AOL is in the process of building data centers “about the size of French door refrigerators,” according to GigaOM.
Mike Manos, AOL Services CTO, wrote of the initiative — part of a project code-named “Nibiru” — in a recent blog post.
“If they work as planned, AOL will be able to deploy new services and infrastructure when and where needed with little more than an electrical outlet required,” reports GigaOM.
“Our primary ‘Nibiru’ goal was to develop and deliver a data center environment without the need of a physical building,” writes Manos. “The environment needed to require as minimal amount of physical ‘touch’ as possible and allow us the ultimate flexibility in terms of how we delivered capacity for our products and services.”
According to Manos, these mini-data centers offer multiple benefits, including:
“It redefines software architecture for greater resiliency.”
“It allows us an incredibly flexible platform for driving and addressing privacy laws, regulatory oversight, and other such concerns allowing us to respond rapidly.”
“Gives us the ability to drive Edge Computing delivery to potentially bypass CDNs for certain content.”
“Gives us the capability to drive ‘Community-in-a-box’ whereby we can quickly launch new products in markets, quickly expand existing footprints like Patch in a low cost, but still hyper-local platform, allow the Huffington Post a platform to rapidly partner and enter new markets with minimal cost turn ups.”
President Obama signed an executive order titled “Assignment of National Security and Emergency Preparedness Communications Functions” in an effort to increase government control over the Internet during natural disasters and security emergencies.
“The Federal Government must have the ability to communicate at all times and under all circumstances to carry out its most critical and time sensitive missions,” explains the order.
“Survivable, resilient, enduring, and effective communications, both domestic and international, are essential to enable the executive branch to communicate within itself and with: the legislative and judicial branches; state, local, territorial, and tribal governments; private sector entities; and the public, allies, and other nations.”
“Such communications must be possible under all circumstances to ensure national security, effectively manage emergencies, and improve national resilience,” states the order.
Critics of the bill are especially concerned with Section 5.2, which outlines how telecommunications and the Internet are controlled — and can be interpreted as a plan to provide the government with an “on/off” switch for the Internet.
“Presidential powers over the Internet and telecommunications were laid out in a U.S. Senate bill in 2009, which proposed handing the White House the power to disconnect private-sector computers from the Internet,” reports CNET. “But that legislation was not included in the Cybersecurity Act of 2012 earlier this year.”
According to The Dyle Mobile TV Data Report recently released by the Mobile Content Venture, 68 percent of U.S. adults recently surveyed said they would watch more programs if live mobile digital TV were available.
“As people upgrade to smartphones and tablets, live TV is a must-have service,” explained the Mobile Content Venture in a statement. “Whether you are a wireless carrier or a cable/satellite operator, it seems clear that enabling the ‘living room experience’ on the go can be a smart business opportunity.”
Survey respondents said they would most likely access live mobile DTV during downtime while waiting, for entertainment while traveling, for entertaining children in the car, as an additional television at home, for being connected at sporting events and while working out at the gym.
Perhaps most telling, 61 percent of respondents said they would be “somewhat or very likely” to switch their service providers in order to receive mobile TV.
“The Mobile Content Venture is a joint venture consisting of 12 major broadcast groups, Fox, Ion Television and NBC that plan to launch the Dyle mobile TV service this year,” notes Broadcasting & Cable.
A new 15-month study, conducted by the Pew Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism, shows that Internet users are increasingly accessing YouTube for news.
First-person, citizen-made videos depicting major events such as natural disasters and political upheaval are helping to drive the trend.
“The data reveal that a complex, symbiotic relationship has developed between citizens and news organizations on YouTube, a relationship that comes close to the continuous journalistic ‘dialogue’ many observers predicted would become the new journalism online,” writes Pew in the report.
“Citizens are creating their own videos about news and posting them,” the report continues. “They are also actively sharing news videos produced by journalism professionals. And news organizations are taking advantage of citizen content and incorporating it into their journalism. Consumers, in turn, seem to be embracing the interplay in what they watch and share, creating a new kind of television news.”
Additional key findings include: “Unedited video is becoming an increasingly popular way to view events, with such video making up 42 percent of the news watched on YouTube” and “Short videos —about two minutes in length —are the most popular, but they are not the only clips that do well. Thirty three percent of videos analyzed were between two and five minutes. And 18 percent were five minutes long or greater.”
Comcast, which owns NBCUniversal, has acquired Microsoft’s 50 percent stake in MSNBC.com for $300 million, according to “people with knowledge of the transaction,” reports The New York Times.
