Sirius Awards Stern With Large Stock Payment
Sirius' recent successes are working to the benefit of shock jock Howard Stern. The satellite radio provider said on Tuesday that it had awarded him 22.1 million shares, valued at $82.9 million. The award of stock comes after the company again surpassed pre-Stern subscriber targets, a requirement for the awarding of stock as per his contract. Before Stern, the company had only projected 3.5 million subscribers by the end of last year. They finished the year with over six million.
Since the signing of Stern, Sirius's growth has been explosive, growing from just 600,000 subscribers. In 2005, shortly before he came on the air, he and his agent Don Buchwald were awarded 34.4 million shares for exceeding guidance at the end of that year. The targets have not been made public.
Real Strikes New Rhapsody Distribution Deals
Aiming to take on both Microsoft and Apple head on, Real on Monday announced several new deals to expand Rhapsody's presence in the music industry. Deals with Nokia, Reigncom (maker of the iRiver), and TiVo were some of the companies that announced support for the Rhapsody DNA platform. With Microsoft apparently abandoning PlaysForSure for the Zune, it appears that Real is stepping in to fill that void.
Nokia would support the service in its next-generation Internet Tablet, while Reigncom would produce several versions of the iRiver MP3 player compatible with Rhapsody. Also planned is the capability to play Rhapsody content through the TiVo set-top box, expected later this year. "Our vision for Rhapsody is to deliver seamless and personalized access to millions of songs, on-demand and from any device," music and video senior vice president Dan Sheeran said.
Study: Zune Sales Slow But Steady
While Microsoft is adamant that sales of its Zune player are 'meeting expectations,' data from market research firm Current Analysis indicates that the device failed to break into the top 10 in sales, and is competing in the wrong market segment. As a hard drive based player, Microsoft has already limited itself to 20 percent of the overall digital music player market. Eight of the top ten players were Apple models, with the remaining two belonging to SanDisk.
However, within the HDD player segment, Redmond is actually performing quite well, with about one out of every eight players being a Zune, or 12 percent. Current's sales data only includes sales from five retailers: Best Buy, Circuit City, CompUSA, Staples and RadioShack. The player is found in most of their stores. Publicly, Microsoft has said it expects to sell 1 million players by June.
Mozilla Revenue Grows from Searches
Although it has not released 2006 figures as of yet, Mozilla continues to generate revenue, mostly through lucrative deals with the various search providers. In 2005, the company posted revenues of $52.9 million, up sharply from $5.8 million in 2004, and $2.4 million in 2003. The increased revenue has allowed Mozilla to expand far larger than its original group of 10 people, chairman Mitchell Baker said.
If Mozilla would be a publicly traded company, its low expenses would be sure to make any investor happy. 2005 expenses totaled $8.2 million, of which the majority went to paying the increasing payroll of the rapidly growing company. "The unspent revenue provides a reserve fund that allows the Mozilla Foundation flexibility and long term stability," Baker said in a Web log post on Tuesday.
Blockbuster Online Passes 2 Million Subscribers
Blockbuster's attempt to lure new subscribers to its online service through its "Total Access" program seems to be working, as the company finished the year with about 2.2 million subscribers, of which two million were paying accounts. Blockbuster Online says it signed up 500,000 paid subscribers during the quarter, more in line with the average net adds of its competitor Netflix.
Company chairman Jon Antioco credits the new option where Blockbuster Online subscribers are able to return and rent movies in store with a large part of the service's newfound success. "We believe this compelling and unique offering will make blockbuster.com the fastest growing online DVD rental service in 2007," he said in a statement. Netflix has yet to announce new subscriber numbers.
Taiwan Quakes Disrupt Asian Internet
Two quakes measuring 6.7 and 7.1 on the Richter scale on Tuesday that struck off the coast of Taiwan damaged undersea cables carrying Internet traffic, causing slowdowns in Internet access throughout the Asian continent and wreaking havoc on the financial markets. Damage was bringing down data transfer by as much as half in some cases, and it could take weeks before service is fully restored.
Undersea cables that carry both voice and data run throughout the Pacific, many of which are routed through Taiwan. As of early morning Wednesday, only about 10 percent of international calls were completed. The worst of the disruptions seemed to be in Taiwan itself, where only half of the normal telecommunications capacity was available after two out of the four lines were cut.
Sony Reaches Rootkit Settlement with 39 States
The full extent of Sony BMG's rootkit liabilities came to light Thursday, as a group of 39 states announced they had reached a $4.25 million settlement with the record label over the issue. Like earlier announced agreements with both Texas and California, consumers will be eligible for compensation of up to $175 for those who can provide documented evidence that a Sony rootkit caused damage to their computers.
A website has been set up to provide more information on the settlement. As part of the agreement, Sony BMG has agreed to no longer distribute discs with the copy-protection software in question on them, either MediaMax or XCP. Settlement of the case closes all pending litigation by the states in the matter. Sony BMG said it was pleased with the terms of the settlement.
