Category: Tech

According to NewTeeVee, Apple is looking to compete in the instant streaming game against Hulu Plus and Netflix. They are pushing a streaming rental service that would let you watch TV shows instantly for just 99 cents. This is along with the upcoming release of their new Apple TV set-top box.

According to sources, Apple is trying to get TV programmers to let it rent individual TV shows for 99 cents each, as opposed to the $1.99 it receives for sales of standard-definition episodes and the $2.99 it gets for selling HD episodes. The TV rental program would work in much the same way that movie rentals now work through iTunes; once an episode is purchased, the consumer will have 30 days to start watching the video. And once started, the TV rental will be available for 24 hours before it expires.

Hulu Plus and Netflix are both in a growing market as consumers realize a low monthly subscription for streaming video is definitely worth their while. They are both available in a variety of formats on a number of devices, including via the web. You can get an unlimited account with either service for around $10/month.

While it seems that Apple is late to the party, they could still make a grand entrance. They are looking to form partnerships with cable networks to gain access to premium content. We’re talking about shows like Mad Men and True Blood that Hulu Plus won’t have access to. I’d buy that for a dollar. The only caveat here is that Apple is still tied to their own hardware, so you would need an iPhone, Apple TV set-top box, or some other Apple device to participate. I can watch Hulu Plus and Netflix on my Xbox 360, Sony PlayStation 3, iPad, iPhone, Wii, and many other devices.

Even though iTunes has always been tied to Apple hardware, that didn’t stop it from becoming numero uno. In this case, I can see consumers paying for accounts on more than one of these streaming services. Your Netflix or Hulu Plus might cover most of the bases, but you still purchase content a la carte from Apple to fill in the gaps. It just boils down to what gaps Apple will be able to fill.

Would you buy individual TV episodes for a dollar each?

via FastCompany

In an extensive project they have dubbed “Perfect Citizen,” the federal government wants to set up a system to detect cyber assaults on private companies and government agencies. This is to protect critical infrastructure like the electricity grid and nuclear-power plants.

This sounds like a good idea, especially if you saw that movie Live Free or Die Hard. In the movie, Bruce Willis and the Mac Guy try to stop hackers from completely shutting down the United States computer infrastructure. The hackers even crash the stocke market and bring the economy to its knees.

While this is the plot of a movie, it’s not an impossible scenario. In trying to make things more efficient, most of our infrastructure is networked and connected to the Internet. This makes it easier for different pieces to talk to each other, but also opens up the doors to hackers and this is what Perfect Citizen is aimed at stopping.

This is being funded by the multibillion-dollar Comprehensive National Cybersecurity Initiative that started at the end of the Bush administration and has been continued by the Obama administration. There is another side to the story, though. In order to put preventative measures in place to stop hackers, the government will need to listen in on all of our Internet traffic. According to those close to the project:

The surveillance by the National Security Agency, the government’s chief eavesdropping agency, would rely on a set of sensors deployed in computer networks for critical infrastructure that would be triggered by unusual activity suggesting an impending cyber attack, though it wouldn’t persistently monitor the whole system. If you need a high quality and affordable video surveillance, search for Miami, FL SecurityInfo.com. They offer a higher resolution and better motion detection devices as well.

I’m not an expert on network security, but I don’t see how they can detect unusual activity without monitoring persistently. Those computer networks would belong to electric companies, air traffic controls systems, public transit, and other important pieces of infrastructure. The government plans to work with these private companies to come to an agreement on where their sensors should be placed within the private system and what types of sensors should be used.

On the surface, this all seems to make sense. One military official called the program “long overdue” and said “any intrusion into privacy is no greater than what the public already endures from traffic cameras.” I’m pretty sure there are many Americans quite upset about those traffic cameras, though.

via U.S. Program to Detect Cyber Attacks on Infrastructure – WSJ.com

YouTube announced a major update to it’s m.youtube.com mobile site yesterday. It’s going all HTML5 and the quality of the user interface and the videos themselves puts the native YouTube application to shame. A points from the YouTube blog:

• It’s really fast.
• The user interface incorporates larger, more touch-friendly elements, making it easier to access videos on the go.
• It incorporates the features and functionality you’ve come to expect from the .com site, like search query suggestions, the options to create playlists, the ability to designate “favorite,” “like” or “unlike” videos directly from your device.
• As we make improvements to Youtube.com, you’ll see them quickly follow on our mobile site, unlike native apps which are not updated as frequently.

