Apple Reportedly Pushing for $1 TV Shows in iTunes [ITunes]

http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/HqhSK8leh9Q/apple-reportedly-pushing-for-1-tv-shows-in-itunes

Let's be honest, guys: A season pass of The Office on iTunes costs $60. On DVD, it'll be half that. So, phew: Apple is reportedly pushing the networks to lower their prices for iTunes TV purchases way down to $1.

This rumor comes from the Financial Times, a reputable source who's previously examined Apple's relationship with the networks, and it makes sense to us: Video is not like audio, in that you don't often watch multiple times, so its value is significantly less over time than music. Apple is apparently telling the networks that lowering the prices to a buck would increase sales, thereby making up for any loss in revenue they'd see from the cut. What do you guys think? Would you be more inclined to buy TV shows if the price was dropped to a dollar? [Financial Times via Business Insider]

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Smart move of old-school company -> Kodak Takes a Stake in TweetPhoto

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Mashable/~3/1BVSZU5WYKw/

On Saturday, Eastman Kodak Company CMO Jeffrey Hayzlett told Midem music conference attendees that the company now owns a stake of Twitter photo-sharing site TweetPhoto.

Hayzlett’s exact words on the deal were that the company liked the partnership it did with TweetPhoto in November, “so much so that we took a piece of the company.”

The terms of the deal are still unknown at this point, but sources close to TweetPhoto tell us that the arrangement was made at the end of the November. According to our sources, Kodak currently owns stock warrants in TweetPhoto, which are securities that entitle Kodak to buy TweetPhoto stock at a specified price, though that price has yet to be publicized. We’ve also heard that TweetPhoto will have Apple-related news in the coming weeks and that it has recently added a few former Google staffers to the payroll.

As a legitimate competitor to TwitPic, TweetPhoto has grown to be a very popular photo-sharing site for Twitter users of all types, which was especially evident when photos immediately following the earthquake in Haiti were posted to the site.

Given Kodak’s push into the social sphere and its flip-style video cameras, its alignment with TweetPhoto is an interesting maneuver, and we expect to see the companies team up for more integrated Twitter photo-sharing initiatives in the coming months. The revelation is especially telling following reports that TwitPic’s founder was offered more than $10 million by an undisclosed potential buyer last year.

TweetPhoto is based in San Diego, California, and was founded by serial entrepreneur Rodney Rumford and his partner Sean Callahan in March 2009.

Tags: Kodak, social media, tweetphoto, twitter

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How Social Media is Changing the 2010 Grammys

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On Sunday January 31, 2010, the 52nd Annual Grammy Awards will air live on CBS. Mashable founder Pete Cashmore will be at the ceremony (lucky dog!) but even for those of us watching at home, the Recording Academy has taken great strides to make this year’s ceremony more interactive and fan-centric than ever before.

The Academy has also embraced social media for the 2010 Grammys, big time. We had a chance to talk to the RA about the move toward social media, the challenges associated with the transition and the response from the fans, artists and other Academy members.


Why Social Media, Why Now


The Recording Academy — which was founded in 1957 and is dedicated to improving the quality of life and the cultural condition for music and the people who make it — is your typical well established organization that is reticent to change. For instance, an award for Best Rap Album wasn’t even added to the Grammy ceremony until 1996 (a Best Rap Performance award was first issued in 1989, the Academy’s first official recognition of the genre). If it can take that long to fully recognize one of the most popular music genres (Best Rap Song wasn’t awarded until 2004), you can imagine how difficult it would be for the organization to embrace social media.

Social media introduces an entire paradigm shift into how the Academy can both connect with music lovers and with how its message is consumed and presented. That said, the Academy is aware that the paradigm shift is happening, not just to the industry, but to our culture as a whole. In order to stay relevant and connected, the Academy would have to embrace this new way of communicating. I spoke with Evan Greene, the Chief Marketing Officer of the Recording Academy about how the Grammys are embracing social media this year and how and why that decision was made.

Evan told me that the Academy established a social media task force in 2008 and did a lot of outreach in 2009, basically assessing the climate, the places where the fans were spending their time, and evaluating the decision to jump in full force. Evan made it very clear that the Academy didn’t want to just haphazardly get involved, if the organization was going to do social media, it was going to do it correctly.


Biggest Challenges


When I asked Evan what the most challenging aspect of adopting a social media strategy was, he told me that it was making the decision to actually embrace social media at all. He explained that the Academy has always tried to manage and keep very careful control over its message and brand. By embracing social media, that means giving up that control. Because while the Academy can connect directly with fans, fans can also connect back. That means accepting criticism and engaging in a discussion in a public way, something that just isn’t the norm for the Academy.

