Online advertising 'overtakes TV'

"Online advertising spending in the UK has overtaken television expenditure for the first time, a report has said."

From the BBC

The future of search on your PVR

"Blinkx CEO on Google, set-top search and Project Canvas"

From TechRadar

--------------

Comment: Very interesting interview with Chandratillake about the state of the online video sector in the US and UK, set-top boxes and the like.

However, I found this rather worrying:

"TR: How you going to market your video search concept to people?

SC: That's a great question and there is no answer to that yet. What will probably happen is that we will launch it as a free add-on to any sophisticated user that wants to try out the service.

If you are a person who is already savvy with their PVR, then you might suddenly find that you get an invite to try this brand-new thing out. It may be through a letter or electronically, I don't know. But it will almost be like a closed Beta to begin with.

TR: Will the service be free?

SC: Whatever you want to watch, there will be an option by pressing a button to delve further with searching. Sometimes this will be ad-funded searches on the web, other times it will be pay-for-view.

So you will sign up to a number of pay-for-view libraries and, to go back to the travel show example, you will have an historical archive of content you can access on any given subject for a pound or two."

Sounds to me - as I've been saying for some time - as if Blinkx have built fantastic technology but don't actually know how to market it. This chimes with my experience of SmartShopper - a great tool, but with no marketing or PR push behind it, how the hell is anyone going to know it's there to download the software to use it in the first place?

In their marketing material Blinxk refer to themselves a a 'sub' or a 'stealth bomber' - ie under the radar. How does that square with releasing mass-market consumer products like SmartShopper (and maybe one day, if they get their act together, Transaction Hijacking)? I know those aren't under the Blinkx brand name, but even so, this company seems completely inept at the whole marketing and PR side of things. Worrying...

Google sites pass 10B video views in August

"During August about 161 million Internet users in the U.S. watched an all-time high number of online videos -- more than 25 billion -- and Google Inc. sites accounted for more than 10 billion of them, according to a report Monday.

Reston, Va.-based comScore Inc. said Mountain View-based Google (NASDAQ:GOOG) continued to rank as the top U.S. video purveyor in August, representing 40 percent of all videos viewed online.

San Bruno-based YouTube Inc. accounted for 99 percent of all videos viewed at the Google sites property. Microsoft Sites ranked second with 547 million (2.2 percent) followed by Viacom Digital with 539 million videos viewed (2.1 percent) and Hulu with 488 million (1.9 percent)."

from San Jose Business Journal

-------------

Comment: Online video is exploding - let's hope Blinkx are getting their fair share of that traffic and associated revenue. Because one thing's for sure - if Blinkx mgmt balls-up this historic opportunity they'll not only be a laughing stock they will also have destroyed all their careers...

Online video can offer measurable engagement

[click for larger image]

from New Media Age, 24th September 2009

Watching TV online gives ads an immediate and direct response

[click for larger image]

from New Media Age, 24th September 2009

Online video viewers more accepting of ads than TV audiences

[click for larger image]

from New Media Age, 24th September 2009

Broadcasters stall metric for online video advertising

[click for larger image]

From New Media Age, 24th September 2009

Follow-up letter to Steve Ballmer

Mr. Steven A. Ballmer, CEO,

Microsoft Corporation
One Microsoft Way
Redmond, WA 98052-7329
USA

Re: Blinkx

Dear Mr Ballmer

You may recall that I wrote to you back in January regarding Blinkx.

Given the rumours sweeping the UK markets in recent days about a Microsoft approach for Autonomy, I thought I would write again.

Of course I have no way of knowing whether the rumours are true, but even if they are not Microsoft could do a lot worse, strategically and financially, than think about acquiring Autonomy and Blinkx together.