That last bullet point is a bit of a dig at the native YouTube application on Android, which is lagging pretty far behind the YouTube website. An example of this is that the website uses a simple thumbs up/down system for rating videos while the mobile application is still using the 5-star rating system.

There are a number of things we can learn from this announcement. According to YouTube product manager Andrey Doronichev, the new web-based application is superior in just about every way to the native iPhone application. This is proof that you can create a pretty advanced application using simple HTML5, which should make many app and web developers rethink their options.

This move by YouTube also goes right along with Google’s strategy of not developing desktop applications. They want everything in the browser. Your desktop applications and now your mobile applications as well. We are seeing this with the situation about the unreleased Google Voice desktop application, which may never see the light of day.

One obstacle Google faces here is getting users to visit a website instead of clicking an app icon, but it seems they’ve already thought this through. Visiting m.youtube.com from your iPhone will give you the option to “install” it, which simply puts an icon on your phone that opens the website. The iPhone currently uses a busted icon of a TV for YouTube, but this new icon is the actual YouTube logo.

Doesn’t seem far-fetched that we will see more mobile applications based on HTML5. It’s arguably an easier platform to develop for, it works across iOS and Android, and there is no reason they can’t be monetized just as current applications are.

What’s your take? Will HTML5 change the landscape of mobile applications?

via TechCrunch

We still don’t know what King James will do, but it’s coming down to the wire and reports say Lebron may make his announcement by the end of the day. For the last 7 days, Lebron’s free agent status has had the media and social media buzzing. Early in the week, we promised you as much when his name started trending on Twitter.

Since then, it hasn’t stopped. The NBA even used Lebron’s Twitter popularity to drive traffic to their website by purchasing the promoted trend for his name. Their promoted trend kept Lebron in the spotlight and used a promoted tweet in the search results. Later, The King himself even joined Twitter.

Of course, speculation abounds. Many are absolutely positive that Lebron will end up with the Heat. This is where both Chris Bosh and Dwyane Wade, who announced his decision via YouTube, have chosen to play. Along the same lines, others swear he’s going to the Knicks, which gives him the largest stage to perform on. The team that made him, the Cavaliers, are pretty sure he’s not leaving them. In a tweet directed at Lebron from Amar’e Stoudemire, he says: Come join me @Amareisreal in NY, we can do something really special. “Oh, let’s do it”!!

While former Suns teammate of Amar’e Stoudemire, Jared Dudley only averages 8 points a game, a tweet he sent off actually raised MSG’s stock. In the tweet, Jared said “Breaking News!!! My sources tell me Lebron will announce that he will be goin to the NY Knicks tomorrow on ESPN.. this is serious.. WOW!!!”

Madison Square Garden’s stock price (MSG) jumped 6.4% on the speculation that James would be headed east. Volume of the shares traded at five times the daily average to close at $21.57 a share. And after-hours trading bumped it even higher, to $22.14. via LaTimes

Lebron to the Knicks was also mentioned by DeJuan Blair of the San Antonio Spurs, who said “Lebron to the Knicks watch!!!!! Shhhhhhhhhh!” Jay Williams agrees with Dudley and DeJuan, tweeting: “I am going to say this. I just heard from a little bird in his camp, King James and Spike Lee will be seeing a lot of each other next yr.”

The facts are that ESPN has booked the Boys and Girls club of Greenwich, Conn from 7-10pm tonight, just a short drive from Knicks training facility in Greenburgh, NY. ESPN has confirmed that this is where Lebron will make his final announcement, at 9pm. You can be sure Twitter will be on fire tonight. Stay tuned to Black Web 2.0 for the latest.