I was struck by just how common this fear is, not just with older and more established brands, but even with smaller and newer companies. Social media does inherently mean that you are giving up the ability to centrally control the message. However, what is interesting is that the companies that embrace and accept that grain of truth are usually those that are most successful with social media.

After making the decision to fully engage, Grammy.com was completely rebuilt and official presences were made on Twitter (@theGrammys), Facebook and YouTube. Interaction and fan-generated content from these platforms and others all contributed to what has become the centerpiece for the Grammys 2010 campaign: We’re All Fans.


We’re All Fans


Fans are the core of popular music. And unlike industry executives (and sometimes even the artists themselves), fans are often the first to embrace new technologies and social networks to share and remix content by their favorites artists. So with that in mind, TBWA\Chiat\Day, the agency of record for the Grammy awards, created a multi-format multimedia campaign related to Grammy-nominated artists, curated entirely from fan-generated content.

If you visit WereAllFans.com, you’ll see portraits of some of the nominated artists composed entirely of real-time content from Twitter, Flickr, Facebook and YouTube. The content is refreshed and fed in and users can click on aspects of the content to view or play it back all on the page. It’s a pretty cool way to show stuff off.

Also cool is the television campaign for We’re All Fans. Comprised of YouTube performances that real fans made covering the nominated artist’s song. Not only is it a cool visualization of the campaign, but for the fans that made those videos themselves, it must be amazing to see something you made and created airing on CBS and on the Internet for the whole world to see. To be clear, these weren’t performances done specifically for an advertising spot, this was a clip composed of stuff that real fans made just because they’re fans and they wanted to share their respective talents on YouTube.

The first spot was for Lady Gaga, who has an extremely active social media following, check it out:


After less than three weeks it has gathered more than 1.1 million views and is currently the 19th most viewed video in the music category for the month of January on YouTube.


Artist Feedback


At this point, most major music artists are embracing social media to some extent, be it Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, or personal blogs. Connecting directly with fans is extremely valuable, especially in an area like music that is such an inherently collective experience. To that end, the artists themselves have taken the lead on some of the promotions for the campaign.

Lady Gaga tweeted a link to her “We’re All Fans” video as soon as it went live (a day before it first aired on CBS) and embedded it on both her official website and her YouTube channel. Likewise, Beyonce has also embedded her spot on her official website.


Fan Feedback


Fans, especially those featured in some of the TV spots, have responded really positively to the campaign — as you would expect. However, an interesting component to the We’re All Fans website is the FanBuzz Visualizer.

The visualizer (embedded at the right) is powered by Visible Technologies and it is a real-time visualization of fan activity across the web. Basically the widget (which is interactive — feel free to play with it and move it around) searches various social channels for comments, conversations and mentions of Grammy-nominated artists. This is then aggregated and you can see who has the most mentions within a certain window or overall.

Real-time visualizations are still new enough to be unique in and of itself, but what we find really interesting is that the information is available and shareable. For observers, this is insight into the online popularity of some of the nominated artists, for fans, it might be a way to push engagement.


The Awards


The Grammy Awards themselves will not be broadcast online (that’s a decision that is as much in the hands of CBS as it is The Recording Academy), but the Academy is making a conscious effort to keep fans engaged online before and during the show.

For 72-hours before the Grammy Awards air on CBS, Grammy.com will be streaming live performances on its website that are ancillary to the awards themselves. Plus, the now almost normative tradition of online red-carpet streamings will take place. During the Awards themselves, Grammy.com will feature backstage interviews with winning artists, which is pretty cool. Even if Grammy isn’t ready to embrace online streaming of the award ceremony, they are at least aware that fans are likely to be online Tweeting or posting to Facebook during the broadcast. That’s a start.


The Future


When I asked Evan about the Academy’s plans for the future, he made it clear that social media is something the RA intends to continue to invest in. Internally the organization has been pleased with the results of the campaign and of the actual consequences of embracing social media. Fears about not being able to control the message seem to be largely assuaged when caution is thrown to the wind and engagement actually takes place.

True engagement is a major component of any successful social media endeavor. If the Recording Academy continues to embrace the shifting realities and engage with fans, the net result just might be that viewers and fans take a more active interest in the Grammy Awards.

What do you think about how established organizations are embracing social media? What do you think of the “We’re All Fans” campaign? Let us know!

