast will continue to oversee the legacy Msnbc Digital Network properties reporting to Schiller. The current NBC News Digital team will now report to Marianne Gambelli, President of NBC Network Ad Sales, and work closely with John Kelly, Executive Vice President of NBC News Ad Sales.

“This deal represents so many opportunities for NBC News, including the ability to better align television with digital, innovate around how we deliver content to consumers, and fully integrate digital into everything that we do,” said Schiller. “Through this new structure, we’ll grow by engaging users with our content directly, and on every platform. This is a different model from the rest, and given where the future of online news is trending, we see it as a model with staying power.”

And here’s Microsoft’s, posted to its MSN blog.

Microsoft and NBC Discontinue Joint News Venture Msnbc
MSN and Bing to Deliver Innovative Real-Time News

Today we are announcing the divestiture of Microsoft’s 50 percent share in Msnbc.com to our partner in that joint venture NBC. Since we formed Msnbc.com it has become a leader in the online news industry – and we couldn’t be more proud of the terrific team that delivers news every day to the millions of readers on MSN. As part of this transaction, Msnbc will be fully owned and operated by NBC.

The agreement we reached with NBC releases Microsoft from its exclusivity with NBC, which will allow us to not only continue featuring content from NBC on MSN as we do today, but also provide Microsoft new flexibility to deliver fresh and innovative news products across Bing and MSN.

The pace, frequency and ways people are consuming news has changed dramatically over the past few years. People expect to see multiple perspectives and sources when they consume news, and they expect to receive news in real time 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. These changes couple with the explosion of social sharing presents a tremendous opportunity to add value to an increasingly noisy media landscape.

With today’s announcement, we will be able to provide a broader perspective on what’s happening in the world by offering more original and third-party content for the new Bing News app for Windows 8, a cornerstone application and entry point for search on our latest operating system.

In the fall, we will be delivering a new MSN news experience. It will be singularly focused on online consumers, harnessing real-time signals produced by social networks using the power of search to deliver breaking updates based on relevant topics. MSN will utilize advanced technologies to mine real-time information from the web to keep users constantly up to date and in the know on the latest breaking news and trends across the Internet. The result for MSN users will be more news sources, more perspectives, and more real-time time news. MSN will focus on creating a world-class news experience targeted to today’s online news consumers.

With MSN’s massive reach of more than 520 monthly unique visitors, and Bing’s product roadmap, we are as excited about what the future as we ever have been.

Bob Visse, General Manager, Microsoft Online Services Division

HuffPo Co-Founder Ken Lerer's Stealthy Start-Up Aims at CNN, Fox

Peter Kafka — Tue, 27 Mar 2012 13:48:46 +0000

Ken Lerer helped build an Internet news powerhouse out of thin air. Now he wants to do it again.

The Huffington Post co-founder, who sold his site to AOL a year ago, is working on another Web news start-up. But Lerer isn’t trying to replicate his old site. Instead, he’s trying to create a digital video news operation built to attract a generation of Web natives who watch Jon Stewart but not CNN or Fox News.

People who have heard Lerer pitch the start-up say he has been vague about the details but broad about his ambitions. Here’s what I know for now, which doesn’t include the project’s name:

The site/service is a joint venture between Lerer’s Lerer Ventures and Bedrocket Media, the video start-up that Lerer invested in last year.
Lerer is telling potential investors and employees that he’ll be actively involved in the project, along with former HuffPo CEO Eric Hippeau and Bedrocket’s Brian Bedol.
The service, which will launch this summer in advance of the U.S. presidential elections, will use a mix of livestreaming video and taped reports, and a mix of professionally produced segments along with contributions from amateurs.
While Bedrocket has landed four YouTube “channel” deals for its programming, the new venture won’t be confined to any particular platform. Lerer and company have been promoting the idea that the service will rely heavily on social media like Facebook and Twitter for distribution.
The site/service has started hiring production/back-end staff but hasn’t brought in “on air” talent yet. When it does, it will likely look for relatively unknown reporters, not established/expensive TV folks.

