Count Down To The Superbowl-Cool Widget

Don't Forget Mother's Day!

Recycle Your Electronic Waste

Analog To Digital TV Transition

Photobucket Launches Top Pics on MySpace

Photobucket’s Top Pics Application Connects Friends Through Photos on the World’s Largest Social Network

Photobucket (http://www.photobucket.com), the world's largest standalone photo and video-sharing site, today announced the launch of Top Pics on MySpace (http://www.myspace.com/top_pics), the world’s most popular social network. Top Pics gives MySpace users a fun way to showcase their favorite photos from MySpace and Photobucket alongside those of their friends. Empowered by MySpace’s newly announced Developer Platform (http://developer.myspace.com), Photobucket was able to easily build, test, and ultimately deploy Top Pics.

Top Pics displays photos in an attractive grid that can be viewed privately on a user’s MySpace home page or by friends on a user’s profile page. The application’s intuitive drag-and-drop interface enables users to quickly find, select and arrange images from multiple sources, including:

AOL to Include ESPN Content via Syndicated Video Player

ESPN’s First Online Video Syndication Agreement to Deliver Short-Form Sports Programming from ESPN.com to AOL Video and AOL Sports

ESPN and AOL announced that ESPN.com will make its short-form online video content accessible directly through AOL Video (http://video.aol.com), and AOL Sports (http://sports.aol.com/), marking the first time ESPN has syndicated its video content through an Internet portal. ESPN will offer highlights from games and major sporting events as well as video clips from ESPN original programming via an embedded ESPN video player. The ESPN channel page (http://video.aol.com/video-category/espn/112704) launched yesterday on AOL Video.

“ESPN.com video is second to none, and we are excited by the expanded reach afforded us through this syndication agreement," said Matt Murphy, Senior Vice President, Digital Video Distribution at ESPN. "Working with AOL allows us to offer new benefits to fans and advertisers--viewers can now access the programming they want, whether they are on ESPN.com or AOL’s portal, while our advertisers benefit from a larger online video audience than ever before. The potential is tremendous and we hope fans will be seeing more syndicated video from ESPN.com in the future.”

Dinner and a Movie, at Your Fingertips

MovieTickets.com Announces Online Ticketing Partnership With Movie Tavern
Dallas-Based Movie Tavern Is a Leading Operator of Cinema-Eateries

MovieTickets.com , the world's most powerful Internet movie ticketing service, announces a partnership with Movie Tavern, a Dallas-based cinema- eatery chain operating 11 theaters and 101 screens nationwide. Movie Tavern combines the enjoyment of first-run movies with an in-theater dining experience.

"Movie Tavern appeals to consumers who appreciate the ease and convenience of a full-service dinner-and-a-movie offering," said Joel Cohen, executive vice president and general manager of MovieTickets.com. "Our advance online ticketing option will make the unique Movie Tavern experience even more enjoyable for its patrons."

Movie Tavern operates theater locations in Texas, Colorado, Ohio and Kentucky, with future locations planned this year in Georgia, Virginia and additional locations in Texas. The rapidly expanding chain is on track to increase its number of screens from 101 to more than 135 in 2008.

Facebook Chat?????

Facebook Chat is Coming… in 2 Weeks!!

By Steve Gebhardt - Seton Hall U.

Facebook is set to launch a highly anticipated chat feature in the next 2 weeks to allow for real time communication within the popular social network.

The program will sit at the bottom of the page showing open chat windows and number of friends online. The user can pop out the entire chat interface into a separate window to show online friend lists and current conversations which is similar to Gchat’s Gtalk feature (see screen capture to the right). The users will be able to throw online/offline status easily which is a similar feature to Away Messages in AIM. Users will also be able to clear their chat history and they “online” status will appear throughout the site.

All-in-all it’s a major upgrade for Facebook but let the backlash begin from users who feel Facebook is pushing the instant communication envelope too far.

Ex-Googlers Launch rentBits.com - Vertical Search for Rentals

rentBits.com today announced the beta launch of its rental search engine, offering renters one place to find available rental homes, condos and apartments.

rentBits helps users make sense of the millions of bits of rental housing data and information that reside on the web. Using advanced search technology, rentBits crawls the web to provide users with an index of single family home, condo and apartment for rent listings from major rental sites, associations and property management websites.

In addition to improving the online search experience for rental properties, rentBits also offers:

• Intuitive and clean search design
• No login requirements
• New rental search technology
• Comprehensive listings
• Speed and accuracy
• Daily listing updates

The rentBits executive team brings search and advertising expertise to the online rental space. Dan Daugherty (CEO) and Tim Moynihan (COO) come from Google and Dariusz Rakowicz (CTO) has extensive experience developing technology and search platforms for the hotel industry.

"While at Google, we learned to develop products that were simple to use, free for users, and clean of annoying advertising," says Dan Daugherty, President and CEO. "rentBits has all of these qualities and this beta release is just the beginning. We will continue to innovate so we can provide the best rental search experience for our users."

rentBits' business is advertising-based and provides a platform for property managers, real estate investors and agents to reach renters while they are actively searching for rental properties.

For more information, or to search for a rental home or apartment, visit http://www.rentbits.com/. Read about or comment on updated rentBits news and observations in the rental industry at rentBits' corporate blog at http://www.rentbits.com/blog.

Price Spurs Demand for Triple-Play’s

Bear Stearns Finds Consumers View Services As Commodities By Linda Moss -- Multichannel News, 3/6/2008 2:53:00 PM

Price is the key factor driving demand for video, broadband and voice services, according to consumer research conducted by Bear Stearns.

“Our survey finds that users continue to view these services as ‘commodity-like’ with price the primary driver of demand,” the Wall Street firm said in a report by analyst Spencer Wang.

For its 2008 Communications Survey, Bear Stearns surveyed nearly 1,000 consumers.

“Consistent with our prior work, our survey finds that across all three products categories, price is the top factor affecting demand,” Wang wrote. “This implies that consumers view communication services as fairly ‘commodity-like,’ and that as competition rises, pricing power may wane. However, we still expect rational pricing given the oligopoly structure of the industry, although average revenue per user growth will likely slow going forward with more competition.”

Click here for the full story.