The URL now redirects to NBCNews.com. However, MSNBC.com will return early next year as the online home of the MSNBC cable channel.
Microsoft sold its share of the MSNBC cable channel in 2005, but kept 50 percent control of the online news site. This deal created advertising problems between the two entities, as they could not sell shared advertising to interested parties.
The sale will allow MSN to feature stories other than MSNBC content. “Being limited to MSNBC.com content was problematic to us because we couldn’t have the multiple news sources and the multiple perspectives that our users were telling us that they wanted,” explains Bob Visse, MSN general manager.
“Most interestingly, though, Microsoft plans to strike out on its own this fall with original online reporting,” reports The Verge. “Visse told the AP that MSN will be building a brand-new news team of approximately 100 journalists, or roughly the same size as the original group of reporters behind MSNBC.com at its launch in 1996.”
Yahoo announced that Marissa Mayer has been appointed as the company’s new president and CEO, effective today.
Mayer was employee #20 at Google (the company’s first female engineer) and most recently served as VP of Local, Maps and Location Services. At Yahoo, she replaces interim CEO Ross Levinsohn.
“The appointment of Ms. Mayer is consider a coup for Yahoo, which has struggled in recent years to attract top talent in its battle with competitors,” reports The New York Times. “One of the few public faces of Google, Ms. Mayer, 37, has been responsible for the look and feel of some of the search company’s most popular products.”
According to the press release, Mayer helped launch more than 100 features and products at Google “including image, book and product search, toolbar, iGoogle, Google News, and Gmail — creating much of the ‘look and feel’ of the Google user experience.”
She has degrees in Symbolic Systems and Computer Science, and holds several patents in artificial intelligence and interface design.
“I am honored and delighted to lead Yahoo!, one of the Internet’s premier destinations for more than 700 million users,” said Mayer. “I look forward to working with the company’s dedicated employees to bring innovative products, content, and personalized experiences to users and advertisers all around the world.”
“As she hashes out Yahoo’s strategy, Ms. Mayer said she wanted to focus on the Internet company’s strong franchises, including e-mail, finance and sports,” notes NYT. “She also hopes to do more with its video broadband and its mobile businesses, tapping into its significant base of users.”
The summer Olympic games will use more social media than ever before. Mashable takes a look at the top seven ways to make the most of these tools during what some are calling the first “Socialympics.”
1) Online Olympic Communities: The Olympic Athlete’s Hub allows fans to interact with more than 1,000 athletes via real-time chats and personalized athlete updates.
2) Facebook: The Official Olympics Facebook page has more than 2.8 million likes. Mashable suggests also liking the NBC Olympics page and the Countdown App page.
3) Twitter: @Olympics, @USOlympicTeam, and @IOCMedia are all worth a follow, according to the post.
4) “More than 300,000 users have the London 2012 Google+ page in their circles, with many posts receiving more than 50 comments and +1s,” reports Mashable.
5) YouTube: Team USA plans to update the Team USA YouTube channel with five to ten videos per day during the summer games.
6) Photos/Pinterest: Although an official Olympics Pinterest page does not yet exist, fans can follow the IOC on Flickr.
7) Shazaam: “A recent partnership between Shazaam and Comcast’s NBCUniversal will allow Shazaam users to access additional content when using the app during broadcasts on five NBC networks. The recent integration of Shazaam with the Grammys proved successful, so it could also perform well at the Olympics,” suggests the post.
Amazon has long fought legislative efforts to force the retail giant to collect sales taxes. Because Amazon only needs to collect sales tax in states in which it has a physical presence, the company strategically built warehouses in low population states like Kentucky and then shipped the goods to larger markets like California.
However, Amazon is changing its strategy, and has pledged hundreds of millions of dollars to build new warehouses across the country in an effort to bring same day shipping to its customers.
The new warehouses will increase prices on Amazon, as customers will have to pay sales tax, but they will also greatly increase the speed of shipping.
The company currently offers free three-day shipping for all customers and free two-day shipping for its Amazon Prime subscribers. Customers can also pay extra for next day shipping.
Amazon invested in robot development company Kiva Systems to improve shipping times and reduce warehouse errors.
Slate argues that local retail could be impacted as a result of the convenience of same day shipping. “Order something in the morning and get it later in the day, without doing anything else. Why would you ever shop anywhere else?”
Facebook and other social media platforms are using smart technology to scan users’ conversations for potential criminal activity.
The software “monitors chats for words or phrases that signal something might be amiss, such as an exchange of personal information or vulgar language,” reports Mashable.
