netflix

Is Hulu rethinking its distribution strategy?

There's nothing connecting Hulu's decisions to pull out of TV.com and Boxee on the same day, according to sources close to the company.

Hulu's managers were motivated by very different reasons in each case, said the sources (TV.com is owned by CBS, parent company of CNET News). Nonetheless, the decision to dump Boxee is bad for the start-up, for Web video fans, and for Hulu.

In a blog post published Wednesday, Hulu executives said they have asked Boxee to remove their content--starting on Friday-- because their content partners don't want their material to appear … Read more

Webware Radar: Shazam hits 35 million users

Shazam, a mobile music discovery service for the iPhone, T-Mobile G1, and other devices, announced Friday that it has added 20 million users since September and now has 35 million users worldwide.

Shazam's success is due in part to its availability. According to the company, its app can be found on phones offered by 75 carriers across 60 countries. Shazam users are tagging an average of 10 tracks per month, and the company claims that a total of 1 million tracks are being tagged monthly around the world. By the end of 2009, CEO Andrew Fisher expects the app … Read more

Report: Apple to stream video to iTunes users

Apple is preparing to allow iTunes customers to stream video from the company's servers to any Web-enabled device, according to a film industry source.

The source declined to provide details but did confirm a report published Wednesday by the blog AppleInsider, which broke the news.

An Apple spokesman declined to comment.

According to the report, Apple is working on a feature for iTunes 8 that will enable users to stream movies and TV shows "for playback anywhere," and in this way help them avoid having to store large video files on their hard drives.

The service will … Read more

Buzz Out Loud 909: The 404 hacks Natali's computer

While I got a little steamed at the Author's Guild, and Natali essentially admitted she's a runaway bride, the big event in this show is the possessed computer. It appears some 404 friends of guest Jeff Bakalar monkeyed with Nat's computer during the show. Unprofessional, I say! We will get to the bottom of this.

Listen now: Download today's podcast EPISODE 909

New CNET widgets http://www.cnet.com/widgets/

Report: Sirius XM preparing to file for bankruptcy http://www.engadget.com/2009/02/10/report-sirius-xm-preparing-to-file-for-bankruptcy/ http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-10161185-93.html

Authors Guild upset with … Read more

Netflix CEO's modest proposal: Tax me more!

Reed Hastings, chief executive of video rental site Netflix, floated a ballsy proposal in Friday's New York Times, volunteering the idea that he and other highly paid wage earners ought to pay more in taxes.

Even if it's got a snowball's chance of going anywhere for now, the idea still merits consideration.

I'm the chief executive of a publicly traded company and, like my peers, I'm very highly paid. The difference between salaries like mine and those of average Americans creates a lot of tension, and I'd like to offer a suggestion:

President Obama … Read more

One million Xbox 360 users tap Netflix

Corrected at 12:53 p.m. PST Friday, February 6, 2009, to indicate that Sony is available again via streaming and Netflix does not currently rent games.

While I'm both an Xbox 360 gamer and a Netflix user, I still haven't signed up for Netflix on my Xbox.

That's the unpopular stand, it seems, as Microsoft and the video rental site on Thursday announced that more than 1 million Xbox users have downloaded and activated the movie service since it was introduced on the game console in November of last year. That translates to more than 13,… Read more

Buzz Out Loud 902: How to cook a Wooly Mammoth

Let's be clear: we don't know how to cook a Mammoth. But Natali would like to know, because apparently she eats her pets. That is not true at all. But what is true is Google turned the whole Internet into malware this weekend. And that we can tell you why. And will. So listen in.

Listen now: Download today's podcast EPISODE 902

Google flags whole Internet as malware http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/01/31/google-flags-whole-internet-as-malware/ http://arstechnica.com/business/news/2009/01/google-broke-the-internet-malware-detector-went-haywire.ars http://news.cnet.com/8301-1001_3-10153942-92.html

Gmail spam filters broken http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2009/01/this-mornings-spam-filter-issue.html… Read more

The 404 270: Where we better have a wiki page by the end of this show

The 404 is a big supporter of open-source information, so we invite our buddy Nic Hill, director of Truth in Numbers: the Wikipedia Story, to shed some light on the site and its ongoing controversy. He gives us the full rundown on how Wikipedia works, his experience working on the film, and his travels around the world expounding the merits of information and community.

Free digital content is an intrinsic right, or at least it should be. That's the Wikipedia.com ethos, and we're still in the dark about how the site actually works. Luckily, Nic Hill is … Read more

Report: Netflix, Wal-Mart sued for allegedly colluding

Netflix, the Web's No. 1 video rental service, and Wal-Mart are being accused in a class-action lawsuit of unfairly setting prices for their rental services.

According to the Web site of Video Business, the suit was filed earlier this week in U.S. District Court, Western District of Arkansas. The lead plaintiff, Marci Badgerow, alleges that Wal-Mart agreed in 2005 to exit the online rental business in exchange for Netflix's termination of DVD sales, according to Video Business.

The plaintiffs argue that the agreement promotes unfair trade and is illegal. They assert that the pact harmed customers because … Read more