Ql things I have...

der hier gefällt mir auch am besten.

An update to our post in late October about OneRiot and Yahoo partnering to build real time search results into Yahoo: OneRiot CEO Kimbal Musk now confirms the relationship. The new search engine will go live tomorrow.

In the email, Musk says that OneRiot results will appear in the main Yahoo search results page for certain queries:

Today, we are pleased to confirm that OneRiot is working with Yahoo to deliver realtime search results to Yahoo users. We have been working with Yahoo for 18 months, initially as the launch partner for the Y!BOSS platform and now as the provider of realtime search results. Yahoo joins a list of 70+ partners who utilize the OneRiot realtime search API (others include Microsoft and Reed Elsevier). During an initial test phase, OneRiot results will appear on the main Yahoo Search Results Pages (SRPs) for certain queries, complementing Yahoo’s usual results. OneRiot has a robust realtime index of the web and orders search results via PulseRank, the company’s proprietary ranking algorithm which reflects the current social buzz around any piece of web content.

Both Microsoft and Google are in the process of launching their own real time search engines via direct data relationships with Twitter and Facebook.

Update: From Yahoo:

Real-time search means different things to different people. For Yahoo!, we think of real-time search in terms of providing the most relevant, fresh information to people every time.

Yahoo! Search is currently testing a new search shortcut that will include real-time results at the top of the search results page. The shortcut will only appear on certain queries that will be determined by Yahoo. This is a test designed to discover if showing such content is useful to people using Yahoo! Search. Yahoo! is focused on creating the most innovative, easy-to-use and valuable search experience for people, and after this test we will carefully evaluate whether we should integrate such results for everyone using Yahoo! Search.

sehr geil

For the last few months, we’ve been watching the progress Epix, a joint venture between Paramount, Lionsgate, and MGM studios to create a new web destination and sister TV channel for all of their movies. The project has been compared to Hulu, the web television joint venture between News Corp (FOX), General Electric (NBC), and Disney (ABC).

The Epix project, while similar to Hulu () in many ways, is different in one big way: only those with access to the Epix TV channel can access EpixHD.com. Instead of being ad-supported, it is carrier-supported. Now finally, after months of testing, Epix and EpixHD.com are launching to Verizon FiOS customers. But even if you’re not a Verizon customer, Epix is making sure that everyone can get access, at least for a short while.

At 8:00 PM on October 30th, FiOS customers will find that channel 395 (895 for HD) will begin airing movies from the libraries of the three partner studios, starting with Ironman, Cloverfield, and a stream of the Madonna Sticky & Sweet Tour. At the same time, they will receive access to EpixHD.com’s library of movies, which rotates based on what’s airing on the TV channel.

This is all great news for Verizon customers, but where does that leave the vast majority of us who are not FiOS subscribers? While EpixHD isn’t open to all (yet – we’re still hoping), it is opening up to everyone for the next 72 hours to those who request an invite code. However, the first 200 Mashable () readers to retweet this post with the hashtag #EpixExperience and follow @EpixHD will be sent 30 day invites to EpixHD.com via direct message.

EpixHD still has a ways to go: its movie library is incomplete and a lack of an option – even a paid one – for non-Verizon customers holds it back. However, the movie studios seem to have the right idea for digital distribution and are heading in the right direction.

Voddler, the Stockholm-based online video offering that’s being described as “Spotify for movies”, has signed content partnerships with Paramount and Disney. A deal with Sony Pictures is also said to be eminent.

Voddler, Inc., the company behind the new service, was formed back in 2005 and has offices in Stockholm, Palo Alto, and Beijing. It’s thought to have taken around $16 million worth of funding from investors including Deseven Capital, Freja Ventures and Lotsa SA.

Right now the service, which offers add-supported streaming of movies and TV shows as well as premium paid-for content, is only available in a closed beta in the company’s home country. However, perhaps now that more content has been secured, Voddler is beginning to open up.

An additional 500,000 users were recently given access through a partnership with Swedish broadband provider Bredbandsbolaget, and the 250,000 people currently on the waiting should be given access soon. Furthermore, expansion to other Nordic countries is planned in 2010, with the UK also on Voddler’s radar.

