Author: Rahsheen on Black Web 2.0

Intel Corporation is set to acquire security and antivirus company McAfee Inc. for about $7.68 billion through the purchase of all the company’s common stock at $48 per share. The deal has been approved by both boards of directors, but won’t close until “after McAfee shareholder approval, regulatory clearances, and other customary conditions specified in the agreement.”

“With the rapid expansion of growth across a vast array of Internet-connected devices, more and more of the elements of our lives have moved online. In the past, energy-efficient performance and connectivity have defined computing requirements. Looking forward, security will join those as a third pillar of what people demand from all computing experiences.” — Paul Otellini, Intel president and CEO

McAfee, the world’s largest dedicated security technology company, will become a wholly owned subsidiary of Intel. They will report to Intel’s Software and Services Group, which is managed by Renée James, Intel senior vice president. McAfee has enjoyed double-digit, year-over-year growth and nearly 80 percent gross margins last year. They made about $2 billion in revenue in 2009. James explains why this is a good move for Intel, saying:

“Hardware-enhanced security will lead to breakthroughs in effectively countering the increasingly sophisticated threats of today and tomorrow. This acquisition is consistent with our software and services strategy to deliver an outstanding computing experience in fast-growing business areas, especially around the move to wireless mobility. McAfee is the next step in this strategy, and the right security partner for us. Our current work together has impressive prospects, and we look forward to introducing a product from our strategic partnership next year.”

This represents one in a series of purchases by Intel in a plan to influence companies that rely on silicon. These include gaming, visual computing, embedded device and machine software and now security. McAfee has also made recent acquisitions in a move into the smartphone market, which makes this an even more lucrative deal for Intel.

It remains to be seen whether this will cause problems in the future, with Intel manufacturing the very chips the McAfee software is made to protect. This could give Intel an unfair advantage over the competition.

via TechCrunch, ZDNet, Electronista

It looks like all the speculation was correct. At a press event which was streamed live, Facebook finally announced their location initiative. It’s called Facebook Places and, while it shares some of the same features, it’s not the same as a Foursquare or Gowalla. In fact, Foursquare, Gowalla, Yelp, and MyTown representatives were at the event.

First and foremost, Facebook Places comes with a developer API which allows easy integration with 3rd party services. It seems that the best course of action for Facebook in implementing location was to be very careful about privacy. To this end, they have basically outsourced the “fun” parts of location to 3rd party services via the API.

Within Facebook, you can to check you and your friends into a place. Yes, you can check your friend into a venue. Facebook Places is closely tied to tagging, so that users can build a story about where they are, who they’re with, and what they might be doing. Leveraging their existing features, Facebook can now give you a clearer picture of what your status may have been at a certain time at a specific place.

Unlike tagging a friend in a photo, the Facebook Places API will ask you if it’s okay to tag you at a location first. You can authorize the location tag, or deny it. Your location check-ins follow your privacy settings, so only your friends will se where you are unless you have your defaults set to “Everyone.”

One interesting feature of Facebook Places is “People Here Now.” This is only visible for a limited amount of time and will show you other people checked in to the same location as you. This is similar to the venue pages on Foursquare. Find interesting people who you don’t know wherever you happen to be. Of course, you can choose not to be shown in this section at all.

As far as third-party integration, when checking in on Foursquare, Gowalla, MyTown, or Yelp, you will now be able to also check-in on Facebook. MyTown completely revamped their application so that it would work with the new Facebook API.

While it looks like Facebook thought about privacy while designing Places, you can also tell that they wanted it to be as open as possible. Expect to see some privacy backlash in the near future. Many of the privacy settings are there, but we all know how easy those are to find. Also, some options are just not available. For instance, when a friend checks you into a place, you can say “Yes” or “Not Now.” There is not a “No” option.

