Digital Media

Six months after announcing its intention to bring SlingPlayer to the iPhone 3G, Sling Media has another announcement to make--just not the one you're wishing for.

SlingPlayer Mobile for iPhone isn't ready yet, Sling said on Tuesday, but it is on its way.

Like SlingPlayer Mobile for Windows Mobile, Palm, Symbian, UIQ, and BlackBerry (beta) platforms, this iPhone version will let you access one or more Slingboxes from your mobile device, and watch your TV stations on-the-go.

You'll also be able to manage your DVR from the iPhone, and can synchronously add and remove favorite channels directly from the phone's interface--a first for the SlingPlayer Mobile line.

In our demo, the client streamed live, high-quality video of stations like MTV and TBS on both Wi-Fi and the iPhone's 3G network. Swiping the screen horizontally advances you through favorite stations, and flicking up and down rotates through all your home channels.

Sling Media says it will submit the file to the iTunes AppStore by the end of the first fiscal quarter. While Sling Media shared no firm price tag, it could mirror the $29.99 lifetime fee of SlingPlayer Mobile on other platforms.

Before getting too excited, just remember that Apple has been known to kill promising apps, ostensibly for the crime of a large data transfers. SlingPlayer Mobile for iPhone could suffer the same fate. Assuming it doesn't, the client still faces competition from Orb, whose full version, OrbLive, delivers live TV and media stored on your PC for $10.

Americans appear to be getting more comfortable watching videos online--and Google is the clear winner.

Internet users in the U.S. watched 12.7 billion online videos in November, an increase of 34 percent versus a year ago, according to numbers released Monday by market researcher ComScore.

Thanks to YouTube, Google Sites retained the crown as the top U.S. video property with nearly 5.1 billion videos viewed--or about 40 percent of all videos viewed online--with the video-sharing site accounting for more than 98 percent of Google's traffic. Fox Interactive Media was a distant second with 439 million videos watched (or 3.5 percent), followed by Viacom Digital with 325 million videos watched (2.6 percent).

The data also showed that 77 percent of all U.S. Internet users had viewed online videos in 2008, and that the average online video viewer watched 273 minutes of video.

That's all good news for sites like YouTube and Hulu that are trying to build an online ad market around video. One analyst firm expects the market for video ads to grow 45 percent to $850 million this year.

An eMarketer study released in December forecast more growth in years to come: $1.25 billion in 2010; $1.85 billion in 2011; $3 billion in 2012; and $4.6 billion in 2013.

(Credit: ComScore)

Apple has cut deals that will finally enable iTunes to offer songs free of copy protection software from the three largest music labels, according to two sources close to the negotiations. In exchange, Apple has agreed to become more flexible on pricing, the sources said.

Under the terms of the deal, song prices will be broken down into three categories--older songs from the catalog, midline songs (newer songs that aren't big hits), and current hits--said one of the sources. Apple has offered songs free of digital rights management protections from EMI for more than a year. But EMI accounts for less than 10 percent of music sold in the U.S.; these new deals will expand iTunes' DRM-free library to include songs from the other three major labels (Sony BMG, Universal, and Warner Music).

Apple and the music labels have also apparently come to terms on over-the-air downloads, according to a source. That would allow iPhone owners to download songs to their mobile devices via cell networks and without the aid of Wi-Fi. Apple, which closed the deals last week, could announce the agreements as early as Tuesday at the Macworld Conference and Expo in San Francisco.

Apple did not respond to requests for comment.

DRM-free songs are something that many iTunes users have requested for some time. However, the celebration over their appearance at the country's largest music retailer may be overshadowed by increased prices on some hit songs, which might be seen by some as an Apple surrender on pricing. Apple fans have long applauded the company for holding the line on pricing despite loud complaints from the major music labels.

The good news is that the price of catalog music is falling to 79 cents per song. The labels will get an opportunity to price some hit songs for more than 99 cents but eventually those songs will drop to 79 cents, according to one source.

Before iTunes users get too worked up, they should remember that song prices at iTunes haven't increased in five years. According to the Consumer Price Index, a 99-cent song in 2002 would be worth $1.17 today.

