Mobile Internet Users to Double by 2013, Says Report

Internet, and mobile Internet, use is on the rise. While China has the most Internet users and mobile online devices, the United States has the highest number of total connected devices. Online shopping, and advertising, are also expected to skyrocket worldwide.

It’s a Web, Web, Web, Web world. And that’s just the half of it.

According to a Dec. 9 report from research firm IDC, there are currently more than 450 million mobile Internet users around the world, and that figure is expected to more than double over the next four years, passing the one billion mark...

from eWeek.com

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Comment: so using mobiles to access the internet is exploding and shopping and advertising are expected to explode along with it - and yet Blinkx don't see mobile as a priority.

Go figure - tells me everything I need to know about how switched-on Blinkx management are(n't).

Where's the iPhone app from Blinkx? (Answer - the same place the Facebook widget is - which is also the same place Transaction Hijacking and SmartShopper are).

Maybe if they don't want to be thought of as clueless muppets Blinkx management should extract the digit from their collective rectum and stop acting like clueless muppets...

Why Vevo’s First Day Flub Isn’t a Total Disaster

Vevo, big music’s new video site, had a big party last night. Today it has a hangover. Visitors to the site are encountering all sorts of problems, the most serious being that it doesn’t seem to work.

The Vevo team studiously took notes from Hulu leading up to the launch. That’s why, for instance, the company made the antitrust-appeasing move of bringing in a financial investor alongside content owners Universal Music and Sony (SNE).

But it got this part all wrong. Hulu had a (high-profile) alpha launch for months before it opened to the masses. Vevo opened for business on a single day, and promptly broke.

The relationship between Vevo and Schematic, the shop that built much of the site, wasn’t great to begin with–earlier this fall, there was some internal fingerpointing about cost overruns and/or delays–and I can’t imagine that this will make things any better...

from Media Memo

The iPhone Finally Gets Live Video Streaming With Ustream Live Broadcaster

Services like Ustream and Qik have long offered the promise of live streaming video from your mobile phone to the web — except if you had an iPhone. For those devices, that was only possible if you jailbroke your phone. Not anymore.

The Ustream Live Broadcaster has just gone live in the App Store tonight and yes, it allows you to stream live video from the iPhone to the web. And yes, it even works over a 3G connection. And yes, it’s awesome...

from TechCrunch

Whatever happened to this story?

Rupert Murdoch Wants The Blinkx Search Engine

According to the LA Times, Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp is in negotiations to buy the Blinkx search engine. LA Times reports “News Corp. is in negotiations to buy Blinkx, a privately held Internet search company based in San Francisco, according to people close to the world’s fourth-largest media giant. The prospective acquisition of Blinkx is part of an aggressive bid by News Corp. to take on such Internet powerhouses as Yahoo Inc. News Corp. is trying to build a rival portal by acquiring fast-growing Web businesses and by leveraging the sites of its in-house brands, including those of local Fox TV stations, the Fox TV network and cable channels such as Fox Sports and Fox News...

from Search Engine Journal

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Comment: So Murdoch wanted Blinkx back in '05 (that story is dated 15th August 2005) but not now. Wonder why that is? Because he's seen the way that Blinkx has performed under the current management team? Because he's met senior Blinkx management?

This does, though, raise another rather awkward question which none of the Blinkx fanboys can or will answer: if Blinxk is growing so fast, and is doing so well, and is on track for massive profitability in the not-too-distant future - why hasn't a News Corp, or a Yahoo, or a Google, or a Microsoft (or any one of another half-dozen or so obvious candidates) made a serious attempt to buy it?

Another not-so-small mystery to add to the list...

TV Viewing Dropped This Fall: Is the Web Finally Cutting into Tube Time?

For some time now, TV industry executives who want to tell themselves the Internet isn’t going to destroy their business have had a useful data point to lean on: Even as people watch more and more Web video, they’re watching more TV than ever.

What happens when that changes?

We might find out sooner than we think. Nielsen’s newest “Three Screen” report, which measures video consumption on TV, the Web, and mobile devices, shows that TV-time did indeed drop–slightly, but still a drop–during the last three months...

from Media Memo

Vevo, Big Music’s New Video Site, Peeks Out From Behind the Curtain

Vevo, the “Hulu for Music” site featuring videos from three of the big music labels, is supposed to officially go live tonight, and there’s a big party in New York to kick things off. But if you’re not going to that and want to see the site now, you can get a peek.

