The hire, while not final, would fill a position vacated six months ago when the previous CEO, Les Hinton, stepped down amid the phone-hacking scandal at News Corp.’s UK newspaper division. When he resigned, Mr. Hinton, who ran the division before he joined Dow Jones, said that he was “ignorant of what apparently happened” at one of the company’s tabloid newspapers earlier, but characterized his lack of knowledge as “irrelevant” and said it was “proper” for him to step down.

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So congrats to Reuters’ Yinka Adegoke and Sinead Carew, along with The Wall Street Journal’s Sam Schechner, Anton Troianovski and Spencer Ante on their new gigs! If you guys ever want to get together and trade tips (Google Analytics or Chartbeat? etc.) I’m totally down for a Meetup. It would be good to get out of my pajamas …

Meanwhile, this blogger can also report that Verizon has been talking to programmers about a Netflix-style video service. There don’t appear to be any signed deals, and there may not be anything formal on the table yet, so don’t expect to see anything until next spring at the earliest.

But the idea of offering packages of video programming, delivered over the Web, is a fairly straightforward one. Which is why it has also appealed to satellite TV provider Dish Networks, which has also had grown-up conversations about the idea. And to Microsoft, and Google, and Apple, whose discussions about it over the years haven’t progressed very far.

And, of course, to Hulu and Amazon, who are already doing it.

So we’re certain to see more “over the top” video from big brand names down the line. “Shame on those [Netflix] competitors for not being in the market years ago,” says a TV executive — who would be happy to sell any of them some programming when/if they do get into the market.

So if that’s the case, what does that mean for companies like Verizon, which sell traditional pay TV services right now?

Here McAdam, speaking at the UBS media/telco conference this morning, doesn’t just disagree with professional typers. He’s also butting rhetorical heads with Ivan Seidenberg, whose last job was … CEO of Verizon.

A year ago, Seidenberg told investors that “over the top” video — stuff that comes from the Web instead of a cable subscription — was going to be a big problem for pay TV services: “Young people are pretty smart. They’re not going to pay for something they don’t need to … Over the top is going to be a pretty big issue for cable.”

Nah, says the new guy, who takes the conventional line that over the top is a complement to his business, not a threat. Or at least not anytime soon. “We have a tendency to see trends like this in the industry and extrapolate it to become the majority. I think it will be many years before it is,” he said.

Still! McAdam did allow that Verizon was interested in offering stuff that sounds a whole lot like the “over the top” options that Reuters and the Journal reported about yesterday (and I am reporting this morning! From my basement!).

He acknowledged, as we reported earlier this year, that the company had kicked the tires on Hulu this summer. “We kind of  looked at that,” he said. “And we’ll continue to look at alternatives.”

The techniques described in the trove of 200-plus marketing documents include hacking tools that enable governments to break into people’s computers and cellphones, and “massive intercept” gear that can gather all Internet communications in a country.

Read the rest of this post on the original site »

But before you envision the rollout of a nationwide Google pay TV service, consider: Building out and maintaining a cable TV (and broadband) service is enormously time-consuming, expensive and messy.

Think, for example, of all those angry/confused service inquiries your local cable guy has to deal with. And recall that last year, when Google tried to sell its own line of smartphones, it was hoping to get by without setting up a customer service operation that gave buyers the ability to talk to a real live human.

Verizon spent some $23 billion on its FiOS rollout, and by the time it stalled out last year, it still wasn’t clear if it was a good idea for the telco to build out a cable/broadband service. So why does Larry Page think it makes sense for him?

He doesn’t, according to Sanford Bernstein analysts Craig Moffett and Carlos Kirjner in a note this morning. Instead, they argue, Page and Google have to be thinking about Kansas City as an R&D experiment meant to accomplish three things:

First, it helps Google (slightly) on the public policy front as it promotes the agenda of faster broadband, and it potentially adds to their status in promoting net neutrality. Faster broadband means more Internet usage, more searches, and more ads. Of course, the real regulatory game is a few orders of magnitude more sophisticated, but every little arrow in the quiver helps.

Second, it is a laboratory for Google to learn about technology and consumer behavior, ranging from the impact of higher speed access on Internet usage to the potential and economics of different ad formats and models, on different platforms, particularly when it comes to advertising associated with video and TV.

Third, it is an opportunity for Google to learn about the economics of deploying and running infrastructure. And learn they will…

Analysts like to pull their punches, but Moffett and Kirjner are crystal clear here: There’s no way they think Google becomes the “world’s biggest cable company” or anything like that.

Just to beat this into the ground, here’s another excerpt from their report (well worth reading the whole thing) where they spell out just how ugly the economics of this kind of venture would be:

From a [return on invested capital]-based perspective, the difference between Google’s current business model and that of a facilities-based wireline service provider like Verizon could not be starker. In 2011, we expect Google to post an ROIC of 56%, or 38% when including goodwill. In 2010, Verizon’s wireline segment (which includes FiOS) sported an ROIC excluding goodwill and “one-time items” of… wait for it… just 1.6%. Including goodwill and similar intangible, and smoothed one-timers, it was -1.0%.

Still. It’s quite obvious that something has changed in Google’s thinking over the years.

The company that strove to stay away from anything approaching the content business has now leapt in with both feet. See, for example: Google Music, Google Books, YouTube, and YouTube’s new “channels” project. And recall that Google just made a plus-sized bid for Hulu.

