Also: Yahoo's strategy map | Facebook: You get famous, and the writs come out | T-Mobile to get the iPhone in Germany? | Steve Jobs is the Powergeek | Global mobile video is years off | 7digital's Mercury prize widget | Future announces ABCe audit for gaming site | Gratuitous link of the day
Has News International lost its sense of humour? The delightfully succinct Pandemian blog created a Merry Christmas collage of News of the World headlines back on Christmas Eve last year: "Crime rise panic, heartbreak, bitter family feud" - you get the idea.
At the weekend, she (for we know the author Jack Pandemian is a lady) received a "sinister email" from News International demanding that she takes down the News of the World cuttings. This wasn't a formal cease and desist, but a from letter about publishing News Int images and material without a licence.
Pandemian promptly replied with another collage, inviting News Int to stick its demands up its Doctor Cockney.
If it has any sense, News International will drop this nonsense immediately. But if not, we get a lot of entertainment and Pandemian doesn't seem unduly bothered by any of it: "Can't think of anyone's money I'd rather waste than Murdochcorp's," she says. We wait, breath a-bated.
Yahoo's strategy map
Yahoo's lacklustre financial results for the second quarter of the year were accompanied by a pledge from new chief executive Jerry Yang to spend 100 days mapping out a strategic plan for the firm. Funny - you would've though Yahoo already had one of those.
Yang said he will be "taking a fresh look" Yahoo's assets and de-emphasising parts that are underperforming. "Yahoo is too often defined by the competitive landscape," said Yang. "Yahoo is a deep and active market place. The way we will strengthen Yahoo is to strengthen the market place. There's a gap of where Yahoo is and where Yahoo needs to be."
So the priorities are personalisation across services, which Yahoo believes will make the platform more valuable for advertisers, faster decision making and a new corporate culture that includes bringing in a new chief technical officer and focusing on teamwork, etc etc. All sounds straightforward enough, but the figures for the last quarter are pretty flat in such a lively sector: profit fell slightly from $164.33m in the second quarter of 2006 to $160.57m this year, with revenue up from $1.58bn to $1.7bn. The company is still playing catch up with Google, whose results are announced tomorrow. Om Malik's graph on spend by ad companies says it all. (ZDNet)
Facebook: You get famous, and the writs come out
Three former classmates of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg initiated a lawsuit against him three years ago, claiming he nicked the idea, code and business plan for the social networking site from a college project. The three have now resurrected their ConnectU idea (err, nice name...) and detail their traumas including going through several programmers, one of whom "who stole our ideas to create a competing site, without informing us of his intentions". Zuckerberg has counter-sued, says Found+Read, with a swathe of unflattering allegations. But Carleen Hawn asks the pertinent question: what is more important - invention or innovation? (Found+Read)
T-Mobile to get the iPhone in Germany?
Some eagle-eyed blogger spotted a dummy page on T-Mobile's site in Germany that appears to have made a wee space for the iPhone. Is it someone in the design departure being very organised, a bit hopeful or having a laugh - or a slightly premature tweak ahead of a big announcement? T-Mobile is denying any iPhone related rumours, as it would, but the network is massive in Germany so it's not unlikely. (The Inquirer)
Steve Jobs is the powergeek
Apple chief executive Steve Jobs is top of a list of online music "powergeeks" compiled by Blender magazine in the US. "Today's power brokers no longer work in the steel-and-glass towers of the traditional record business," said Blender editor Craig Marks. "Instead, they're tech geeks, bedroom bloggers and Silicon Valley visionaries." Jobs is a technology trendsetter, he said, and iTunes and the iPod have changed the music space more than anything since the CD or even the sound recording. MySpace co-founders Tom Anderson and Chris DeWolfe were placed second in the Powergeek 25 and Universal chief executive Doug Morris at 4. (Reuters)
Global mobile video is years off
Fragmentation across the mobile, broadcasting and web industries will hold back growth in universal mobile video, according to research, with different countries more likely to find the best local solution. Research by In-Stat noted the huge potential of mobile video, but said the reality of services on any significant global scale is years away. The concern is that a lack of interoperability between competing handsets, broadcast frequencies and payment methods. (VNU)
7digital's Mercury Prize widget
Downloads retail site 7digital has introduced a Mercury Prize widget so that users can place tracks from nominated artists on their social networking pages, including MySpace, and on their own blogs. Widgets are the new black.
Future announces ABCe audit for gaming site
Future snuck this out on a Friday; the publisher's network of games sites has been audited by the Audit Bureau of Circulation and can officially reveal it has 1.56m unique users every month. Future lumps together its games print titles on one site under the Computer and Video Games Network; PC Gamer, PSM3 and XBox World 360 are all on the one site, which publishes news, features, interviews and forums.
Gratuitous link of the day
Some pre Viral Video viral video. Someone, who shall remain nameless, forwarded me this link saying he was "crying real tears" over this clip. I feel I should warn you not to watch this if you don't fancy having a really grating melody lodged in your head all ruddy afternoon, but for some relief you can watch this afterwards: "My cousin says he can take out a large dog in one punch." I'll leave the punditry to you.