Sadly, as far as shareholders are concerned there has been no improvement with Blinkx since last I wrote. Despite the CEO, Suranga Chandratillake, continuing to make very bullish statements about Blinkx’s future, the markets and potential investors don’t seem convinced and the stock price continues to languish. This may have something to do with the fact that none of the Blinkx senior management team – so far as I am aware – have ever bought a single share in the company in the open market to demonstrate their faith in the company’s future. Mr Chandratillake seems completely unaware of the psychological impact that this refusal to commit by the senior management team has had on markets and existing shareholders alike.

And yet from a purely technology point of view Blinkx appears to be continuing to make major strides. They now have in excess of 35 million hours of video indexed – and in fact only on Monday of this week you may have seen that they announced a deal with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation to index their video content too.

In addition their Smartshopper product has been released (IE-only at the moment) and seems to work well – although without any major rollout of which I am aware, or any press or publicity, it’s hard to know how consumers are supposed to find and install the software.

And this really goes to the nub of many shareholders’ criticisms of the Blinkx management team: their B2B strategy seems to be progressing well (if very slowly: shareholders were told before last Christmas that Transaction Hijacking, another of their commerce-targeted products, was ready to go, and only now are management talking about establishing server farms in Nevada to host the solution), but they don’t seem to have a B2C strategy at all.

Blinkx has an index of more than 35 million hours of video. I would have thought it a total no-brainer to want to expose that index to as many video searches as possible, so that the index can be monetized by application of Blinkx’s Ad Hoc – ad-matching software which sets contextual ads against video search results.

And yet Blinkx has released no branded Facebook widget (Facebook currently has around 300 million users), nor have they released a branded iPhone app (Apple, as I’m sure you’re aware Mr Ballmer, are currently selling somewhere in the region of 5 million iPhones a quarter). Both of these applications would be relatively quick and relatively easy to produce, and would provide a quick ROI. They are low-hanging fruit which I would have thought any competent management team would have plucked before moving on to other matters.

It seems to me very much as though Blinkx is very good at creating technology but – at least on the evidence to date – absolutely appalling at monetizing it to benefit shareholders. Here we are more than two years after IPO, and yet the self-described “world’s largest and most advanced video search engine” is at less than half the IPO price. Of course I do not discount the economic downturn which has prevailed during that period: but again, if Blinkx had good PR, took the easy low-hanging fruit and communicated well with shareholders I doubt very much that the share price would be anywhere near where it is at the moment.

But such a low share price does, however, present a great opportunity for anyone who wished to acquire Blinkx. Blinkx management might not have any idea of how to monetize their technology – but I bet you could, couldn’t you Mr Ballmer?

Microsoft could probably get Autonomy and Blinkx doe somewhere between $5bn-$10bn. A very great deal of money, no doubt, but surely better for Microsoft to spend its cash mountain buying competitive advantage than to have it sitting there gathering hardly any interest? With both those companies Microsoft would be in a position to take on – and possibly even destroy – Google

Buying both companies would leapfrog Microsoft to a leading position in both the corporate search and video search markets – and if you don’t want the corporate search business I’m sure Oracle or SAP would happily buy it off you, leaving you with all the Blinkx-related IP in all markets, protected by more than 111 patents.

Worth thinking about, Mr Ballmer, no?

Yours sincerely

Autonomy jumps on Microsoft interest talk -traders

LONDON, Sept 24 (Reuters) - Shares in search software firm Autonomy Corp (AUTN.L) rose as much as 5.6 percent on Thursday, with traders citing renewed market talk of a Microsoft (MSFT.O) interest in the UK company.

Traders said there was talk that Microsoft may bid for Autonomy at around 2,800 pence per share, which was up 3.2 percent at 1,613 pence at 1058 GMT.

Both Microsoft and Autonomy were not immediately available for comment.

More than 1.5 million Autonomy shares changed hands, compared with a daily average of 1.06 million shares in the past 30 days, according to Thomson Reuters data. (Reporting by Dominic Lau, Atul Prakash, Georgina Prodhan and Blaise Robinson)

from Reuters

---------------

Comment: Hopefully AU first, then MS will bid for Blinkx (which may actually be what they want all along)...