So the notion that Google is now willing to consider even testing out life as a cable TV service is still telling. As is the notion, buried lower in the Journal piece, that Google has floated the idea of turning YouTube into an “over the top” cable service, though that doesn’t seem like it’s on the table right now.

Android boss Andy Rubin even spelled it out at the AsiaD conference in Hong Kong last month: “Google is in the very, very early phases of adding consumer products to our portfolio.” So even if that doesn’t mean it’s ready to become a cable guy, it’s still going to evolve into something much broader than a search company.

The winners include such big names as International Business Machines Corp., Novartis AG, Intel Corp., Abbott Laboratories, Xerox Corp. and runners-up Hewlett-Packard Co. and Yahoo Inc.

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Sorting through more than four million documents, prosecutors found internal emails and documents that, they say, show Mr. Page was aware of the allegedly illicit ad sales. Under this week’s $500 million settlement, those emails won’t be released, avoiding the possibility of disclosure at trial.

“Larry Page knew what was going on,” Peter Neronha, the Rhode Island U.S. Attorney who led the probe, said in an interview. “We know it from the investigation. We simply know it from the documents we reviewed, witnesses that we interviewed, that Larry Page knew what was going on.”

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And when word broke yesterday that RIM was working with the music labels to launch yet another music service, it was time to reach — slowly, because at this point who really cares? — for the bat again.

But it’s possible that RIM may not have a half-bad idea here: A scaled-back feature that gives some of its remaining customers something they’d like, and not much more.

As described by The Wall Street Journal’s Ethan Smith, the new service will give users access to a mere 50 songs at a time, and will let them share the songs with their friends via BlackBerry Messenger.

Is that it? For RIM’s sake, I hope so. Because at a certain price, it sort of makes sense: Yes, everyone says they want access to an unlimited world of music. But lots of people listen to the same small group of songs over and over.

And if RIM is smart — I know — they won’t position it as a competitor to Apple’s dominant iTunes, or the subscription services like Spotify that have yet to take off. They’ll sell it as a cool way to show off your favorite few songs of the moment, and tell your friends about it.

Again, if this works, it will depend on pricing — a couple bucks a month would make sense — and execution. And RIM hasn’t given us much reason to think it will get either element right. But the modest scope of RIM’s ambitions — pulling this off sure isn’t as hard as making a credible iPad competitor — gives them a shot here.

And if BBM Music does work, it wouldn’t be a reason to buy a new BlackBerry, but it might make you happier you own one. And that would be a modest win for a company searching for any kind of victory, anywhere.

And now, just because I can, a Rick Rubin Queen remix from back in the days when mobile phones were shoe-sized:

Short version: A few prominent players have accepted Apple’s terms and will be giving Steve Jobs a big chunk of their subscription revenue.

Many more are sticking around the App Store, but removing any kind of e-commerce link from their apps. This makes their apps less useful, but at least it doesn’t cost them any money.

And a third group is trying an end run by building their own Web apps that will work on Apple devices without requiring the company’s approval.

Some examples from each category:

Play along, eat the tax: Some big print publishers, including the New York Times, Condé Nast and Hearst, are working with the new rules.

That means that they’ll hand over 30 percent of the subscription revenue they generate via iOS apps every month, and that they won’t have access to as much consumer data as they’d get if they sold the subscriptions on their own. But they’ll put up with it in order to reach the 225 million iTunes accounts Apple controls.

(Variation on the theme — play along, pass the tax along to consumers: Music subscription service Rdio is accepting Apple’s tax as well. But to protect its margins it is raising the price for subscriptions sold through iOS devices, from $10 to $15. After Apple gets its 30 percent cut, Rdio will end up with the same $10 it would have had before the new rules.)

Stay in iTunes, but grudgingly: This is the “better than nothing” approach. Services like Netflix, Hulu, Rhapsody, Spotify, and publishers like Time Inc. and The Wall Street Journal (which, like this Web site, is owned by News Corp) are keeping their apps in iTunes. But rather than hand over cash and lose access to customer data, they won’t sell any subscriptions through their iTunes apps.

And at Apple’s insistence, they are stripping out any links that send customers to the companies’ home Web sites. This even applies to services that aren’t selling subscriptions at all, but are offering access to content as part of other subscription services. See, for example, ESPN’s WatchESPN app, which tells users that they have to visit an ESPN Web site to sign up for the service, which is free for certain cable company customers. But the app doesn’t offer a live link to the site, just an address.

End run: The Financial Times was the first big media company to build a Web site that mimics an app but works on Apple’s Safari browser, as a way of working around Apple’s restrictions while reaching Apple’s customers. Now Amazon has followed suit, as has Wal-Mart’s Vudu video service.

Note that both the FT and Amazon continue to keep their old apps in iTunes; they’ve just neutered them. You can still read Kindle titles you bought on Amazon’s iOS app, for instance — you just can’t press a button that will take you directly to Amazon’s Web site to buy a new one.

So what does all of that tell us about the App Store ecosystem and how developers will fare in and out of it?

Not much. It’s pretty early. We might have a better idea in a few months when some publicly traded companies like the Times may end up talking about their Apple relationship during earnings calls. (Admittedly, that’s a stretch of a hope: Apple has a way of getting most of its partners to STFU.)

That said, here’s a not-very-out-on-a-limb prediction: Companies who already have lots of customers and are already in frequent communication with them, like Amazon, should do fine outside of the store.

