Ajax Girl

One, if not the most controversial post ever published on TechCrunch was Dan Ackerman Greenberg’s The Secret Strategies Behind Many “Viral” Videos. A TechCrunch reader took this post and mixed it into his own viral video, as above. Great summary of the original post, and well put together…and yes, we took the viral bait as well

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Source: TechCrunch
Original Article: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/264820822/

Joost is said to be preparing a “major retrenchment” of staff as part of a restructure that will see Joost abandon its global ambitions for the US only.

According to the Sunday Times, Joost has struggled to convince media and sports companies to sell it global rights, which are usually offered on a country by country basis. The Times reports that Joost still has money in the bank and “Joost is unlikely to close, however. “There are too many egos involved,” said one former employee.” Joost denied that staff would be retrenched, saying only that “There are some situations where staff have been re-aligned to better fit our needs.”

Erick wrote in October that the clock is ticking for Joost:

There’s a time bomb out there with Joost’s name on it. Full-screen, broadcast-quality video streams—the main selling point of Joost’s peer-to-peer Internet TV client software—is quickly coming to the Web….the vast majority of that video is not exclusive to Joost. All the Internet TV services are lining up the same content. And better-quality video is not going to remain a differentiator for long.

…Joost’s P2P approach is not a benefit to the consumer as much as it is a benefit to Joost (because it offloads the bandwidth costs of the most popular video streams to the users themselves). But streaming video on the Web is about to get a whole lot cheaper—and as Web video advertising takes off, a whole lot more lucrative. Some people argue that once the economics kick in, centralized Web streaming will offer a better, more consistent viewing experience than P2P streaming.

Set up by Skype founders Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis, Joost offered much promise, but has failed to deliver anything unique at a time when online video became the hottest vertical on the web. The restructure cant hurt, but with ongoing intense competition, Joost may well be on borrowed time.

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Source: TechCrunch
Original Article: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/264815605/

If you don’t like something on the Internet, it seems that sending a DMCA notice is a nearly sure-fire way to get it taken down. We’ve seen some people fight back against fake notices, particularly the EFF. In fact, I’ve criticized the EFF in the past for being overzealous in fighting DMCA notices. But in many cases, the EFF and other groups helping people defend against bogus DMCA notices have been a huge help.

Sometimes abuse comes when people send out fake notices. Other times, blanket notices are the problem (see last link in paragraph above). But the situation today is one of the most petty I’ve seen to date.

Scorpio Music sent a letter to Yahoo (presumably a DMCA notice) that stated that a video created by Loren Feldman infringed on copyrighted material they control. The alleged infringement is over the use of the YMCA song by the Villiage People.

The video doesn’t play the song. At one point, for a couple of seconds, the puppets sang one line of it (around the 1:30 mark). Yahoo removed the video immediately (it’s still up at YouTube and is embedded above), and sent an email to Feldman threatening to terminate his account (partially copied below).

Yahoo also says that one more notice of infringement, “may result in not only the removal of all videos uploaded by you to the Yahoo! Video service, but also the termination of all your Yahoo! services as well as the deactivation of your Yahoo! ID.”

What bothers me most about this is the fact that the video, by any measure, would be considered fair use under copyright and trademark law. This isn’t a gray area.

Given how frequently bogus DMCA notices are sent out, people should be wary about uploading videos to Yahoo. Receive just two of them and you might find your Flickr, Yahoo Mail, and Delicious accounts wiped out before you even have a chance to respond.

I believe services have some duty to their users to throw out bogus letters before removing materials. Even a cursory glance at the video shows that no intellectual property was being used inappropriately. I expect the music labels and publishers to behave poorly, since they do so almost without exception. But I expect better from the Internet companies serving users.

Email From Yahoo To 1938 Media:

From: “Yahoo! Copyright”
Date: April 5, 2008 12:37:22 PM PDT
To: 1938Media
Subject: Notice of Infringement

RE: http://video.yahoo.com

SCORPIO MUSIC S.A. / CAN’T STOP PRODUCTIONS INC.’s agent has notified Yahoo! Inc. (”Yahoo!”) that you have posted copyrighted material in connection with your uploaded Yahoo! Video which is proprietary to SCORPIO MUSIC S.A. / CAN’T STOP PRODUCTIONS INC.. SCORPIO MUSIC S.A. / CAN’T STOP PRODUCTIONS INC.’s agent has further notified Yahoo! that you are not authorized to use the “Village People” material in question at:

http://video.yahoo.com/watch/2267511/7132801

Yahoo! respects the rights of both its users and the owners and rights holders of intellectual property. Accordingly, and in compliance with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and/or other applicable federal law(s), Yahoo! has expeditiously removed and/or disabled access to the copyrighted material in question.