Your small business is running smoothly. You’re attracting customers. Word-of-mouth and social media is bringing in sales. Your website is on point. The only problem is, you haven’t a clue how to manage and keep track of the money you’re making. You’re not really sure how much money you’re really raking in because you haven’t taken your expenses into account. You feel like business is booming, but you’re having a hard time figuring out your bottom line.

Indinero is a real-time financial dashboard that should help you get your money in order. Backed by Y-Combinator, Indinero wants to be the Mint.com for small business, making it simple for you to manage your businesses money. Other solutions like Quickbooks are often so confusing that you might consider hiring a professional just to run it. Darcy xero services want to help you handle your accounting bookkeeping without you having to learn accounting.

“inDinero helps business owners monitor the financial health of their companies. Most small business owners hate the idea of learning accounting software, so we’ve created a solution that’s easy for anyone to use.

In less than 5 minutes, you’ll know precisely how much you’re earning, spending, what your cash situation looks like, and more. Since inDinero understand your spending, we can also remind you of upcoming bills to pay, and warn you about low balances and unusual account activity. inDinero works for your business, and is a new approach to business finance.”

Indinero, just like Mint, uses Yodlee to allow businesses to connect their bank and credit card account information to financial institutions. Georgia,  an accountant in Loveland, explains that, while it seems like the goal is to get rid of your accountant, this isn’t actually the case. Indinero will help you stay on the same page as your accountant, allowing you to watch your money and make decisions in real-time, while allowing direct export to Quickbooks for your accountant to go over later. That will make your life easier, as well as the Advance Systems software, serving the same purpose.

The real goal here is to make your business more agile while giving you a better idea of how certain decisions will affect your cash flow. Your trusted accountants Bundaberg can come in later and handle all the details, but Indinero will give you the basics you need to run your business with confidence.

New York, NY. The home of the Knicks. The home of Foursquare. So why are Mikhail Prokhorov, Jay-Z, and Gowalla plastered on the side of a building on 34th & 8th overlooking Madison Squa

re Garden? Mikhail is the majority owner of the NJ Nets with hip-hop mogul Jay-Z as the minority owner. Gowalla, based in Texas, is that other location check-in service you may have heard about.

There is actually a good bit going on with this larger-than-life mural looming over the Garden. VaynerMedia, a company composed of Gary and AJ Vaynerchuck, are in the new media consulting business. They work with a range of clients from HipHopAtLunch to, you guessed it, the Nets. Gary also has ties to Gowalla as an investor, so it’s obvious why he’d want their logo on a 225 x 95 foot wall.

The Nets are busy trying to generate buzz for their team and possibly attrack one Lebron James to New Jersey. This little stunt probably won’t help them snag Lebron, but this huge billboard in rival territory definitely has people talking.

As far as Gowalla goes, they are also in rival territory here. This is Foursquare’s city. Foursquare is located in a loft

space in downtown NYC. This is one of the first cities they launched in. This billboard isn’t just for show, it’s actually a venue in Gowalla where you can check in and get a unique item. Oh, and don’t think you can game the system. Gowalla is strictly GPS. You need to physically go there to get the goods.

This looks like a win all around for The Nets and Gowalla, but I think Gowalla and Vaynermedia could have done a better job of really pushing their name out there. Location is a big deal, but it’s not a big deal to the average person yet. Most people haven’t a clue about Gowalla.

The billboard features 3 full website URLs for Facebook, Twitter, and The Nets. Gowalla just has a big logo at the bottom: “Check in with Gowalla to get a special item.” Where is the .com on the end? No iPhone/Android logo? For those New Yorkers know, Gowalla is a local street vendor giving out rainbow snow cones.

Foursquare, however, has done work with reality shows on VH1. People know the name, even though they may not know what it does. Still, Gowalla is making a big play here and this might just be the beginning. I’m just waiting to see if Foursquare responds by tagging up Austin, TX.

via A Russian Billionaire, Jay-Z, And Gowalla Loom Large Over New York

Fast Company has set up a contest, The Influence Project, to find out who the most influential people on the Internet are. You would think this would involve fancy math and algorithms to measure the size of the competitors’ networks, track the reach of their voice across those networks, and figuring out if they can really move a crowd. Instead, Fast Company has simply set up a multi-level marketing scheme that drives traffic to their website.