To get started with Facebook places, grab the new iPhone app or visit http://touch.facebook.com in your mobile HTML5-enabled browser.

via The Next Web, Facebook Blog

GigaOM reports that Verizon has unleashed an iPad app that will allow FiOS subscribers to watch live TV on their tablet devices. Verizon is set to launch this new app early next year, assuming all content partners fall in line. This comes shortly after the announcement that Verizon will broadcast the first NFL game on 3D TV.

There is one major limitation to this new service, though. The software for the iPad is based on the same stuff you find in the set-top boxes connected to the TV’s for the FiOS service. This allows the iPad to authenticate with Verizon and give subscribers access to the service just as it would work for a television. The bad news is that this works by limiting the subscribers range to their local wireless network within their own home. Yes, you read that right, you can watch TV on your iPad as long as you stay in the house.

Verizon CIO Shaygan Kheradpir calls Verizon’s service “cloud TV” and says all the technical work necessary to make this work has already been completed. The last piece of the puzzle is getting content partners comfortable with having their stuff on a device that is not a television.

Time Warner, who has been at the fore-front of services like this in the past, helped develop the application and is one of the content partners. In a demo, Kheradpir showed off live video from CNN on the iPad. While Time Warner is on board, Verizon will wait until other partners are on board before launch.

Verizon had another trick up its sleeve in a video-on-demand service which will allow subscribers to buy and rent videos and watch them across multiple devices and platforms. The service lets users buy content via their set-top box or Verizon.com, which they can download and watch on up to 5 different devices. The service is expected to launch with Droid X, Droid 2, Windows Mobile 6.5 devices, and Blackberry Storm support.

With this new service comes an update of its media manager service. Users get 70GB of cloud storage to keep these purchases and rentals. As the user adds more services, they can increase their storage. This cloud storage is the key to the services.

via Verizon to Put Live TV on the iPad

According to Digitimes, smartphone shipments for 2010 will top 280 million units. This is 57% higher than in 2009. This bumps smartphones up to 20.3% share of the overall handset market according to Digitimes Research analyst Luke Lin. What’s more interesting is Android’s growth.

Android’s share of the worldwide smartphone market has risen from less than 5% in 2009 to 13.8% in the first half of 2010 and is projected to reach 24.5% in the second half to become the second most popular smartphone platform, according to Lin. Shipments of Android-based smartphones are estimated to jump 561% from a year ago to more than 55 million units in 2010.

Even as Android pushes to become the second most popular smartphone platform, developers are also choosing Android as their development platform of choice. There is a major flaw in this setup, though. While Android grows in popularity and developers grow its app market, many developers are losing money. One major problem is that you can’t even buy Android apps in some countries. Pingdom puts it best:

You can only pay for apps in 13 out of the 46 or so countries where Android phones are available. For those of you who like stats, 13 in 46 works out to less than 30%. Contrast this with Apple’s App Store, which supports paid apps in 90 countries. This is a huge advantage iPhone developers currently have over Android developers.

Not only is there a problem of not being able to pay for apps, but because people who want to pay for Android apps can’t pay, piracy begins to run rampant. The longer Google waits to rectify the situation, the worse off Android developers are. As frustrated users get better and better at piracy, they will be less likely to ever want to pay for apps again.

Even users who can pay for apps sometimes run into trouble. In order to pay for an app, users have to use a credit card and go through Google Checkout. The process is pretty clunky. It is rumored that PayPal and Google may be in talks to handle Android payments via PayPal, who knows a little something about online payments. By integrating with PayPal, Google gives developers an alternative way to get paid. This could be good for Android development as well as to make it easier for customers to pay. Google and PayPal have declined to comment and it’s still possible no deal will ever be made.

At GDC Europe, Google’s new game developer advocate Mark DeLoura and Chrome developer advocate Michael Mahemoff talked about Google’s app store and gaming within the Chrome browser. The Web store for Chrome is set to launch in October with a goal of making it simple to distribute, find, and monetize browser-based games.