Of course, I wrote to Steve Ballmer back in January. I really would piss myself laughing if it transpired that my letter actually led to anything,,,

WPP's CEO Thinks Internet Advertising Has a Long Way to Grow

This Just In: Internet Ad Spending To Approach $65 Billion Next Year

"That's the global online ad estimate for 2010, according to the latest forecast from WPP's GroupM Interaction unit. At that rate, digital media will account for 15% of all ad spending, up from 13% this year.

The U.S. share will be slightly more robust for digital media: 17% (or $24.4 billion in online advertising dollars).

The hike is being sparked by ad spending increases in both search and mobile and a continuing ad spending decline in traditional media, the GroupM release notes, adding that, Internet ad spending has outperformed all other media throughout the recession of the past year and into the current recovery.

Most of the U.S. growth is driven by search and video..."

from MediaPost News

------

Comment: let's hope a reasonable whack of that ends up in Blinkx's coffers, eh?

AGM

RNS Number : 4594Z

Blinkx Plc

22 September 2009



BLINKX PLC RESULTS OF ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING

CAMBRIDGE, England - 22 September 2009 - blinkx plc (LSE AIM: BLNX.), the world's largest and most advanced video search engine, held its Annual General Meeting (AGM) in Cambridge, England today.

All of the resolutions tabled at the meeting were passed with the requisite majorities. The resolutions were as follows:

Resolution 1 - Approval of accounts

Resolution 2 - Re-election of Anthony Bettencourt as a director of the company

Resolution 3 - Re-appointment of Deloitte LLP as independent auditors

Resolution 4 - Authorize the Directors to determine the auditors' remuneration

Resolution 5 - Authorize the Directors to allot securities

Resolution 6 - Disapplication of pre-emption rights

Resolution 7 - Authority to make market purchases of company shares
Resolution 8 - That a general meeting, other than annual general meeting, may be called on not less than
14 days clear notice

Details relating to voting will be posted on the company's website, www.blinkx.com.

--------

Comment: Last year the Board also asked for "Authority to make market purchases of company shares". Did they do a share buyback? They did not. What the hell is the point of asking for authority and then not using it?

Item 8 is interesting. Why would they want to call a meeting other than an AGM? Maybre they expect a takeover approach. I sure hope so - put all their long-suffering shareholders out of their misery once and for all (and hopefully at a nice premium to the IPO price)...

Did you know...

blinkx Partners with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation to Bring Users Worldwide the Best in Canadian Culture

RNS Number : 4214Z

Blinkx Plc

22 September 2009



blinkx Partners with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation to Bring Users Worldwide the Best in Canadian Culture

Get your Northern exposure at www.blinkx.com

SAN FRANCISCO, CALIF. - September 22, 2009 - blinkx, the world's largest video search engine, today announced a new partnership with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), Canada's national public radio and television broadcast network. Clips from the station's online video library are now easily available at www.blinkx.com. Leveraging its unique AdHoc platform, blinkx will also place contextually relevant advertising against these videos, and share resulting advertising revenue with CBC.

Established in 1936, CBC is national public broadcaster, delivering a diverse range of Entertainment, News, Sports, and Documentary content across multiple platforms to Canadians from coast to coast. From movie reviews and decorating tips to news clips and vintage archive footage, visitors to www.blinkx.com will now have countless hours of this exclusive collection of Canadian programming at their fingertips.

'Our goal in building up the blinkx index has always been to offer the widest, most diverse selection of video available online today, including content from across the world,' said Suranga Chandratillake, founder and CEO, blinkx. 'We're delighted to partner with CBC, one of Canada's largest cultural institutions, and are excited to expose our users to so much quality content.'

'We strive to ensure that CBC's video assets are provided the widest exposure possible, and blinkx has developed an innovative way for people beyond Canada to access our content,' said Bob Kerr, director of business development, CBC Digital Programming and Business Development. 'We're happy to be working with them to make the Canadian perspective easily available worldwide.'