The clicks and networking and connectivity (out to six degrees!) collected in this experiment will provide a compass for where real influence lies on the Internet. It’s something I’m sure every business is curious to know more about. I also think it’s a powerful bit of awareness for anyone who wants to know who in their network is fully engaged with them.

It’s actually a pretty smart way to get traffic to your website, but not something you would expect from a popular and respected publication like Fast Company. It follows the basic principles of network/affiliate marketing:

• You sign up by uploading a photo of yourself
• This gets you a unique referral link
• Your “influence” increases as you refer people to Fast Company via your link
• When people join The Influence Project using your link, you get a piece of their “influence”

This is a seriously flawed method for measuring real influence. Anyone who has ever used a traffic exchange or purchased social networking contacts could tell you this. Think about all the Twitter accounts you’ve seen from no-name spammers who have around 10-50k followers. Those followers have no interest in what that person has to say. The only thing being influencing is perception based on a single metric.

The definition of a pyramid scheme, a derogatory term for network/mlm marketing, is a network with no product. In this case, Fast Company is offering to put the winner’s face in an upcoming issue of the magazine. Doesn’t sound like much of a product to me. For some, this is worth the effort, but Fast Company will be the one making out like a bandit in ad revenues.

I’m not really sure what the folks at Fast Company were thinking here. This is a blatant attempt to drive traffic to their site, the type of contest you might see a new blogger run to boost their visitor numbers. The results won’t be useful because they only take one metric into account: how many people you can get to click your junk. Definitely not a good look for Fast Company.

See Also:

• Fast Company Creatively Combines Link Baiting With A Pyramid Scheme.
• How Fast Company Confused Ego with Influence

Today, former AOL Product and Programming Executive, Mike Rich, will join Interactive One as its Chief Product and Operating Officer. Interactive One, the largest online media company serving black Americans, is the digital division of Radio One Inc., the largest African American multimedia company. Rich will drive the direction and strategy for Interactive One’s network of sites and brands. Rich will also help “lead a differentiated multi-platform digital offering across radio, video and mobile in partnership with Interactive One’s parent company, Radio One.”

“We are excited to have Mike join the team and leverage his background to enhance our users’ experience and to build upon our strong growth and success,” said Thomas Newman, President of Interactive One. “We have a very large and highly engaged member base and we look forward to seeing Mike apply his proven talents to build upon our existing products and to create new offerings online and across mobile, video and other platforms.”

Rich is the man behind AOL BlackVoices, Moviefone, AOL Radio, AOL Latino, and AOL Studios which produced original high quality video content for AOL’s suite of sites. At AOL he was in charge of interactive product strategy, management, marketing, editorial, audience development and syndication for AOL’s flagship properties including AOL Music. Because of his leadership, AOL Music grew to be the #1 music destination from 2007-2009. Rich was honored by Hollywood Reporter as part of their 2009 Digital Power 50 list of executives leading the digital media industry.

“I am thrilled to join the Interactive One team and to further expand the opportunities for the current and future audience, so that they can enrich their lives with a compelling product and content experience,” said Mike Rich. “Radio One and Interactive One have built a truly cross-platform media company that is well-positioned to take advantage of the growth of digital on all platforms including mobile and next generation IP connected products.”

This could be a very important development in black media. Interactive One, launched by Radio One in 2008, has over 15 million members and reaches 7 million Black Americans each month with approximately 4 billion annual page views on its suite of sites. With Rich as Chief Product and Operating Officer, we will hopefully see some positive changes and growth for Interactive One.

It’s not as if there is a lack of buzz around Lebron James on the web, specifically on Twitter. Just a few days ago, we talked about how Lebron James was trending. This is because Lebron, Chris Bosh, Dwayne Wade, and a few other players are free agents and everyone wants to know where they will end up. To capitalize on this, the NBA purchased Lebron’s name as a Sponsored Trend.