The store itself works just like many other app store you’ve seen. You can browse/search through titles, check out user reviews and ratings, and buy the games via Google Checkout. One difference between an Apple App Store or the Android Market is that there is no approval process. More interesting is the fact that Google isn’t looking to monetize this app store by taking a cut of the sales. They simply charge a 5% processing fee. Usually, developers only take home about 30% of their app sales.

This is a very interesting change, because it means that developers now have a strong incentive to develop and promote the Web versions of their applications over their native counterparts. Google may make less money from this in the short term, but if it helps the Web win out over native apps then it’s a decision that will pay off for Google in a big way. — TechCrunch

Leveraging the speed of the Google Chrome Web browser, they demoed some pretty interesting games. Not really because of the games themselves, but because of how they highlighted what’s possible inside of a Web browser these days. Google’s Pac-Man stunt is just the tip of the iceberg. Quake 2 ported to HTML5 is truly amazing to think about if you’ve been on the Web for a while. It has really come a long way.

One side-effect of Google’s push into games and the development of an app store for the Web could be a push for more general HTML5 applications. As it stands, developers have to choose which platform to develop for. Android and iPhone dominate the market, but which do you invest in? On the same note, the initial investment for an HTML5 app is around zero and the learning curve is minimal.

Instead of trying to develop for a specific platform, developers could choose to create a compelling HTML5 web application. This would cover all the bases and exempt you from having to deal with startup costs and approval processes. If you can do Quake 2 in HTML5, the possibilities for a simple Web application are endless.

Wired says the Web is dead, but the browser remains the one common denominator. It exists in one form or fashion on every computer and mobile device out there. The app store market is booming, but when it’s no longer shiny and new, we may see developers turning back to the Web for fun and profit. Google’s app store could aid in that transition.

via 1up

The BlackBerry Torch was supposed to be a step in the right direction for Research In Motion (RIM), who has experienced a dip in revenue over the past year. Despite a Torch media event to create buzz for their latest device, it seems it won’t be RIM’s savior. According to analysts at RBC Capital Markets and Stifel Nicolaus, RIM only moved 150,000 Torches over the weekend. While 150k is nothing to sneeze at, it pales in comparison to other phone models. For instance, Apple sold 1.7 million iPhone 4 units in the first three days.

The Torch provided features that were severely lacking in earlier RIM products, but it may be too little too late for the business-oriented mobile device company. Features like a multi-touch screen, slide-out keyboard, and 5 megapixel camera are almost expected these days.

Even the new Blackberry OS 6 may not be enough to sway customers into a new device. Many may simply be waiting for the OS upgrade on their current devices rather than buying something new and very different from what they have now. OS 6 is supposed to roll out over the next few months, bringing more advanced features to the existing hardware. Updates will include better integration with social networks, as well as with external media like iTunes and Windows Media Player.

According to The Street Insider, Goldman Sachs called the Torch’s August 12th launch “underwhelming.” This seems to have spurred RIM to slash the price from $199 with a two-year contract down to $99. Definitely not a good sign. What is also underwhelming is the hardware under the hood. iSuppli and UBM TechInsights found that the Torch relies heavily on parts used in earlier RIM products. UBM points out that the brains of the unit, supplied by Marvell Technology Group, operates at a speed of 624 megahertz. This is well below the 1Ghz speeds which seem to be the norm in the latest smartphones.

In addition to problems with the Torch, RIM faces battles overseas as the UAE, Saudi Arabia, and India protest it’s security practices. While Saudi Arabia has decided that banning BlackBerry data entirely is not a solution, they still face opposition from India, United Arab Emirates, and Indonesia among others. These nations feel that their inability to watch BlackBerry data transmissions is a security threat. The Obama administration even became involved in the debate.

via WSJ

You read that right. Lycos, the search portal from about a decade ago, is apparently still alive and kicking. Today, they were sold by Daum Communications of Korea to Ybrant Digital of India for about $36 million. Daum initially purchased Lycos for $95 million back in 2004. Before that, in 2000, Lycos was acquired by Terra Networks for $12.5 billion. This most recent transaction shows a huge decrease in value for Lycos, but also a reasonable price for Ybrant.