There are plenty of other folks trying to figure out how bring TV-style news to the Web, including the TV people themselves. And Web sites that have their roots in “print” journalism are diving into video news, too. That formula usually involves positioning a couple reporters in front of a newsroom camera to discuss the day’s events (if you’d like to see me talk, for instance, I’ll be on The Wall Street Journal’s “Digits” show at 1 pm ET today). Interesting to see if Lerer and company can figure out a new take.

(Image courtesy of Shutterstock/Daboost)

27,000 Reasons Why Twitter Is Rolling Out Its Own Photo Service

Peter Kafka — Mon, 06 Jun 2011 12:35:28 +0000

After a year of hints, nudges and winks, Twitter is launching its own photo service. The company has plenty of high-minded reasons for doing so, and CEO Dick Costolo laid them out during his D9 interview last week.

But it’s important to note that there are other benefits to owning your own photo-sharing service. For instance, Twitter could use its new service to run ads, just like many other photo-sharing services.

Here’s a nice reminder of how that works: A photo of Sunday’s barely-attended Brewers-Marlins game, posted by Sara Livingston, then retweeted yesterday afternoon by MSNBC’s Darren Rovell. It has since been viewed more than 27,000 times.

Right now those views are generating dollars for Twitpic, which is running two ad units on the page, sold by middlemen like Google, Federated Media and VideoEgg. But there’s no reason Twitter couldn’t be running its own ads against that photo and keeping all of the revenue for itself.

Twitter ads on Twitter photos won’t be a magic revenue bullet for the company. And Twitter hasn’t said anything publicly about its ad plans for the service, anyway–my hunch is that if they do runs ads there, they’ll wait a while to do so. (Note that Facebook is only adding a light dusting of ads next to photos its users share, and Facebook is the Web’s biggest photo-sharing service).

Photo ads would be a nice option for Twitter’s sales team, though. Particularly because they don’t require the company to create an entirely new kind of advertising, like they’re trying to do with their “Promoted” suite of products.

Ad buyers are still trying to get their heads around ads like “Promoted Tweets” because they’re not sure what value they’re getting for their money, what kind of users are seeing them, and whether they can buy enough volume to make the thing worthwhile.

But ads on Web pages, next to photos people like to look at? That’s an easy sell. Doesn’t easy sound nice, Adam Bain?

Backstage at the Onion's New TV Show

Peter Kafka — Fri, 21 Jan 2011 16:05:56 +0000

One day, maybe not that far off, we won’t distinguish between video we watch on the Web and the stuff we see on TV. But for now, TV is still the big leagues–the place you go if you want the biggest stage, and the most money.

Which might explain why the Onion has not one but two shows on TV right now, both based on the great stuff the satirists are already doing on their Web video site.

There’s SportsDome on Comedy Central, a beat-for-beat replication of ESPN’s SportsCenter. And starting tonight on IFC, there’s the Onion News Network, an uncanny amalgamation of News Corp.’s Fox News, Time Warner’s CNN, Comcast’s MSNBC et al.

Here’s a representative sample:

Snowy Conditions Proving Hazardous For Nation’s Idiots

I think it’s pretty great, but I’m a 100 percent biased observer, since I’ve been friends with some of the Onion crew for forever–think pre-Netscape. If you want a less objective take on the new show, you can check out this glowing New York Times review, or this measured one from Time.

Last week, I stopped by a promo for the show–a real/fake press conference starring the fake newsreaders, in character, moderated by Newsweek’s Jonathan Alter, who appeared as himself–and then sat down for a chat with Carol Kolb, a longtime Onion writer (and a pal–see above).

We talked in a makeshift green room set up at the very serious Paley Center for Media, and midway through, our conversation gets interrupted by the show’s cast. But that just makes it more real, right? If your coworkers aren’t cool with a few f-bombs, then this isn’t safe for work:

[ See post to watch video ]

Time Warner Cable Offers Cheaper TV Package Without ESPN

Nat Worden — Fri, 19 Nov 2010 06:15:28 +0000

Time Warner Cable Inc. is rolling out a lower-priced cable TV package called “TV Essentials” that excludes major cable networks like ESPN, Comedy Central, TNT, Fox News, MSNBC, Fox regional sports networks and MSG.

The offering will begin Monday on a test basis in New York City, where it will cost $39.95 per month, and northern Ohio, including Cleveland and Akron, where it will cost $29.95 per month. Those prices are 12-month promotions, and Time Warner Cable spokeswoman Maureen Huff said the retail value of the package is $49.99 per month.