At first, many people thought Lebron himself was the reason behind his name showing up as a sponsored trend on the Twitter home page. The reality is that the NBA is trying to leverage his current popularity and buzz around his name to drive traffic to their own website. Clicking on Lebron’s name shows related organic tweets as well as a promoted tweet from the NBA itself that says “For all your LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, Chris Bosh and other NBA Free Agency updates check out Decision 2010 on NBA.com http://bit.ly/924XL9.”

The link in the above tweet simply points to NBA.com, where they are doing a lot of coverage on free agents, the off-season, and their Decision 2010 page. This is a site dedicated to NBA Free Agency and provides all the latest news on who is meeting with who and what these free agents are doing. You can also access trackers for specific players you might be interested in, including Lebron, to see exactly what is going on with them.

This is a pretty slick move by the NBA. Popular sports figures are routinely used to market the sporting organizations, putting a face to the sport itself, but the NBA is taking this to a different level by doing so in the social media realm. They have grabbed a Promoted Trend based on Lebron’s popularity in the trending topics. This means that his name will show up at the bottom of the Trending Topics list even if other topics become more popular.

In addition, they have a Promoted Tweet in place that will show up once users click the Promoted Trend. This tweet shows up at the top of the search results related to Lebron, driving visitors to the NBA website. Since the NBA put this promoted trend in place, Lebron has gone from being mentioned about 500 times per hour on Twitter to 3,000 and rising.

TweetUp, the site that helps you find the worlds best tweeters, has announced their acquisition of both Twidroid and Popurls. Twidroid is one of the most popular Twitter clients for the Android platform. Popurls is a news aggregator that grabs the most popular content from sites all around the web and displays it in one neat page. Through this deal, TweetUp hopes to build a “broad distribution network on which to test and refine its platform for finding the world’s best tweeters.”

First order of business in the transaction is to change Twidroid’s name to Twidroyd. This is avoid confusion with products from Lucas Films, trademark owner of the term “droid.” The new Twidroyd client will come standard on millions of upcoming Android phones from five of the leading handset manufacturers. The bundling deals with Android device manufacturers are only the tip of the iceberg.

Acquiring Twidroyd provides TweetUp with a number of strategic advantages,” said Bill Gross, CEO of TweetUp. “Twidroyd (www.twidroyd.com) is widely considered the best Twitter client for Android phones and it leads in market share, so its growing base of users will be a valuable source of well-informed feedback on TweetUp search on mobile devices. In addition, the popurls website (www.popurls.com), which attracts users looking for a convenient guide to the most popular sites, news, videos and blogs on the Internet, will be a natural spot to display TweetUp search results and gain user feedback. This combination should enable us to more rapidly refine our offerings, generating better user experiences for distribution partners and for users searching for the world’s best tweeters regardless of their choice of devices.

TweetUp also has revenue-sharing agreements for it’s search results with a number of partners. These include some big names like Tweetdeck and Seesmic. The web’s leading provider of custom browser toolbars, Conduit, is also onboard. We also have Netvibes, Twitterfeed, Klout, BusinessInsider.com, Answers.com, TechCrunch, Topix.com and popurls.

TweetUp has definitely been on their grind, building relationships and planning a strategy. Some of these sites and services have already started serving TweetUp search results with the rest coming in the next few weeks. When all is said and done, TweetUp will gain 40 million unique users per month and serve more than 100 million impressions per month.

via TC and Engadget

Just a few days ago, an exclusive video of the unreleased Google Voice desktop application appeared online. It’s not the first we have heard of a Google Voice desktop application, but it’s certainly the first time we’ve had a chance to see it in action. Google has worked on this project internally for a while. The problem is that Google doesn’t actually plan to release this client to the public.

Google Voice has been in beta for a while now, but recently opened to the public. Many users enjoy making Google Voice calls from their mobile phones, but there is no software that lets you make a call from your computer. Google purchased Skype competitor Gizmo5 and we all hoped this would lead to a Skype-like desktop application, but Google wants to go in a different direction.

Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin don’t want to be in the business of creating applications outside of the browser. This is an understandable position given Google’s strengths, but this still leaves many users out in the cold. Many Google Voice users want a desktop solution so that they are not tied to a cell phone or a landline.