Lycos came into being back in ‘94, the same year Bone Thugs-n-Harmony dropped their first hit album “Creepin on Ah Come Up.” If you don’t know either name, please get off my lawn. They went public soon after in 1996 and took full advantage of the dot-com boom, acquiring sites like Tripod, Angelfire, and Wired.com, then selling to Terra Networks. It wasn’t just a search engine, but a comprehensive portal of just about everything web you could think of: blogging, hosting, games, social networking, and e-commerce. They had the whole enchilada.

Even though their value has dropped by almost 50%, Lycos claims 12 to 15 million monthly unique visitors in the United States, on average. They are also one of the top 25 Internet destinations worldwide with a reach of nearly 60 million unique visitors around the world.

Over the past few years, Ybrant has acquired Australian ad network company Max Interactive, Israeli ad firm Oridian ($13.5 million), US-based DW Net Ventures LLC / MediosOne ($4 million), Serbia-based Seenetix for its flagship bulk emailing product VoloMP ($2.2 million) and US- based Pennyweb Inc ($10 million) and Argentina based ad network DreamAd.

According to Daum, they are not simply dumping Lycos, which they say has been profitable, but want to focus on domestic business. From Ybrant’s earlier acquisitions, it looks like the Lycos brand fits nicely within their strategy.

“Brand Lycos needs no introduction, we are excited to bring in the Lycos properties into our fold,” said Suresh Reddy, chairman and CEO of Ybrant Digital in a press release. “The quality of content and tools offered by Lycos has always attracted the best of the consumers across the world. Our goal is to combine the benefits of Ybrant’s global network with what Lycos has to offer in creating a compelling global destination for our advertising clients worldwide. Coupled with our offerings for advertisers, we do present new products to our local users worldwide.”

via Mass High Tech, Medianama

The New York Times reports rapidly growing online television and video site may be gearing up for an Initial Public Offering. According to “people briefed on the matter,” the offering could value the company at around $2 billion.

According to those involved, who shall remain anonymous as talks get underway, Hulu executives have already been discussing a public offering with investors and we could see the IPO as early as this fall.

Despite how insanely popular the site is, Hulu is in a difficult position. The site simply doesn’t turn enough profit. This results in content providers pulling content, unhappy with their investment. Hulu then loses viewers, as we say when The Daily Show and Colbert Report were pulled from the site.

Because advertising revenues alone are not hitting the mark, Hulu launched Hulu Plus. This is a $9.99/month subscription plan is supposed to allow users to see a broader range of content, gaining access to full seasons of many popular shows. In addition, these premium users can get access to Hulu on almost any device, including iPads, smartphones, laptops, and internet-enabled TVs.

While this additional stream of income seems like the next logical step, Hulu has stiff competition in the online subscription arena. Namely, Netflix offers a $9.99/month plan which includes a DVD as well as unlimited access to a huge collection of movies and TV shows that you can watch instantly online via multiple devices.

Hulu was founded 3 years ago as a joint venture between the News Corporation, the Walt Disney Company,NBC Universal and the private equity firm Providence Equity Partners. Their goal was to compete with YouTube and other free video sites. YouTube remains the king of online video with 144.5 million viewers in June, but has also struggled in turning a profit. Hulu’s numbers dropped to 24 million in June from 43.5 million in May.

Part of Hulu’s struggle may be that they simply don’t have enough content, while YouTube can to leverage user-generated content. An IPO would be the most significant event in Hulu’s lifetime, but it remains to be seen if it will be enough to turn things around. As the NYT states, the IPO market is “widely regarded as soft” and offerings from companies like GM could thwart Hulu’s attempts at a successful IPO.

