Happy 30th birthday, Atari 2600!

TV Guide cuts clutter with online video service (Reuters)

The publication famous for its television-centric editorial and show listings will launch at (http://TVGuide.com) on Tuesday its Online Video Guide, a search service that will attempt to filter out the junk and leave users with the best of Internet video that is related to television. Searching for video content of "24" or "The Office," for example, at Google, Yahoo or any other search engine leads to a painful array of too many choices, said Paul Greenberg, GM of TV Guide Online. At TVGuide.com, though, a search of "24" at the new search device will first point users to free episodes available at , and then to all the other professionally produced content related to the show. The company's Online Video Guide also will determine which of the amateur videos is popular enough to warrant a link. For example, a search for "Britney" will bring up music videos, her recent appearance at the MTV Video Music Awards and the YouTube "Leave Britney Alone" video that is so popular and disturbing. "We're filling a niche that Google and YouTube are not because they're not strictly TV-focused," said Greenberg, who said that as many as 70% of YouTube users are there seeking professional content and not the user-generated video that made YouTube famous. According to Nielsen/NetRatings, TVGuide.com garnered 4.9 million unique visitors in August, up 70% year-over-year. The print publication, meanwhile, has seen its subscribers slowly fall to 3.2 million, at last count. Many shows are available free and on-demand at network sites with short, infrequent commercial breaks attached. But while TV Guide's Online Video Guide takes large numbers of users to those sites, it so far gets no monetary benefit from the traffic it generates. It does, of course, sell ads at TVGuide.com. "We're talking to content holders in order to cut deals for a small slice of the advertising revenue," Greenberg said. The Online Video Guide also lets users specify that they're looking only for free content in order to further narrow the search away from the likes of iTunes or 's Unbox. "Part of the way we're marketing this is, 'Oh, you forgot to set your TiVo? Here's the show you missed, for free,' " Greenberg said. While Online Video Guide officially launches Tuesday, it has been in beta since April. Reuters/Hollywood Reporter

Adobe releases new Flash software for cell phones (Reuters)

Adobe, whose software made possible the rapid rise of pioneering online video site YouTube, said Nokia (NOK1V.HE) and NTT DoCoMo Inc (9437.T) would use its new Flash Lite 3 in their new cell phones. Adobe said more than 300 million mobile devices equipped with previous versions of Flash had already been shipped and it expected more than a billion Flash-enabled devices to be available by 2010. Adobe's Flash software is installed on about 98 percent of all personal computers and is used by virtually all popular online video sites, mainly thanks to the fact it works independently of the device that the video is displayed upon. Gary Kovacs, in charge of marketing at Adobe's mobile unit, called Flash Lite 3 "the most significant advance we've made in mobile" and said it brought Adobe closer to being able to release software versions for mobile and desktop simultaneously. "It's probably a few years away. We'll do it over the next couple to three years," he told Reuters. Nokia's 3.4 million-strong mobile software development group, Forum Nokia, said it would launch a new development community on Monday to help Flash developers and designers. Nokia, the world's biggest mobile telephone maker, announced a major new push into multimedia, including video, music and gaming last month, seeking to challenge Apple Inc's (AAPL.O) dominance in portable entertainment. The head of Forum Nokia, Lee Epting, said in a statement: "Flash Lite 3 will enable us to deliver richer content to our customers, such as videos and animated ringtones." Adobe, also known for its Acrobat document management and Photoshop software, said earlier this month that its profit more than doubled last quarter on strong sales of new products and as it makes inroads into mobile, video and office worker markets. (Reporting by Georgina Prodhan and Eric Auchard)

Nintendo pushes 50 millionth DS out the door

Microsoft eyes corporate customers with services (Reuters)