And companies that have lots of potential customers but little traction, like Vudu, will likely struggle. Particularly since that company sells the same thing — video-on-demand rentals and sales — that Apple already sells through iTunes.

Here’s the old version of the Hulu Plus subscription app for the iPad:

And here’s the new version, built to comply with Apple edicts that kick in at the end of the month:

Easy, right? All Hulu had to do was strip out the link that sent potential subscribers to its Web site, because Apple’s new rule will ban “apps that link to external mechanisms for purchases or subscriptions to be used in the app.”

That means that the app can no longer function as an effective advertising tool for the video service, which is a bummer for Hulu (which is owned by Comcast’s NBC, Disney’s ABC and News Corp.’s Fox; News Corp. also owns this Web site). It’d be quite useful to offer a smattering of free content on the app, then encourage users who want more stuff to click through to Hulu.com to pony up $8 a month.

But that’s much better than the previous choice Apple offered app developers that wanted to sell access to content: Use Apple’s in-house purchase system — and give Apple 30 percent of all sales that flow from that — or don’t do it at all.

Lots of developers have no problem using Apple’s system, which gives them access to a customer base of 225 million people. But others won’t want to give up that much revenue.

So now we’ll see how other content companies that currently use external links in their apps decide to play it over the next couple weeks.

My hunch is that digital video and music companies like Netflix and Rhapsody will follow Hulu’s lead and drop their “buy” buttons. The New York Times has already said it would work with Apple’s rules, but that was back when it announced its paywall/subscription plan in March, when it had a different set of options. I asked Times officials about their plans 10 days ago, and they declined to comment.

Also not commenting: The Wall Street Journal — which again, like this Web site, is owned by News Corp. The Journal hasn’t said a peep about its Apple subscription plans, which seems a bit odd, given that News Corp. and Apple rolled out the first iteration of Apple’s subscription offering, via The Daily, back in February.

Rival business daily the Financial Times, meanwhile, has quite clearly signaled what it plans to do: It has built an HTML5 Web app so it can control every part of the subscription process itself.

Then there’s Amazon, which seems to be one of the clear targets of Apple’s revised rules – note that they specifically rule out the use of a “buy” button that goes to a Web site to purchase a digital book. Hard to believe that Amazon will get rid of its Kindle iOS apps altogether, since they’re a key feature of the Kindle ecosystem. But dropping the app’s “buy” button will be a real drag for the bookseller, too.

Now, apps can offer access to content purchased outside of Apple’s walls, as long as the app doesn’t have a “buy” button that connects consumers directly to an external store. That is: Apple won’t make it easy for users to buy in-app content without going through Apple’s store, but it won’t outlaw it, either.

The changes to Apple’s App Store Review Guidelines, published today and first noted by MacRumor’s Jordan Golson, don’t address Apple’s control of credit card information.

Which means that some print publishers, including the Financial Times and The Wall Street Journal, may still not be willing to adopt Apple’s subscription rules, which kick in at the end of the month. (The Wall Street Journal is owned by News Corp., as is this Web site). But if those publishers are willing to forgo selling subscriptions through Apple, which just announced it has billing relationships with 225 million customers, it shouldn’t be a problem.

And for many other content companies, including Netflix and music services like Rhapsody, the bigger issue has always been the 30 percent revenue cut that Apple was going to extract every month for all in-app subscriptions.

Many of them appeared ready to accept Apple’s rules anyway, and simply try to persuade most customers to sign up outside of Apple’s walls, so they could keep 100 percent of their revenue. Now, as long as they’re willing to give up access to Apple’s marketing might, they don’t have to worry about it.

And as PaidContent notes, Apple also appears to be offering developers another option — raise prices on content they sell through iTunes so that Apple’s 30 percent cut doesn’t eat into their revenue.

Apple previously required developers who sold content within its apps to do so “at the same price or less than it is offered outside the app” — that is, the Apple price couldn’t be higher than anywhere else. Now that language has disappeared from Apple’s rules.

But Apple’s rules still appear to pose a problem for book sellers like Amazon. You can’t purchase books directly from Amazon’s Kindle app, but the software does have a “Kindle Store” button that takes buyers to Amazon’s Web store. But Apple’s new rules look designed to ban exactly that sort of thing.

Here is the language governing subscriptions that Apple introduced back in February:

11.13 Apps can read or play approved content (magazines, newspapers, books, audio, music, video) that is sold outside of the app, for which Apple will not receive any portion of the revenues, provided that the same content is also offered in the app using IAP at the same price or less than it is offered outside the app. This applies to both purchased content and subscriptions.

And here are the new rules:

11.13 Apps that link to external mechanisms for purchases or subscriptions to be used in the app, such as a “buy” button that goes to a web site to purchase a digital book, will be rejected.
11.14 Apps can read or play approved content (specifically magazines, newspapers, books, audio, music, and video) that is subscribed to or purchased outside of the app, as long as there is no button or external link in the app to purchase the approved content. Apple will not receive any portion of the revenues for approved content that is subscribed to or purchased outside of the app.

It will be interesting to see now if some companies that had said they’d start selling subscriptions via iTunes change course. Conde Nast and Hearst have recently begun selling monthly and yearly subscriptions to some of their magazines via iTunes.

And the New York Times has made a point of saying it would “comply” with Apple’s rules once they kicked in, but so far the publisher has only been selling digital subscriptions from its Web site.