Disclosure: Mashable’s Pete Cashmore, Twitter’s Ev Williams and Biz Stone, MySpace’s Owen Van Natta and other notable social media influencers will attend the Social Media Rockstars panel this week, discussing the intersection of social media and music. Execs from all the companies will also attend the Grammys.


Reviews: Facebook, Flickr, MySpace, Twitter, YouTube, awards, beyonce

Tags: awards show, grammys, MARKETING, music, social media

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We will know tomorrow -> Could These Be Pictures of the Real Apple Tablet? [PICS]

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Mashable/~3/tRWXf8G4cA8/

New pictures claiming to be the Apple Tablet have surfaced, and they’re the most realistic ones we’ve seen yet.

The images, posted by designer and user interface guy Dustin Curtis, reveal what appears to be the tablet on top of a MacBook pro. He posted the images on his Posterous.

While we cannot authenticate their authenticity, they are the most complete images we’ve seen yet of the rumored device. Without the interface running, any video, or a picture of its backside, we can’t even guess.

We already knew of Dustin Curtis — he’s a talented designer that got attention for his mockup redesign of the American Airlines website and subsequent firing of an AA employee who gave him a response.

Take a look at these pretty pics; we’ll do the investigating to try to determine if they’re real. Let us know what you think of the images in the comments.


The Tablet Images




Tags: apple, Apple iPad, Apple Tablet, ipad, Tablet

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How Bands You've Never Heard Of Are Making Tons Of Money On iTunes (AAPL)

Google Reader Can Now Track Changes to Any Website - Even if it Can't Find a Feed

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/readwriteweb/~3/LUdvbOOFmdM/google_reader_can_now_track_changes_on_any_web_pag.php

google_reader_logo_mar09.pngGoogle just announced an interesting update to Google Reader. Google's online feed reader now allows you to track changes on any page - even those that don't feature an RSS feed. Google will create its own custom feeds for these sites and update the feed whenever it notices a change. Google Reader will display a short snippet of the page changes in the RSS feed.

Sponsor

Until today, Google Reader would simply respond with an error message if you tried to subscribe to a site that didn't offer an RSS feed. Now, Google will simply create a new feed for the site and track updates. It's not clear how often Google plans to ping these sites, however.

Thanks to this, you can easily track the latest discounts on Macys.com or updates to Zillow.com's homepage.

drudge_no_feed_google_reader.jpg

As far as we were able to see, Google Reader creates very clean RSS feeds for these items. While Google doesn't make it obvious, you can find the newly created feed by clicking "show details" in Google Reader. Thanks to this, you can subscribe to this new feed in any feed reader and not just in Google Reader.

There are, of course, a number of other sites that also allow you to track when something changes on a site. ChangeDetection.com, for example, is a popular online service that will alert you whenever a page changes. Unlike Google Reader's new feature, ChangeDetection.com also gives you a very detailed overview of of what exactly changed and what the page looked like before. The service also offers an RSS feed of these changes.

Discuss

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Foursquare’s New Frontier: Newspapers

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Mashable/~3/VHLLPj_EaTM/

Canada’s free daily newspaper, Metro News, has just unveiled a content partnership with mobile check-in game Foursquare. It’s the first location-based editorial partnership for the startup, who is already partnering with city transit and universities.

As part of the partnership, Metro has created a robust Foursquare presence that includes restaurant reviews, city tips, to-dos and even articles that mobile app users can stumble upon as they traverse Canadian points of interest. Metro readers and tourists alike can think of the editorial content inside Foursquare as a travel guide book that highlights useful articles and unlocks the best a neighborhood has to offer.

Foursquare’s even created a special badge for Metro, who’s using that to encourage readers to check in wherever they pick up their copy of the publication. To grease the wheels a bit, the news outlet is also giving away an iPhone 3GS to five lucky individuals who unlock the badge.

The partnership also serves as a symbiotic relationship that combines mobile utility with the bonus of print exposure for Foursquare as well as restaurants and retailers. Case in point, Metro plans to feature Mayor Deals every Friday in its publication. The deals are alternative ad buys for businesses looking to offer and promote mayor-only specials.

The editorial location-based deal gives new meaning to local news, and adds yet another layer of practicality to Foursquare, proving that the application (and location-sharing) are changing the world as we know it.


Reviews: Foursquare

Tags: foursquare, media, metro news, Mobile 2.0

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Google Takes on Interior Mapping. Maps San Diego Zoo!

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheNextWeb/~3/uOkj0Rd8UnE/

Google Takes on Interior Mapping. Maps San Diego Zoo!This is exciting news, Google has mapped the inside of the San Diego Zoo.  This is the first of its kind for a zoo, and now, no mater where you’re from, you can take a look at the great collection of animals they have at the zoo.

