Téléphonie mobile : LG s'associe à Google

LG Electronics a fait savoir qu'il avait pour projet de lancer, cette année, une dizaine de nouveaux téléphones mobiles qui seront préchargés avec des logiciels permettant d'exploiter certains services de Google. L'accord signé entre le numéro un de la recherche sur Internet et le numéro cinq du marché des téléphones mobiles va permettre à des millions d'utilisateurs d'avoir accès directement, depuis leurs mobiles LG, aux services Google Maps, Gmail et Blogger Mobile.

Les premiers terminaux fournis avec les logiciels adaptés à ces services seront proposés pendant le deuxième trimestre 2007 aux Etats-Unis, en Europe et en Asie. Le mois dernier, LG avait annoncé un partenariat similaire avec Yahoo! à l'occasion du 3GSM. L'accord passé avec Yahoo! devrait permettre de retrouver les services/logiciels Yahoo Go For Mobile 2.0, Yahoo Mail et Yahoo Messenger préchargés dans certains téléphones LG.

Les termes financiers de ces différents contrats n'ont pas été spécifiés pour le moment. LG n'est toutefois pas le seul à annoncer de tels partenariats, Motorola ou Nokia ont effectivement, par le passé, annoncé des accords similaires. Apple aussi aurait signé un accord de ce type avec Yahoo et Google afin de proposer certains services en ligne des deux firmes en standard dans son futur iPhone.

En 2006, LG a vendu 64,4 millions de téléphone, soit une augmentation 17,3% par rapport à 2005. La firme contrôle à présent 6,3% du marché mondial de la téléphonie mobile.

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NBC, News Corp., AOL, MSN, amass against YouTube

Media heavy hitters announce plans for online video network.

In Big Media's latest attempt to combat Google Inc.'s YouTube, NBC Universal and News Corp. are banding together with AOL, MSN and Yahoo Inc. to form an ad-supported online video network for full-length TV shows, video clips and movies.

The new venture, which has yet to be named, is expected to be launched this summer and would allow people to watch many shows online for free, including "Heroes" from NBC and "24" from Fox, which is owned by News Corp.

As YouTube does, the site would also allow users to upload their own videos and share the site's videos elsewhere, NBC and News Corp. executives told reporters on a conference call. The network would also be open to distributing programs from other media companies, they said.

The venture is clearly aimed at countering the explosive growth of YouTube, which has attracted millions of viewers to its homemade and user-contributed video clips, some of which are taken from copyright-protected TV shows.

The news comes just one week after another major media company, MTV owner Viacom Inc., took its own approach toward battling YouTube, filing a $1 billion copyright infringement lawsuit claiming that the site encouraged copyright infringement of Viacom's shows such as "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart" and "SpongeBob SquarePants."

YouTube says it's protected by law so long as it takes down any copyright-protected material as soon as it's asked to.

Peter Chernin, the president and chief operating officer of News Corp., said the new venture was aimed at providing viewers with a "legitimate, easy, widespread way" to view programming.

Chernin also said the venture was open to distributing shows from other programmers, as long as they agreed to the copyright protection and economic terms of the venture.

He added, however, that it was unlikely that other media companies would become ownership partners in the new venture.

CBS Corp. and Walt Disney Co.'s ABC network were notably absent from the announcement, but NBC's CEO Jeff Zucker stressed that the new company was "open for business with anyone."

Zucker said the new site would also allow users to buy and download programming, particularly movies, similar to the way that Apple Inc. sells TV shows and movies on its iTunes store. He said prices would likely be comparable to those seen on iTunes and elsewhere.

CBS spokesman Dana McClintock said in a statement that the company was continuing to have discussions with Fox and NBC to determine whether it would participate, and in the meantime, "we wish them well."

McClintock said CBS would continue to pursue interactive distribution deals on an "open, non-exclusive basis."

ABC didn't return a call for comment.

The new venture will show programs on its own, yet-to- be-named site and also on the sites of its Internet partners: Yahoo, Time Warner Inc.'s AOL, Microsoft Corp.'s MSN and MySpace, which is owned by News Corp.