It will also be interesting to see what happens to app companies that don’t adopt Apple’s rules but continue to offer their stuff through iTunes anyway: Will Apple forcibly remove them from the store, and/or disable their apps? Or will the company take less drastic measures, like refusing to approve new updates to their apps? We may see within a few weeks.

They also know that Giggs has gotten the English courts to decree that the media can’t discuss any of this, including his name or the fact that he’s gotten the courts to do this. Or to identify him as the celebrity demanding that Twitter identify people who are using his name on the service.

You can, of course, read all about Giggs on Twitter, Facebook, and Web sites published around the world, though U.K.-based publications have kept Giggs’s name off their own Web sites for the last few days.

So have some publications outside the U.K., including the New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, which, like this Web site, is owned by News Corp. Parmy Olson, London bureau chief for New York-based Forbes.com, identified Giggs yesterday.

But now that wall seems to have crumbled, courtesy of a British lawmaker who spoke Giggs’s name aloud on the floor of Parliament today: Now everyone from the Financial Times (registration required) to the BBC to the Daily Mail has gone ahead and included the Manchester United star’s name in their headlines.

For the record, the injunction against printing or saying Giggs’s name aloud still stands. Here’s a clip, courtesy of Google’s YouTube, of MP John Hemming doing just that (his argument, disputed by some of his colleagues, is that he’s privileged to speak in Parliament.)

[Image credit: Wikipedia]

The location data appears to be collected using cellphone towers and Wi-Fi access points near a user’s phone and doesn’t appear to be transmitted back to Apple. Apple didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

Still, the fact that the iPhone is collecting and storing location data—even when location services are turned off–is likely to renew questions about how well users are informed about the data being gathered by their cellphones. The fact that the iPhone stores months’ worth of location data was disclosed by two researchers last week.

Read the rest of this post on the original site »

But it’s also a pretty easy problem to solve. Ask John “I’m a PC” Hodgman, who stopped by “The Daily Show” to explain last night.

My Twitterstream was dominated by snarky play-by-play, and the rest of the Web was doing the same thing. Even the New York Times and The Wall Street Journal put Grammy liveblogs on their homepages.

So now it might be nice to head online and actually see–and hear–what I missed. No dice.

The official Grammy site, run by the National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences, has plenty of clips, but none from the CBS broadcast itself–it’s all backstage, or red carpet or other footage I don’t care about. CBS.com doesn’t have anything, and neither does TV.com, CBS’s mini-Hulu.

Meanwhile, Google’s YouTube, the place where I really expect to see clips, is doing a very good/frustrating job of keeping the site scrubbed free of amateur uploads. You can find some stuff, but it takes work, and the quality is poor, and I’m pretty sure it’s getting removed quickly after it goes up.

So while I really want to see Arcade Fire’s performance–my Twitter pals were ecstatic about it–right now the only thing I can find is grainy footage of  Lady Gaga doing yet another Madonna…homage. This may or may not be available by the time you read this:

[UPDATE: Ask, and you shall receive! For now. Thanks to @colinparksfried, @tdotjdot and @nolaschott]

A CBS rep notes that Grammy performances “aren’t typically available online due to rights clearance issues,” and I’m sure that’s true. Any given song can have lots of different owners, and getting all of them to agree to put it on the Web can be a huge hassle. On the other hand, it’s not an insurmountable challenge–that’s why we have Vevo.com, a Web site dedicated to nothing but music videos.

Left unsaid here is that big live events like the Grammys are now TV’s most valuable commodity, and the people who produce big live events continue to struggle with the Web. But more and more of them are getting it–even the very uptight NFL is putting highlight videos up on its site while the games are in progress.

The Grammys are already being augmented very nicely by the Web, which provided it with endless free promotion last night. But now that the live event isn’t anymore, you’d think the music industry, which can use all the promotion it could get, would be pushing very, very hard to let people see what they missed last night.

Who knows. It might even prompt someone to, you know, buy some music.

And Haile thinks this is a good thing! It’s part of his pitch for Chartbeat, a Web analytics start-up: He says that very soon “content producers” like yours truly are going to be faced with the choice of becoming robots–that is, replaced with algorithms and machines–or sticking around and injecting ourselves with big helpings of technology and data.

Chartbeat is supposed to help people like me with the cyborg route, by providing real-time information about the way the stuff I make performs on the Web: How many people are looking at a given story, where they’re coming from, how long they’re staying, etc.

Until now, most of Chartbeat’s 3,000 customers have handed that information over to managers and editors. But now Haile is rolling out Newsbeat, a tweaked version of the service that’s supposed to be delivered directly to rank-and-file stuff-makers like me. He’s been working with Web publishers like Gawker Media, Fast Company and Time Warner’s Time Inc. to get the rollout ready.

I’m not entirely opposed to my coming transformation, by the way: Unlike some of my peers–and these tend to be older peers–I like the idea of knowing more about the way people consume the stuff I make.

And it’s inevitable, anyway. On the Web, it’s impossible not to be exposed to performance data. The only question is what kind of data, and how much.

But still. I don’t know exactly what I’m supposed to do with all of this data. The version of Chartbeat that All Things D already uses gives me plenty of personalized information about my stories, and it’s narcotizing to sit around and watch my numbers flick up and down all day.

And if I were running a very big Web site, like, say, the Wall Street Journal, which also uses Chartbeat (and, like this site, is owned by News Corp.), I could put some of that data to work. I could figure out which stories I might want to highlight on the homepage, and try to analyze why others aren’t performing as well as they could, etc.

