The market for paid online video download services like BigFlicks.com (owned by Reliance Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group) is just not there.

At least, not anytime in the near future.

BigFlicks offers a wide selection of Bollywood and a small collection of regional language movies in its video download service (buy or rent) for a fee ranging from $4.99 to $19.99.

In the latest signal of the limited prospects for paid online video download services, Wal-Mart just pulled the plug on its video download service in the U.S.

Wal-Mart’s technology partner HP told CNET that the market for paid video downloads was not in line with expectations.

In its Saturday (Dec.29) edition, the New York Times put it well:

Wal-Mart is the nation’s largest seller of DVDs. Its quiet abdication of digital downloads at the height of the holiday shopping season, while a stark contrast to the ballyhooed announcement of the service, was consistent with the ho-hum reaction by many consumers to the downloadable movie concept.

Unlike India, which has a pathetic broadband Internet infrastructure at the household level, the U.S. has a fairly Continue Reading…

After eight months of review for possible antitrust violations, the Federal Trade Commission on Thursday approved Google’s $3.1 billion acquisition of Internet ad server DoubleClick.

But the European Commission has yet to sign off on the deal.

In a 4-1 vote to close its investigation of the transaction, the FTC wrote in its majority statement:

After carefully reviewing the evidence, we have concluded that Google’s proposed acquisition of DoubleClick is unlikely to substantially lessen competition.

Besides being the most popular search engine, Google already has a lock on the Internet text ad market with its AdWords and AdSense programs while DoubleClick is the most important player in the third party banner ad server market.

Here’s how we see the Google-DoubleClick deal: 

1. We think the DoubleClick acquisition will make Google a too powerful influence on the overall Internet advertising market to the detriment of both content publishers and advertisers, big and small. Size matters, as all those junk e-mails tell us everyday. Also, arrogance Continue Reading…

Tiny Norwegian browser company Opera has filed an antitrust complaint against Microsoft with the European Commission charging Microsoft with abusing its dominant position by tying its Internet Explorer browser to the Windows operating system and hindering interoperability by not following accepted web standards.

Opera wants the EC to compel Microsoft to give consumers a real choice and support open standards in the IE browser. Specifically, Opera is asking that Microsoft unbundle Internet Explorer from Windows and/or carry alternative browsers pre-installed on the desktop.

Opera also wants Microsoft to follow open web standards accepted by the web-authoring communities.

Opera CEO Jon von Tetzchner did not mince his words on Thursday:

We are filing this complaint on behalf of all consumers who are tired of having a monopolist make choices for them. In addition to promoting the free choice of individual consumers, we are a champion of open Web standards and cross-platform innovation. We cannot rest until we’ve brought fair and equitable options to consumers worldwide.

Opera has less than 1% share of the browser market Continue Reading…

Titillating magazine and adult video pioneer Penthouse Media Group has spent $500 million to buy a bunch of social networking web sites with its acquisition of Various Inc and its subsidiaries.

Various operates 25 online communities including adultfriendfinder.com, which supposedly has 18 million members.

All together, Various is said to have a membership base of 260 million consumers.

Penthouse folks crowed that with combined 2007 projected revenues of $340 million Penthouse Media Group was the largest adult entertainment company in the world.

Social networking web sites are sizzling hot with a motley crew of players including Google, Microsoft, News Corp and even the bumbling CIA wading into this space.

Bollywood entertainment house T-Series is frustrated that YouTube (owned by Google) has failed to take cognizance of the Delhi High Court’s interim order in November restraining YouTube and Google from infringing its content and plans to file a contempt petition.

T-Series has filed a suit against Google and YouTube for a permanent injunction and the case is slated to come up for hearing in February 2008. 

Super Cassette Industries (parent company of T-Series) VP Neeraj Kalyan told The Economic Times: 

In the interim, we plan to move a contempt petition against Google on the same. The company seems to have little regard for the law of the land as our content is still displayed on YouTube.

Google India Managing Director Shailesh Rao told The Economic Times:

The case is still subjudice and I would not like to comment on its details. In general, on the issue of copyright infringement, Google maintains that it will bring down the link of a particular page as soon as a lawful copyright owner files a complaint against it.

Founded by the late Gulshan Kumar, T-Series claims to own 2,000 video and 35,000 audio titles.

TV rating firm Nielsen is jumping on the anti-piracy bandwagon with a new service called Digital Media Manager.

Expected to launch in mid-2008, Digital Media Manager will let video content owners monitor and manage distribution of their media content online.

Digital Media Manager will use digital watermarking and fingerprinting to ensure copyright security and compliance.

Nielsen is working with Digimarc to roll out the new service.

TV and movie studios have been shouting themselves hoarse over the rampant piracy of their content on online services such as YouTube.

Like other content owners, Bollywood producers have been badly hit by rampant online and offline piracy.

Within days - and sometimes within hours - of a Bollywood movie’s release, users upload songs and occasionally whole movies to online video sites like YouTube. Latest Bollywood movies are also sold and rented out in Indian grocery stores in the U.S. within days of their release.

In subsequent phases, Nielsen wants to digitally watermark DVDs, movies, music, video games and other content.