The Spotify for movies comparison certainly isn’t doing Voddler any harm in terms of mind share and there are some similarities. Both herald from Sweden, offer ad-supported and on-demand content – Voddler is also being talked up as potentially becoming the Hulu for Europe – and both require a client download rather than being browser-based.

However, a more apt and less flattering comparison might be the largely defunct Joost or another European video startup, Babelgum. Both services have struggled to secure enough compelling mainstream content and, in hindsight, forcing users to download a desktop app would seem to have been a mistake. A big one.

It maybe that Voddler can get its hands on the right content and in a timely enough manner (the signs are good with a number of same-day exclusives already taking place) but, if it’s to follow Spotify’s path, it also needs to get the service into the places where people want to consume the type of content being offered. That means taking Voddler beyond the PC into the living room and mobile. On that note, the company has talked about eventually offering its own set-top box.

Google has just announced the launch of Google Music. This new service is powered by Lala and MySpace's iLike. Other partners include Gracenote, iMeem, Pandora and Rhapsody. Google has also partnered with the major music labels: EMI, Sony Music, Universal Music Group and Warner Music. Through Lala and iLike, Google will also be able to feature music from a large number of independent labels. This new service will be available only in the US for now and will be integrated in the default search results page.

Rumors about the impending launch of Google's music initiative flared up last week when members of the press received invitations to an event in Los Angeles that was going to feature both iLike and Lala (not to mention "members of Linkin Park"). Users could already use the parameter "music:" to bring up Google's music search, though Google never promoted it, and this old feature didn't include the ability to stream music right on the page.

What Will This New Feature Look Like?

In this new implementation, users can't choose between the Lala or iLike widget. Instead, Google will randomly decide which widget a user sees. This gives Google the option to switch between services and to include other services in future as well.

Buy Songs from Rhapsody - See Lyrics from Gracenote

Underneath the music onebox results, Google will feature links to its other partners, like Rhapsody and iMeem, where users will be able to purchase MP3s.

Google's partnership with Gracenote also allows it to show lyrics in the search results now. As Marissa Mayer pointed out in today's announcement, finding lyrics is still very hard on Google. Now, users can type lyrics into the default search box and Google will return results from the music search feature, and users can play the song right on the search results page.

Big Winners: Lala and MySpace

The big winners here are obviously Lala and MySpace/iLike. For Lala, this has been an especially busy period. Just last week, Lala announced a partnership with Facebook. It now powers Facebook's music gifting service.

iLike has a traditional streaming model. The company streams some song full length and some as 30-second samples. Users can buy MP3s from iLike for between $0.99 and $1.29. MySpace bought iLike earlier this year, and the widget on the Google search results page will be MySpace-branded.

Lala's business model is more interesting. Users can stream every song on the service once for free. After that, customers can buy the right to stream it for $0.10 or buy the MP3 for $0.89. Users can also upload their own music library to Lala and then stream those songs freely over the Internet.

How important this move is for the two streaming music services becomes clear when we look at the current traffic data for music-related searches on Google.

Update: We just had a quick chat with Lala's CEO Geoff Ralston after the event. The Lala team is obviously very excited about the partnership with Google and as Ralston told us, the company worked with Google for quite a while to get this new feature up and running. According to Ralston, Lala's partners in the music industry were very supportive of the integration. We also asked him if he was worried that the new influx of traffic was going to bring Lala's servers down. Google, however, stress tested Lala's servers and couldn't bring the service down with up to 550 queries per second.

What Does Google's Current Music Traffic Look Like?

Hitwise's Heather Dougherty took a close look at Google's music traffic earlier today. According to Hitwise's data, about 6% of last month's top 1000 search terms on Google were music-related. In total, Google sent about 1.48% of its traffic to music sites. The majority of these searches (15.32%) lead to a Wikipedia site, but almost 10% currently go to YouTube, 5.7% to Yahoo Music and 3% to MySpace.  Now that users can listen to music right from the search results page, these services - including Google's own YouTube - will likely see a drop in music-related traffic over the next few weeks.

Remember when Yahoo started to roll out its new homepage last summer? It’s been live for all users for about three months now, and today Yahoo’s annual Analyst Day, senior vice president Tapan Bhat gave an overview of how the redesigned homepage is performing. In the past three months, pageviews are up 9 percent, and time spent on the homepage is up 20 percent.