But from my worm’s-eye view, I don’t know what I’m really supposed to make of my Chartbeat report. Chartbeat tells me that my scooplet this morning on Rock Band is doing well, which is gratifying. But I could also get that information, with a longer delay, via services like Adobe’s Omniture or Google Analytics.

And in any case, then what? That information can’t help me make more scoops, or more interesting stories. And in the end, I’m pretty sure that’s the only way I can I do a better job.

Haile disagrees, of course. So let’s let him make his own case in this interview, which we conducted in the semi-busy hallway outside his office yesterday.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20110104/chartbeat-says-the-rise-of-the-machines-wont-be-so-bad-if-youre-a-cyborg/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20101224/does-the-fcc-want-to-kill-hulu/ http://allthingsd.com/20101224/does-the-fcc-want-to-kill-hulu/#comments Fri, 24 Dec 2010 11:31:18 +0000 Peter Kafka http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/?p=27434 One of Washington’s proposed conditions on the Comcast-NBC U deal will force the merged company to offer NBC’s shows to any Web competitor.

So what does that mean for Hulu, which has already locked up exclusive rights to NBC’s Web video?

A couple of possible answers: Perhaps Federal Communications Commission head Julius Genachowski is trying to put a fork in Hulu. Or maybe the conditions he wants to place on the merger are so toothless that they don’t really count as conditions at all.

Background: Each of Hulu’s three partners/owners–GE’s NBC, News Corp.’s Fox and Disney’s ABC–has agreed to mutual exclusivity pacts. If you want to watch one of their shows for free online, you can see them on the networks’ own sites, or via Hulu–either on the main site itself, or via other sites that are taking Hulu’s feed. (News Corp. also owns this Web site.)

But one of the primary conditions Genachowski wants to place on FCC approval for the Comcast-NBC deal is that Web competitors will get access to NBC’s shows, according to the New York Times and The Wall Street Journal. Here’s the WSJ:

Comcast would be required to offer NBC Universal programming to any online video provider that has reached a similar deal for content with some of NBC’s competitors, such as Walt Disney Co. or Fox Television, a division of News Corp.

That’s a bit vague, so we won’t really know what Genachowski intends until he goes public with his proposed rules. But there are basically two ways to interpret what the Journal is reporting here. Either:

• The FCC wants to make sure that NBC doesn’t prevent Hulu from syndicating its content out to third-party sites, as it’s already doing with Yahoo, AOL and…Comcast. If that’s all Genachowski wants, that’s no big deal, and not really  a restriction at all. Because Hulu’s business plan is predicated on wide distribution. Or….
• The FCC is telling NBC that it has to offer its shows directly to other Web sites. That’s potentially devastating news for Hulu. If, say, Yahoo can license “The Office” directly from NBC, it may not want to bother cutting a deal with the joint venture site. And to be clear: The overwhelming majority of Hulu’s traffic comes from people watching shows from its big three partners.

So which is it? The FCC held a farcical press conference yesterday where it wouldn’t answer any specific questions about the deal. But it would be nice if it could clear this one up soon.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20101224/does-the-fcc-want-to-kill-hulu/feed/ 7 http://allthingsd.com/20101206/another-ebook-store-yep-but-this-ones-from-google/ http://allthingsd.com/20101206/another-ebook-store-yep-but-this-ones-from-google/#comments Mon, 06 Dec 2010 15:00:25 +0000 Peter Kafka http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/?p=26638 Don’t want to buy your ebooks from Amazon, Apple, Barnes & Noble or Borders? Google is happy to help: The search giant has launched its own e-book store, along with its own ebook reader software.

Lots of today’s Google eBook launch has already been covered in the past (this Wall Street Journal piece from last week got a lot of it). And since I haven’t been able to actually take the store and software out for a run, I can’t vouch for any of it so far.

But here’s what you need to know at the start:

• Google is opening its own store, but the big goal is to set up an ecosystem and e-commerce channel that works across the Web.
• That means you can buy ebooks directly from Google, and you can also buy books from the sites of independent book shops, like Powell’s Books.
• That also means you can read the books on multiple platforms: There’s an Android app, of course. But there’s also an Apple-approved app in the iTunes store. And since the system is Web-based, you can read the books you buy on PCs and tablets, too. As well as e-readers from Sony, Barnes & Noble and Borders. The only place you can’t read Google-purchased titles–Amazon’s Kindle.
• Google says its catalog will be competitive with everyone else’s, though it’s hard to assess that without really digging in. It says it will have some three million books available in the store, “hundreds of thousands” of which which are commercial titles. Amazon, by comparison, boasts of 750,000 titles, but it’s including periodicals in that total.
• One distinct advantage Google has over a particular rival: Unlike Apple, it has access to Random House titles, which aren’t available on the iBooks platform due to a dispute about pricing.
• Speaking of pricing: Google says it supports both the traditional wholesale/retail model, as well as the new “agency” model that Apple has been pushing.
• Where’s all this going? Good question! Google executives argue that this is just a natural extension of its ongoing books project, which is supposed to make as many books available to as many people, period–it’s just that they happen to be selling some of them now. But view it from a different lens, and it looks like yet another attempt by Google to move from pointing to stuff, and selling ads along the way, to selling stuff, period. It hasn’t worked yet, but the company seems dead set on making a go of it.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20101206/another-ebook-store-yep-but-this-ones-from-google/feed/ 4 http://allthingsd.com/20101201/apple-tv-2010-review/ http://allthingsd.com/20101201/apple-tv-2010-review/#comments Thu, 02 Dec 2010 02:02:15 +0000 Walter S. Mossberg http://ptech.allthingsd.com/?p=1649 Of all the set-top boxes designed to bring online and computer content to your TV, perhaps the best known is Apple TV. But, unlike its maker’s other products, Apple TV hasn’t caught on in a big way. In fact, Apple CEO Steve Jobs calls it a “hobby.”