Opera Mobile to Appear on Samsung Phones
Opera Software said Thursday that it had entered into an agreement with South Korean electronics maker Samsung to provide its namesake Internet browser software for the company's mobile phones. As the contract is per phone, no estimate of the contract's total value was provided. Opera mobile is a standards-based browser that automatically reformats standard-sized web pages for viewing on a small screen.
The company earlier this month had announced that Nokia had agreed to put the Opera Mini browser on 6300 series phones in select markets. "Our strategies in working closely across the board with major handset manufacturers, operators and directly with end users have made Opera Mobile an attractive product," Opera CEO Jon von Tetzchner said.
Yahoo Mail Beta Receives Update
Yahoo has pushed an update of the beta of its mail product, including performance improvements, bug fixes, and several new features. Developers have improved the loading times for the client, addressed an issue where the beta would generate superfluous "click" sounds in Internet Explorer, and added Vista support. Language support for Mexican, Argentinean, and American Spanish as well as Indonesian and Malay were also added.
In features, the Mail team has added weather information to the welcome page as well as better calendar and search functionality within the client. Finally, a new feature was added from the company's quarterly "Hack Day" that allows the user to quickly navigate through message folders based on the user's settings.
VeriSign, AxiomTV Partner on Movie Downloads
VeriSign said Tuesday that it plans to launch its own movie service next year, to be run by Axiom, a Rochester, Mich. based company. The movies on that service will be targeted at families, VeriSign said. Testing of the service will begin in January, with an official launch on February 1. To watch the movies on a television, some additional equipment will be required.
The movies will be delivered over VeriSign's Content Delivery Network, which is designed to deliver quick downloads in a reliable and secure environment.
MS Adds Vista Compatibility to Zune
Microsoft issued its second firmware update for its Zune music device on Tuesday, offering stability and performance improvements. In addition, the company updated the device to make it compatible with Microsoft's next-generation operating system, Windows Vista. The update is now available from the Zune Web site.
The company had originally scheduled to make such functionality available in conjunction with the consumer release of the OS in January, however the company received some criticism for not offering compatibility out of the box. "It is plumbing stuff, but it is stuff customers will notice and appreciate," Zune marketing director Jason Reindorp said recently of the update.
Opera for Wii Due on December 22
Nintendo plans to make available a customized version of the Opera browser for its Wii console on Friday, the company said Tuesday. Users will be able to download a trial version of the software at that time, which would activate the "Internet Channel" on the Wii menu. The final version is due out in March 2007. Downloads until June of next year will be free, and 500 Wii points afterwards.
The two companies first announced the partnership in May of this year. "Our software brings the power and reach of the Internet to the hottest video game system available," Opera devices executive vice president Scott Hedrick said. "Wii's unique interface adds a new dimension to our browser, making it a useful tool that the whole family will enjoy operating with ease." The browser would be standards based, and come with built-in support for Adobe Flash.
Purported Skype Worm a False Alarm
Consider an earlier warning by some news organizations that a self-propagating worm making its way through the Skype network a false alarm. Websense, the company that first disclosed the threat on Monday, retracted its earlier statements Tuesday and called the vulnerability a Trojan horse instead. The changes were made after the firm discussed the issue with the development team at Skype.
"The behavior of this Trojan using the Skype API is as per the specifications of the API. The end-user who is running Skype does get notified that a program is attempting to access it and must acknowledge it," the firm wrote in a new alert. "There is no vulnerability in Skype at this time that has been uncovered." At the time of this story, the site hosting the Trojan was down.
Warner Bros Signs Deal with Codemasters
Film studio Warner Bros. took another step towards becoming a full-fledged video game publisher, announcing Tuesday it would distribute the titles of British game maker Codemasters beginning in April. The deal is Warner's second in the industry in a week. Last week, the studio invested in SCi Entertainment Group, taking a 10.3 percent stake in the company. That deal involved a licensing deal of popular characters to which Warner Bros. owned the rights.
The Codemasters deal will run through May 2008. Codemasters produces several games, the most popular of which in the US is its "Operation Flashpoint" title. The game maker hopes the deal will increase its sales within the region.
Firefox Continues to Gain Market Share
Mozilla's Firefox browser continues to gain market share. However, the launch of Internet Explorer 7 by Microsoft may have acted to temper some of the alternative browser's gains. According to research firm WebSideStory, Firefox had a 10.7 percent share at the beginning of December, up from 9.84 percent in mid-October. IE, on the other hand, dropped from 89.1 percent to 88.2 percent during the same period.
It still appears that Internet Explorer is more commonly used in the workplace, as the firm noted Firefox's share often increases during the weekends. This likely means that a higher percentage of Web users have chosen Mozilla's offering for use at home. In addition, the company's research shows that nearly one out of every five web users have upgraded their browsers since IE7 and Firefox 2.0 were released over the past two months.
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