Rattleblog: Tales from the blogosphere

23-03-2007

by Damien Mulley

This week Rattleblog talks about lawsuits, videos, PS3s and why blogging at blogging conferences is not a good thing to do.

After our extended St. Patrick's Day break due to too much green stout, Rattleblog is back. We'll start off now with yet another smug "We told you so". In a previous Rattleblog we suggested that Google would buy an in-game advertising company and this week Google confirmed on its blog that they have done just that.

Another Google acquisition has been the graphing company Gapminder, which does a marvellous job of visualising data. Unlike most other companies, the company behind Gapminder is owned by a college so the staff will not make anything from the acquisition, though they will become Google employees and move to Google headquarters in California. With the fantastic data graphing abilities of the Gapminder software, the much-rumoured PowerPoint competitor from Google, must surely be weeks away from launch, but will this make presentations better or worse: Google isn't exactly famous for sexy design.

While the Viacom and Google battle we reported on previously has now turned into an all-out war with Viacom suing Google for a billion dollars. (Is anyone else reminded of a Dr. Evil ransom demand?), MySpace owners News Corp have teamed up with NBC to create a YouTube competitor that will use its content. It's clear that the pair are building an alternative to YouTube so they can get a bigger share of the ad revenue than what they'd get with a YouTube deal. Time will tell if it succeeds.

More news about YouTube has leaked out and was covered by Techcrunch. Despite News Corp and NBC building a whole new platform in order to make money from ads around videos, it appears that YouTube might have been making as little as USD15 million a year from advertising; almost USD2 billion was spent acquiring the company. Let's hope Google knows how to increase revenue pretty quickly.

Staying with video, Om Malik suggests that one huge growth area right now will be video scanning software that copyright holders can use to see if their content is on the various video sharing websites. If Google loses the Viacom case, expect hundreds or even thousands more cases.

Engadget reports that as a surprise bonus for all those who bought the PS3 at the London launch, everyone got 42 inch TVs and cab rides home. But will this be enough for the PS3, which missed out on the lucrative Christmas market by a couple of months?

Still with games, the Datamining blog shows that the Wii is still winning the hearts and minds of people online, with the dinky Nintendo console still the most talked about console online. While the PS3 started strong, its popularity has plummeted over the past few months. With the launch in Europe last night, maybe there'll be a last furlong surge for Sony?

Some people aren't getting that with the changing face of media, conferences on media change too. At this week's Guardian new media conference, an attendee was none too pleased that people were typing away on their keyboards during the conference. Perish the thought that someone would live-blog at an event that talks about live-blogging at events.

Don't forget that Saturday is Shutdown Day. A challenge for net addicts everywhere, will you be able to keep your computer off for the whole of 24 March?

Lastly, another odd tech gadget that Rattleblog suggests you look at. For the on-the-road business traveller who misses home TV dinners, comes the portable microwave oven. Instead of the ring of a mobile phone as you hurtle down the motorway, you can have the ding of a microwave as your lasagne gets cooked.

Damien Mulley is an Irish blogger and works as a technical writer in Cork.