Still, the company isn’t giving up. This fall it brought out a radically revamped Apple TV at a much lower price—$99, down from $229—and with a different philosophy. While earlier versions contained a hard disk and allowed you to purchase and store movies, music and TV shows, the new Apple TV is all about streaming and renting. It can’t store content, although, like its predecessors, it can transmit to your TV screen content stored on your networked home computers.

Perhaps the coolest feature of the new Apple TV is that it allows you to wirelessly beam video and audio from an iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch to the TV screen. A new feature called AirPlay in the latest software on these portable devices makes this possible. So, if you have a video or photos on, say, an iPad, you can just tap an icon on its screen to view them on a TV via Apple TV instead of on the device’s smaller screen. (AirPlay also works wirelessly from the free iTunes software on PCs and Macs.)

Apple’s Steve Jobs announcing the new release of Apple TV earlier this fall.

I’ve been testing the new Apple TV, including trying out AirPlay using various devices, and found that it performs as advertised. It has a clean, easy interface, does a great job of streaming content from your own computers, and it allows you to rent TV shows at just 99 cents an episode. It’s even almost invisible next to your TV—a 4-inch-square black box less than an inch tall. And setup is easy.

But it has some significant downsides. The most important of these is a very limited selection of Internet video sources. If you want a set-top box that allows you to watch a wide range of video from the Web, Apple TV isn’t it.

Apple TV is now essentially a modestly priced adapter that streams video, audio and photos to your HDTV from three main sources: your own computers, Apple’s iTunes service plus a few other online sources, and content on your portable Apple devices using AirPlay.

It’s the polar opposite of the new Google TV, which tries to encompass the entire Internet but is too complicated for mainstream users and costs hundreds of dollars. Apple is offering much less variety in content sources, but with a much simpler interface and a tiny remote with just seven buttons, versus the keyboard or minikeyboard used with Google TV.

Apple TV is still tied heavily to the company’s own iTunes service. The new model now also offers Netflix, which is nicely integrated into Apple’s user interface, but is very common on other set-top boxes, including the less expensive Roku models. YouTube is accessible from the new device, though it was present on the older model as well. The device can’t deliver other video services, nor is it designed to bring up Web pages on your TV.

And, even within Apple’s own iTunes service, which is Apple TV’s source for a la carte rental of TV shows and movies, the content is limited. For its 99-cent TV show rentals, the device mainly offers programs from ABC, Disney, Fox, PBS and the BBC. If your favorite show is on NBC, CBS or many other networks, you can’t rent it on Apple TV, nor can you get to the Web to view it. Alas, even within those networks, some of the programs are old and I couldn’t find some popular shows, like “Modern Family” on ABC or “American Idol” on Fox. (Fox, like The Wall Street Journal, is owned by News Corp.)

You can still buy TV shows from the excluded networks, or shows unavailable for rental, on your computers and stream them to the TV via Apple TV, but that is a more complicated process.

The Apple TV set-top box with TV showing 99-cent TV show rentals from iTunes.

Apple claims the largest selection of high-definition movies online, and says many are available the same day they appear on DVD. Movie rentals start at $2.99 for standard-definition versions and $3.99 for high definition, though many are $4.99. Both movies and TV shows can be kept for 30 days, but, once you start playing them, the clock starts on a short window before they expire. In the case of movies, the window is 24 hours; for TV shows, it’s 48 hours. You can pause and resume, or watch them repeatedly, within those windows.

In my tests, video and audio quality were excellent. Programs started rapidly, and I never saw any stuttering or buffering delays. Like the older Apple TV models, the new one did a very good job of streaming to the TV content from both PCs and Macs running iTunes on my home network. In fact, the process of setting this up has been made simpler. Watching slideshows of family photos was simple and rewarding.

Searching for a TV show or movie was tedious, because it requires you to peck out letters from an onscreen keyboard with the little remote. (This is why Google uses a keyboard, but that isn’t a welcome device in many living rooms.) However, there’s an alternative. Apple offers a free iPhone and iPad app that can control the Apple TV, and it has a built in virtual keyboard for much faster searching.

AirPlay worked well in my tests. I tried it on both an iPad and an iPhone, and was easily able to switch a video or song from the device itself to the Apple TV, and thus, to the TV screen and speakers. This requires merely clicking on an icon that looks like a wide-screen TV with an arrow beneath it, and then selecting “Apple TV” as a destination.

I also tried AirPlay on both a Mac and Windows laptop using the latest version of iTunes, and it worked fine. On all the AirPlay-equipped devices, you can also multitask. Once you’ve started beaming a video to the Apple TV, you can do other things on the originating device without interrupting the video. For instance, as I write this paragraph in Microsoft Word, I am watching a video beamed to my TV via AirPlay from iTunes on my laptop.

But AirPlay has some limitations. On the iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch it will only beam video to the Apple TV from Apple’s own Video, iPod and Photos apps, plus the YouTube app. On computers, it only works with iTunes. Some third-party apps on the hand-held devices can use it with audio, though not video.