Heady from its overwhelming success in the search arena, Google wants to extend its sway into the mobile arena as well.

On Monday, the Mountain View, California company rolled out a new alliance of 34 members called Open Handset Alliance to develop new cell phones based on open technology standards.

Google and other members of the Open Handset Alliance will spearhead development of the so-called Android technology that’s supposed to make it easier and cheaper to develop new features for cell phones.

Android, which is to be offered free of cost to handset makers, will include the popular open source Linux operating system, Sun Microsystems’ Java programming language as well as mobile applications.

Google is hoping that the new mobile phones will entice users to access more of its Internet services that today cater mostly to desktop and laptop users and provide a new platform for its ad services.  

Developers will get a peek at a beta of Android Software Development Kit (SDK) on Continue Reading…

The Wall Street Journal is tooting its horn that it’s hit the one million paid subscriber mark for its online edition WSJ.com.

WSJ.com subscribers stood at 989,000 at the end of the third quarter, up 25.5% year over year.

WSJ.com is that rare success in a sea of failures of newspapers that have struggled to get readers to pay for their online editions.

Media moghul Rupert Murdoch, whose News Corp is acquiring the Wall Street Journal’s parent company Dow Jones & Co, has mulled the idea of making WSJ.com free to increase readership and make it a more attractive vehicle for advertisers.

But the print version of Wall Street Journal continues to be a concern as it does for most major newspapers in the U.S.

Total paid Wall Street Journal circulation - both print and online - fell 1.5% over the last 12 months to 2,012,000.

Social networking web sites seem to be the big rage in Internet-land with News Corp, Microsoft and Google all owing a piece of the action in this hot segment.

Now media laggard HT Media, parent company of the Hindustan Times newspaper, has belatedly developed the social networking itch.

The slow-moving HT Media says its subsidiary Firefly e-Ventures in the process of acquiring a social networking web site to establish a footing in this rapidly-growing space and complement its other proposed web initiatives.

Firefly also intends to roll out online vertical classifieds around jobs, matrimonials and real estate.

HT did not provide details but claimed that the relaunched Hindustantimes.com web site was seeing higher page views.

Long term, we are skeptical that the HT group’s forays in the Internet domain will amount to much.

The HT folks are too slow-moving compared to other Indian media players like Times of India. Come on, it took HT decades to launch a business newspaper. And Mint, HT’s busines daily is still published only in Delhi and Bombay. The Bangalore edition of Mint is expected to show up sometime in the third quarter.

Microsoft plans to spin off Bungie Studios, developer of the successful Halo trilogy of video games for its Xbox 360 gaming console, into a separate company but retain a stake in it.

Microsoft acquired Bungie in 2000 as part of its efforts to beef up its gaming efforts.

However, the Bungie folks may not have been comfortable within the Microsoft corporate culture, according to a Wall Street Journal (subscription required) report:

Bungie’s game creators bristled while under Microsoft’s control, say people familiar with the matter. Microsoft has pushed into the new areas such as digital music and videogames over the past 10 years but has had trouble adjusting its culture and compensation to the entertainment industry.

Microsoft Game Studios Corporate VP Shane Kim said Friday:

While we are supporting Bungie’s desire to return to its independent roots, we will continue to invest in our ‘Halo’ entertainment property with Bungie and other partners, such as Peter Jackson, on a new interactive series set in the ‘Halo’ universe.

Reports say Bungie will develop games for non-Microsoft gaming platforms as well although its primary focus will be on the Xbox 360.

Most people recognize trash when they see it or hear it. Except for the suckers and trash lovers.

No surprise then that Microsoft’s Zune digital music player has been consigned to the trash heap and shown the middle finger by most music lovers.

Launched in November last year, Microsoft has sold about 1.2 million units of Zune. In about the same time (from October 2006-June 2007), Apple sold 41.4 million units of its hugely popular iPods. Go figure.

In a desperate effort to shore up sales of the dead sucker, Microsoft is rolling out new versions of its Zune player, software and online store in November. None of them amount to a hill of beans.

Microsoft is putting out its first flash versions of the Zune Continue Reading…

Amazon.com’s new online music store Amazon MP3 offers songs in several Indian languages including Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Punjabi and Kannada.

We checked the Amazon store for songs from old and new Hindi and Tamil movies including Aradhana, Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge, Dhoom and Ilamai Oonjaladigirathu (Tamil). Guess what, we found ‘em all there.

A preview option lets you listen to the songs for a short while before making the purchase.

Most of the Hindi and Tamil songs we checked were priced at 89 cents each while some were 99 cents.

The good news for buyers - the songs are available in MP3 format without digital rights management (DRM) restrictions.

This means that customers can enjoy their music downloads using any hardware device including PCs, Macs, iPods, Zunes, Zens, iPhones, RAZRs and BlackBerrys.

Buyers are also supposed to be able to organize their music using any music management application such as iTunes or Windows Media Player and burn songs to CDs.

Amazon’s new music download service is offering a total of two million songs from 180,000 artists in a wide variety of genres.

Will Amazon.com be able to make a dent in the face of the Apple iPod juggernaut? Watch this space.