On-demand host goes up against Amazon S3
See our recent coverage of Nirvanix, a U.S. based S3 competitor as well.
Wednesday, October 03, 2007
Microsoft Acquires Social Shopping Network Jellyfish
October 1, 2007 — 11:43 PM PDT — by — Share This
We've just caught wind that Microsoft has acquired Jellyfish, the Wisconsin-based social shopping site. The terms of the deal were not disclosed, and the official announcement has not yet been made, but is expected very soon.
Jellyfish will remain its own entity under the Microsoft umbrella, and all of Jellyfish's 26 employees will stay on board. Co-founded by Brian Wiegand and Mark McGuire, this is the third company that Wiegand has sold, including Business Filings which was sold to a Dutch publishing company in 2002 for $14 million. Jellyfish had also raised about $5 million a year ago, with much of the funding going towards the improvement of Jellyfish's search technology and social components for shopping online.
It's expected that Jellyfish will be incorporated into Windows Live search, but its extensive social networking components and live games, including Smack Shopping, are the crowning jewels of its social shopping experience. With Microsoft's revised focus on growing its online presence in the social networking realm, this may be more heavily incorporated into some of Windows Live's other services, such as its niche community or moms.
Microsoft has also announced that it will be tweaking its ad platform for Windows Live Search, which will shift more attention to the quality of prominent ad placement. Yahoo has incorporated some fun shopping tools on its portal as well, with the promotion of the Woot Daily Deal. DivX has also swapped Google for Yahoo to power its search or its online video-sharing networks.
[via Wisconsin State Journal]
TringMe: Phone Free Click To Call
TringMe offers a bit more flexibility. Callers can ditch their phone and call directly through their Flash widget to your mobile phone, landline, and GTalk (Yahoo and Skype coming soon). All they need is a microphone and one click. Although they're still in private beta, you can try the demo widget to the right for an idea of the experience.
Similar to the other services, your phone number is kept private and the calls are free (now's the time for that overseas call). You can also set the widget to just receive voicemails, which are emailed to you, saved on your standard mailbox, or recorded and played back in GTalk. There is one major drawback, though. Since there is no virtual phone number involved, callers have to be at a computer and can't call you while they're on the go.
Naturally such an easy and anonymous calling service is susceptible to abuse, and I don't see any countermeasures in place to keep out prank calls and telemarketers. The other services have verified phone numbers and white/black lists to keep abuse to a minimum. I expect TringMe will have to incorporate similar controls to make people more comfortable with using the widget.
Wiimote used to control Nokia N95
Filed under: Cellphones, Gaming
[Via MobileCloseup]
RIAA: Our anti-fan lawsuits are costing us millions
During yesterday's RIAA trial proceedings in Virgin v. Thomas, Jennifer Pariser, Sony BMG's the head of litigation. admitted that the 20,000+ anti-downloader lawsuits run by the labels had cost the companies "millions" and were enormous money-losers. I had previously heard from an industry insider that they were running the suits on a break-even basis, shaving costs by running a sloppy boiler-room operation that used cheap telephone thugs and flimsy, badly assembled evidence to extort a few thousand bucks from each of the victims, just barely breaking even.
The next line of questioning was how many suits the RIAA has filed so far. Pariser estimated the number at a "few thousand." "More like 20,000," suggested Toder. "That's probably an overstatement," Pariser replied. She then made perhaps the most startling comment of the day. Saying that the record labels have spent "millions" on the lawsuits, she then said that "we've lost money on this program."LinkThe RIAA's settlement amounts are typically in the neighborhood of $3,000-$4,000 for those who settle once they receive a letter from the music industry. On the other side of the balance sheet is the amount of money paid to SafeNet (formerly MediaSentry) to conduct its investigations, and the cash spent on the RIAA's legal team and on local counsel to help with the various cases. As Pariser admitted under oath today, the entire campaign is a money pit.
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