The programs also would be shown on sites owned by NBC and News Corp. themselves, such as NBC.com and Fox.com, Chernin said.

At least one hit show on Fox won't be available on the network at first -- "American Idol" -- since News Corp. doesn't own the online rights to it.

Despite the initial absence of CBS and ABC, Jamie Rizzo, a credit analyst for media companies at Fitch Ratings, predicted that other programmers would likely join the venture, assuming it gains traction.

"At the end of the day, they're going to go where there's two things: copyright protection and payment for their content," Rizzo said.

NBC and News Corp. say they have already signed up a number of key advertisers for the network, including General Motors Corp. and Intel Corp.

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Apple Finally Ships Apple TV.

Apple’s Set-Top-Box Reaches the Market

Apple, the creator of the world’s most successful digital media player so far, has announced that it had begun shipments of its Apple TV, a device that can bring Apple’s products to the living rooms. But the success is uncertain, as the new set-top-box not only cannot match the video quality of HDTV, but offers quality lower than even DVD does.



Apple TV has an Intel microprocessor and a 40GB hard drive to process and store content, including movies, videos or photos locally and is compatible with Wi-Fi 802.11 b, g and draft-n standards. The set-top-box comes with HDMI, component video, analog and optical audio ports, but despite of the fact that HDMI supports up to 1080p (1920x1080 progressive scan) resolutions, Apple declares only up to 720p (1280x720 progressive scan) resolution for its Apple TV device.

Videos, which can currently be purchased from the iTunes 7 store, are downloaded in below-DVD quality (720x480 [NTSC] or 720x576 [PAL] resolution with Dolby Digital audio) at a resolution of 640x480 (up to 480, depending on the aspect ratio) and currently can be played on computers and iPods. With the Apple TV device consumers will be able to watch the movies on their TV-sets as well. The question is whether 640x480 resolution in the age of HDTV can actually be in demand.

Microsoft’s Xbox Marketplace store offers a variety of standard definition (SD, about $4 per movie) and high definition (HD, about $6 per movie) movies as well as SD (about $2 per episode) and HD (about $3 per episode) TV shows, whereas Apple’s iTunes offers below-DVD quality movies for $9.99 – $14.99 and similar quality TV-shows for $1.99. Consumer electronics companies, such as Sony, Panasonic or Toshiba, are now pushing high definition videos with crisp 1920x1080 pixels resolution and DTS or Dolby Digital Plus audio very hard and unless Apple increases resolution of movies sold through iTunes, the destiny of the Apple TV seems uncertain.

Apple TV, which includes the Apple Remote, is available through Apple online store, Apple’s retail stores and Apple authorized resellers for a suggested retail price of $299.

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Next Gen Wars - The Latest Worldwide Console Sales

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Google Testing Cable TV Ads

Google is reportedly testing replicating its success in targeted Internet search ads on cable television.

The company has started a pilot program in Concord, Calif., with cable provider Astound Broadband, a division of privately held WaveDivision Holdings, the Wall Street Journal reported Saturday.

Internet search advertising is a $15 billion business, of which Google (nasdaq: GOOG - news - people ) has a two thirds share. However, TV advertising in the U.S. is a $54 billion market.

Google has also discussed teaming up with Comcast (nasdaq: CMCSA - news - people ), the U.S.'s largest cable operator, to tailor specific TV ads to individual households, and had aborted discussions with Time Warner (nyse: TWX - news - people ), the newspaper said.

In January, Google Chief Executive Eric Schmidt told told a Bear Stearns (nyse: BSC -news - people ) conference in Florida that as a potential targeted ad market, "we prioritize TV and radio pretty highly".

Citing the wastefulness of TV advertising in which baby product ads were shown to households without babies, Schmidt told the conference that the next generation of digital set-top boxes would be addressable Internet devices, which would present a huge opportunity for targeted advertising.

The company advertised earlier this year for a head of national TV sales to "sell television solutions and shape a next generation advertising platform." "Television remains the single most important source of information and entertainment for billions of people around the world," Google said in a job listing. "We are hiring software engineers to bring Google technology to this vital medium worldwide."

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La fréquentation du Web a progressé de 10% dans le monde

Chine, Inde et Rusie affichent les meilleures progression, selon une dernière étude de comScore.