Through your participation in Yahoo! Video you agree to abide by the Yahoo! Terms of Service, as well as any additional Terms of Service applicable to you. The current Yahoo! Terms of Service may be reviewed at: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms. Pursuant to Section 6 of the Terms of Service, Member Conduct, you agree not to use Yahoo! services to “upload, post, email, transmit or otherwise make available any Content that infringes any patent, trademark, trade secret, copyright or other proprietary rights (”Rights”) of any party.

As you know, Yahoo! may terminate any and/or all services and accounts without notice. This notice is provided to you as a courtesy. Without waiving or limiting any rights or remedies Yahoo! has or may have, you are hereby advised that our receipt of another notification of infringement alleging your unauthorized use of another party’s intellectual property may result in not only the removal of all videos uploaded by you to the Yahoo! Video service, but also the termination of all your Yahoo! services as well as the deactivation of your Yahoo! ID.

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Source: TechCrunch
Original Article: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/264807982/

Hyperlocal blogging models have tried and failed in an attempt to bring blogging to a community level, but New Zealand enterprise Flying Pickle is proving that done right, small scale independent local news does have a future.

Flying Pickle is a free community blog for Korokoro, Maungaraki and Normandale, 3 suburbs on the outskirts of Wellington, New Zealand with an approximate population of 6,500 people. The goal of the site “is to bring the community together in an open and democratic environment where people can exchange views, news, opinions, advertise their businesses in a friendly and non-intrusive manner as well as find help and support from others.” Anyone living, working or just being connected to the area can join the blog and contribute content, be it an announcement, garage sale ad, news or opinion.

With a small target audience, the blog would struggle to be read by a sizable (and sustainable) portion of its target audience. To increase the publications reach, the best content from the blog is included in the Flying Pickle Print Edition that is regularly delivered free to every household in the target area. Around a third of the print edition includes ads, but only as many to cover the costs of the publication and to assist in the running of the site as Flying Pickle is run as a community non-profit organization.

ZetaPrints, who print the offline edition, has the full case study here including costs and numbers and it makes for an interesting read. It’s also a model that could well be copied elsewhere in the world.

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Source: TechCrunch
Original Article: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/264806506/

April 5, 2008
Board of Directors
Yahoo! Inc.
701 First Avenue
Sunnyvale, CA 94089

Dear Members of the Board:

It has now been more than two months since we made our proposal to acquire Yahoo! at a 62% premium to its closing price on January 31, 2008, the day prior to our announcement. Our goal in making such a generous offer was to create the basis for a speedy and ultimately friendly transaction. Despite this, the pace of the last two months has been anything but speedy.

While there has been some limited interaction between management of our two companies, there has been no meaningful negotiation to conclude an agreement. We understand that you have been meeting to consider and assess your alternatives, including alternative transactions with others in the industry, but we’ve seen no indication that you have authorized Yahoo! management to negotiate with Microsoft. This is despite the fact that our proposal is the only alternative put forward that offers your shareholders full and fair value for their shares, gives every shareholder a vote on the future of the company, and enhances choice for content creators, advertisers, and consumers.

During these two months of inactivity, the Internet has continued to march on, while the public equity markets and overall economic conditions have weakened considerably, both in general and for other Internet-focused companies in particular. At the same time, public indicators suggest that Yahoo!’s search and page view shares have declined. Finally, you have adopted new plans at the company that have made any change of control more costly.

By any fair measure, the large premium we offered in January is even more significant today. We believe that the majority of your shareholders share this assessment, even after reviewing your public disclosures relating to your future prospects.

Given these developments, we believe now is the time for our respective companies to authorize teams to sit down and negotiate a definitive agreement on a combination of our companies that will deliver superior value to our respective shareholders, creating a more efficient and competitive company that will provide greater value and service to our customers. If we have not concluded an agreement within the next three weeks, we will be compelled to take our case directly to your shareholders, including the initiation of a proxy contest to elect an alternative slate of directors for the Yahoo! board. The substantial premium reflected in our initial proposal anticipated a friendly transaction with you. If we are forced to take an offer directly to your shareholders, that action will have an undesirable impact on the value of your company from our perspective which will be reflected in the terms of our proposal.