The package is aimed at lower-income customers that have been struggling in the weak economy. Time Warner Cable and other major cable operators have suffered a slowdown in their subscriber performance in recent quarters, with some consumers dropping cable TV service as unemployment remains high and the U.S. housing market continues to struggle.

Read the rest of this post on the original site

Viral Video: Keith Olbermann's Non-Apologetic Apology

Kara Swisher — Wed, 10 Nov 2010 08:40:39 +0000

MSNBC cable television host Keith Olbermann was back on the air last night after a short suspension and chatting up a storm–as usual, almost entirely about himself.

This time it was supposedly to apologize for handing over some dough in support of a trio of Democratic candidates, which is against NBC’s ethical rules for its news folk.

Or is it?

In any case, that’s how Olbermann decided to play it–all jokey and look-at-me-I’m-so-naughty, including adding in all the television comics’ jokes about him, getting all gooey about fan support and, of course, dinging his critics on the right.

In other words: Same old, same old.

Sigh:

Exclusive: BermanBraun Strikes Big Ad Deal with Starcom

Kara Swisher — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 00:57:44 +0000

In an interesting move for premium online content, Hollywood’s BermanBraun has signed an advertising deal with Starcom MediaVest Group, the media agency unit of advertising giant Publicis Groupe, sources said.

As part of the deal, Starcom gets a “first look” at all of the online properties created by the innovative production company headed by Lloyd Braun (pictured here) and Gail Berman. BermanBraun produces both digital and mainstream content.

Both Berman and Braun are longtime Hollywood execs, and Braun also did a rocky stint running media at Yahoo (YHOO).

Sources said the goal for the parties is that the advertising spend exceed north of $100 million over four years on BermanBraun sites.

This is important, since Starcom’s clients, which include Wal-Mart (WMT) and Procter & Gamble (PG), are big spenders offline.

Thus, getting regular ad dollars to online properties is critical to the success of digital content, which has remained an experimental spend, compared with offline entertainment.

Those sites include its celebrity Wonderwall site, the women-focused Glo on Microsoft (MSFT) portal MSN, the upcoming political site on MSNBC and others being developed.

The deal is apparently nonexclusive to Starcom, sources said, so BermanBraun can sell to other advertisers.

The deal will be shepherded by Brian Terkelsen, who runs Starcom’s LiquidThread unit aimed at the Web and mobile devices.

To understand where it is all headed, here is a video of Braun onstage at the eighth D: All Things Digital conference in June, in an interview I did with him and Steve Levitan, co-creator of the television hit “Modern Family”:

[ See post to watch video ]

MSNBC Readies a Cautious Move Onto the iPad

Peter Kafka — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 19:40:31 +0000

MSNBC is preparing its own entry into the iPad app derby. But the cable network is moving cautiously into the race: Its upcoming free app will feature programming from just one of its shows.

Mark Marvel, who runs video sales for MSNBC.com, won’t identify which show the app will feature/promote or when it will be ready. But Marvel says it will offer up complete episodes, as well as features that allow users to “engage with the host of that show,” among other options. So go ahead and make your own guess about which show that might be. (My hunch: Rachel Maddow would be more popular than Dylan Ratigan.)

“Company X introduces iPad app” wouldn’t really qualify as news at this point except that the TV business is the one industry that hasn’t rushed onto Apple’s (AAPL) new platform.

The Flash/HTML5 imbroglio is (a relatively small) part of the reason. But the real issue here is that programmers haven’t figured out what the iPad means for them: Is it a place to put up free ad-supported video, as they’ve tried to do on the Web? Or can they get away with charging money for their stuff (see: ABC’s free iPad app and Hulu’s nonexistent one)?

In MSNBC’s case, moving to the iPad is even trickier, since cable providers pay the GE (GE) unit a fee to carry its programming. Some programmers, like Viacom (VIA) and MSNBC itself have been able to put that same stuff up for free on their own sites and sell ads against it. But it is a practice that provokes grumbling from the likes of Comcast (CMCSA), which is why you don’t see that much of it.