L'usage d'Internet au niveau mondial poursuit sa croissance vertueuse. Mais cette fois, ce ne sont plus les pays occidentaux qui font office de locomotive mais bien les pays émergents où l'usage du Net explose.



Selon la dernière étude de comScore, la fréquentation mondiale de l'Internet a progressé de 10% en un an, soit 747 millions de personnes âgées de plus de 15 ans et plus.

L’Inde, la Russie et la Chine ont enregistré les plus fortes progressions avec respectivement 33 %, 21 % et 20 %. La Chine occupe à présent la deuxième position à l’échelle mondiale avec 86,8 millions d’internautes. Beaucoup d'internautes mais beaucoup de censure aussi.

Ce sont toujours les États-Unis qui occupent la première place avec une progression annuelle de 2 % et 153,4 millions d’utilisateurs âgés de 15 ans et plus pour janvier 2007.

La France occupe la 7e place avec une progression annuelle de 4% et 24,5 millions d'internautes de 15 ans et plus.

"La communauté mondiale des internautes ne cesse de s’accroître. Les utilisateurs se trouvant en dehors des États-Unis représentent actuellement 80 % des internautes avec les pays en voie de développement faisant état d’une progression annuelle à deux chiffres", commente Bob Ivins, directeur Europe de comScore.

En terme de temps passé en ligne, le Canada occupe la première position avec une moyenne de 39,6 heures en ligne par mois (les internautes disposant d’une connexion à haut débit passent même jusqu’à 41,3 heures).

Viennent ensuite Israël, la Corée du Sud, les États-Unis et le Royaume-Uni, cinq pays dans lesquels le haut débit est fortement répandu. La France n'apparaît pas dans les 10 premiers, la durée moyenne de connexion par Internaute est donc inférieure à 27,5 heures par mois.

Enfin comScore a établit le classement des dix sites les plus consultés au niveau mondial. Pas de surprise : Microsoft occupe la tête du classement avec 510,3 millions de visiteurs, suivi de Google et Yahoo! avec respectivement 502,5 et 467,8 millions de visiteurs. Ils précèdent Time Warner, eBay, Wikipedia et Amazon.

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Nokia introduces mobile ad services

Nokia announced two new services Tuesday to help mobile operators and marketers realize the potential of advertising on mobile phones.

As mobile operators look toward offering more data services on their networks, they are quickly realizing that there is a lot of money to be made in advertising--a new revenue stream that could offset the heavy losses they are experiencing in their voice businesses. Operators also see advertising as a way to support new creative content.

According to market researcher Informa Telecoms & Media, advertisers will spend more than $11 billion by 2011 on mobile marketing. Operators could stand to take up to 50 percent of this advertising revenue as they negotiate deals with content owners.

Nokia believes it can help operators and advertisers get these ads on mobile phones.

"As advertisers struggle to reach personalized targeting with traditional media such as print and TV, mobile advertising is becoming an increasingly attractive channel for brands," Tom Henriksson, director of Ad Service in Nokia's emerging business unit, said in a statement.

Nokia Ad Service, the first of the new features, is a system for simplifying the mobile-advertising process that supports and manages a full ad campaign lifecycle. The service is built around a group of content publishers who have formed a mobile-advertising network. It also uses technology developed by Nokia that will be used to deploy, manage and optimize mobile ad campaigns. Nokia Ad Service is launching this week in Europe and will be available globally in the second half of 2007, the company said.

Nokia also introduced Nokia Advertising Gateway, a service for third-party content publishers and advertising aggregators that allows them to deliver targeted advertisements to mobile handsets. The service ties ads to specific multimedia applications like reading digital newspaper content, watching TV, listening to music or looking at directions on maps.

A key part of the service will be the easy-to-use reporting and analytics tools for publishers to manage their advertisers' return on investment. Nokia said it will run several pilots of the new Advertising Gateway service during the next few months. The service will be commercially available in the second half of 2007.

"Think of the gateway as a one-stop delivery point with intelligence," Matthew Snyder, head of the company's business development, multimedia and advertising business programs, said in a statement.