As the pioneer in video search technology, blinkx has built a reputation as the smartest way to find rich media on the Web. The company has made more than 530 partners and indexed over 35 million hours of video and audio content to date.

About blinkx

blinkx plc (LSE AIM: BLNX) is the world's largest and most advanced video search engine. Today, blinkx has indexed more than 35 million hours of audio, video, viral and TV content, and made it fully searchable and available on demand. blinkx's founders set out to solve a significant challenge - as TV and user-generated content on the Web explode, keyword-based search technologies only scratch the surface. blinkx's patented search technologies listen to - and even see - the Web, helping users enjoy a breadth and accuracy of search results not available elsewhere. In addition, blinkx powers the video search for many of the world's most frequented sites. blinkx is based in San Francisco and London. More information is available at www.blinkx.com.

About CBC/Radio-Canada

CBC/Radio-Canada is Canada's national public broadcaster and one of its largest cultural institutions. With 28 services offered on Radio, Television, the Internet, satellite radio, digital audio, as well as through its record and music distribution service, rich mobile and SMS messaging services, CBC/Radio-Canada is available how, where, and when Canadians want it.

Press Contacts for blinkx:

Tim Turpin

Sparkpr

+1 (415) 321 1894

Netflix CEO: We’ll Get to the iPhone…Eventually

"Netflix is headed to the iPhone–at some yet-to-be-determined point in the future. Asked by Reuters if he’d ever consider a partnership with Apple (AAPL), Netflix CEO Reed Hastings said he would, but only after the company had secured its foothold on videogame consoles and elsewhere..."

from All Things Digital

Mike Lynch of Autonomy talks

http://static.businessreviewonline.com/user/images/CBRMikeLynchAutonomyPodcast.wma

Very interesting - but then Dr Lynch almost always is.

Total Online Video Streams up 41% from Last Year

"The Nielsen Company today reported overall online video usage and top online brands ranked by video streams for August 2009. Year-over-year, unique viewers, total streams, streams per viewer and time per viewer were up, led by a 41 percent growth in total streams."

From nielsenwire

Question: if Blinkx is only number 10 in that list, how can it be "the world’s largest and most advanced video search engine"? It might be the most advanced, but it clearly isn't the largest?

More of management's weasel words?

Bing Growing 8 Times Faster Than Google

"No doubt about it, more consumers are Googling with Bing. According to the latest stats from research firm Nielsen, Microsoft’s (MSFT) new search engine is growing faster than its arch rival’s. Bing’s share of the search market leapt to 10.7 percent in August, from 9 percent in July — a month-over-month increase of of 22.1 percent. Meanwhile, Google’s (GOOG) share grew to 64.6 percent — a month-over-month increase of of 2.6 percent. Yahoo’s (YHOO) share slipped 1.1 percent to 16 percent, a month-over-month decline of 4.2 percent..."

from All Things Digital

--------------

Comment: So let's hope Blinkx are involved with Bing some how some way, eh?

Does the Blinkx CEO have any shares in his own company?

Over on iii, on the Blinkx discussion thread, 'sobeit' posted the following yesterday, about last year's AGM:

"Having finished his speil I got up and then through the chair asked him [Chandratillake, I assume], since he thought the company was so good, how many shares he held. He had to admit he had none. So I asked him why? That took quite a lot of wind out of his sails."

If this is true - and one must always be wary of believing what anonymous posters put on public discussion forums - the obvious question is: why? Why is Chandratillake happy to spout off to anyone who will listen - journalists, Martin Sorrell - about what a bright, nay stellar, future Blinkx has before it, when he hasn't bought - apparently - a single share in the company? (And I believe I'm correct in saying that he sold some of his options at the company's IPO - I'm happy to correct that if it turns out I'm wrong.) Not exactly a vote of confidence in the company's future, is it?

Facebook hits 300 million users

"In August 2008, Facebook claimed 100 million monthly active users worldwide. By April 2009, the social networking outfit doubled that number. In July, it reached 250 million monthly active users. And now, two months later, Facebook has passed 300 million. Quite a milestone, but one that pales a bit in comparison to this one: Facebook is cash-flow positive."

from All Things Digital

...and this is a video-search market which Blinkx is completely ignoring.

