Yogi Land

Google is reportedly in advanced negotiations with major Hollywood movie studios to launch a streaming, pay-per-view movie rental site by the end of 2010.

The site would be either part of or connected to YouTube, and Google would use its massive search and video empires to direct new users to the new service, helping it stand toe-to-toe with Apple and other competitors in the space.

According to anonymous sources cited by The Financial Times, including an executive with knowledge of the deal, talks have been taking place for months, but they’ve picked up recently. The big reveal here is not the fact that Google wants to launch such a service — we’ve known that for a long time — but the reports that studios are increasingly enthusiastic, so much so that the service is expected to go live by year’s end.

Many enthusiasts and bloggers believe that Apple will release a new version of the Apple TV platform at an event later this week, so the pressure is on Google to show the world what it’s planning as soon as possible. The Financial Times story says that Google’s service will be available first in the United States, but that other countries will be added later.

It also says that the rentals will cost $5 — significantly more than the rentals at iTunes or Amazon Video on Demand. We find that number hard to believe, to be honest. Google is not likely to price its service too highly in comparison to competitors, which typically charge between two and four dollars for a rental.

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Building on What’s Already There

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Google actually began testing out video rentals at YouTube months ago. Its first public test involved a handful of independent films from the Sundance Film Festival. Reports were that the test was not a financial success, but Google nevertheless expanded its service to include a much larger and more mainstream base of titles. It still was not a real competitor to iTunes or Amazon Video on Demand.

Those early rollouts may have been for testing purposes, though, and Google didn’t really sell them with search links and YouTube promotions like The Financial Times describes. One of the executives The Financial Times spoke with said, “They’ve talked about how many people they could steer to this . . . it’s a huge number.”

That’s probably going to be true so long as Google executes its search promotions in the right way, and if it has attractive content, service and prices.

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Reviews: Google, YouTube, iTunes

More About: a la carte, apple, Apple TV, Film, Google, Hollywood, itv, Movies, pay per view, ppv, studios, video, video on demand, vod, youtube

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Around this time yesterday, Cheezburger Network CEO Ben Huh publicly offered on Twitter to buy Reddit from publishing company Condé Nast. Reddit Co-Founder Alexis Ohanian responded in a blog post this morning suggesting that all the relevant parties get together and talk… over cheeseburgers.

Ohanian, who is no longer directly involved in managing Reddit on a daily basis, actually teased in his blog post’s title that he would respond using only LOLcats (for which Huh’s Cheezburger Network is famous), but he didn’t make good on that promise. Instead, he explained how Reddit’s ads are restricted to preserve a clean user experience, and how that poses “a difficult monetization problem that hasn’t yet been solved.”

You might remember that Reddit called on its users to contribute money in exchange for “gold” memberships when the site struggled to meet the revenue goals set by Condé Nast. Huh offered to give Reddit “more resources and less corporate interference” than Condé Nast.

As open as Ohanian seemed to Huh’s wooing, he wasn’t optimistic about the possibility of Reddit switching hands. “Team reddit needs help, but I wouldn’t expect anyone to call you, Ben,” he blogged. “In fact, I’d be very surprised if reddit were sold.”

Despite his concerns, Ohanian suggested a dialogue between Huh and Reddit’s caretakers: “Considering all that you’ve done with the Cheezburger empire, Ben, I think it’s at least worth dropping a note to Chris Slowe & the team to chat over some… uh… cheeseburgers?”

Chances are nothing would come of such a meeting — apparently Huh has already made offers privately with no luck — but Ohanian seems to agree that Reddit isn’t quite at home with Condé Nast.

[via The Next Web]

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Reviews: reddit.com

More About: acquisition, alexis ohanian, Ben Huh, cheezburger network, conde nast, reddit, twitter

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Chatroulette, the random video chat website that became a minor pop culture phenomenon, has been shut down. The site now hosts a message saying “experiment #1 is over” and that a “renewed and updated version” will launch tomorrow.

But what will change? Probably a lot. Sean Parker (founder of Napster and founding president of Facebook) is working in some capacity with teen-aged Chatroulette founder Andrey Ternovskiy to work out the site’s long-term potential.

Parker said he believed the site could be made more interesting (and that it could avoid the incessant penis problem) by automatically directing users to people who are “nexted” the least. In theory, that could reduce the hit-and-miss nature of the experience, but it would be challenging to execute it right.

How would the site’s algorithms decide who gets the interesting users and who gets the less interesting ones? Would the site be divided into ghettos of interesting and uninteresting people, kind of like the dating site OkCupid invisibly partitions matches users by attractiveness? We might found out tomorrow when Chatroulette relaunches.

Up to this point, only very small updates have been made to the site as it originally appeared, including channels and local matching. That hasn’t stopped it from birthing numerous viral sensations like Merton the piano guy.

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Reviews: Facebook

More About: chat, chatroulette, down, downtime, relaunch, updates, video, video chat, web

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If you’re crafty, you can now publish a tweet longer than 140 characters. It’s not a feature but rather a bug of course, so don’t expect it to be possible for much longer.