The new services, announced on Sunday, are Microsoft's first major attempt at delivering software over the Internet as a "service" to its bread-and-butter corporate customers. The company said it will start to offer over the next few months e-mail, instant messaging and collaboration software to companies with more than 5,000 workers. Those applications will run on computer servers inside Microsoft's data centers and then be delivered to customers over the Internet. The new strategy is a departure from Microsoft's current business model of selling licenses for software that runs locally on a customer's own computers. "We'll look back on this announcement and say that's when Microsoft really started to provide software plus services," said John Rymer, senior analyst at Forrester Research. "It's the first step and there is so much more to come." Faced with competition from Inc. and Google Inc., Microsoft is attempting to roll out services to large organizations without jeopardizing the corporate agreements that underpin many of its businesses. Some companies like Salesforce see services eventually replacing traditional software, but Microsoft is pushing a "software plus services" strategy with the promise that this option combines the best of both worlds. Redmond, Washington-based Microsoft said its new Office Live Workspace is an example of the strategy. Office Live Workspace, also unveiled on Sunday, allows workers to share Word documents, Excel spreadsheets and PowerPoint presentations on the Web for free. In the Workspace, people can invite others to view and comment on documents even if they don't own Microsoft Office. Users can save more than 1,000 Office documents on Workspace and access them through any Web browser. LOSS OF CONTROL Microsoft's rivals have seen some success with selling software services to corporate customers, but Microsoft said technology administrators in large organizations are concerned about losing control over security or other features with a move to software services. The other services Microsoft plans to introduce is Exchange Online, Office SharePoint Online and Office Communications Online. Exchange is Microsoft's e-mail application, SharePoint is its collaboration software and Communications allows for instant messaging. The products, according to Microsoft, will work the same as existing offerings but the software will run on Microsoft's computer servers. Microsoft said administrators will maintain nearly the same level of control as if the software was on their own computers. Microsoft has invested billions in building mammoth data centers filled with computers and storage so it can offer services to both regular consumers and customers in large organizations. The company said some organizations will not want Microsoft hosting their e-mail or other critical software and those customers can continue to pay licenses. Other customers may opt to pay for services, because it will be less expensive than running and maintaining the software themselves due to the scale and efficiency of Microsoft's data centers, according to the company. Microsoft said improvements in profit margins from its services business will also rely on how efficiently it can run those facilities.

Nokia in talks to acquire Navteq: report (Reuters)

With a market value of $7.61 billion, Navteq would be one of Nokia's largest-ever corporate acquisitions, the report said. The two sides have been in discussions over the past few weeks, but it was still possible those talks could crumble over last-minute issues, the report said. Nokia and Navteq were not immediately available for comment.

iPhone protest vid uses Apple’s own words to support the “crazy ones”

YeboTV brings music-store performances to the Web (Reuters)

The site recently approached Fords, N.J., independent record store Vintage Vinyl with an interesting proposition: namely, musicians' in-store performances streamed live to YeboTV's site. "Retail has always provided organic marketing to consumers," YeboTV vice president of music development Cheryl Shaver said. "Now, we are using new technology to build on that." It isn't the first time someone has used technological advances to capitalize on marketing opportunities from in-store appearances. Even back in 1992, music marketing company Best Performance and satellite communications company Manhattan Microwave Communications planned to broadcast in-store performances into hundreds of record stores simultaneously. But the program never got off the ground. YeboTV hopes to have better luck. Vintage Vinyl is well known for its in-store events, having done hundreds of shows through the years, including Cheap Trick, My Chemical Romance and the New York Dolls. Cleveland-based YeboTV is hoping to parlay Vintage Vinyl's success at booking bands into Web views. The site, founded in October 2006 by Internet entrepreneur Markus Jokinen, has financed an upgrade in Vintage Vinyl's equipment — for instance, by installing two remote cameras in the store's ceiling. "It's like having a small TV studio," said Vintage Vinyl owner Rob Roth. Vintage Vinyl has long posted on its own site occasional videos from many of its in-store performances, shot with a hand-held camera. But more viewers could ultimately lead to more in-stores, including performances by bigger bands — and hence, more customers. About five months ago the merchant began streaming shows with YeboTV, which also has partnered with the Newport Music Hall in Columbia, Ohio, and the Cleveland Agora Theater and Ballroom. YeboTV management is working on deals for venues in Nashville and Malibu, Calif., and hopes its list will grow to 30 venues within the next 12 months, said Shaver. Bands and labels will have to sign off on all this, but Shaver said it won't cost them anything. The site's economic model calls for advertising and sponsorship revenue, and possibly the occasional pay-per-view broadcast. And although bands will ultimately retain control of the content, the site hopes to archive the material. On September 29 YeboTV will use Internet technology to stream the Vintage Vinyl in-store performance by Wicked Cool act Chesterfield Kings, who are promoting their September 18 release "Psychedelic Sunrise." The same day, YeboTV will stream Warner Bros. act the Honorary Title, whose "Scream & Light Up the Sky" came out August 28. YeboTV expects audience increases, thanks to traffic driven from partnerships with hundreds of other Web sites. With the benefit of a large audience, Shaver said, shows streamed from Vintage Vinyl around CD release dates could provide a whole new marketing platform for new releases. Reuters/Billboard

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