Users concerned with the future of the GV desktop client have started an online petition. Google has not decided if they will scrap the project or simply delay it. So far, over 1,500 concerned users have signed the online petition, urging Google to make the product available.

Google would rather offer this type of soft-phone functionality via the browser, but (according to TC) many experts say this won’t be possible any time soon. Even with advancements in web technology like HTML5, it may take as long as a year to get true Google Voice support in a browser. Even then, the encoding involved would probably need a browser plugin, which isn’t much of a leap away from a desktop client.

Do you use Google Voice? Do you want to receive and initiate GV calls directly from your desktop? Go sign the petition and feel free to share how Google Voice works (or doesn’t work) for you in the comments.

Friday night, Google released a new feature that allows Blogger bloggers to access near real-time statistics on their Blogger blogs. The new Stats feature is similar to the more advanced Google Analytics service, which many Blogger bloggers have already been using. The difference here is that Blogger Stats is integrated into the Blogger service, is easy to use, and keeps things simple.

To access Stats, navigate to draft.blogger.com and hit the Stats tab. You will immediately get an overview of your blog’s stats based on a specific time frame. This includes your hottest blog posts, audience region, and top traffic sources. The beauty of this stats feature on Blogger lies in the Now tab. This shows you what is happening on your blog in near real-time. Regardless of your blog’s topic or even it’s purpose, this gives you the ability to react quickly to your audience.

Google has said in the past that most users are not interested in real-time statistics, which is why no such feature exists in the popular Google Analytics package. You have to wait at least a few hours with Google Analytics to get an updated traffic report and this is sometimes a major annoyance. This makes it even more interesting that they’ve enabled such a feature on Blogger.

There are real-time analytics services like Woopra, Clicky, and Chartbeat, but most users are still going to use Google Analytics as well. It would be nice to have all this info in one place, robust analytics in real-time and also integrated with Google’s other services like Feedburner, Adsense, and Adwords. Does this feature being added to Blogger mean that Google is at least thinking about adding it to Analytics? Let’s hope so.

For you Blogger folks, the new feature keeps things simple and straight-forward. It has none of the bells and whistles of Google Analytics, like Campaigns and Adwords integration. You get basic statistics on your blog and you get them in near real-time. There are many users out there who would gladly trade most of the advanced features of Google Analytics for this one addition.

Will Google add real-time stats to Analytics? Are you interested in real-time stats on your blog?

Even though Apple talked about an anti-Google stance on serving ads back in April, it seems they haven’t actually banned anything…yet. It’s not just a ban on Google, but a ban on ad companies collecting usage data from applications, which would make it almost impossible to create or serve targeted ads and compete with Apple’s iAd service. These limitations were relaxed at the beginning of June, allowing these ad networks to collect data, but it was still believed that Google would still be barred from actually serving any ads. It turns out that Google /Admob ads are showing up just fine.

Software developers say their new and updated applications are getting approved by Apple, even though the apps are enabled to serve ads by third-party ad networks such as Google’s Mobile Adsense and AdMob.

Apple and Google have both declined to comment on the situation. The answer could lie in the fact that the Feds are already looking into iAds and Apple’s anti-Google policy. iAds works with brands to create and distribute interactive ads inside of applications. Apple charges $1 million to $10 million to iAds customers, giving 60% of the revenues to the developers.

While Apple’s changes in policy did not explicitly name Google, it seemed obvious that they would prevent Google from conducting business around the Apple platform and Google even publicly criticized Apple. Barring third-party ad networks while launching their own is definitely not a good move by Apple and it’s easy to see why the Federal Trade Commission has pricked up their ears and taken at look in Apple’s direction.

While some developers took a chance at getting their apps blocked, others completely avoided third-party ad networks. iAds is actually more lucrative for developers as it charges the advertiser a penny when the ad is viewed and $2 when the ad is clicked. This is a better return to developers, who usually expect fractions of a penny for clicks and views.

The real question is whether Apple has the right to block these other ad networks. They are creating a monopoly, but it’s limited to their own ecosystem of apps and devices. On the other hand, should they be able to create such restrictions on developers? It will be interesting to see what they do here as one false move could bring them a world of trouble.