We first read about the bug in the Twitter Development Talk Google Group, where forum user Chris White posted a step-by-step of how to make it happen. He wrote that you go directly to the Twitter Share URL (http://twitter.com/share?url=) in the Firefox web browser and put your tweet’s text after “url=” — for example, “http://twitter.com/share?url=This is a test of the Twitter 140 character bug.”

The result is a tweet box with a shortened http://t.co/ link (that’s Twitter’s URL shortener). Then you can just click the tweet button and the full-length tweet will go out on your account. It will display properly on Twitter’s website, but many third-party web, desktop or mobile apps will fail to show the whole message.

Twitter user TenhoMania published a tweet that included the entire first chapter of the book of Genesis from the Hebrew Bible — not a wholly original idea at this point, but special for its 3,000+ character length, at least. That and several other lengthy tweets have been retweeted numerous times.

Twitter employee John Adams posted a thanks to Chris White on Google Groups for exposing the bug, and said “I filed a bug with our webclient team,” so a fix is sure to come in the very near future.

Update: Twitter just fixed it. Tweets now display properly or not at all.

More About: bug, share, share button, t.co, tweet, twitter, url shortener

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Facebook has entered the net neutrality debate with a statement critical of the key provisions of Google and Verizon’s net neutrality proposal.

Ever since we found out Google and Verizon were in talks over net neutrality’s future, the web has been awash with an endless stream of opinions, most of them expressing outrage. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is not happy, and neither is the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF).

Facebook, it seems, isn’t a fan of the Google-Verizon proposal as it’s currently written. Here is the company’s statement (emphasis ours):

“Facebook continues to support principles of net neutrality for both landline and wireless networks. Preserving an open Internet that is accessible to innovators — regardless of their size or wealth — will promote a vibrant and competitive marketplace where consumers have ultimate control over the content and services delivered through their Internet connections.”

There are several sections of the proposal that trouble a lot of people, but the biggest sticking point is the exclusion of wireless networks from net neutrality regulations. Verizon and Google exclude it from their proposal for wired connections because “imposition of too many rules up front would not allow us to optimize this network in a fashion that would supercharge the growth we’ve seen in the past.” Critics say that Google and Verizon are trying to protect their own interests, especially their highly profitable Android partnership.

Facebook’s statement doesn’t surprise us; the Google and Facebook are now at war, and allowing Google to define net neutrality on its own terms presents a grave threat to the social network’s business.

For now, expect more of these nuanced statements from all of the parties involved — that is, until the Google-Verizon proposal makes its way to Congress. That’s where you’ll find the real fireworks.

More About: facebook, fcc, Google, net neutrality, verizon

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Amazon is hiring a ton of hardware people, and sources close to the company say that it plans to expand beyond the Kindle e-reader to make new kinds of gadgets to help customers access the content it sells. Most likely, those gadgets would include audio or video players.

More than 70 job listings appear at the website for Amazon’s hardware division, Lab 126. The New York Times’ Bits blog says it has sources “with direct knowledge of the company’s plans” who say that these positions are open in part because the company is planning to finally design and produce new kinds of hardware.

According to one of the sources, Amazon has always planned on this for Lab 126; it just started with the Kindle e-reader. Believe it or not, the source says that Amazon once considered designing its own mobile phone to compete with Google’s Android and Apple’s iPhone, but that decision-makers decided it was “out of Amazon’s reach” at the time. That said, the company is still open to it at some point in the future.

Music players were named as a specific example of what Lab 126 might produce as it staffs up. That makes sense since Amazon sells albums and songs online. It also sells TV shows and movies digitally, so a video player seems a likely candidate as well.

The Kindle has sold millions of units, and Amazon’s e-books have in some cases surpassed hardcovers in sales since its launch. However, Apple recently launched a competing store called iBooks, which allows users to buy and read books on the iPhone and iPad. Amazon has its own app for the iPhone and other mobile platforms, proving that it’s most interested in the revenue it receives from digital book sales. The Kindle hardware is a means to an end. Any new hardware Amazon creates would probably adhere to that philosophy.

More About: amazon, Hardware, Kindle, rumor

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Netflix could pay up to one billion dollars for the rights to stream recently-released feature films from Lionsgate, MGM and Paramount in a deal with cable movie channel upstart Epix.

The Los Angeles Times says the deal has been discussed for months but it’s still facing a few hurdles. Not the least of these is the fact that cable providers (which Epix is fighting an uphill battle to woo) would be less inclined to carry Epix if it also offers its content online outside of its own private portal.

However, Epix might do well to place its bets on online media instead of traditional cable in general if it’s in this for the long haul.

If the deal goes through, the LA Times claims it will last five years, help Epix meet its goal of breaking even in 2011 and retain movie studios’ option to also sell and rent their films on iTunes even as they’re showing on Epix. Competing movie channel HBO doesn’t give its partners the same options.

Films currently on Epix include Iron Man, Star Trek, Saw VI, The Cove, and Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark. Epix has also tried making original material, including a Steve Jobs parody created by a Seinfeld writer.

The LA Times report doesn’t clarify whether or not all titles available on Epix will also be available on Netflix. Netflix could definitely use the influx of current, mainstream movies; many of the Hollywood blockbusters it streams today are provided by a similar deal with the cable movie channel Starz.