Google Launches Chrome to Phone and Voice Actions

At their mobile event yesterday, Google launched two features for mobile that aim to make life easier and illustrate the changing landscape of the web. Chrome to Phone and Voice Actions both enhance and extend your mobile device. Chrome to Phone makes it easy to shift things from your computer to your mobile, like when you’re in the middle of reading Black Web 2.0, but have to step out. Voice Actions give you the power to free your hands and just tell your phone what to do. It’s like voice dial on steroids and it works on any Android 2.2 device, I was able to search what does dr dre look like today? and get an answer.

If you had previously been playing with the Chrome to Phone beta, you may need to uninstall the Chrome extension and the Android app and start from scratch to get things working.

Twitter Working with TweetMeme For Official Tweet Buttons

When we all heard that Twitter was coming out with its own set of sharing buttons, the immediate question was, “What about Tweetmeme?” As it turns out, Twitter and Tweetmeme are working together on this latest project. The Twitter Buttons enable publisher’s to offer a simple way for their content to be shared, while also optionally suggesting users that visitors should follow.

Google and Verizon Propose Net Neutrality Rules

At first, the NYT came out saying that Google and Verizon had made a backroom deal on net neutrality where Google would simply turn a blind eye and let Verizon do whatever they wanted on their network. This first story was quickly deemed false by both Google and Verizon.

A short time later, the real joint policy proposal for an open Internet was published. While the proposal is nowhere near what was originally thought, many were still unsatisfied and some even outraged. The attacks came from every side, many misrepresenting the facts. Google was forced to answer these claims and dispel the myths.

iPhone Users Have Better Love Lives Than Android Users

This comes from OKCupid data analyzed by Gizmodo. The post is actually interesting in that it shows how taking a quality photo instantly makes you more attractive online. This isn’t just good for getting a date, but also key in presenting yourself or your brand online. Besides using a quality camera, the primary take-aways from the post are:

• Don’t use the flash – it makes you look 7 years older
• Control your foreground – be the focus of the photo and let everything else fade/blur. You will either need some image manipulation skills, a camera that lets you control the aperture, or just make sure you are way closer to the camera than anything else.
• Take your photo in the afternoon – while the data doesn’t explain why photos taken at this time seem more attractive, it could be due to lighting.

Facebook is set to launch an official live streaming video channel called Facebook Live. Today at 3PM PST (6PM EST), actress America Ferrera will visit Facebook headquarters and use Facebook Live to talk about her new movie, “The Dry Land,” a Sundance Film Festival entry.

The new Facebook Live channel will incorporate Facebook’s real-time Live Feed technology to facilitate interactions between the viewing audience and the speaker. Facebook Live offers a feature similar to CNN Live’s use of Facebook Connect, which streams Facebook status updates in a sidebar to the right of the live video of a news event, most notably used for President Barack Obama’s inauguration.

Facebook says that this same technology will be used to create a “viral News Feed” story within the new channel. This is actually the same technology that Facebook used to stream the recent F8 conference, but now it’s official. Facebook Live will also offer an Ask a Question feature, which allows you to submit a question to a moderator within the channel. RWW believes this specific Q&A feature may be “brand-new and exclusive to Facebook.”

Facebook live is powered by Livestream.com, which we touched on in our coverage of Procaster last year. You may wonder why Facebook wouldn’t go with a more well-known player like Ustream, but it may simply boil down to their goals. Livestream seems more focused on quality and call themselves “the most powerful live broadcast platform on the internet.” Other players seem more focused on the social aspect.

Because it works via Livestream.com, Facebook Live can be embedded on any website with a bit of code. This gives website owners and publishers the ability to leverage official content from Facebook. For instance, an entertainment blog might want to catch Justin Beiber live, or a technology blog might want to catch an interview with a Facebook engineer.

It would seem like this event would be way more exciting if they kicked off the launch with a Q&A session from Mark Zuckerberg and the Facebook team, or something else a little more relevant to technology. I have to agree with RWW in that we’re “geeks, nerds, techies and engineers” and the other 500 million or so users probably want to see Ferrera.

via Facebook Launching Official Live Streaming Channel: Facebook Live.