The software targets people without a well-established connection to the site and conversations between people of very different ages. If Facebook positively detects evidence of a crime, the police may be contacted.
Facebook identified at least one alleged child predator using the software. And in April, the company complied with a Boston Police Department subpoena by turning over printouts of data of a murder suspect.
“We’ve never wanted to set up an environment where we have employees looking at private communications, so it’s really important that we use technology that has a very low false-positive rate,” explains Joe Sullivan, Facebook chief security officer.
Digital Trends takes a stab at breaking down the details of Verizon Wireless’s Share Everything Plan, unveiled late last month.
The post offers a side-by-side comparison of the old and new plans, detailing price structures and how it works.
“The biggest difference between the Share Everything Plan and the tiered package plans is the focus on data,” notes the post. “Gone are the days of picking the amount of minutes, texts, and data available in a plan. Verizon customers will now be given the ability to talk and text as much as they want (unlimited) no matter the plan.”
“This benefit comes at the cost of paying premiums for data plans — priced on a tiered system of its own — which will be shared by every device that is included on the plan,” adds the post. “Basically, it’s out with the old tiers and in with the new, with the real kicker being elimination of unlimited data.”
In a related commentary posted on CNET, Verizon has filed a brief with the U.S. Court of Appeals (Verizon vs. FCC) that suggests the cable company may explore editing Internet access based on what Verizon decides is a “priority,” since broadband providers can exercise First Amendment “editorial discretion.”
The move could undermine the FCC’s Net Neutrality standards. The FCC’s policy maintains “that neither Verizon nor any other Internet provider can block or slow access to online content, including if they disagree with its message or are being paid by a third party to favor some alternative,” writes Violet Blue in the commentary.
“Whether or not Verizon will actually try to deny or edit access remains to be seen,” concludes Blue. “But Verizon is certainly fighting to be able to ‘edit’ Web access and make its own best interests — whatever those are — a priority.”
Before its now infamous shutdown, Megaupload was an impressive enterprise, at one point the 13th most visited site representing 4 percent of all worldwide Web traffic, according to government reports.
“Until recently Megaupload was one of a number of lucrative businesses known as cyberlockers, which are the latest generation of operations created in the image of the original Napster — the pioneering file-sharing service that launched in 1999 and was shut down by court order in 2001,” reports Fortune.
Cyberlockers make money on advertising and by selling subscriptions for storage space, where users can store and share their digital files, illegal or otherwise.
In January, Megaupload was taken down by criminal suits regarding copyright infringement. “At the time of the raid, 91 percent of Megaupload’s 66.6 million registered users had never stored anything there, according to the indictment; they just downloaded or streamed what other people stored,” notes the article.
Even though other sites like this have been shut down by the government in the past, cyberlockers “are the simplest, most colossal, most profitable piracy bazaars the world has ever known, and yet, under the letter of our current laws, they might be lawful,” adds Fortune.
The ongoing discourse revolving around this case will continue to impact Internet companies providing pirated content. But as time goes on, attitudes are shifting and it’s becoming less clear whether companies like this are actually violating the law as written, and if not, what the next steps for anti-piracy might be.
Michael A. Carrier, Rutgers University School of Law, has published a paper (“Copyright and Innovation: The Untold Story”) that details the results of a study intended to examine the relationship between copyright law and innovation.
The study includes in-depth interviews with 31 top executives from the recording industry, technology companies, and venture capital firms. The paper tells a story about the Napster decision that ultimately led “to losses to innovation, venture capital, markets, licensing, and the ‘magic’ of music.”
The following quotes are taken from Carrier’s paper:
“The record labels had an existing business model that was profitable and that they knew how to exploit. As a result, they ‘thought they were bulletproof.’ They ‘saw the Internet as a fad or problem that need[ed] to be eradicated.’”
“Another ill-fated decision was for the labels to treat record stores, rather than end-users, as their customers. Yet because of this focus on the record stores, the ‘real customers’ became ‘pissed off and angry at the pricing of albums and/or the weakness of most of the songs’ and turned to file-sharing.'”
“Lawyers at the labels historically drove the digital agenda. There was no one there with a truly entrepreneurial spirit. Zero, zilch, zingo, nada. No one there whose entire initiative was not to hang on to the past.”
“A record label official admitted that the ‘digital strategy’ was ‘just a plain defense’ that focused on antipiracy, copy protection, and ‘doing everything in their power to keep it locked up.'”
“The respondent explained that he ‘did one music deal [where] the company ended up shutting down because the labels just kept taking more and more and more.'”