Facebook has open APIs, for chrissakes - anyone can write an app!

except Blinkx, apparently...

Super cool

VMS to Leverage blinkx Video Index for Comprehensive News Monitoring and Reporting Services

RNS Number : 0312Z

Blinkx Plc

15 September 2009



VMS to Leverage blinkx Video Index for Comprehensive News Monitoring and Reporting Services

Worldwide leader in integrated media intelligence solutions taps blinkx to enhance its extensive suite of products

SAN FRANCISCO, CALIF. - September 15, 2009 - blinkx, the world's largest and most advanced video search engine, today announced a technology partnership with VMS, provider of the industry's most comprehensive news monitoring and measurement, and ad intelligence business solutions. VMS clients will now have organized access to blinkx's index of over 35 million hours of audio and video web content.

Industry leader VMS provides public relations firms, advertising agencies, and marketers worldwide with fully integrated news and advertising monitoring across all media, including television, radio, Internet, print, blogs, international, outdoor and cinema, in more markets than anyone else. Furthering its commitment to providing clients with the most cutting-edge services available, VMS has partnered with blinkx to enhance its media intelligence software suite. Thousands of VMS clients will now have easy access to relevant video news coverage, drawing from blinkx's massive index of over 35 million hours of Internet content.

'blinkx's advanced video technology indexes news feeds from a wide variety of sources across the Web, and makes sense of huge amounts online video quickly and accurately,' said Suranga Chandratillake, founder and CEO, blinkx. 'We are pleased to provide VMS's clients with a comprehensive roundup of the most timely, relevant news coverage possible, and are confident clients will be pleased with the results.'

'Across all media, in all markets, public relations practitioners and marketing professionals rely on us to better understand the pulse of the editorial and advertising world,' said Peter Wengryn, CEO of VMS. 'Our new partnership with blinkx will enhance our client offerings and enable them to access a more holistic understanding of their business environment,' added Wengryn.

As the pioneer in video search technology, blinkx has built a reputation as the smartest way to find rich media on the Web. The company has made more than 530 partners and indexed over 35 million hours of video and audio content to date.

About blinkx

blinkx plc (LSE AIM: BLNX) is the world's largest and most advanced video search engine. Today, blinkx has indexed more than 35 million hours of audio, video, viral and TV content, and made it fully searchable and available on demand. blinkx's founders set out to solve a significant challenge - as TV and user-generated content on the Web explode, keyword-based search technologies only scratch the surface. blinkx's patented search technologies listen to - and even see - the Web, helping users enjoy a breadth and accuracy of search results not available elsewhere. In addition, blinkx powers the video search for many of the world's most frequented sites. blinkx is based in San Francisco and London. More information is available at www.blinkx.com.

About VMS

VMS is the world leader in integrated media intelligence solutions that bring together news monitoring and advertising monitoring across all media - broadcast, radio, print, Internet and outdoor.

The firm just debuted the first-ever integrated platform, Vantage, which enables communicators to see the affects of PR on advertising and vice versa, for their organizations and competitors, complete with correlations to business outcomes.

VMS provides public relations firms, advertising agencies and marketers worldwide with the most comprehensive, cutting-edge editorial and ad retrieval, management and analysis solutions, including a broad spectrum of industry-leading advertising and public relations measurement and tracking tools. VMS recently acquired access to new software solutions enabling them to take advantage of state-of-the-art meaning-based computing to enhance their search capabilities.

VMS provides access to the largest continually updated advertising database in the world with over five million ads and commercials through the market leading AdSight platform. The competitive advertising intelligence VMS provides includes U.S. and international creative content as well as domestic spending and occurrence data from Nielsen for the top 100 U.S. television markets.

For more information about VMS call 1.800.VMS.2002 or visit www.vmsinfo.com.