Update – It looks like Facebook live isn’t as original as we thought. Vokle, which we covered early on and then again when they went public, has been offering similar functionality for a while. A statement from Vokle CEO Robert Kiraz summarizes it best:

Though this is a proactive move for livestream, which is powering the live service, there are a certainly suspect similarities to what we’ve been doing since our launch; particularly the “ask a question” and screening features.

However, the scope of what we’re looking to achieve is via many-to-many video interactions and actual dialogue. Our central purpose is to humanize the web and make it a warmer, more personal place – something that appears to be philosophically lacking in this latest alliance.

Nonetheless, it’s an exciting time to be in the live streaming space, and we all look forward to changing the landscape of how people communicate online.

Our phones are capable of doing so many things, many of which we haven’t a clue about because we haven’t worked that out yet. If we really sat down and thought about how hard it is to execute some of the simplest things on our phones, we might be amazed. In order to simplify how we interact with our devices, Google has launched Chrome to Phone and Voice Actions.

Voice Actions

Communicating with your phone should be as easy as communicating with another person. It is still a phone, after all, made (mostly) for voice conversations. Their initial investment in voice search has definitely paid off with 25% of searches from Android 2.0 devices being done via voice. Voice activated dialing and voice commands have been around for a while, but Google is attempting to take this type of control to the next level with Google Voice Actions (get it here). You can initiate calls to contacts and businesses, make a note to yourself, pull up a map, send a text or email, and even tell your phone to play a certain artist/song/album. Here are the commands currently available:

• send text to [contact] [message]
• listen to [artist/song/album]
• call [business]
• call [contact]
• send email to [contact] [message]
• go to [website]
• note to self [note]
• navigate to [location/business name]
• directions to [location/business name]
• map of [location]

This feature only works on Froyo 2.2 and will be pre-installed on the Droid 2 phone from Motorola. Other phones that have just been updated will need to install the following apps to get access to the new features:

• Voice Search (this app includes Voice Actions)
• Google Search widget
• music apps (e.g. Pandora, Last.fm, Rdio, mSpot)

I’ve been playing with Voice Actions on the Evo and I have to say that I’m extremely impressed and also extremely disappointed. Just as with the voice-to-text feature that was already available, you often get server errors. I can’t really tell if it’s a connectivity issue specific to me or something on Google’s end. The primary issue is that you have to keep repeating yourself rather than the software saving what you said and trying to submit it again.

Chrome to Phone

Have you ever been looking at something on your computer and decided you wanted to take it with you? It would be great if there was an easy way to just zap stuff from your computer to your mobile device, but that ability just hasn’t existed until now with Chrome to Phone. Chrome to Phone puts a button on your browser that lets you seamlessly hand things off to your phone.

How many times have you looked up directions on your computer and immediately wished you’d just done it on your phone? Every wished you could cut and paste something to your phone? Dial a phone number? Chrome to Phone makes it all happen.

Suppose you’re reading an interesting article on your favorite news website and need to leave for an urgent appointment. Simply click the extension icon in your browser to send the link to your phone and the device’s browser will automatically open the link, ready for you to view on the go. Chrome to Phone also works seamlessly with Google Maps. Say you’ve looked up an address or driving directions on your desktop. Clicking the extension icon in your browser will push the information to the Google Maps app on your phone. YouTube videos work the same way with the extension. You can also select a phone number on a web page and send it to the dialer on your phone. Selected text can also be automatically copied from your browser and sent to your Android clipboard for later viewing.

Remember that you need the Chrome extension as well as the corresponding Android app for your phone.

Twitter is set to release a set of buttons for web publishers that will make it easy for visitors to share content on Twitter. The buttons are simple to install, just copy/paste a single line of code. You can choose a Javascript version, an iFrame, or a custom setup. They come in 3 different sizes: 110×20, 55×20, 55×63. It’s not the feature itself that has the web buzzing, but the fact that this feature competes directly with Tweetmeme, the long-time king of retweeting pages on the web.