A record label executive observed “the industry had a ‘missed opportunity’ to create ‘stronger connections with fans.’ ’15 years into digital exploration…when I buy a song, I still only get the song’ instead of extras, like exclusive interviews and backstage access.'”
“The labels ‘had an opportunity to achieve their dream of owning everything from content creation to distribution to sale’ but ‘chose not to’ in order to ‘eke out a few more years of CD sales.'”
Traditional forms of advertising are dramatically changing to keep pace with the growth of digital technologies.
Boutique agencies on the Westside of LA, for example, “are pushing big-brand clients beyond the familiar confines of radio, television, magazines and newspapers and onto the Internet, smartphones, game consoles and tablets,” reports the Los Angeles Times.
With the advent of DVRs and cord-cutting, advertisers are turning to new Internet strategies involving Web video and social media tools including Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest. The article cites Westside firms such as Blitz, Ignited and Omelet as leaders in this movement.
“Ten years ago, companies spent an estimated $6 billion advertising their products and services online, according to eMarketer. This year, that number is expected to reach $39.5 billion,” notes the article. “Within five years, it could top $60 billion.”
And competition for attracting consumers is fierce. It’s worth noting that six decades ago, the average consumer was exposed to approximately 100 brand impressions daily.
“Today, the average person sees between 1,500 and 2,000 brand impressions a day: company logos, commercials and billboards,” explains Eric Johnson, founder and president of El Segundo-based Ignited.
Online video is becoming an important component of creating a digital presence for brands. “Ten years ago, advertisers spent $48 million creating online videos, according to eMarketer. By 2009, the expenditure had swelled to $1 billion and is expected to top $3 billion this year,” explains the article.
“These worlds are slamming together faster than anyone realized that they would and the shift is undeniable,” notes Ryan Fey, Omelet co-founder. “But convergence is done. Brands are online, they are in mobile. Now it’s all how you develop technology and apply it.”
A new “binge viewer” trend is emerging in TV consumption, as an increasing number of viewers use their DVR or streaming service to watch entire seasons of shows in marathon sessions.
“The passive couch potato of the broadcast era turned into the channel surfer, flipping through hundreds of cable channels,” reports the Wall Street Journal.
“Now, technologies such as on-demand video and digital video recorders are giving rise to the binge viewer, who devours shows in quick succession — episode after episode, season after season, perhaps for $7.99 a month, the cost of a basic Netflix membership,” notes the article. “In the past, such sessions required buying stacks of costly DVDs… or special broadcast marathons.”
While this binge model is working out well for streaming services like Netflix, Hulu Plus and Amazon Instant Video, it’s not working out so well for traditional TV advertisers, who are now being cut out of the process.
“I don’t like the term ‘binge,’ because it sounds almost pathological,” says Todd Yellin, a Netflix executive. “‘Marathon’ sounds more celebratory.”
The goal of these streaming services is to retain viewers. “Binge viewing has turned into an unexpected linchpin in that effort,” according to WSJ.
The ability to instantly stream and therefore catch up on previous seasons of popular shows prior to the launch of a new season is driving up ratings for some series.
“With ‘Mad Men’ and ‘Breaking Bad,’ each year has been better [in the ratings] than the year prior, and that’s not the norm in historic TV-watching trends,” notes AMC President Charlie Collier.
“Aereo is a start-up funded by ex-Fox CEO Barry Diller’s IAC that streams the local broadcast signals of TV stations via the Web to iPhones and iPads for a $12 monthly fee,” reports Fortune. “It’s been available since March in New York City, but there’s no technical reason it couldn’t work nationwide.”
The biggest winner in Aereo’s recent court victory may end up being Apple. District Judge Alison Nathan ruled against a request by TV networks for a preliminary injunction, possibly bringing Steve Jobs’ dream of an Apple TV one step closer to fruition.
Jobs wanted “the best of television without the rest of the 500 channels that most viewers never watch,” notes the article. TV networks did not want to negotiate with Jobs, because his model would upset their existing business model.
However, Aereo could change all that. Since Aereo pays no licensing fees to the networks, other companies could follow the same model to take advantage of local broadcast signals.
On the other hand, Apple would share revenues with the content creators, meaning networks may soon reopen negotiations with Apple if Aereo’s legal successes continue.
“It was a setback for the networks. It was a big, if temporary, win for Aereo. It was also a win for the cable and satellite TV providers who pay a small fortune to the networks for access their content,” notes Fortune regarding the recent decision. “I don’t know if it’s legal or not,” said Time Warner Cable CEO Glenn Britt. “But if it is, we should do it too.”