Also, switching the video stream to the Apple TV can take a few seconds, during which the video keeps playing, so you often have to rewind.

Overall, Apple TV is a reasonably priced, well-designed device. It is especially attractive for viewing videos and photos from your computers, and Apple devices, on your TV. But it doesn’t deliver most Internet video sources, or even all online network programs.

Find all of Walt Mossberg’s columns and videos at the All Things Digital Web site, walt.allthingsd.com. Email him at mossberg@wsj.com.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20101201/apple-tv-2010-review/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20101020/another-not-great-newspaper-paywall-strategy-short-change-the-web/ http://allthingsd.com/20101020/another-not-great-newspaper-paywall-strategy-short-change-the-web/#comments Wed, 20 Oct 2010 16:39:27 +0000 Peter Kafka http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/?p=24899 Outside of a few outliers (like The Wall Street Journal), newspaper pay walls are unexplored territory. Which is why experiments like the ones the New York Times is conducting at its flagship paper and other publications are so interesting. But here’s one that probably won’t work: Rhode Island’s Providence Journal plans to run only excerpts from its print edition on its Web site–even for the paper’s subscribers.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20101020/another-not-great-newspaper-paywall-strategy-short-change-the-web/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20100927/the-pros-and-cons-of-a-techcrunchaol-deal/ http://allthingsd.com/20100927/the-pros-and-cons-of-a-techcrunchaol-deal/#comments Tue, 28 Sep 2010 02:45:05 +0000 Peter Kafka http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/?p=23954

Could AOL buy TechCrunch–a possibility that both Om Malik and The Wall Street Journal say is on the table? Sure.

Does that make sense? Good question.

TechCrunch is a big, successful Web site, and big successful Web sites are very hard to build. AOL (AOL), which is pushing hard to build out its own media business, has had little success building big sites on its own.

The two negatives for AOL CEO Tim Armstrong: TechCrunch is still very much identified with founder Michael Arrington, though his team has worked vigorously to change that perception and distribute the load. So Armstrong would have to work hard to keep him, and to keep the volatile entrepreneur happy.

And TechCrunch is deeply invested in the live-events business. That can be very profitable work, but it tends not to get the same kind of valuation that pure-play Internet business can garner.

But AOL has pursued TechCrunch in the past. One proposed deal, in the pre-Armstrong era, fell apart over price. “When the talk got into the $30, $40 million range, AOL just kind of choked at the time,” says a person familiar with the discussion.

And under Armstrong’s leadership, AOL has shown a willingness to get into the events business. The Web publisher has talked to other tech-news operators about a deal, including Kara Swisher and Walt Mossberg, who run this site and related conferences for Dow Jones, which is owned by News Corp. (NWS). Those talks were preliminary at best, and All Things Digital will remain with Dow Jones.

I’ve asked AOL and TechCrunch for comment and will update if I get one.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20100927/the-pros-and-cons-of-a-techcrunchaol-deal/feed/ 10 http://allthingsd.com/20100907/ipad-magazine-subscriptions-with-a-catch-zinio-launches-apps-for-sporting-news-national-geographic/ http://allthingsd.com/20100907/ipad-magazine-subscriptions-with-a-catch-zinio-launches-apps-for-sporting-news-national-geographic/#comments Tue, 07 Sep 2010 13:47:56 +0000 Peter Kafka http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/?p=23157 Another day, another new iPad magazine app. But the latest entry, from Sporting News, is worth mentioning, at least for its subscription model.

That is: Unlike much bigger rival Sports Illustrated, and almost all of the other big magazine titles that have moved to the iPad so far, Sporting News has a subscription model.

The app itself, which limited dollop of preview content, is free. But if you want to read the sports tabloid, you can pay $0.99 for a single issue or $2.99 to get an update sent to your app every day of the month.

How’d they do that when the big guys couldn’t? By letting digital newsstand operator Zinio handle the transaction.

The magazine industry is currently in an uneasy standoff with Steve Jobs and Apple (AAPL): Publishers like Time Warner’s (TWX) Time Inc. want to sell iPad subscriptions through their apps, and keep the money and consumer data the transaction generates. Apple, for the time being, won’t let that happen.

The apparent loophole: Publishers with existing digital e-commerce options, like Amazon (AMZN) and the Wall Street Journal (owned by News Corp., as is this Web site), have been allowed to sell app subscriptions without going through Apple.

And Zinio, which ran a digital “newsstand” prior to the iPad’s launch, has also been selling subscriptions to magazines like Sporting News, Esquire and Cosmopolitan from its iPad reader for months.

But not many Cosmopolitan readers–or anyone else–would know to search for “Zinio” in iTunes to get their favorite magazine, so Zinio is launching a line of magazine-branded apps. Today you can get subscriptions to Sporting News and National Geographic apps, and more are on the way.

The caveat: If you’re one of those people who complain that most iPad magazine apps are simply replicas of their print editions, then you’re going to really grumble about Sporting News, and presumably most of the other Zinio-powered apps as well.

Zinio started out publishing digital magazines via PDF files, and that’s more or less what its iPad titles look like today, brightened up with a video here and there and an injection of updated news. That’s presumably why some of the publishers that sell digital magazines through Zinio will end up putting out their own apps, as Hearst plans to do with Esquire.