Twitter’s implementation of the Tweet button can optionally show a comprehensive count of how many retweets a page has, adds an @mention of your site’s Twitter account, and makes sure the visitor never has to actually leave your site. The 5 optional settings include:

• via – this will give your site some shine as well as adding a “via” to your most relevant Twitter account and providing a recommendation for the user to follow you
• related – this option lets you specify another account suggestion for the user to follow
• text – the default text for your tweet/retweet
• url – Twitter will automatically shorten the URL of your page using it’s t.co shortener. If you want to override the URL that appears in the tweet to point somewhere, this is where you do it. There doesn’t seem to be a built-in feature to specify a different URL shortener, so you could manually provide a URL from a different service here.
• count – specify your button’s orientation: horizontal, vertical, or none (which shows no count)

At this point, it’s unclear if Twitter is blatantly going after Tweetmeme, or if the two are cooperating somehow. Given the similarities this Twitter feature shares with Tweetmeme, there could be major repercussions if they aren’t working together. Developers have already been wary of working within the Twitter ecosystem since Twitter began implementing features in-house and acquiring third-party apps. Competing so directly with a complimentary service could be seen as biting the hand that feeds them as Twitter would be nowhere without third-party applications.

The button may hit as early as tomorrow, Aug 12th. While it remains to be seen whether this is bad news for Tweetmeme, they still have some wiggle room if worse comes to worse. Beyond a simple retweet, publishers are also interested in the analytics behind those tweets, just as Bit.ly stays relevant because of the data it has around its shortened URLs. Tweetmeme also provides a Digg-like home page for you to find the hottest links on Twitter.

Do you think Twitter really going after Tweetmeme?

After just announcing a partnership with Comcast called DVDsByMail, which gives Comcast customers a discount on renting Blockbuster’s 95,000 movie titles and TV shows through Blockbuster’s Netflix-like “by-mail” service, Blockbuster has just launched a game rental service that Gamefly should be worried about.

The landscape of the consumer entertainment industry seems to be constantly changing. Netflix and Gamefly are the established go-to-guys for movies and games by mail. Not only that, but Netflix’s instant watch feature gives you unlimited access to titles you can watch immediately online for as little as $10/month. Redbox is doing its thing with their little red kiosks all over the US, letting people rent movies for dollars a day while contemplating a move onto the web. With the new competition, Blockbuster initially floundered and closed down stores, but it seems they may have finally found their footing.

Blockbuster’s service is a hybrid of Netflix and Gamefly, making no distinctions between games or movies when you’re adding things to your queue. They boast a catalog of 3,000 games at no extra charge above and beyond their standard by-mail rental plans with no due dates or late fees. The monthly fee for their one disc at a time plan is $8.95. For about the same amount, you can get a similar account with Netflix, but minus the games. Gamefly will let you pay $8.95/month for a similar plan, but it jumps to about $16/month after the first month.

This new feature from Blockbuster goes directly at Gamefly, undercutting their pricing by half while offering the added ability to get movies as well as games. Netflix should be paying attention as well since their 2-disc plan is the same price as Blockbuster’s, except that Blockbuster allows one or both of those discs to be a game. Many Netflix and Gamefly customers may be straddling both services and Blockbuster is offering a cheaper way out.

Blockbuster also has a 28-day head-start on Netflix after a deal it made months ago with the movie studios. This gets you new releases on Blockbuster four weeks before you can get them on Netflix. If Blockbuster can make sure games are available when requested, it could spell big trouble for GameFly. Netflix may still be in the clear given that instant streaming alone is worth the $9/month and their recent deal with Epix.

via FastCompany,Technologizer

Twitter recently began testing their User Streams API. This is the full real-time Twitter fire hose pointed directly in your face. If you follow a decent number of people, the batch method that Twitter now offers becomes quite annoying. While you’re looking at one tweet, 300 new ones instantly bury it. Don’t bother, you aren’t going to find it again. While real-time tweets might sound like more to deal with, it actually makes it easier to follow what’s going on.