Marvel, who discussed the company’s plan on a Web video panel hosted by Beet.TV last night, says MSNBC may hear more grumbling when it launches the app. “I wouldn’t be surprised if we hear some pushback from them,” he said. “[But] the fact is that this is going to be testing a new market.”

Q&A: Aggregation and the Future of Local News

Jeremy Caplan — Mon, 19 Apr 2010 19:00:36 +0000

Hunting through thousands of local blogs for quality tidbits of regional interest is too time-consuming for overtaxed, understaffed news teams. Why not rely on clever algorithms, much the way Facebook manages social news? That logic has inspired news giants to place big bets this past year on aggregation. MSNBC bought automated news site EveryBlock.com, AOL (AOL) picked up local blog network Patch.com and CNN invested in Outside.in. The next target might be Fwix.com, an automated newswire with a silly name but serious ambition.

Led by CEO Darian Shirazi, 23, whose nascent career has already seen the launch of multiple startups and a stint at Facebook, Fwix signed a recent deal to provide aggregated local news for the New York Times Company (NYT). Fwix, founded in October 2008, sorts through about 200,000 pieces of news every day, analyzing and filtering stories from tens of thousands of local sources.

Read the rest of this post on the original site

Michael Jackson's Last Performance on the Web: Big, but Not Obama Big

Peter Kafka — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 01:07:38 +0000

Depending on your perspective, this is either interesting news or heartening news: Michael Jackson’s funeral and memorial were indeed a giant Internet event. But they don’t seem to have been as big as Michael Jackson’s death, and they weren’t as big as Barack Obama’s inauguration.

So let’s call them the third-biggest Web event of the year. To date.

That sounds more like what I was thinking this morning: Everyone had to watch Obama’s inauguration or read about Jackson’s death, but not everyone felt compelled to see his burial or memorial.

It also explains why the Akamai people were so uncomfortable with my earlier reading of their traffic stats this afternoon, when I concluded that the events were responsible for the content delivery service recording more visitors per minute than any other time in the last year. Though I’d still love it if someone could explain why that did happen. (Jennifer? Anyone?)

Statistics are tumbling in from different sites and services (if you’d like to share yours with me, I’m all ears).

Here’s what I’ve got for now:

Akamai (AKAM) says it delivered 2,185,000 “live and on-demand streams” today. If I’m comparing apples to apples here (Jennifer?), that’s much fewer than the seven million simultaneous streams the content delivery network delivered during Obama’s inauguration. Akamai also compares the number of visitors on its “Net Usage Index for News” and says that number peaked at 3,924,370–that’s nearly double average traffic of 2,000,000, but fewer than the 4,247,971 visitors who were looking for Jackson info when he died on June 25.
Facebook, which integrated its service with live video feeds from CNN, E! ABC and MTV (why wasn’t Twitter doing this?), says that one million users posted 800,000 status updates during the event, with the overwhelming majority coming through CNN. There were 1.8 million updates with the word “Obama” in them during the inauguration.
CNN says it served up 781,000 concurrent live streams during the event; during the Inauguration it served up 1.3 million. It served a total of 4.4 million streams during the event, and 10.4 million for the day.
MSNBC claims three million live streams–which are different from concurrent streams–and says that is its second-highest total, after…well you can guess. More if they roll in.

How the Web Survived Michael Jackson's Death

Peter Kafka — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 13:49:13 +0000

The “fail” meme is one of the digerati’s least pleasant contributions to pop culture. Wouldn’t be accurate, anyway. Instead, let’s just say that the Internet was…challenged yesterday by the crush of people who flocked to it when Michael Jackson died. And that it seemed to do a pretty good job in the end.

We’ve already seen the requisite “Twitter is down” stories, but in my experience, the service seemed to hold up reasonably well, and certainly it performed exponentially better than it would have just a year ago when it was a fraction of its current size.

And after the first crush of users started to slow Twitter down, the service calmly went into triage mode, disabling the search bar on the homepage that few people use anyway. Later that evening things were back to normal.

This seems to have been the pattern across the Web: Sites and services struggled with the initial burst of traffic–roughly from 5:30 pm through 7:30 pm Eastern time–then regained their footing. I’m told that AOL’s AIM service, for instance, had an outage around 5:30 pm Eastern that was likely related to Jackson chatter, but it was back up again shortly after that.