Not only will new music downloads be free of copy-protection software, but Apple and the labels will begin removing DRM from music already available in the iTunes Store, the source said. However, it's unclear what will happen to songs that have already been purchased.

Click here for more Macworld Expo coverage from CNET News.

Searches at Microsoft's Windows Live Search site dropped again in November from a year ago while Google's continued to rise, according to Nielsen Online figures released on Monday.

Searches at Windows Live Search fell 16.7 percent year-over-year, giving Microsoft 9.1 percent market share in the U.S. in November.

Google's searches rose 21.7 percent, for 64.1 percent market share, and Yahoo's searches dropped 1.4 percent from November 2007, for 16.1 percent share.

Total searches for the month exceeded 8 billion, up 9.6 percent from a year earlier.

In October, Google's searches rose 8.1 percent, giving it 61.2 percent share, while Yahoo's searches declined 12 percent and Microsoft's fell 19 percent year-over-year.

Top 10 search providers for November 2008, ranked by searches (U.S.)

(Credit: Nielsen Online)

(Credit: Roku)

Amazon Video On Demand will be coming to the Roku Netflix Player in early 2009.

Amazon's video service will become the first non-Netflix "channel" to be available on the Roku box. The service, formerly known as Amazon Unbox, offers more than 40,000 movies and TV shows.

While that dwarfs the 12,000 or so streaming titles currently available via Netflix--and includes many newer titles as they're released on DVD--they're available on a pay-per-view basis rather than the flat-fee subscription of the Netflix.

A mid-December firmware update included the promise of "a number of great new channels that will begin to appear on your player in early 2009." That implies that Amazon is the first of several additional viewing options that will eventually be available on the box. Whether or not the Roku hardware will be rebranded to emphasize its more diverse choices beyond Netflix remains to be seen.

Amazon Video On Demand is also available on TiVo DVRs and the Sony Bravia Internet Link, as well as on Windows PCs and Macs.

The Recording Industry Association of America has dumped the company charged with gathering evidence for use against people accused of illegally sharing copyrighted music, according to a report Sunday in The Wall Street Journal.

As part of its controversial antipiracy strategy, the RIAA had enlisted MediaSentry to search the Internet for evidence of people sharing large amounts of music. The trade group's campaign on behalf of the world's largest recording labels reportedly resulted in lawsuits against about 35,000 people.

However, MediaSentry was often criticized for its gathering techniques, often characterized as invasive and excessive.

Earlier this year, The Chronicle of Higher Education visited the RIAA offices and got a demonstration of how MediaSentry hunted down file sharers. MediaSentry wrote scripts to automatically hunt for the names of copyright songs and locate the IP addresses of computers sharing files.

MediaSentry checked the hashes (identifying marks) on the song files to make sure they matched the copyright song. If the marks didn't match, the company used software from Audible Magic to compare sound waves.

MediaSentry would then forward the information to the RIAA.

However, MediaSentry only checked to see which songs were being offered; it had no way to check who was downloading them. So, instead the RIAA argued that making a file available is copyright infringement. But that strategy was dealt a blow in April when a federal judge rejected the RIAA's "making available" argument in a lawsuit against a husband and wife accused of copyright infringement.

Last month, the RIAA announced that it no longer plans to file lawsuits against people it suspects of pirating digital music files. Instead, the RIAA has reached agreements with unidentified Internet service providers to "reduce the service," to chronic file-sharers. Exactly what a reduction of service may include isn't specified, but a source close to the situation said that none of the ISPs have agreed to limit a user's bandwidth, a practice known as throttling.

The RIAA said it would replace MusicSentry with DtecNet Software ApS--a Copenhagen-based company the trade group has worked with before, according to the newspaper.

Daily market share in "All Categories" as measured by visits, based on daily usage.

(Credit: Hitwise)

Did we turn to Facebook for Christmas cheer, or to cheer up Christmas?

The social-networking site, which has been experiencing explosive growth in membership, saw record traffic on Christmas Eve. Facebook achieved its highest-ever traffic level, accounting for 2.18 percent compared with a 1.42 percent average for November, according to numbers gathered by Hitwise. That's a 54 percent increase compared with the November average and a 53 percent increase year over year.

That pattern was mirrored in the U.K., where visits to the social networking site had a market share of 4.65 percent, accounting for one in every 22 Internet visits.

So, in this season when faithful friends gather near to us, are we substituting Facebook for face time with our loved ones?

Hitwise's Heather Hopkins offers some theories in a blog post on what might have caused the holiday traffic spike.

Facebook's top markets of New York, Chicago, Washington, Boston, and Philadelphia were all hard hit last week by severe weather, which may have prevented many people from getting out and visiting in person, Hopkins notes.

Noting that Christmas Day was Facebook's busiest traffic day in 2007 (one day later than 2008), Hopkins suggests that boredom--when coupled with the weather--may have contributed to the increase.

"I received 5 friend requests last week and many holiday wishes," Hopkins writes. "Maybe people were simply bored while stuck home with family and so escaped to computers to catch up with friends."

Perhaps the best explanation is that more people were using the site to send their late holiday greetings. Hitwise also saw increases in traffic at Yahoo Mail and e-greetings Web sites, Hopkins said.

Whatever the reason is for the record traffic, a better question is whether its revenue can keep pace.

The social network put out stats last month that peg its active-user count at 140 million. But Facebook's growth is primarily overseas now, and its international pull is responsible for those skyrocketing numbers.

Especially overseas, server power can be costly. Facebook has raised a ton of venture capital, is reportedly hunting for more, and says it's in good financial shape. That comes back into question, however, if it's growing faster than it ever expected to.

Move over, Pandora. There's a new music service in town--well, in some towns anyway.

TorrentFreak has an in-depth write-up of a new music streaming service called Spotify, which shows an awful lot of promise--so much so that the music piracy-focused blog sees it as a viable alternative to downloading pirated songs for free.

Spotify is a lean, downloadable application that lets users stream music instantly from its library--a library built with the blessing of EMI Music, Sony BMG, Universal Music Group, Warner Music Group, and some smaller record labels. That, of course, begs the question: how does it make money? Spotify offers two ways to use its service, a free service sponsored by ads, and a paid subscription service.

Once downloaded, the service allows users to search its music catalog by artist, genre, or title, and stream the tracks on-demand any number of times.

One of the cooler features is the ability to create and share playlists (a la the now-defunct Muxtape). And the service recently added the ability to scrobble the songs you listen to through Spotify on Last.fm.

That's the good news. Now for the bad news: It isn't officially available in the U.S. yet (though a Digg commenter did provide a way for people to try it out Stateside, at least temporarily). Right now it can be accessed in the UK, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Finland, Norway, and Sweden. And the company plans to roll out its service to new markets in 2009, according to its Web site.

Judging from comments on TorrentFreak, Digg, and TechCrunch, the service seems to have impressed people who have tried it with its speed, usability, and depth of songs (though it's taken dings for sound quality, frequency of commercials, and lack of portability). I haven't had a chance to try it out yet, but as a music fan who got pretty fed up with the repetition of songs on Pandora's artist radio stations over the holiday break, I think this looks very promising.

As for TorrentFreak's claims that Spotify is so good that it might stop piracy in its tracks, I'm skeptical. This is a streaming service, so the songs are only available to you when you're online and connected to it. It doesn't work with portable music devices, so you can't take the songs with you on the subway or to the gym (or, for me, drop it into the iPod dock hooked up to my stereo). And since the songs aren't downloaded to your hard drive, they're not in your grand collection along with the rest of your music. Spotify might have a decent-size library, but it doesn't have all the songs I've ripped from vinyl, or the latest album from a favorite local band that happens not to have signed with a label yet. Going back and forth between a local library and a centralized library like Spotify would be annoying.

Having everything in one place and being able to take it with you wherever you go is the goal for any music fan. And until Spotify offers that ability, I don't see it magically wiping out music piracy altogether. But it does appear that this group is on the right track, from the perspective of music fans, bands, and music labels.

Has anyone spent a good deal of time with the service yet? If so, what say you? Is Spotify the wave of the future, or another Web 2.0 dud in an already cluttered arena?

Disclosure: Last.fm is a part of CBS Interactive, which also publishes CNET News.

The Israel Defense Forces this week extended its airstrikes on Gaza to the Web, posting video footage of its air assault against Hamas militants on YouTube and using Twitter to spread its message.

According to various news reports, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) created its own YouTube channel carrying videos that include black-and-white aerial footage of attacks on Hamas weapon sites, and clips of Hamas terrorists loading rockets into trucks.

An IDF spokesperson said it is using the platform to "help us bring our message to the world," by offering "exclusive footage showing the IDF's operation success" in Gaza.

Israel launched its air assault on Gaza on December 27 in a move to stop Hamas militants from firing rockets into Israeli territory.

The New York Israeli Consulate also initiated a Twitter feed in an attempt to share its viewpoints with a younger audience, garnering more than 2,900 followers since its microblogging service was launched Monday.

Spokesperson for the consulate David Saranga, as quoted in a CNN report, said: "We saw that there is a big debate, a very vivid debate about the situation in Gaza, and we wanted to bring our point of view. We wanted to share it with people on Twitter.

"We wanted to outreach to the young generation, who does not read the conventional media, but is still interested in events in the Middle East, so we thought this is a good way to be an official voice for the questions people are asking," Saranga said.

Videos removed, reinstated
Some of the IDF's videos on YouTube were removed, presumably due to a policy on the video-sharing site that prohibits "inappropriate content." The site provides a feature that allows users to flag videos as unsuitable, and such content will be removed if it is deemed to violate YouTube's guidelines.

Some clips, however, were later reinstated.

While not commenting directly on the IDF videos, YouTube's policy chief Victoria Grand said in the CNN report: "Occasionally, a video flagged by users is mistakenly taken down. When this is brought to our attention, we review the content and take appropriate action, which may include restoring videos that had been removed."

The IDF said in a statement on its YouTube channel: "We are saddened that YouTube has taken down some of our exclusive footage.

"As the state of Israel again faces those who would see it destroyed, it is imperative that we in the IDF show the world the inhumanity directed against us and our efforts to stop it."

According to FoxNews.com, Israel plans to launch an independent blog where videos can be viewed without any restrictions.

Eileen Yu reported for ZDNet Asia.

Digital music, long the bane of the music industry, may finally be something that record label executives can smile about.

For 2008, total music sales rose 10 percent to 1.51 billion units sold, up from 1.36 billion units the year before, according to industry tracker Nielsen. Units tallied include physical albums, digital albums and tracks, and music videos.

The biggest contributor to the growth was digital music, Nielsen reported. There were 1.07 billion digital tracks sold in 2008, up 27 percent from 2007, and there were 65.8 million digital albums sold, up 32 percent.

Those numbers square with recent reports on music downloads. For the third quarter, for instance, legal music downloads from sites such as iTunes and AmazonMP3 were up 29 percent from the same period a year earlier, according to NPD Group.

And coincidentally or not, the Recording Industry Association of America in December said that it would dramatically curb its practice of suing people that it suspected of illegal sharing of copyrighted music.

All told, according to Nielsen, the number of albums sold--including CDs, LPs, and digital albums--fell 14 percent to 428 million in the year just ended. Physical albums sold through e-commerce sites fell 8.6 percent to 27.5 million units from 2007 to 2008.

Universal Music Group came out on top among record labels for total album sales in 2008 (31.5 percent market share, down ever so slightly from 2007) as well as for digital albums and digital tracks (market shares of 27.8 percent and 31.8 percent, respectively). Sony BMG was second overall, with 25.3 percent of all album sales for the year, Nielsen said.

The top-selling digital song for 2008 was "Bleeding Love" from Leona Lewis, with 3.4 million units sold, while Rihanna was the top-selling digital artist, with 9.9 million units sold.

Radiohead claimed top honors in the vinyl realm, both as an artist and for one of its albums. The rock band sold 61,200 vinyl albums during the year, of which 25,800 were its In Rainbows album. In 2007, In Rainbows was the focal point of an experiment by Radiohead to let people pay whatever they saw fit to download the album.

Nielsen noted that vinyl sales set a record in its SoundScan era, at 1.88 million units sold, beating the previous record of 1.5 million from 2000. (Nielsen SoundScan tracks point-of-purchase sales of recorded music.)

Leona Lewis, Rihanna, and Coldplay were among the top-selling artists in the digital realm for 2008.

(Credit: Nielsen)