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Viacom goes with Joost, but can you afford to watch?

The announcement that a variety of TV shows and movies from Viacom will be available via the Joost peer-to-peer network sounds great - why subscribe to expensive cable channels if you can get the content for free - but it's not that simple.

The first stumbling block is that most people purchase bundles of channels from their pay TV provider. If the shows available on Joost are part of the basic package, you're no better off. Why load up your internet connection when the same content is available via cable or satellite?

One answer would be "on demand" but the widespread use of PVRs and even low-tech VCRs means people are already used to viewing asynchronously.

This may have an impact in countries with low rates of pay TV takeup, but unless Joost can get access to "killer content" (which usually means premium-quality sport such as English Premier League soccer), MTV, Comedy Central and VH1 won't do the job.

The next problem is that internet bandwidth isn't free. In markets like the US where "unlimited" plans are commonplace, ISPs have based their pricing on certain assumptions about what the average customer will do.

Joost uses up to 320M per hour, so if you watch 20 hours a week that's pushing 20G per month on top of your existing usage (unless you're substituting Joost for what are euphemistically known as "alternative distribution channels").

In Australia, that probably means an extra $A20 on your monthly internet bill. Yes, that is cheaper than basic pay TV service, but you have to pay for the basic package before you can get the channels you really want. In any case, MTV is currently part of the basic package here.

The late-90s idea that bandwidth would become free hasn't happened. It might be cheaper, but mobile phone carriers are still happy to charge us $A0.20 to carry a 160-character SMS.

ISPs seem to have moved away from swinging "excess data" charges to plans that impose speed caps after a download limit has been reached, but how much fun do you think it would be watching Joost content when the speed of your connection drops below the bandwidth required?

What Joost really needs is good content that you can't get elsewhere. At some stage, it might have the financial clout to be able to buy global rights to original content.

This would be very attractive for people outside the US who want to be able to watch shows such as 24 or Lost without having to wait for their local broadcaster so they don't suffer from 'spoilers' published on US-based web sites.

So it's a chicken and the egg situation. Joost can't afford the content it needs to become a really big player until it gets big. Perhaps a deep pocketed investor will be prepared to make a leap of faith?

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Second Life introduceert VoIP

Vanaf eind maart kunnen inwoners van Second Life met elkaar praten via VoIP. Voor communicatie zijn inwoners dan niet langer uitsluitend aangewezen op geschreven tekst. Dat zei Eric Call van Linden Lab, het bedrijf achter Second Life, vrijdag tijdens het Second Life Seminar in Amsterdam. Linden Lab werkt ook aan de integratie van webbrowser Mozilla Firefox in Second Life.

Dat inwoners van Second Life vanaf volgende maand elkaars stem kunnen horen, is één van de eerste grotere ontwikkelingen die de 3D-virtuele wereld de komende tijd staat te wachten, bleek uit de woorden van Call, die sinds 2002 werkzaam is bij Linden Lab als creatief en technisch specialist. Call ging vrijdag niet dieper in op de technische details van VoIP in Second Life.

Linden Lab werkt momenteel ook aan de integratie van webbrowser Mozilla Firefox in Second Life. Dit levert nog wel de nodige technische hoofdbrekers op volgens Call. Inwoners van Second Life kunnen straks, terwijl ze zich bevinden in de 3D virtuele wereld, webbrowsen;de inhoud van pagina's kan worden geprojecteerd op driedimensionale objecten. Call wist niet meer te vertellen over de details van de integratie. Wel zei hij dat als de integratie plaatsvindt, de functionaliteit van het virtuele platform flink gaat toenemen.

Een ontwikkelpunt is de zoekfunctie binnen Second Life. Deze is nog verre van ideaal, gaf Call toe. "We hopen dat de Open Source gemeenschap helpt bij verbeteringen."

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Skype downloads approach 500 Million

In the next few days, Skype will pass the 500 million downloads mark. (...)
Skype is at 498 Million as I write this, and is downloading at almost a million a day. The download rate was over 1M a day when they made a new release available and existing users were getting updates. Compared to Kazaa, Skype is downloading every day, what Kazaa is downloading every week.

(...)

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