Philip DeFranco’s new YouTube channel Sourcefed clocked 100 million views since it launched three months ago as part of YouTube’s new channel roll-out. But with YouTube focusing on professional content, smaller producers could be left behind. That’s why DeFranco wants to share the stage with them. Read more »
Google has completely revamped its Google+ Android app, putting a much bigger emphasis on photo sharing and integrating its Google+ Hangouts video chat more tightly. The UI refresh comes just weeks after a similar relaunch of the Google+ iPhone app. Read more »
Crowdsourcing, crowd-financing and… file sharing lawsuits? The science fiction comedy Iron Sky has gotten lots of help from its fans, and its filmmakers have in the past relied on BitTorrent to distribute their works. Now, a German distributor is threatening to sue file sharers. Read more »
FT.com Managing Director Rob Grimshaw made no secret of his distaste for Apple’s in-app subscription terms at padContent 2012. iOS apps don’t work for publishers, he told the audience, and the Financial Times’ decision to leave the iTunes store was a success. Read more at paidContent »
Dish and Roku have partnered to launch a new streaming service focused on international programming. The service, dubbed DISHWorld, will offer foreign-language TV stations targeting Indian, Arabic and other expat communities. And you won’t have to subscribe to Dish to access it. Read more »
Google+ was supposed to be a ghost town, but a growing number of photographers are nonetheless embracing the site to exchange pictures and knowledge about photography. That’s no accident, considering one of the key people behind Google+ led Yahoo’s acquisition of Flickr. Read more »
Record collectors have been using Discogs.com to catalog and trade their wares for years. Now, much of that user-submitted data is finding its way to Spotify and other online music platforms, thanks to a partnership between Discogs and the music data provider The Echo Nest. Read more »
The Plex app for Google TV will be preinstalled on Sony’s upcoming Google TV devices, which are expected to hit the shelves in the U.S. and other countries this summer. This is a big deal for Plex, and a nice addition to Google TV. Read more »
YouTube users are now uploading three full days, or 72 hours, of video every minute. That’s 24 hours more than just a year ago. The Google entity announced the new milestone to celebrate its official launch as a video sharing website seven years ago. Read more »
Player FM. wants to make it easier to consume podcasts across different devices: The web-based curation and playback platform was launched by former Googler Michael Mahemoff just a few days ago, but Mahemoff is already thinking about bringing new ad formats and micropayments to podcasts. Read more »
Netflix isn’t satisfied with Comcast’s announcement that the broadband provider is going to raise its bandwidth cap from 250GB to 300GB per month. The real issue, the video service said, is Comcast’s unwillingness to count its own Xfinity.tv service as part of that cap. Read more »
Netflix just launched a new video player for web-based viewing, and it’s hot: Viewers can preview all other episodes while watching an episode of a TV show, the player allows seamless size changes and the overall design is much slicker than before. Read more »
Google just launched an iOS app for its other social network: iPhone users can now access the social activity service Schemer with an app that allows them to find things to do and share those plans with their friends. The app closely mimics its Android cousin. Read more »
Thefuture.fm’s new iPhone app offers access to mix sets from 5,000 DJs — complete with deep search for each and every song title used. And, crucially, its platform is powered by its very own audio fingerprinting, which is also used to compensate rights holders. Read more »
Netflix saw close to 42 billion API requests in January. The company originally released its API with third-party developers and their quirky mashups in mind, but these days, most of these requests come from Netflix’s own apps on mobile and connected devices. Read more »
Spotify has now 20 million monthly active users, according to new estimates based on publicly available Facebook data. The company’s growth has accelerated ever since its Facebook integration launched – but it’s success isn’t extraordinary: Long forgotten music services like Imeem were once just as popular. Read more »
Wil Wheaton needed a copy of Ubuntu over the weekend, but the download from one of Ubuntu’s web-based mirrors simply took to long. So he turned to BitTorrent – and was reminded of the fact that many entertainment industry colleagues want ISPs to throttle it. Read more »
Hillcrest Labs’ Kylo browser for TV viewing on home theater PCs is going open source: The company released the source code for the browser under the Mozilla Public License, hoping that others will pick up some of the development of the TV-optimized browser platform. Read more »
Ikea’s Uppleva TV solution, which combines a Smart TV with living room furniture, will launch in select retail locations in Europe next month. Some of the apps available on the device at launch will offer access to services like YouTube, Vimeo, Dailymotion and TuneIn radio. Read more »