-------------------

Welcome, of course, but I'd rather have had an iPhone app or a Facebook widget, or a tie-up with Yahoo...

Bing: Now With Visual Search

"Hoping to further differentiate its new Bing search engine from market leader Google, Microsoft is moving away from the proverbial “10 blue links” we so often associate with the search experience. During a presentation at the TechCrunch 50 event in San Francisco, the company announced Bing Visual Search, a Silverlight-based feature that replaces those links with images."

from All Things Digital

My, but that image looks a lot like Cooliris or Blinkx's video wall.

If Blinkx are involved, surely it would be worth an RNS?

And if they're not involved, isn't that further evidence that Blinkx mgmt aren't moving fast enough and are being left behind...?

What Blinkx can learn from Blade Runner...

"Apple’s App Store Downloads: 1.8 Billion Served

Every Apple event is good for some revealing statistics. This morning Steve Jobs let drop that the App Store to date has delivered a whopping 1.8 billion downloads to iPhone and iPod touch users. That’s a lot of zeroes.

There are now over 75,000 total applications to choose from, and 30 million iPhones sold in the past 2+ years running them..."

from Mashable

And not one of those downloads was of a Blinkx-branded video search app. And why? Because Blinkx management don't seem to think that reaching the iPhone owner demograhic - young, wealthy, huge consumers of media, with 'unlimited' (fair use) data limits - are worth targetting.

To be sure, competing with 75,000 applications wouldn't be easy, but as Roy Batty pointed out in Blade Runner: you can't win if you don't play. And if you don't play...

edit: and as for the total absence of a Blinkx-branded Facebook widget - don't get me started...

BLINKX VIDEO SEARCH ENGINE - Suranga Chandratillake talks

Once again, where are Blinkx?

Do not adjust your set: a revolution in television as content moves online

from The Guardian

Once again, why no mention of Blinkx? The self-proclaimed world's largest and most advanced video search engine and yet nobody has heard of them - not even journalists from national newspapers who, presumably, did at least cursory research before writing that piece...

'However, the BBC's Huggers warned that consumers may find navigating the new world of competing video-on-demand services difficult.

"What is happening is everyone is trying to get in there and that is confusing for consumers," he said.

"And there will be more entrants to come. For the companies in the space there will be a shake-out as scale and critical mass is critical.

"The services that have the right mix of content and strong brand name will see it through."'

And yet Blinkx has a management team that doesn't seem remotely interested in building the brand and actually letting anyone know about the company. Once again: where is the iPhone app? Where is the Facebook app? Where are the apps, products and services that will bring Blinkx to the attention of the hundreds of millions of web users and allow quick and easy monetisation of the Blinkx video index - as well as the B2B strategy which seems to be the company's only idea at the moment?

In short - why are Blinkx management so totally f**king CLUELESS?

First Video Footage Of The New Android Market

"Good news for Android developers: Google has just posted a video of the upcoming refresh for its Android Market, the online store that allows users to download new software to their Android phones. And the changes are very promising..."

from TechCrunch

Google CEO Eric Schmidt On The Future Of Search: “Connect It Straight To Your Brain”

"This is Part 2 of my series of posts summarizing a fascinating recent hour-long one on one interview with Google CEO Eric Schmidt..."

from TechCrunch

Another Video Site We Don’t Need: AT&T Entertainment

"There is no shortage of places to watch TV shows free on the Web. There’s a glut of them, really. But here comes another: AT&T Entertainment.

What is it? A TV (and movie) portal that looks more or less like every other TV (and movie) portal on the Web: Hulu, TV.com, Sling.com, Fancast, etc.

The only reason for AT&T (T) to launch its own portal now would be as a placeholder until it launches its own “TV Everywhere” play, where subscribers to its “U-Verse” TV service would get Web access to cable shows. That’s the same strategy that Comcast (CMCSA), Time Warner Cable (TWC), Verizon (VZ) and everyone else in the pay TV business is trying..."

from All Things Digital

-----------

Comment: "Hulu, TV.com, Sling.com, Fancast" - no mention of Blinkx, you'll notice. But thren again, there never is. I have never known a company more incompetent and negligent of its PR effort, of being known...

