Italian Court Finds Google Execs Guilty Of Violating Privacy Code
Three Google executives have been found guilty of criminal charges over a bullying video that appeared on the Google Video service. Google has responded with a blog post pledging to appeal the convictions and suggesting that they undermine “the very principles of freedom on which the Internet is built.”
The video involved a youth with Down’s [...]
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YouTube Video Rentals on Tap
YouTube is always on the prowl to find ways to make money off the gazillion gaziggawatts of video that it already has and is always collecting. As with most online services this quest for revenue is an ongoing battle that requires considerable creativity as well as a lot of experimentation. On Friday YouTube will roll out its online video rental option as one of those attempts to add to Google’s coffers.
The Wall Street Journal tells us
Google Inc.’s YouTube said it will begin testing a new online video service on Friday, entering the rental turf of other technology giants such as Apple Inc., Amazon.com Inc. and Netflix Inc.
YouTube will begin testing the service with five movies from the Sundance Film Festival, the company said Wednesday in a blog post. It plans to later expand its rental selection to a range of health, education and fitness categories, a company spokesman said.
The disclosure marks one of YouTube’s first major pushes into delivering paid video rather than supplying videos that can be viewed for free in exchange for watching ads. YouTube is hoping that the new payment option—which allows a content supplier to set the price per rental—will draw more professional content, including offerings from major film and TV studios, to its site.
I am probably the worst person to be talking about video rentals because in my house there isn’t much room for art in between the Dora the Explorer videos my three year adores (and the rest of us simply tolerate) and other things vying for our attention. In other words, I may be in the market but until this service is more mainstreamed I will be on the sidelines.
YouTube is trying to differentiate itself from the competition like Amazon, Apple and Netflix by presenting a flexible pricing option for video offering.
Media companies could be enticed by the more flexible business model YouTube is offering. Unlike Apple’s iTunes Store, which has set tiers of pricing for rentals of movies, Google is allowing partners to set the price that it will charge consumers and how long they want the rental to last.
Consumers must pay through Google’s payment service, Google Checkout. Google and the content supplier will split the revenue, with the partner getting the majority, a YouTube spokesman said.
The first five films, which will cost $3.99 to rent from Friday through Jan. 31, will include “The Cove,” a documentary about the dolphin fishing industry, and “Homewrecker,” a comedy about a locksmith.
Personally I find stories about companies trying to monetize their offerings vs stories about innovation pretty much the same thing no matter who is trying to generate revenue. It’s just another business saying “If you really like our service we’re going to make you pay …….. someday, some way.”
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Twitter Adds to Its Ranks
It looks like Twitter is gearing up for a big year as they announce several (as in around 10) new hires to start the new year. While official numbers of total employees are tough to come by (last I saw put it in the range of 150 but I will not stand by the accuracy of that number) it is obvious that Twitter is looking to have a big year. Let’s call it Twitter’s “Year of Revenue”. That’s usually what we talk about when it comes to the service anyway right?
Louis Gray tells about these hires and specifically of one that is very strategic. Anytime Twitter brings on a former Google lawyer then you know they are up to something.
Twitter’s pedigree is getting increasingly rich at the expense of Google and other Silicon Valley tech titans. With the holidays behind us, the microblogging powerhouse is starting the new year with more new faces at its San Francisco headquarters. Among them is Bakari Brock, most recently an in house lawyer for YouTube and Google focused on music, video and syndication.
Brock, whose LinkedIn profile shows him as corporate counsel at Google, starting in 2007, was heavily quoted in late 2008 when the video service introduced e-commerce capabilities enabling customers to purchase from partners including iTunes and Amazon, and his comments were included in publications such as the New York Times and GigaOM site NewTeeVee.
Last year Google was the ‘victim’ of Twitter’s need for legal expertise as well. While probably flattered one would think that losing high profile, likely high dollar and highly visible legal talent is not how Google would like to get the new year started.
Some of the background of new hires on the Twitter team include another former Googler, a ex-ning staffer and folks from Cloudera, TiVo, Bebo and VMWare. Add this to an expansion of the Twitter family tree following the acquisition of MixerLabs before Christmas and one would think that “It’s beginning to look a lot like business” (sing that to the tune of “It’s Beginning to Look A Lot Like Christmas” for those wishing the holidays were still here).
So let’s go a step further on this one and see what the bold prognosticators among MP readers are predicting for Twitter in 2010. What does the need for more legal firepower say about what might be next?
Jim Lanzone: Vengeance in Video?
In January 2008, Ask CEO Jim Lanzone stepped down. He moved to Redpoint Ventures, a VC firm, to be their entrepreneur-in-residence. But his latest project brings him back to search: Clicker, an online TV video search engine. Kinda.
Lanzone is CEO of the video service, which launched yesterday at TechCrunch50 into private beta. Clicker aims to be a TV guide for online video—”the most comprehensive way to find the video content you’re looking for on the web.”
What makes Clicker different from the myriad other video search engines out there? TechCrunch reports:
[Clicker] creates a structured database of programming, organizing shows by things like network, genre, and show name. This type of data not only allows for better search results, but it allows you to browse content without having to do text-based searches, which you probably won’t be doing when television and future web-enabled tablets start to serve up this content. Clicker already has a deal with Boxee.
The goal is really to be the best search engine for video content. Clicker will point you in the direction of whatever you are looking for (and will do embeds if they’re available), but won’t serve up the videos themselves. They will also delve into surfacing content not explicitly produced for television, but is still high quality web video content. But they don’t want to be YouTube, which is cluttered with user-generated content. Clicker is going for a different market.
Clicker will also allow users to edit and submit information about shows wiki-style.
My question: what’s with all those vowels?! Are you sure you didn’t mean “clickr”? Way to shoot yourselves in the foot, guys. 
Naturally, the first real question is what’s their business model. And the answer is typical of search engines: advertising, both search and display. However, they also plan to offer premium accounts, “which the company envisions might be used for storing your favorite videos online, kind of like a DVR of sorts.”
We’re obviously still learning new things about how to do online video all the time, as Hulu has shown us. But is there room for another video search engine—and if so, will Clicker be it? What do you think?
