media

Report: Facebook axes third-party app Audio over copyright issues

VentureBeat reports that Facebook has removed a popular application from its third-party developer platform over potential copyright issues. The application, called Audio, allowed users to upload MP3 files and share them with their friends--yup, that's a recipe for copyright disaster.

Facebook had already axed the app once before, according to the article. It appears that Audio had been created by a single developer, not an existing company.

<>As VentureBeat's Eric Eldon points out, this shows that Facebook is taking terms-of-service violations seriously when it comes to the Platform, which was launched in late May and catapulted … Read more

NowPublic jumps into the public eye--but how will it turn out?

In a quintessentially Web 2.0 case of "If it got funding, it must be worth a look," user-generated news site NowPublic hauled in $10.6 million in series A venture capital funding earlier this week, and now the blog community has pounced on it with accolades and criticism alike. NowPublic, in case you haven't checked it out yet, is a "citizen journalism" site devoted to bringing you news of the user-generated variety--all stories and accompanying photos, videos, and other multimedia are contributed by fellow NowPublic readers. Then, much like Digg, which remains the top … Read more

Facebook experiencing 'upgrade' outages

Tried to visit Facebook today and had no luck? It appears that the social-networking site has been experiencing some growing pains. No one in CNET News.com's newsroom was able to access the site starting around 10 a.m. PDT.

Some experienced a time-out while others were met with the message "We're upgrading. We'll be back soon."

Is Facebook down for you? Working for you? Redirecting to MySpace.com? (Just kidding.) Let us know.

UPDATE (11:24 AM PT): Facebook has updated its home page with a new message that says "Facebook is temporarily … Read more

Dear Editor, check out this video of my cat

The actual merit of this month's CNN-YouTube Democratic debate has proven arguable, but it at least appears to have been influential, as more and more "traditional" news outlets are turning to the power of YouTube and its ilk as a way to breathe some new life into participatory citizenship.

One CNET News.com editor directed me to a relatively new feature offered by the online operations of the California regional paper Contra Costa Times--"Your Views," which allows users to submit their own photos, videos, and cartoons. The whole system is provided by a … Read more

Associated Press cuts new-media news service

This one's kind of a bitter irony. We've all been reading over and over about how traditional news outlets are turning to the Web in order to boost readership and advertising revenue in the face of a well-documented decline in print media (Wired magazine has a feature in this month's issue about newspaper chain Gannett's attempt to modernize). But in this case, it's the other way around: The Associated Press, according to a report on Friday evening, has announced that it's axing its youth-oriented, blog- and video-heavy ASAP news portal because it proved to … Read more

Visual: How not to use Facebook

I count this as one of social networking blog Mashable's greatest accomplishments: installing as many Facebook Platform applications as possible onto a single profile and then taking a screenshot.

I've copy-pasted the screenshot below, but I'm warning you, it's enormous. Scroll down at your own risk.… Read more

News anchors break from the script

Nearly three million people have watched on You Tube as Mika Brzezinski refuses to report on the Paris Hilton story; until yesterday I was not one of those people. I had heard about the encounter and rejoiced in her defiance, but I only stumbled onto the clip after reading Taking the Lead over at the Stop Big Media blog which is published through Free Press. Actually watching the event unfold went well beyond reading about it, and I was shocked to see the rest of the news team's reaction to her actions.

Despite the way Joe Scarborough mocked his colleague for taking the initiative, Jack Cafferty at CNN's the Situation Room has followed suit. During a recent broadcast, Cafferty asked the operator of his teleprompter, "I wonder if we can get the Lindsay Lohan DUI arrest out of the teleprompter and put my script in it, is that possible?" Seconds later Cafferty concluded, "Apparently it's not."

… Read more

Study: Web-based instant messaging is growing fast

Who needs downloads? Not instant-messaging fans, apparently, according to Nielsen NetRatings. The online division of the legendary statistics-crunching company just released a study that tracks the fastest-growing instant-messaging software products from August 2006 to June 2007, and the results indicate that Web-based is the way to go.

The most rapidly growing IM client, according to the study, is Meebo, which launched just over a year ago. The fact that it's so new may be partially responsible for its rapid growth--354 percent from August 2006 to June 2007. But Meebo also packs a double punch: not only is it Web-based … Read more

One million beta testers for Joost, but have they stuck around?

The founders of online television start-up Joost, who also count Skype and Kazaa as bullet points on their resumes, have announced that the service now has one million users. Still in beta and technically invite-only (though invitations are now easy to find), Joost was one of the most-talked-about tech products of last year. Originally known by the Bond-worthy codename "The Venice Project," Joost was widely touted as a "YouTube killer" before people really knew what it was--in truth, the service is a slick interface for free, ad-supported video content on-demand. No cat videos there.

Joost co-founder … Read more