Google and Others Fish for Acquisitions: Here’s What They Might Be Looking For

"Google CEO Eric Schmidt gave what he just had to know would be a much quoted comment to the Nikkei today, explicitly saying that the company had “begun seriously looking into acquisitions again.”

Music to the beleaguered mergers and acquisitions market, to be sure, especially after a recent uptick from other big companies pulling out their wallets again as the impact of the econalypse subsides.

According to sources, Google (GOOG) is working on at least a half-dozen acquisition deals, most of which are small start-ups in the online advertising and cloud computing arenas." [my emphasis]

from All Things Digital

Is There Anything We Won’t Watch? Web Video Booming, but TV Still Growing, Too.

"Plenty of smart folks keep gathering around TV’s grave so that they can throw dirt on it, but it’s not dead yet. In fact, it’s still growing, says Nielsen: More Americans spent more time watching TV this spring than they did a year ago.

The numbers come from Nielsen’s quarterly “Three Screen” report, which measures eyeballs watching video on TV, on the Web and on mobile devices. And just like the report Nielsen put out three months ago, it shows that even while Americans gobble up more online video, they’re still watching as much TV as they ever have. More, even: The number of viewers increased by 0.9 percent, while the time they spent watching TV increased 1.5 percent..."

from All Things Digital

YouTube May Stream Movie Rentals

"By REUTERS
Published: September 2, 2009

NEW YORK/SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Online video site YouTube is in talks with several major movie studios about renting movies to users by streaming the movies over the Internet according to a person familiar with the talks on Wednesday.

It would mark the first time the world's most popular video site would charge its users to watch videos..."

from The New York Times

Cleaning out my closet...

Few relevant snippets from New Media Age, 6th August 2009 edition

Vonage Says Apple OKs iPhone App

"Vonage (VG) shares are skyrocketing after hours following the company’s announcement that Apple (AAPL) has approved its mobile application for iPhone and iPod. "

from All Things Digital

---------

Comment: Let's have that again, shall we? "Vonage (VG) shares are skyrocketing" Skyrocketing. SKYROCKETING!!!!

And can Blinkx's utterly clueless, totally useless mgmt get it together to release a Blinkx-branded app for the iPhone? Well CAN THEY?......

So where's the Blinkx app then?

from Boing Boing

Top Developer Reveals Android Market’s Meager Sales

"It’s no secret that Apple’s App Store has been leaps and bounds more succesful than Android’s comparable Market, but it isn’t often we get concrete data that shows just how poorly Android’s store is faring in comparison. Today Android developer Larva Labs has postedsome of the sales figures for its top applications, and the results are not impressive: Larva has two apps in Android’s top paid apps list called Battle For Mars and RetroDefense, ranking #5 and #12 respectively, and between them the company has raked in an average of $62.39 per day over the last month. Ouch..."

from TechCrunch

-----------

Comment: OK, so maybe Blinkx shouldn't waste dev time writing an app for the Android store - but surely such clear evidence of the Apple store's massive popularity and lead makes it all the more unforgivable that the company hasn't yet released an Apple store Blinkx-branded app?

Where exactly is Blinkx in this article?

"Hulu, Blinkbox and YouTube: Our ultimate guide to VOD

The UK video-on-demand market is in a state of war with Hulu, Blinkbox, YouTube, MSN Video and Arqiva all battling to become the nation's favourite web TV service..."

The Telegraph


Hey, I've got an idea: sack Blinkx's PR company and get a new one!

Google reveals next-gen search engine plans

from New Media Age, 20th August 2009 edition

Google teams with Rockabox to offer dynamic video ads

[click for larger image]

Is it just me, or does anyone else feel that Blinkx just isn't moving fast enough and is being left behind in the hyper-accelerated online video industry?

from New Media Age, 20th August edition