But for smaller outfits like Sporting News (which is actually owned by American City Business Journals, which in turn is owned by Condé Nast owner Advance Publications), a no-frills app is better than none–especially if they can convince you to pay for it on a monthly basis. Anyone interested?

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20100907/ipad-magazine-subscriptions-with-a-catch-zinio-launches-apps-for-sporting-news-national-geographic/feed/ 8 http://allthingsd.com/20100818/will-facebook-debut-a-foursquare-lite-location-feature-or-a-real-competitor-or-what/ http://allthingsd.com/20100818/will-facebook-debut-a-foursquare-lite-location-feature-or-a-real-competitor-or-what/#comments Wed, 18 Aug 2010 12:11:14 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=32361

Later today, as BoomTown previously reported, Facebook is likely to show off what it has been working on for a while now in the geo-location arena.

We’ll see whassup at 4:30 pm PT, when Facebook will hold a “news event” at the social-networking powerhouse’s HQ in Silicon Valley. (I will be liveblogging from it, natch.)

While most agree that the unveiling of the powerful social-networking site’s geo-location plans will have big impact, it will be much more interesting to see precisely what Facebook will do and how it innovates.

The company has certainly been talking about some sort of location feature for a long time–even as start-ups such as Foursquare and Booyah have grown like gangbusters–so much so that it has become a mini-waiting game in Silicon Valley.

But how Facebook integrates the hot trend into what it has built rather than bought–Facebook considered buying the New York-based Foursquare–is full of all kinds of complexities and possible sand traps.

Here is what I think it might–and should–show off:

NO PLAYING GAMES

There is plenty of that kind of silliness offered by others, and the badge, mayorships and general gaming is not really Facebook’s style.

In fact, gimmickry, which eventually becomes tiresome, is not really one of the tools in Facebook’s arsenal. Creating features–such as the Wall–that have become daily helpers is the ticket here.

In fact, it would be great if Facebook could go radically useful with a check-in feature, which would be for the rest of us who are not interested in broadcasting our presence at New York clubs into the wee hours.

Still, it would be nice to get all kinds of offers and freebies for using the service and giving up even more personal information to the hungry maw of this–still–Mark Zuckerberg production.

SEAMLESS THIRD-PARTY AGGREGATION

A must, given Facebook is all about integration and coordination for its users. It has already easily welcomed in all kinds of third-party services, and it must give developers on its platform geo-location capabilities.

So, any Facebook offering would need to integrate all the current location services, both on the Web site and in its mobile app.

That said, it is also important that Facebook also has a strong and effective offering of its own.

PLEASE MARK, I WANT SOME MORE

Location-sharing needs to be more than location-sharing, IMHO.

That’s because check-ins can become as inane as some Twitter posts.

In my bedroom! Now, in my bathroom! Now, in my kitchen. Hey from the 7-11! Aaaaaagh!

In fact, what is most useful about Foursquare is a part the service seems to give little attention to–user-generated info about various places.

Facebook could give truly helpful on-the-go info if it did a good job here, letting me know–for example–that I need to avoid the shrimp-puff appetizer at all costs or alerting me to the joys of some esoteric spa service.

Best of all, it would be nice if this info were not generated just by my friends, but by everyone. Because my friends are really boring.

WHAT HAPPENS ON FACEBOOK CHECK-IN, STAYS ON FACEBOOK CHECK-IN

Facebook has a long-running and much-deserved reputation for not treating privacy issues with enough concern and care.

While it is one thing to have a status update that you are enjoying 43 cold ones by the Jersey Shore with Snooki, it is quite another to geo-locate your trashy sojourn without a terrific level of control.

And, of course, controls that are comprehensible and easy to use.

Thus, some rules:

Any location service must be opt-in only.

Any location service must be set to private to start and allow users to change settings with each update.

Check-ins must be verified, so people cannot lie and manipulate the system.

The entire Facebook community of 500 million users must know exactly where Mark Zuckerberg is at every moment–wait, that’s just my secret wish.

Well, not a wish: All Facebook execs should publicly and actively be using the check-in services to let us all know that everyone is on the exact same page.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20100818/will-facebook-debut-a-foursquare-lite-location-feature-or-a-real-competitor-or-what/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20100803/more-money-for-your-data-targeting-marketplace-exelate-raises-15-million/ http://allthingsd.com/20100803/more-money-for-your-data-targeting-marketplace-exelate-raises-15-million/#comments Tue, 03 Aug 2010 13:00:35 +0000 Peter Kafka http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/?p=22136 You can have an honest debate about the intersection of online privacy and advertising. And the WSJ’s “What They Know” package is a good place to have that discussion.

But for a certain slice of the advertising technology world, there’s no debate: They believe advertisers and publishers are going to consume increasing amounts of personal data to make advertising more targeted and more effective. End of story.

Add the investors betting on eXelate into that group. Carmel Ventures and Menlo Ventures are putting $15 million into the company, which brags that it runs the “the first and largest open marketplace for audience targeting data.” The Israeli company had previously raised $4 million.

Data marketplaces like eXelate, Blue Kai and Magnetic are supposed to help advertisers and publishers fine-tune their products; they work hand-in-hand with display advertising exchanges like Google’s (GOOG) AdX.

But while some parts of the ad technology ecosystem appear threatening to the status quo, eXelate has made a point of reaching out the establishment: The company recently added New York Times (NYT) digital boss Martin Nisenholtz and Interpublic Group (IPG) venture head Matt Freeman to its board of directors.

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