The Twitter Streaming API allows a desktop client to efficiently and instantly receive nearly all updates required to keep a display up-to-date. The transition to User Streams should return considerable capacity to the REST and Search APIs, increasing stability for Twitter users & developers alike. Additionally, several interesting new event types are available: Favoriting, retweeting, following, and list additions are also streamed along with direct messages, mentions, the user timeline and the home timeline.

Tweetdeck has opened up limited testing for User Streams in the desktop client. You can sign up here. The beta version of Seesmic Desktop 2 has also implemented the feature and you can download it here. The feature is off by default, so follow these steps to switch it on in Seesmic:

1. In the Options panel (you can access the options panel by click on the gear wheel in the lower left)
2. Select the Twitter Plugin, and click on “Settings” link
3. Check the “Use User Streams” checkbox
4. Save Settings and Restart Seesmic Desktop 2

While Seesmic just released an update to their Android app, Tweetdeck is still working on theirs. I’m not a fan of the Tweetdeck desktop client, but I’m intrigued by the prospect of using it on Android. The Tweetdeck blog paints a very pretty picture of what is to come with this new Android Twitter client:

First off, we’ve built Android TweetDeck from the ground up to be true multi-stream, laser focused on showing you all your friends’ cross-service activity in one app. Multi-column is still the order of the day but now columns are blended based on the type of activity rather than the service. And all this whilst retaining the most powerful functionality from each included service.

Even more interesting is that they seem to have switched their focus a little. Not only are they making the Android app the prototype for the iPhone and iPad apps, but also say it “won’t be long before most of the new concepts in Android TweetDeck make it to the desktop and web.” Very interesting, indeed. Can’t wait to get my hands on the beta, which should be available later this week.

In a deal that is sure to shake up the world of premium TV, Netflix has signed a deal that will give them exclusive access to stream Epix content on its pay service. Netflix may start streaming titles from Paramount, Lionsgate and MGM on September 1st. The specifics haven’t yet been disclosed, but the LA Times speculates that Netflix will pay Epix close to $1 billion in the multi-year deal.

“Adding EPIX to our growing library of streaming content, as the exclusive Internet-only distributor of this great content, marks the continued emergence of Netflix as a leader in entertainment delivered over the Web,” said Ted Sarandos, chief content officer for Netflix. “The EPIX deal is an example of the innovative ways in which we’re partnering with major content providers to broaden the scope and freshness of choices available to our members to watch instantly over the Internet.”

Important to note here is that the deal does not threaten Hollywood’s DVD business. Netflix customers will still have to wait for a certain amount of time after the DVD release before the movies will be available for instant streaming. Also, to soften the blow to the cable companies, there is a 90-day wait after the movie debuts on Epix before they can be streamed online.

Despite the restrictions, this is still an awesome deal for all involved. Netflix gets to add current content to it’s already growing catalog. These are more popular movies and will be available instantly on the web via a computer or other supported device. Current offerings for instant streaming are slightly lacking and this should be a huge help.

On the Epix side of the deal, they are walking away with a serious wad of cash which they needed to continue doing business. It also serves as an example in giving customers access to more content, while preserving “the premium television, subscription on demand and online window reserved for cable, satellite and telco television partners.” Keeping all parties happy is usually the point where entertainment deals break down. Fortunately this won’t affect premium TV cable services in some places like pretoria, so you can get your explora installation in Pretoria done by dstv installation company.

“Netflix is an incredibly popular service and we welcome them as our newest distribution partner. We are pleased to be able to continue our mission of bringing consumers the movies where they want to watch them, while satisfying the differing needs of cable, telco and satellite operators. This deal also underscores the tremendous value of our offerings in the marketplace.” — Mark Greenberg, president of EPIX

This is a huge investment by Epix and Netflix in the future of entertainment on the web. While they have taken steps to pacify cable TV, the deal still makes cutting the cable and ditching the dish a little easier.

Does this make Netflix more attractive to you?

via All Things Digital