Media Industries Project - Carsey Wolf Center

Google responds to privacy concerns with new social-networking tool Buzz.

Good technology has value, but leading social networks require "network effects." Facebook is infinitely more valuable because all your friends are on it. Facebook has leveraged this "critical mass" of users to stay ahead of new rivals, too. Why visit Twitter, you may ask, when Facebook has continually extended its feature set to keep up with its less popular competitor? The story of social networks is in fact a story about network effects: How can a service reach a point at which there are enough users and content to be useful?

Epicenter The Business of Tech Google Poaches Social Search Service Aardvark * By Ryan Singel Email Author * February 11, 2010 | * 3:49 pm | * Categories: Search * aardvark-answer1The coolest search engine you've never used got snapped up by Google Thursday for a reported $50 million. Aardvark, a company that lets you use IM, Twitter and e-mail to ask full-text questions and then get answers from people in or close to your social network, confirmed it signed a deal with Google. TechCrunch, which first reported the news, put the figure at $50 million, but Wired.com could not confirm the purchase price.

Facebook is denying it illegally breached the privacy of its users in a proposed $9.5 million settlement to a class action challenging its program that monitored and published what users of the social-networking site were buying or renting from Blockbuster, Overstock and other locations.

Six music blogs hosted by Google's blogging services have been accused of violating the company's terms of service by allegedly posting unauthorized copyright material and have been booted from the sites. Google CEO Eric Schmidt sits between Universal Music Group CEO Doug Morris (left) and Rolf Schmidt-Holtz, CEO of Sony Music Entertainment, at the Vevo launch party. (Credit: Greg Sandoval/CNET) The blogs that were hosted by Google's Blogger or Blogspot services are: Living Ears, I Rock Cleveland, Pop Tarts, Masala,To Die By Your Side, and It's a Rap.

While the technosphere was busy Tuesday pitting Google's (Nasdaq: GOOG) new Buzz service against Facebook and Twitter in some kind of social media steel-cage deathmatch, the search giant's executives were hinting at what they see as the real winning uses for Buzz -- within the enterprise and out and about in the mobile arena.

In his feisty opening statement, Franken said: "I worked for NBC for many years. And what I know from my previous career has given me reason to be concerned--let me rephrase that, very concerned--about the potential merger of Comcast and NBC Universal. The media are our source of entertainment, but they're also the way we get our information about the world. So when the same company that produces the programs runs the pipes that bring us those programs, we have a reason to be nervous.... You'll have to excuse me if I don't just trust their promises and that is from experience in this business." The former SNL star and entertainment industry insider-turned-Senator is dead on with his concerns. As Free Press--the media reform advocacy organization founded by The Nation's John Nichols, media scholar Robert McChesney, and current executive director Josh Silver-- points out, the merger would result in Comcast controlling one in every five television viewing hours. It would lead to fewer choices of what you can watch and how you can watch it. Those cable bills that continue to rise would rise even higher, and if you don't use Comcast you might have to pay a premium to get NBC's shows. There will be even less access to local and independent programming as Comcast would promote NBC's shows at their expense. And, finally, there's the even larger issue of concentrating power and limiting access to free public interest media.

Google's entry into the social networking space will face similar privacy challenges as Facebook and other social networking sites. Here are some facts about Buzz privacy for users to keep in mind.

President Obama's 2009 stimulus package was the most expensive bill in history, yet received strong media support. This is because the media; ABC, CBS, and NBC cite supporters of the bill 3 times as often as they mention critics, and nearly half of their reports included no criticism about the bill at all!

NBC owns the U.S. rights to the Vancouver Olympics, and, for this Olympics, it has clamped down on online live streaming of events. Only hockey and curling will be shown live online, with all other events either shown live on television or held for tape-delay airing on prime time or late night television, says the industry publication Broadcasting & Cable in a story Monday. The Web site for CTV, the Canadian network with rights to the Olympics in that country, is live-streaming events, but NBC has made sure that computers with U.S. IP addresses can't log onto the CTV site.

Article discussing the decline of the magazine industry, both for subscriptions and, to a lesser extent, newsstand sales.

In another tough stretch for the magazine business, newsstand sales and subscriptions declined in the last six months of 2009. The only good news: the rate of decline is getting less steep for newsstand sales.

Mass Effect 2 relies heavily on dialog and story to grab gamers, but many playing the game are having problems reading the text.

Video game software sales across the world's three largest markets--the United States, Japan, and the United Kingdom--fell 8 percent in 2009, according to a joint report issued Wednesday by a consortium of industry analyst firms.

The guys behind Lionsgate Entertainment's GAMER, which just launched on Blu-ray Disc and DVD, have a videogame history beyond the Crank films.

The Entertainment Software Ratings Board (ESRB) removed an online ratings summary of the content in Dead or Alive: Paradise for PSP from its website today in response to inquiries as to the appropriateness of the summary.