Skip the Vevo.com site itself, which is still in preview mode. But if you go to YouTube and start searching for acts signed to Sony (SNE) or Universal Music Group, the first two labels to join the joint venture, you’re likely to encounter some “Vevo”-labeled videos, like this Britney Spears clip.

Guess what? If you embed them, they look exactly like YouTube videos...

from Media Memo

Blinkx Eyes Rich Reward For Online Video

5:15pm UK, Tuesday December 08, 2009

Suranga Chandratillake, chief executive of blinkx

Video may well be credited for killing the radio star, but the rise in popularity of online video in 2009 has placed traditional TV firmly on the endangered list.

in 2009 half a million people paid to watch the England versus Ukraine football match streaming live over the internet; Obama's inauguration drew 70 million viewers online as opposed to 40 million on TV (Nielsen); global web traffic shot up 33% as the worldlogged on to watch the funeral of Michael Jackson; and online advertising surpassed TV advertising spend for the first time.
Research by comScore revealed that in January alone more than 280 million hours of online video content was watched in the UK and now 84% of UK online users view a video every single month.
We've seen this trend reflected not only in the growth of our core audience at blinkx.com, but even more dramatically in the success of blinkx Remote, a tool on the blinkx website that offers immediate access to full-length programmes.
The blinkx Remote viewership has grown an average of 83% every month since launching in July 2008 and we are finding that our audience is increasingly staying for longer.

blinkx is banking on online viewers
Whilst 2009 has been an interesting year from a rights ownership point of view, 2010 is a time of tremendous potential.
The continued growth of the online video advertising market, coupled with the increasing number of top-tier media companies and broadcasters who are distributing their content on the internet, have come at a time when demand for rich media online is at an all-time high. These factors, combined with the increased availability of high-quality online video, have laid the foundation for blinkx to solidify its position as the premier destination for online TV and video.
This year YouTube withdrew music videos for a time and established media players have voiced plans to further lock down content, which is an issue of major significance and complexity, but not one that will lead to changes overnight for the industry or blinkx.
The reality is that no single media company owns all the content everyone wants to watch. We all watch multiple channels on TV, we all read more than one publication whether on- or off-line.
That means fundamentally, there will continue to be fragmentation, and as a result there will be a need for technology to help users navigate all the content that's out there.
Our model is to use technology to help connect viewers to online video content and generate value from being the service that makes that connection.
Suranga Chandratillake is founder and chief executive of video search engine blinkx

from Sky News

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Comment: Blowing his own trumpet? Suranga Chandratillake, that paragon of modesty and humility? Surely not...

He's great at talking the talk, always has been. Sadly he's almost completely deficient in my view at walking the walk. He can talk until he's blue in the face about how well Blinkx is doing or will do - but the markets and investors ain't buying it; the former because they don't see the blockbuster deals or tie-ups which would persuade them that Chandratillake is delivering on his grandiose (some might say delusional) bluster, and the latter because they've had to see the share price head one way - the wrong way - pretty much ever since the IPO (remember that? This company floated at 45p 2.5 years ago). Not so long ago Blinkx did a placing which Autonomy underwrote, and as a consequence Autonomy ended up owning about 13% of Blinkx (did Autonomy want those shares it was left with? Who knows...). The placing was at 18p - this evening as I write Blinkx shares closed at 16.12, almost exactly 10% down.

If I was an Autonomy shareholder I'd be pretty pissed off about that...

...And since Chandratillake has chosen to make one of his periodic (and, in my view, largely pathetic) attempts to promote the company, I'll ask once again that awkward little question which none of the dwindling band of Blinkx zealots can answer: if Blinkx has that bright a future ahead, if it's due to break into profitability in 2010 as Chandratillake has claimed - why is not he and the rest of the management team buying shares in the company? Why isn't he putting his own money where his not-inconsiderable mouth is? One share purchase by members of the management team would do more to restore confidence in the company and its management than a dozen lame-ass articles on Sky.

Actions talk much, MUCH louder than words. Sadly, it increasingly looks like words are all Chandratillake has...