It is unfortunate that by choosing not to enter into substantive negotiations with us, you have failed to give due consideration to a transaction that has tremendous benefits for Yahoo!’s shareholders and employees. We think it is critically important not to let this window of opportunity pass.

Sincerely,

Steven A. Ballmer
Chief Executive Office
Microsoft Corp.

Enough with subtle messages delivered through the press: Microsoft goes on the record with their threat to bail on Yahoo.

This is really just a sign by Microsoft that they really, really still want this deal. The fact is they still haven’t announced their proposed Yahoo board slate, are still radio silent with those board members, and, most notably, haven’t pulled their offer.

This is saber rattling, and a signal that they aren’t ready to increase their offer yet. Nothing more. I stand by my prediction of a negotiated deal in the next twelve days, before Yahoo announces their Q1 earnings. Yahoo has no real alternatives, and Microsoft clearly still wants this deal.

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Source: TechCrunch
Original Article: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/264731015/

San Francisco based Powerset will be publicly launching a long-awaited beta version of the service in the coming weeks, the company told me yesterday. They are working on a new kind of search engine that will understand natural language searches and compete with keyword matching engines that dominate search today.

An early version of the search engine, which was demo’d to me yesterday at their offices, has been available to some users of their Powerlabs site. But for the most part, it’s been kept very quiet.

The early version of the service will serve as a showcase for the user interface and engine itself, but it will not have a full web index behind it. For now, Powerset will query only Wikipedia and Freebase. But when I tested the service I had something very similar to the “Aha!” feeling that ran through me the first time I ever used Google. In short, it is an evolutionary, and possibly revolutionary, step forward in search.

I’ll temper that statement since the company is not putting anything more than a tiny index of two sites behind the service for now. In particular, the fact that Powerset doesn’t have to bother with spam control and other relevance issues (which is what made Google so great when it launched), means it can’t yet be considered any kind of challenger in the search space. But anyone who uses it will be able to see the potential value of the engine when it is placed in front of a full web index.

For now the company is keeping specific features of the engine confidential, but I can say it has evolved significantly since a screen shot was released in mid-2007.

In preparation for the launch, some of the Powerset team have vowed not to shave until the product is released. They are chronicling their facial hair adventure on a site called Powerstache, which has been covered by Jessica Guynn at the LA Times.

Rumors have also been swirling around the company in general. A number of sources have said that Powerset is pitching for additional capital. And the company also appears to have put plans to hire a new CEO on hold - founder Barney Pell is still firmly in charge at the company.

Powerset is one of three new search engines that we’re keeping a close eye on. The other two, Cuill (pronounced “cool”) and Blekko, are still deep in stealth mode.

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Source: TechCrunch
Original Article: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/264482061/

Lots of reports today on the Microsoft-Yahoo negotiation, which is now in its third month of drama and appears to be being negotiated primarily through the media. The WSJ in particular is serving as the court of popular appeal via very controlled leaks from both sides.

Yahoo’s key message is that they want a deal to happen but at a higher bid than the 62% premium Microsoft originally offered. Microsoft’s key message is that the economy has gone south since their original bid, and if they make a new offer it’s going to be lower, not higher. Importantly, they are also threatening to simply walk away from the deal.

Other interesting rumors:

• Various sources say Yahoo continues talks with News Corp., AOL and AT&T. No one seems to think these are anything more than smokescreens
• Microsoft has gone radio silent with their proposed Yahoo board members - if Microsoft intends to go to a proxy fight, they’ll need to notify them before any announcement
• Yahoo will announce Q1 earnings around April 15, the word around the valley is they’ll be surprisingly weak. They need to set the date for their shareholder meeting very soon.

Microsoft is probably hoping that their threats to walk will hit Yahoo’s share price and force them to take the deal. But those threats haven’t been enough to jitter the markets.

So Microsoft either needs to increase their offer by a dollar or two per share (which is what Yahoo shareholders are reportedly signaling to them to get their support), or cancel their offer.

If the offer gets pulled and Yahoo’s Q1 is as weak as people think it might be, their share price could fall back to $19. At that point, the other suitors, as well as private equity funds, get interested again and may make a move.

Yahoo may be able to kill the Microsoft deal, but it doesn’t look like staying an independent entity is going to be an option. Microsoft is the best outcome for everyone, in my opinion. They should take the offer, before their earnings announcement puts them in an even worse negotiating position.

My prediction: this deal gets done at a $1 - $2 per share bid increase, giving Yahoo a symbolic win, with an announcement in the next twelve days.

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Source: TechCrunch
Original Article: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/264438268/