Meanwhile, the BBC has tallied up other services that had slowdowns or outages:

Google (GOOG)
Time Warner’s TMZ (TWX), which broke the story
Time Warner’s AOL, which put the TMZ story on its front page within a couple of minutes of its initial publication
Time Warner’s CNN, which was much more cautious about the story, and only reported that Jackson had been hospitalized until non-TMZ sources confirmed the story
Yahoo (YHOO)
MSNBC

I assume the list is longer than that, so feel free to add others in comments below. But I spent a lot of time surfing to various sites yesterday evening and was struck by how well many of them held up.

The good/bad news: Media fragmentation means that Michael Jackson is likely the last global icon, so we’re unlikely to see a repeat of this. If you want to get really macabre, you can think up other events that might put the Web under strain all over the world, but that’s no fun.

This is, though:

[Image credit: Eccentric Scholar]

Web Video's One-Day Obama Stimulus: How to Watch the Inauguration Live Online

Peter Kafka — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 19:20:34 +0000

Why is every media outlet in the world showing Barack Obama’s inauguration live on the Web on Tuesday?

Because they can, of course. And because the presidency-to-be has already provided a short-term boost for media companies who’ve been able to feed the public’s appetite for all things Obama. The New York Times, for example, says it generated $2.3 million in much-needed extra revenue via the sale of its commemorative election day edition and other paraphernalia.

So it will be nearly impossible to boot up your browser on Tuesday and not end up watching a live stream of the pomp and circumstance; the actual swearing-in ceremony is scheduled for noon Eastern Standard Time.

But just in case your online venue of choice gets the hiccups, here’s a list of sites that promise to provide coverage; I’ve also embedded a stream from Hulu (which is using the Fox broadcast’s feed) at the bottom of this post if you’d prefer to stay right here.

I’m sure I’ve probably missed several dozen options: If you’ve got a site you want to add to the list, do so in comments below or contact me at peter@allthingsd.com or via the blind tip box here.

Presidential Inauguration Committee (Microsoft-haters beware: This stream will require the company’s Silverlight player)

Joint Congressional Committee

New York Times

Washington Post

ABC News

CNN (features obligatory Facebook tie-in)

Joost (Joost would like to point out that unlike some of the options listed here, its feed will be available for international audiences).

Current TV (features obligatory Twitter tie-in)

Livestation (requires download; player allows viewers to flip between coverage from Al Jazeera, C-Span, BBC, euronews, France 24, Russia Today).

One major video outlet that apparently won’t be streaming the event live: The biggest–Google’s (GOOG) YouTube. But YouTube’s Inauguration Channel is serving up plenty of video during the run-up.

And if you couldn’t score tickets to the Huffington Post’s pre-inaugural ball Monday night with the likes of Tom Hanks, Steven Spielberg and, um, Ashton Kutcher, don’t fret: The news aggregator promises to provide both live video and live blogging of the event.

How to Use Facebook for Something Besides Hooking Up and Throwing Sheep

Peter Kafka — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 13:00:56 +0000

In the old days, way back in 2007, some of us cynical types wondered if Facebook would ever amount to anything beyond a place to throw sheep at your friends. Silly us! While we were really talking about Facebook’s ability to generate revenue, and eventually a profit, Facebook’s users have had more ambitious goals: Changing the world.

That, at least, is the theme of the grandly named “Alliance of Youth Movements Summit,” which kicks off today at Columbia Law School. The two-day event, organized by video start-up Howcast, is supposed help activists brainstorm ways to use Facebook and other social media to organize themselves and garner attention.

This is heady stuff, but there is some real-world grounding there: Organizers of a protest against FARC, the Columbian terrorists, credit Facebook with helping them rally millions of people against the group in February.

The man who organized that movement, Oscar Morales, will appear at the summit, and so will Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz. I’m also interested to hear from members of the Obama campaign’s Internet team, who will appear Friday. And, um, so will I: I’m moderating a panel of media worthies, including MSNBC’s Luke Russert.

A full schedule is here, and if you can’t make the event in person, you should be able to tune in via Webcast at Howcast’s page.