The zoo, which is located in the Balboa Park area of San Diego, recently renovated its interior.  Even for someone who loves that zoo, getting around might be a challenge as they’ve renamed all their areas. There are new roads and paths.  They also rearranged old exhibits and brought in new ones.

You can see all of these changes on Google Maps Street View.  This interior mapping was done with Google’s new “Trike.”  The Trike is “a tricycle-mounted camera specifically designed to photograph and add previously inaccessible destinations.”  Here is the embed to that new feature and the San Diego Zoo:

Picture 145

Google Takes on Interior Mapping. Maps San Diego Zoo!

This is both a logical and interesting development for Google.  From the perspective of strategy, it’s a smart move to start mapping both interiors as well as exteriors as other companies would inevitably start filling the void Google missed.

Until now, Michello, was the only major player working on interior mapping (updated: PointInside is also in this space).  Michello wants to make the world’s inside spaces including college campuses, shopping malls, retail stores, convention centers, airports and much more.

Even though Google has the Trike, Micello has a head start on the majority of interiors.  The company also has a free iPhone and iTouch mobile application: Micello Indoor Apps.  According to Read Write Web, Micello has over 750+ interiors mapped and are adding more.  Their goal is to have 5,000 interiors mapped by the end of 2010.

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As Facebook Gears Up for Credits, Here’s the Exchange Rates for the 15 Supported Currencies

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/InsideFacebook/~3/zHeB0IS4XYc/

Facebook has slowly introduced its virtual currency, Credits, to third parties over the last few years. But it has been planning to make Credits a more central part of its platform for third-party developers, and we’ve been hearing that a bigger launch is planned soon.

So here’s a look at how much Credits currently cost Facebook users around the world. A lot more people are going to care about these numbers if and when Credits becomes a way to buy virtual goods in Facebook apps and games.

The table you see shows how each of the 15 currencies that Facebook supports currently converts to Credits. We convert to 10 Facebook Credits because that’s the lowest denomination available (you can’t just buy a single credit). We also compare the conversion to how each currency converts to the US dollar based on numbers from Yahoo Finance — clearly, Facebook is benchmarking the value of Credits on the dollar for the time being, as the two sets of numbers almost exactly line up. The difference is likely due to Facebok updating the dollar conversion slightly later than real-world market changes.

Despite the dollar parity, Facebook has been making a few moves to make Credits more distinct. The virtual currency appeared in its earliest form as a means to by virtual gifts in the company’s Gift Shop, years ago — it only moved from US Dollars to Credits in November of 2008. Then, last May, it adjusted the exchange rate from 100 Credits per $1 to 10 Credits per  $1. In June, it followed this move by introducing the 14 additional currencies you see listed in the table.

We’ll be watching to see how Facebook handles Credits pricing. In order to make virtual gifts more affordable to more of its users, the company may choose to unpeg Credits from the Dollar, and allow users to purchase Credits for a range of prices aimed at local (and often poorer) markets. This is important because around 70% of Facebook’s more than 350 million monthly active users are outside of the US, with many of them in developing countries.

The Credits Timeline

The more users Facebook can get paying at all for Credits, the more money it can make. In May, the company also began letting third-parties sell goods in the virtual shop using Credits. Facebook has long planned to take an Apple-style 30% cut from transactions that go through Credits, as we first reported in May and then in November.

Facebook has been planning some sort of major launch with big developers since last fall; at one point, we heard that the company was aiming for a launch in time for Christmas virtual good sales. Happy Islands, a social game by CrowdStar, launched last month using Credits as the sole means for virtual goods purchases. This month, the company has already made a push to hire for a new payments operation team, tested a payments resolution interface, and released Credits in more apps.

Credits might squeeze out payment services providers who currently provide currency support and other features to developers. We’ve heard unconfirmed rumors that Facebook will offer incentives or regulations that favor Credits over third-party virtual currency systems.

Yet many developers themselves have told us that Credits could them make more money. The reasons are that users will have a more seamless interface for purchasing and spending the virtual currency, all using Facebook’s own brand.

Stay tuned for more Credits news, soon.

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Facebook Is an Increasingly Important Part of Elections Around the World

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The words “social media” seem to have been on the lips of everyone discussing Democrat Martha Coakley’s loss to Republican Scott Brown for the senate seat in traditionally left-leaning Massachusetts. Although social media alone doesn’t win elections, platforms like Facebook have increasingly become an integral part of getting out the word about candidates around the world, and while Facebook fans may not translate directly to votes, there does seem to be at least some correlation.