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Reviews: iTunes

More About: cable, deal, Epix, Film, films, hbo, itunes, Lionsgate, MGM, Movies, netflix, Paramount, starz, streaming video, television, tv, video, watch instantly

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Today we saw two big developments in the drama surrounding a sexual harassment claim against HP CEO John Hurd which led to his resignation. First, we learned that Hurd received $12.2 million in severance pay, and second, the woman who filed a sexual harassment claim against him stepped into the spotlight.

Today, a story appeared on PR Newswire that not only identified the woman who made the claims against Hurd, but quoted her sharing her thoughts on Hurd’s apparent firing and some aspects of the scandal that led up to it.

She is a single mother named Jodie Fisher. She was contracted as a greeter and organizer for HP. She is also an actress; she appeared in several minor films in the 1990s. In her public statement, she said she and Hurd “never had an affair or intimate sexual relationship,” and, “I have resolved my claim with Mark privately, without litigation.”

More poignantly, she expressed regret that the investigation caused Hurd to lose his job. “I was surprised and saddened that Mark Hurd lost his job over this,” she said. “That was never my intention.”

While Hurd is facing a very public kind of humiliation right now, his departure isn’t a complete disaster. According to Bloomberg BusinessWeek, his severance package included $12.2 million in cash and $16 million in stock. Still, depending on what happened exactly, the consequences for his personal life and reputation may overshadow the payout.

The company claims that Hurd didn’t violate its sexual discrimination policy — as Fisher said, they never had a sexual relationship, so it’s any outsider’s guess exactly what occurred — but that he violated its “Standards of Business Conduct.” Hurd explained his departure by saying, “I realized there were instances in which I did not live up to the standards and principles of trust, respect and integrity that I have espoused at HP and which have guided me throughout my career.”

If you want to learn more about Hurd’s years at HP, Networkworld has written up a short but comprehensive summary of his tenure.

More About: ceo, fired, firing, Hewlett-Packard, HP, jodie fisher, mark hurd, scandal, severance pay, sex, Sexual Harassment, tech

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Federal judge Vaughn Walker this morning overturned California’s Proposition 8, which had denied marriage to same-sex couples. Shortly afterward, a PDF of the judge’s ruling appeared on document-sharing site Scribd and became the most viral doc the site has ever hosted.

Scribd user goodasyou uploaded the PDF titled “Prop 8 Ruling FINAL” shortly after 3:30 PM ET today. We learned about it when we received an e-mail from Scribd Senior Communications Director Michelle Laird, who said that the document was receiving over 1,000 views per second within minutes of its publication.

Later, Scribd CEO Trip Adler was quoted by GigaOM saying that while most documents the company considers “viral” reach 100,000 views within 24 hours, the Prop 8 ruling had reached 100,000 views within 24 minutes. Its propagation has since slowed, and it’s now sitting at just over 200,000. The Internet is fickle — we all know that — but that first burst of interest can be significant.

In addition to embedding options and Twitter or Facebook sharing features, Scribd has its own system for following people who post interesting documents and seeing what new items they upload in a Facebook-like news feed.

A few months ago, the service added new features for sharing documents easily to mobile devices like e-readers and smartphones. The point is, propagation is easy with so many sharing options and such broad platform support, so that probably helped this historic ruling find a digital audience.

This happened while news outlets like the LA Times were simply publishing excerpts from the ruling rather than the complete document.

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“Prop 8 Ruling FINAL” from Scribd

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More About: california, document, law, pdf, prop 8, Proposition 8, ruling, scribd, vaughn walker

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A version of Gmail used by Google employees has been revealed in a screenshot included with a Chromium OS bug report, and the image reveals more than a half dozen changes to the Gmail most of us are using today.

The blog Google Operating System posted the image yesterday, and we’ve also featured it below. Note that Google Operating System originally posted it as two images — the top bar that says “report issues” and so on was its own image, so we’re not sure how it’s really oriented in relation to the rest of the stuff you see.

Also remember that this internal version of Gmail may differ from future public versions.

Savvy Gmail users immediately picked apart the screenshot looking for new features and interesting changes. Most notably, Mail, Contacts and Tasks have all been featured in the top left as the three pillars of the user experience. Right below those, you can see that “Compose Mail” is now an actual button, not just a text link. That’s simply an aesthetic change, but it’s an interesting choice regardless.

Following that theme, there are no longer text links to actions such as “Select All” or “Select None” — those appear to now exist under a textless drop-down box above the Inbox. Drop-down boxes are ubiquitous in general, actually. Note that the e-mail address at the top menu is accompanied by a drop-down box — could that be the Gmail account switcher that Google promised? We’ll all find eventually, I’m sure.

Look in the chat window and you’ll see a new “Call Phone” button. That might be Google Voice integration. You’ll also see two little buttons in the top-right corner of the Google Talk window; one of those could be a rejiggered settings menu, but it’s hard to tell for sure.

Do you see anything else interesting in this image? Let us know in the comments.

More About: chromium os, gmail, Google, image, pic, picture, screenshot

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