Labels used to spend big bucks to promote their music on radio stations and in record stores. They should embrace file sharing instead, argues Counting Crows singer Adam Duritz. The band just released four tracks of its new album as a free BitTorrent download. Read more »
Michael Robertson’s cloud music service MP3Tunes has quietly filed for bankruptcy protection at the end of April. Robertson blamed the lengthy legal fight with major label EMI for the bankruptcy, alleging that the music biz regularly destroys startups with drawn-out litigation. Read more »
The future of TV may not be about apps, second screens and over-the-top at all but about new types of screens that fill entire walls and work together in a modular fashion. And the TV of the future may be a bit like your dog. Read more »
Google has rolled out a significant update to its Google+ iPhone app that comes with an interesting approach towards mobile platforms: This time around, iOS is getting to experience the UI changes first. An update to the Google+ Android app is planed for the coming weeks. Read more »
SoundCloud used a press event in San Francisco on Wednesday to launch the next version of its web app in private beta. The relaunch is based on a complete rewrite of the web app’s code base, and puts a bigger emphasis on sharing and discovery. Read more »
Ustream has been unavailable this morning, and Bambuser is seeing huge amounts of unusual traffic due to a distributed denial-of-service attack against both sides. Ustream says the attack was directed against Russian opposition live streamers. Other live streaming services remain unaffected. Read more »
Airtime, the social video startup founded by Napster co-founders Shawn Fanning and Sean Parker, just publicly announced that it will launch in early June. Little is known about the service, but it is said to use Chatroulette-like interaction to get people to meet. Read more »
Hot off the heals of his Kickstarter success, video blogging pioneer Ze Frank has raised an additional $756,000 from Marc Andreessen and others. His declared goal: To build “a new kind of media company” with a number of shows and active audience engagement. Read more »
Silicon Valley veteran and former Formspring COO Ro Choy has been hired by BitTorrent Inc. as VP of Biz Dev and Marketing. One of his first tasks on the job: Dealing with rumors that the company is going to rebrand itself as Gyre Corp. Read more »
Google just flipped the switch for Hangouts on Air, allowing everyone to stream their Hangouts to an unlimited number of viewers. It’s a big Hangouts, and an interesting move for the company who has so far been cautious with its live video efforts. Read more »
Brightcove used to have significant staff in China, and was looking to expand in the country as late as March 2010 – but left China head over heels later that year. What’s left is Brightcove’s staff, now working for a local competitor, and the question: What happened? Read more »
Germany’s broadcasters ProSiebenSat.1 and RTL won’t be able to launch their own Hulu-like service for catch-up TV, if today’s day in court is any indication. A judge agreed with regulators that the platform would establish a duopoly. That’s good news for Hulu. Read more »
Netflix has added dozens of concert videos and music documentaries from artists like Alice Cooper, Jethro Tull, Ray Charles, Deep Purple, Korn, The Beatles and others to its catalog. Does this mean that Netflix is now going to compete with sites like Wolfgang’s Vault or Vevo? Read more »
Digital narcissists, here’s your next guilty pleasure: Splash.fm lets users share music and like, or “splash”, the shares of others. Curators with a lot of influence will over time amass a “Splash Score.” Sounds familiar? The founders readily admit that Klout was a big influence. Read more »
Spotify app Spoundrop relaunched over the weekend, adding features that make collaborative listening on Spotify even more social. This should help Spotify to bring more curation to its music catalog, making it possible for users to tune into a more radio-like listening experience. Read more »
Roku is officially starting to sell its devices in Canada: The company will initially make two devices available for pre-order through its own site as well as online retailers this week. The boxes will pop up in stores later this month. Read more »
Google+ now has 170 million users, according to the most recent data shared by Google CEO Larry Page, who said the company has seen has seen “some impressive growth” for Google+. Page also called Google+ the “social spine” of a growing number of Google products. Read more »
There are only around 200,000 people out there using a Boxee Box, according to numbers released by the company this week. That’s low, but it’s also part of a bigger trend: Consumers still have to warm up to the idea of buying connected devices. Read more »
Hulu just cut the subscription price of its Japanese video service by a third. The company is now charging the equivalent of $12 per month in Japan, as opposed to more than $18 before the price change. The move mimics a similar step in the U.S.. Read more »
Apple may decide not to reinvent the wheel for any upcoming Apple TV product. Instead of offering access to integrated live TV feeds, it may partner with existing pay TV operators. Best suited for this kind of partnership may just be Dish or DirecTV. Read more »
