Not That Many People Play Facebook Games After All

As it turns out, far fewer people play Facebook games than originally thought. Here’s why that’s good news for developers.

News Byte

NileGuide Acquires Decade-Old 10Best for Travel Content

San Francisco-based NileGuide wants to be the alternative to scuzzy keyword-stuffed travel information from content farms. The company, which pays local editors to maintain free, user-generated content, has acquired 10Best.com, a profitable edited travel recommendations site from EnVeritas that’s been around since 2000, to help boost NileGuide’s traffic to three million visitors per month. Terms were not disclosed, but NileGuide said it will keep a portion of 10Best’s staff in Greenville, S.C.

Upwardly Mobile Email Usage

A self-evident, but nonetheless noteworthy, data point with which to begin the day: More of us than ever are checking our email via mobile devices, and we’re doing it more frequently–to the detriment of Web mail usage.

Voices

Delicious Red Sea Parted, Users Wander to Other Bookmarking Services

We might have assumed that users would flee Delicious after Yahoo announced it was shuttering the popular bookmarking service. What we didn’t know was how fast the lifeboats were filling. Until now.

Web Commerce Isn't Really Social…Yet

Social and e-commerce seem like they could be an explosive combination, but current darlings Groupon and Gilt Groupe are only scratching the surface.

News Byte

Another Love Note From Facebook to Media Sites: A New Sign-Up Tool

More outreach from Facebook to media companies: A new registration tool, which is supposed to make it even easier for Web site visitors to sign on to the site using their Facebook account. Facebook says that once it’s installed, the tool will “surface[s] activity from friends and incentivizes the person to stay on the site longer, share more content, and come back more often.” And of course, share more information with Facebook.

Voices

Amazon Steps Into Movies

Putting its toe into the movie business, Amazon.com Inc. announced Tuesday the formation of Amazon Studios, an online business program that will award filmmakers a collective $2.7 million each year and help them develop their movies for major Hollywood studios like Warner Bros.

Kayak's IPO Filing: We Don't Depend on Search Engines

Travel search provider Kayak today filed with the SEC for an IPO worth $50 million, with no price per share specified. But it did specify a bunch of stuff about its business in its S-1.

A Newspaper Pay Wall Goes Up–And So Do Visitor Numbers

The New York Times is getting ready to roll out a pay wall in January, and plenty of people fret that the paper will see its audience disappear when the gates go up. Here’s a counterargument: The Telegram & Gazette, which happens to be owned by the Times, and which has seen its traffic rise after its wall went up.

Ad Networks Pair Up: Specific Media Buys BBE

We’ll see more of this over time, as the overstuffed ad network industry consolidates, and this one makes some sense on paper: BBE specializes in video ads, and Specific doesn’t have any video business at all.

CES Attendance Up

This Just In: YouTube Is Ginormous!