cbs

New 'Second Life' viewer adopted by CBS' 'CSI'

SAN JOSE, Calif.--The Virtual World conference got off to a quick start this morning when The Electric Sheep Company, a leading developer of corporate projects in Second Life, announced that it has released a new viewer for the popular digital 3D social environment.

The idea behind the new technology, which is called OnRez, is that it would allow Second Life residents to use the virtual world through a Web browser-like system. It would also make it easy to buy all kinds of in-world products through the OnRez shopping system, which has been around for some time.

One thing that … Read more

ABC and AOL team up for free prime-time shows

Originality and Hollywood: an oxymoron?

The entertainment industry has an aura of oozing with creativity, originality and all those things that seem, well, magical.

But when one of the players comes out with a blockbuster idea, especially on the business operations front, it's like watching a flock of geese take off. One leads the pack, the others follow. The formation may not always be perfectly aligned, but they're all headed in the same general direction.

The Walt Disney Co.'s Disney-ABC Television Group announced a deal with Time Warner's AOL today that calls for ABC to offer … Read more

First three OSBC keynotes confirmed

In a sign of great things to come, we've now confirmed our first three Open Source Business Conference keynotes for 2008 (March 25-26, 2008, San Francisco). Given OSBC's increasing emphasis on IT buyers (and not merely vendor strategies), it's appropriate that all three come from successful enterprises:… Read more

CBS buys music network Last.fm

From News.com via Reuters:

CBS on Wednesday said it has paid $280 million in cash for music social network Last.fm.

CBS said in a statement that the online service has more than 15 million active users in more than 200 countries and would fit well with its plans to attract younger viewers and transform it from a content company to an audience company...

Read full story.

Wallstrip's Lindzon confirms CBS buy

Wallstrip founder and blogger Howard Lindzon confirmed late Monday night in a blog post that the finance-themed Web video show had been purchased by CBS. Rumors had begun to circulate about this buy earlier this month.

Specific financial terms haven't been disclosed (though Lindzon notes that $600,000 has been invested in Wallstrip to date), but it appears that host Lindsay Campbell and producers Adam Elend and Jeff Marks will become full employees of CBS.

It was originally reported that CBS News would be the CBS division to acquire Wallstrip, but Lindzon's blog post makes no mention of … Read more

CBS opening up Web video?

CBS figures if they can't get Web viewers to come to them, they'll go to the viewers.

The network is preparing a new strategy for online video that involves syndicating content across as many as 10 different Web sites ranging from Time Warner Inc.'s AOL to Joost, The Wall Street Journal reported.

That's a big shift from its earlier strategy of posting everything to its own Web site and hoping viewers would head there. CBS executives now say that that plan was "arrogant," with one telling the paper "We can't expect consumers … Read more

Report: CBS News buys Wallstrip?

TechCrunch is reporting that Jossip is reporting (in other words, it's still a rumor) that the web video show Wallstrip has been acquired by CBS News for $5 million.

According to Jossip, which says that an official announcement will likely come from CBS on Monday, "part of the deal involves host Lindsay Campbell being the next Amanda Congdon: frontin' for CBS' web initiatives." Congdon, former host of the video blog Rocketboom, now works as a correspondent for ABC News. If the CBS News acquisition rumor is true, however, it'd be a different scenario; Congdon resigned from … Read more

News Roundup: CBS, MySpace, Microsoft, AOL

Brightcove and CBS News parner up. CBS' News division has teamed up with Brightcove to play popular news content like CBS Evening News on Brightcove.com. This is one of the many sites and services CBS is partnering with as part of their " Interactive Audience Network," which is marketing speak for taking their shows off the television and putting them online. They've also been working with YouTube and AOL to expand online offerings of CBS programming. ( CNET News.com)

MySpace sexual preference bug causes stir. A small bug on MySpace that removed the option for users to … Read more

News Roundup: March Madness on YouTube, Google privacy, and SkypeFind

NCAA tournament clips on YouTube. Just because Viacom has gone lawsuit-happy with YouTube, that doesn't mean CBS wants to keep its content off Google's video-hosting service. CBS will be adding highlights, press conferences and specials available "immediately" following live TV coverage. YouTube users will also be able to vote on and rank their favorite game clips.

Google adding search privacy protections. Google will be "anonymizing" search queries connected to your IP address and browser cookies about 18 to 24 months after they were created. Currently, all three pieces of information are grouped together and … Read more

March Madness: an obligatory roundup

March Madness finds a way into offices, schools, and between friends faster than most of us can imagine. Nearly everybody knows someone who is either running or a part of a betting pool. Download.com has put together a handy set of March Madness software tools to help you create your own pool or keep track of all the data that will be flowing in during the coming weeks. But what about Web services that can do the same thing? We've put together a roundup of some of the handiest services to keep track of all the money you'… Read more