Consumer content

Report: TweetDeck raising angel round

TweetDeck is all atwitter.

According to a report in AllThingsD, the software application maker is in the process of closing a round of angel funding, led by Betaworks.

TweetDeck is looking to land angel funding somewhere under the $500,000 mark, according to the report.

The company's desktop app, currently in public beta, splits stream of tweets into specific columns based on groups or topics.

Here is Webware's take on the app:

TweetDeck: This is yet another AIR-based Twitter client, but it has one very useful feature for the polite Twitter user: you can put a collection of … Read more

ISPs can profit from busting file sharers

Jerry Scroggin, the owner of a Louisiana Internet Service Provider, says he's skeptical of a service that proposes to pay ISPs to police their networks for pirated music and movies.

I wrote about Scroggin last month following the music industry's announcement that it would scale back a longtime strategy of suing individuals suspected of music piracy, and instead enlist the help of ISPs to thwart copyright violations.

Scroggin argued that the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) should help pay the costs incurred when they ask ISPs to chase down suspected music pirates. Days after the story was … Read more

UMG expands Web video profile with Kyte alliance

Universal Music Group continues to bolster its Internet profile via digital video.

The largest of the four biggest recording companies is expected to announce on Friday an agreement with Kyte, the video-streaming start-up. Under the terms of the deal, Kyte is to provide the mobile and online platform for the label's artists, including 50 Cent, All American Rejects, Lil Wayne, and Lady Gaga. Financial terms of the deal aren't being released.

Universal Music and Kyte have also agreed to develop new mobile entertainment applications. The question with a deal like this is why any of the labels need … Read more

Sundance opens film fest by breaking the mold

PARK CITY, Utah--The Sundance Film Festival broke the mold--so to speak--when it kicked off Thursday night with a feature-length clay animation film, Mary and Max, which innovated on many levels.

Robert Redford's annual opening night speech, which preceded the screening, was the perfect prelude to the Australian-made film. After assuring the packed auditorium that "even when times are bad (economically and politically)...it can be good for artists," Redford assured the audience that Sundance would continue to be a showcase for work that's diverse, unique, and often full of "surprise."

And when it … Read more

Photo of Hudson River plane crash downs TwitPic

The rapid-fire spread of a close-up photo of the US Airways plane that crashed in the Hudson River Thursday resulted in the service that hosted the picture going down.

TwitPic, an application that allows users to take pictures from their mobile phones and append them to Twitter posts, went down after at least 7,000 people attempted to view the photo of the airplane taken from a commuter ferry by Sarasota, Fla., resident Janis Krums.

According to Noah Everett, the founder of TwitPic, who still runs the service by himself, after the photo of the plane was re-tweeted by a … Read more

Google killing Jaiku, Dodgeball, Notebook, other projects

In a series of separate posts on various official Google blogs Wednesday evening, the company announced that it is terminating, stopping development on, or restricting access to six products that clearly haven't been adding much to the Google brand or bottom line lately:

The clock started ticking on Google Video when it bought YouTube in 2006. Starting, "in a few months," Google Video will no longer allow user uploads. That makes sense considering YouTube's function. In 2007, Google turned off users' access to paid videos on Google Video. It should be noted that Google recently added … Read more

Sources: Heavy layoffs at PlanetOut

Everyone knows that many media organizations are struggling, and now the latest evidence comes from PlanetOut, where as many as a third of the staff were laid off this week.

The first word of the reductions at the popular lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender news and entertainment network came Monday via the prolific The Media is Dying Twitter feed, which aggregates reports of layoffs and staff moves across the media industry.

"PlanetOut has axed 50 percent of the work force--includes sales and editorial," The Media is Dying wrote.

In response to a request for comment, PlanetOut spokesperson Angelina … Read more

IPTV is on the rise

Phone companies around the world offering IPTV are expected to see a 32 percent increase in subscribers by 2014, according to a new report published by market research firm ABI Research.

ABI's report notes that while traditional satellite and cable TV platforms will likely continue to retain a foothold in most markets, new IPTV services that provide interactive television will grow to nearly 79 million subscribers over the next five years.

"(IPTV) usage will initially be concentrated in countries with established high-speed Internet technologies, such as France, the Netherlands, South Korea, and Hong Kong," Serene Fong, an … Read more

Users, not labels, silence YouTube music videos

Turns out that the top recording companies aren't responsible for silencing YouTube's music videos.

Here's what YouTube said on the company's blog: people who post clips with unauthorized music to the site can choose to mute the audio rather than have YouTube remove the entire video.

YouTube has for a while given those who post videos that include unauthorized copyright music an option of swapping that music for songs that have been pre-cleared. If they don't like that option then YouTube gives them a second choice between having the video removed or turning off the … Read more