[Image Credit: equinoXio]

The "I'm a PC Variations"

John Paczkowski — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 19:00:10 +0000

[ See post to watch video ]

The "I'm a PC Variations"

John Paczkowski — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 19:00:10 +0000

[ See post to watch video ]

And We Couldn't Have Done It Without Jessica Yellin and the CNN Holodeck …

John Paczkowski — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 21:52:23 +0000

Tuesday’s presidential election was a historic one for more than just the obvious reasons. Monomaniacal interest in its outcome drove Internet usage to a new record. According to Akamai Technologies, which operates a content delivery network that includes the likes of CNN, NBC, and the BBC, traffic to its member news sites reached 8.57 million visitors-per-minute at 11 p.m. EST, right around the time Barack Obama delivered his victory speech.

Breaking things down a bit further, Beet.TV reports that MSNBC.com received over 20 million unique visitors, nearly 250 million page views, and served up some nine million video streams yesterday. Meanwhile, CNN.com counted 27 million unique visitors during election day and 4.9 million live video streams–the most in its history.

Must have been that new holodeck that gave CNN the edge, eh?

And We Couldn't Have Done It Without Jessica Yellin and the CNN Holodeck …

John Paczkowski — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 21:52:23 +0000

Must have been that new holodeck that gave CNN the edge, eh?

Yahoo's Scott Moore Speaks!

Kara Swisher — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 12:24:14 +0000

Scott Moore, who runs the Yahoo Media Group, sat down with BoomTown at the company’s Santa Monica headquarters last week, to talk about the future direction of content at the company.

While the Media unit has had its ups and downs over the years about exactly what it should be–such as the controversial Hollywood-esque Lloyd Braun strategy–one thing that Yahoo (YHOO) has consistently done well is to aggregate and distribute its own and others’ content.

So well, in fact, that May’s comScore monthly unique visitor numbers show that sites like Yahoo News (38.8 million), Sports (22.2 million), Finance (18.5 million), Entertainment News (12.5 million), TV (15.3 million) and Games (18.3 million) are the No. 1 destinations for their genres on the Web.

Overall, the media properties hit 70 million uniques monthly.

That’s probably a plus these days, given all the turmoil around the company in the wake of the Microsoft (MSFT) takeover bid and the ensuing proxy fight mess–coming to an annual meeting near Santa Clara soon!–with activist investor Carl Icahn.

The whole mess has thrown Yahoo’s future into question, demoralized employees and given the company a decidedly sad-sack image, in spite of all the powerful assets it has like its many media properties.

Moore (pictured here) came to Yahoo to work for Braun in mid-2005, after toiling for many years at–wait for it–Microsoft, running MSNBC, Slate and MSN.

(I met him back when he was at Microsoft, in fact, where he tended more to suits and ties and geeky glasses–and I have the picture to prove it–rather than his current hipster SoCal look.)

His portfolio grew when Braun’s other No. 2–Vince Broady–was re-orged out of his job last December, giving Moore purview over the whole Media Group.

In Yahoo’s latest reorganization, Moore now reports to U.S. head Hilary Schneider, in a move to better align its media and advertising sales.

Moore and his staff have tried a range of large and small experiments in original content, some of which have worked and some of which have not.

Interestingly, Yahoo has not abandoned its original content effort at all, doing newsy programming like political debates and even an online interview with President George Bush.

But the company seems to be settling into a pattern best exemplified by its recently launched Tech Ticker, which is a combination of Yahoo’s own inexpensively produced but well-done content and videos and that of outside contributors (AllThingsD content is featured there, for example).

So, as part of our exciting new “Meet the Yahoos: Survivors Edition” series, here’s a video where I chat with Moore about all that, ad monetization and more:

[ See post to watch video ]

Viral Video: Luke Russert Honors His Father

Kara Swisher — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 14:00:47 +0000

BoomTown likes to post online videos that are viral, or should be, and I could not be any more impressed with this one.

An excerpt from the eulogy that Luke Russert gave for his father–NBC’s “Meet the Press” host Tim Russert, who died suddenly of a heart attack recently–at a memorial service in Washington, D.C., a week ago, it is astonishing to see such poise given his young age (22) and under such tragic circumstances.

While all the controversy online erupted around when and how the elder Russert’s death was reported and about the huge amount of coverage, I think you will agree that this is well worth taking time to watch.

Here’s the video, taken from MSNBC: