Search Engine Optimization News Blog

YouTube is making some decent money from monetizing pirated content. They offer choices, now, for large media companies whose copyrighted content is being shown on the video site; remove it, leave it, or leave it and monetize it.

90 % are going for door number three, and YouTube is splitting the take with them (the uploaders, of course, get zilch.) This is a huge step forward for YouTube, whose monetization strategy to date is to charge $175,000 per day for a homepage video ad.

The battle to monetize YouTube has been made glaringly apparent as other video sites appear to have no such woes. YouTube continues to be a drain on Google, but with the new revenue sharing strategy perhaps there is hope in sight at last.

Speaking of copyrighted content, a federal judge has thrown out the suit against Yeoh by IO. The online video site was accused of copyright infringement and sued by the adult entertainment company.

The judge ruled that Veoh was diligent in attempting to keep their website clear of pirates, and that they were protected by law under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act’s (DMCA) safe harbor provisions.

Googel is excited, hoping it will have some influence when their legal battle with Viacom over content on YouTube finally reaches a courtroom. The prior ruling won’t set precedent in New York, unfortunately, but it gives some measure of relief knowing that at least the case in California is moving forward.

YouTube is a scene of fierce controversy on so many things – of course the Viacom suit is just the tip of the iceberg, Google is always getting sued for something or another. The interest in the video remains.

Yahoo isn’t the only fish in the sea, however – and it remains to be seen how many will be looking for an alternate place to post their videos as more and more options become available.

YouTube still leads the pack, however, with a staggering number of visitors per year (ranging in the stratosphere), and the new feature of captioning is proving intriguing. Being able to add captions and subtitles begs the question of whether or not this is crawlable text, and if so, how to make it work to user’s advantage.

The one flaw so far in YouTube’s new feature is that captions don’t seem to work after embedding… and there is no web based editor supplied, though YouTube does offer several suggestions on their help page.

YouTube is kicking into high gear to stay competitive!

Those expecting Google and Yahoo to anxiously await the out come of a federal anti-trust investigation into their partnership may be surprised.

The two search engines are planning to integrate Google ads on the Yahoo network as early as October, which is in line with an earlier statement by Google back in June, when they indicated they would delay for three and a half months before moving forward with the proposed deal with yahoo.

Erich Schmidt said that “We are in the process of talking to the government. They’ve not indicated one way or the other how they’re dealing with us,” which was followed a Google spokesperson affirming that “Ultimately we have confidence that they’ll be able to conduct their review within that time period and allow us to move forward.”

The Justice Department had announced in July that they were planning to delve deeply into the Yahoo / Google partnership and the potential effect it could have on the entire internet world. Many seem to think that it gives Google an unfair advantage; others insist that Google is not a bad thing, and that since Yahoo’s own platform (Panama) failed, they have to monetize or go the way of the dinosaur.

The ironic slant for some is how furiously Google opposed Microsoft’s attempt to buy out Yahoo this spring. Claiming that it would be a merging to two overly competitive entities, Google nonetheless didn’t hesitate to throw their own hat in the ring.

The decision to go ahead in October regardless of if a decision has not yet been reached indicates a certain amount of confidence on Google’s part that there is nothing to fear from the anti trust board.

Yahoo is hoping that the revenue brought in by the Google ads will be enough to send stock prices back up out of the slump they subsided into after the failure of the Microsoft buyout.

In an effort to combat with Google Microsoft continues to look for new ways to gather allies. After Microsoft failed dismally in its attempt to buy Yahoo, it has turned its eye on Greenfield Online Inc. The price negotiation that was underway is frozen now at $486 million. Micrpsoft plans to add websites that will help customers to search for product reviews and compare prices.All Greenfield Online Inc. shareholders will be given $17.50 as per Microsoft’s statement. Greenfield maintains the CIAO shopping sites of Europe. Greenfield was already in negotiation with Quadrangle Group that was willing to give $15.50 per share and this agreement ended this week. More services will be added to help consumers to find products on the internet easily and the software that will be deployed is claimed to be more efficient than Google’s tool. If at all Microsoft is to make any money from Greenfield deal, it has to concentrate on search advertising that is based on transactional searches. Microsoft will be able to make only if it enhances the quality of those search results.

The price offered by Microsoft is just 1.4% higher than Greenfield’s price at the closing yesterday. However in the last three months the value increased drastically in the last three months; there was an increase of 32% over a period of 3 months. Microsoft’s shares did not see such a positive trend this year and it is unlikely that it will rise any time in the near future

Probably Microsoft might not have been interested in Greenfield, if it were to be successful in acquiring. Moreover, their internet business model did not prove to be a very successful model and it was not so very successful in matching its competitors Google and Yahoo. Microsoft had to give cash to people who used MSN to shop online. With this new deal Microsoft is hoping that things will change. CIAOs features will be incorporated with Microsoft’s Live Search.

Microsoft is looking for ways to boost its unprofitable Internet business after failing to buy Yahoo! Inc. this year. In May, Microsoft started giving cash to people who use its search engine to shop online. Ciao’s features will become part of Microsoft’s Live Search program. This deal will be fully realized in the fourth quarter as per Microsoft’s statement. CIAOs monthly visitor traffic is 26.5 million unique hits. The visitors come from seven countries; with this new deal Microsoft might like to expand its territory and concentrate on more countries.

To get anywhere closer to Google, Microsoft should spend $1.2 billion on research and development and this does not include the marketing costs. Greenfield Online Inc. also has an Internet survey business which Microsoft has agreed to sell to some financial buyer whose name is not published. However, Microsoft can go ahead with the acquisition irrespective of the status of the Internet Survey Business.

It should not become the Microsoft’s version of Google – YouTube deal where Google is yet to see some decent profits out of YouTube.

Comcast has been the focus of a lot of controversy this year! They were slapped by the FCC for illegal filtering, deliberately slowed down high use subscribers, and in general ticked a lot of internet users off.

Following the lead of major phone companies, Comcast has announced that unlimited doesn’t mean unlimited. ATT customers learned that if they exceed the magic number of minutes they can be disconnected with no warning – I was one.

Several years ago I worked at home managing a crew of phone solicitors for a local charity. I logged quite a few minutes per week, and woke up one morning to find all of my phone services disconnected.

Fortunately, I had a cell phone, and demanded to know what the deal was. My bill was paid up, why did I not have a dial tone?

The customer service rep was haughty. “We believe you are using your phone for internet dial up,” he said.

“Look at my bill,” I retorted. “What dial up service do you know of that dials a different number every 45 to 120 seconds?!”

“Well,” he huffed, “You are probably using the phone as a business phone.”

“Wrong again,” I said. “The charity I’m working with is a non-profit, and I checked with you people before I started the phone calls to be sure it was OK. Next excuse.”

“You went over 2,000 minutes” he said. “You have to upgrade your plan to the 4,000 minute plan.”

WHAT??!! “I have unlimited calls,” I said, furious. “I pay you people an outrageous amount for UNLIMITED CALLS. What do you MEAN, 4,000 minute plan?”

Well, it turned out unlimited didn’t mean unlimited. As of October 1st, Comcast will no longer have unlimited service either – the customers who go over 250 GB a month cap will be cut off, and customers who exceed it twice in a six month period will be summarily terminated for twelve months.

Comcast says that they feel that customers asked to voluntarily curtail their activity will be happy to comply, and that in any case these high usage clients only account for less than 1 % of their total base of over 14 million subscribers.

So less than one hundred forty thousand people are going to be supremely ticked off come October. This could potentially affect thousands more as video applications continue to rise, so Comcast may come to regret this move as people seek alternate providers.

At last Google has shared with the world about how it was going to distribute applications, mobile phones using its Android OS in its Android Blog. It is not difficult for one to see a lot of similarities between Google’s Android Market and Apple’s App Store. Even the name, “Android Market” was released only today. All along it was referred just as Android applications. As per Google’s statement, Android Market is an open source CDS or content distribution system which is designed to facilitate the end users to identify, track, buy, download and install different types of content on all devices that use Android as their Operating System. Google stated, “The concept is simple: leverage Google’s expertise in infrastructure, search and relevance to connect users with content created by developers like you.”

Google says that it prefers to use the term ‘market’ rather than ‘store’ to make its purpose clear that developers should have an open environment to make their content available. This open environment should not be obstructed in anyway so that there is free flow of information without any hesitation. This system seemingly follows the steps of YouTube. The merchant has to register an account, upload the content and give all the required descriptions and then publish it; it is all done in this three simple steps. It is not the end of the story; Google also has more in store for Android Market. All the registered users will also have a dashboard and analytics that will help them to promote their business and there by make their offerings even better.

By stating that it does not want to call its system “Store” and that it wants an open environment it obviously too a jab at Apple. Google is very cautious in having information just trickle out to prod the users interest by not giving all at once. The business details are yet to be announced. As of now we just know that Android Market is the platform for users to share content in an open environment.

The first handsets are to be enabled with the beta version of Android Market shortly and developers can expect it anytime. As per Google’s statement they are yet to finalize the details but as of now Google has committed to support the free applications. After the launch of the fuller version, Google will announce the user community about the latest updates on paid content, versioning, multiple device profile support, analytics etc. Developers are waiting eagerly to hear about the revenue splits; those of us who worked on App Store would know that App Store had a revenue split of 30/70. Google is pleased to see the support so far and the sharing of content. We are sure that Google will try to make Android Market more robust because it would like to launch with the remark that Android Market is Google’s version of App Store. Let us wait to see what is in ‘store’ for us in the “Market’ in the months to come.