Androids Continue to Multiply

Even though the iPhone 4 is taking much of the spotlight since it’s release last month, the Evo 4G has actually held its own against the established Apple device. Even still, it looks like Android devices roll in packs. Shortly after the iPhone 4, we learned about the Droid X from Verizon, which seems about as powerful as the Evo. Samsung is also dropping 4 new Android devices that will available on all four major US carriers.

Foursquare Gets a Gang of Funding and Patches Holes

It seems like privacy breaches are all the rage these days. White Hat Jesper Andersen found a privacy glitch within the Foursquare system that allowed access to private check-ins. The bug involved the pages for each venue, where people who checked in recently are shown in a grid. Even the faces of those with private accounts were showing up. It seems this bug was simply overlooked as Foursquare grew, but has been fixed at this time.

It seems this story was completely overshadowed by the fact that Foursquare secured Series B Funding of $20 million. This after they almost sold to Facebook. Remaining independent should keep things exciting for Foursquare and it’s growing base of users.

Amazon Acquires Woot

The one day one deal site with the quirky sense of humor, Woot, was acquired by Amazon for rumored $110 million in cold hard cash. Woot will continue to operate as usual, but under the Amazon umbrella along with Zappos and Audible. Woot paved the way for sites like Groupon and Gilt. In a letter to his employees, CEO Matt Rutledge says, “For Woot, our vision remains the same: somehow earning a living on snarky commentary and junk.”

Best Buy Goes After Evo 4G vs. iPhone Video Creator

Did you catch that Evo 4G vs. iPhone video? It’s absolutely hilarious and has been making the rounds for a little while, now. The problem is that Best Buy is not too happy about the video, which might possibly make some iPhone customers look bad and adversely effect Best Buy’s brand. The catch is that Best Buy is never mentioned or displayed in the video in any way. Even so, the creator of the video (who happens to sell mobile phones at Best Buy) may be losing his job over this. Best Buy was able to connect the dots based on other unrelated videos on the guy’s account. Bad move, Best Buy. This had nothing to do with you. Now, let’s all watch together and imagine it takes place inside of Best Buy with a Best Buy employee instead of in a random open field with two cartoon characters.

To expand their efforts in travel search, Google has acquired ITA Software. ITA is a key player in the online travel business, providing data to companies like Kayak, Orbitz, Bing, Expedia, TripAdvisor, and a number of other air travel websites. According to Google, almost 60% of airline tickets are purchased online. ITA tried to hold out for a $1 billion, but Google snatched them up at their original offer price of $700.

In a post on the official Google blog, they explain that the current landscape of online travel search is cluttered, confusing, and frustrating. Even for a simple flight from point A to point B, you have to dig through hundreds or thousands of options to find what you’re looking for. Google aims to make this entire process easier.

While online flight search is rapidly evolving, we think there is room for more competition and greater innovation. Google has already come up with new ways to organize hard-to-find information like images, newspaper archives, scholarly papers, books and geographic data. Once we’ve completed our acquisition of ITA, we’ll work on creating new flight search tools that will make it easier for you to search for flights, compare flight options and prices and get you quickly to a site where you can buy your ticket.

Google CEO Eric Schmidt explained to the press that he believes Google can “help solve the online travel problem and help improve the online travel ecosystem.” He also say that Google could drive more business to airlines and offer an innovative approach to the online travel business.

Having the largest and most successful provider of search tackle the problem of searching for flight data seems like a good deal. Google is in a good place to make search easier for users and drive more sales to ticket sales portals. Many don’t see it that way, including the companies that rely on ITA’s services. They even attempted to counter Google’s offer.

Google promises to honor all existing contracts and is “enthusiastic” about signing new ones. They still faces the issue of the deal being killed by regulators. Schmidt is confident that the deal will go through. Google doesn’t own any of the travel segment at this point and is only stepping into airline travel, not hotels or rental cars. These factors may help them in getting the deal done. You can check out some facts on the merger here.

Do you think this deal will have a positive effect on the online travel market?