Brown got twice the number of searches as Coakley in Massachusetts and nearly three times more across the country, AdAge reported last week. From the article:

“On Twitter, @scottbrownMA has 10,765 followers vs. @MarthaCoakley with 3,657; on Facebook, it’s 83,535 friends [fans] to 15,573; and on YouTube, Mr. Brown has a souped-up channel with 675,208 views, while videos posted by the Coakley campaign have been viewed 76,805 times.”

Obviously, Brown’s 83,000 fans weren’t what won the election (among other reasons, not every person who became a fan is a Massachusetts voter). Still, every vote counts. Facebook — and Pages, in particular — allow politicians to communicate with supporters, and drum up enough enthusiasm that their friends decide to join in, too.

Also notable: Brown’s Page has now grown to 173,000 fans, more than half of whom have joined in the past week.

Barack Obama’s presidential campaign gained millions of fans during his run in 2008, and is credited with helping him win the election. Brown is one of the many politicians around the world who has since used the service to find more voters.

Philippines presidential contenders Benigno “Noynoy” S. Aquino III, a senator and Liberal party candidate and his rival Nacionalista Party Senator Manny Villar were ranked 11 and 12, respectively, on our weekly fastest-growing Facebook Pages list. Each Page had hundreds of thousands of fans, who supported and criticized each other in English and Tagalog on the candidates’ walls, a seemingly egalitarian and safe forum.

Elsewhere, Mexican politicians in the state of Aguascalientes took advantage of the social network to launch their campaigns prior to the official start of the electoral season and in Portugal journalists are keeping an active count of the politicians with the most Facebook fans.

Barack Obama’s election marked a turning point in electoral politics as the previously unseen use of social media such as Facebook was utilized not only to raise funds, but to organize and implement a campaign strategy that translated into a movement in the offline world, and most importantly, votes.

About 15% of Americans 18 and older participated in the 2008 presidential election via social networking tools like Facebook; they may not have walked blocks to campaign for their ideas, but they definitely marked their territory in the online world, according to Aaron Smith, a research specialist with the Pew Research Center’s Internet and American Life Project. These users become the unofficial arm of campaigns, he tells us. Often mobilizing without any specific marching orders, they get the word out by posting stories and engaging in discussions on Facebook — and for a lot less money than it would take to get the same effect in the “real” world.

One of the reasons social media like Facebook are now so popular across the world is the fact that, with the advent of mobile connectivity, it’s no longer necessary to be wired in order to participate online. Most Americans who became fans of Obama or Brown probably did so via a desktop computer; in places like the Philippines, though, more almost certainly fanned their candidates through mobile devices.

Using communities in the U.S. with traditionally low levels of broadband access as an example, Smith says, one can extrapolate what mobile and wireless mean to the digital divide. Access to the Internet via mobile/wireless has begun to erode traditionally stark differences between communities with broadband (traditionally urban) and dial-up (rural) connections. Previously dial-up users were relegated to using email and doing searches, now they are able to take advantage of Facebook and other social networks.

“We’re seeing wireless and mobile connectivity bridging some of those gaps between populations. Mobile access is making up a lot of difference that we see in broadband usage,” Smith tells us.

While Smith only had data for the U.S., he pointed to Iran’s Green Revolution as an example of this phenomenon in action. Because Facebook and other social networks don’t require much technological infrastructure, such as a desktop computer, they are being adopted by people around the world to serve a variety of purposes.

“I think that, for a lot of the developing world, wireless mobility is a way to leapfrog out of this broadband structure. You can just put up a cell phone tower and let people go online that way,” he adds.

One of Facebook’s main pushes in 2009 was in mobile — it launched Facebook Connect for the iPhone and for other mobile devices, and it worked with dozens of carriers around the world to launch mobile access to the service. In September, the company said more than 65 million users were currently accessing it through mobile devices.

In conclusion, the role of Facebook and other social media is still being defined in popular culture and politics, but a few things are clear. One, a cause-effect relationship between social media and votes is not completely clear, but there is a correlation as evidenced by the Obama and Brown campaigns. Two, this is further evidenced by the adoption of Facebook and other social media in campaign strategies around the world, particularly third world countries where accessing Facebook with mobile phones erases technological barriers associated with accessing the Internet with traditional means like a computer.

As Facebook continues to expand — and especially as it expands on mobile devices — it will also become more central to the political process.

[Iran photo via orgtheory.wordpress.com]

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