The whole focus of the redesign, and across Yahoo in general, says Bhat is to increase what he calls PageYield. The yield of a page on Yahoo is measure of how engaged consumers are with that page. (As opposed to PageRank, which is how Google scores pages on the Web in its search results). PageYield is a measure of how much time is spent on each Yahoo page and how many pageviews it gets, but also how much downstream traffic the page generates, and how often people come back.

Some of the big drivers of user engagement come from the ability to customize the homepage by adding applications and feeds from anywhere on the Web into the My Favorites column on the left-hand side. According to Yahoo consumer surveys, 75 percent of users love the applications area and 40 percent are using between 6 to 11 apps. Usage of that feature is up 8 percent over the past three months.

The other success story is the “Today” module on the homepage which targets news and other information to each user. Clickthrough rates on those stories are up a whopping 76 percent.

Simplifying the page has made it less cluttered and increased engagement with what’s left, which makes sense. The frontpage is ad is also benefiting, seeing a 10 percent increase in clickthroughs since the redesign launched. Simpler is better.

When it comes to maps, Google has had nearly everything: great satellite imagery, huge coverage, and even some basic navigation features, but not what everyone that’s ever used a GPS device really wants: turn-by-turn navigation.

This changes today, as Google () just released a beta version of Google Maps Navigation for Android () 2.0. Here’s a quick overview of the features:

- Search in plain English – quickly search and navigate to places, businesses, landmarks
- Search by voice
- View of live traffic data over the Internet.
- Search along route – find locations near your current path
- Satellite view – you can view the same satellite imagery you’ve seen Google Maps (), on your phone
- Street View – check out what the exact surroundings of a location look like
- Car dock mode – when you place certain devices in a car dock, a special mode activates that enables easier operation

Google Maps Navigation does two very important things for Google: it makes it a competitor to established GPS firms like TomTom and Garmin, which should make this space a lot more interesting, and it suddenly makes Android – the only platform this app is currently available on – a lot more desirable. And – you guessed it – the first Android 2.0 phone to support this app is the upcoming Motorola Droid.

Since the application is free, we can expect Google to add advertisements to it at some point. But currently, since you have to pay for every other mobile turn-by-turn navigation app out there (we’re not talking pocket change here, either), the sheer fact that this thing is free will certainly make it a huge hit.

Check out a video overview of Google Maps Navigation and some screenshots below.

Ich freu mich

If I was Nikki Finke, I would have proclaimed “TOLDJA!” in that headline. Because I did read Netflix’s earnings call tea leaves correctly and guessed that the movie rental’s streaming service would come to another game console. Netflix and Sony just announced that Netflix’s TV and movie streaming service will be available on the PlayStation 3 starting next month, ending the exclusive relationship Netflix had with Microsoft’s Xbox.

The PS3 has an installed base of nearly 9 million, and Netflix closed the third quarter of 2009 with 11.1 million subscribers. During its earnings call last week, the company said it had adjusted guidance up because of an upcoming relationship with a new CE partner that had a “material installed base.” The PS3 would certainly qualify. Interestingly, the Netflix solution on the PS3 seems a little kludgy at first. From the press release:

Initially, watching movies instantly streamed from Netflix via the PS3 system will be enabled by a free, instant streaming Blu-ray disc that is being made available to all Netflix members. The free instant streaming disc leverages Blu-ray’s BD-Live™ technology to access the Internet and activate the Netflix user interface on the PS3 system, which must be online via Wi-Fi or Ethernet. Netflix members simply slide the disc into their PS3 systems to reveal movies and TV episodes that can be watched instantly. These titles are conveniently organized into a variety of categories based on members’ personal preferences, popular genres, new arrivals and members’ individual instant Queues. Members can use the Netflix Web site or navigate directly on their PS3 systems to add movies and TV shows to their Queues. With the PS3 system’s Wireless Controller, members can choose a movie to watch from their instant Queues or just play directly from any of the lists. They also have the ability to read synopses and rate movies. In addition, they have the option of fast-forwarding and rewinding the video stream via the Wireless Controller. Netflix members and PS3 system owners can now reserve a free instant streaming disc for PS3 systems by going to www.netflix.com/ps3. Upon availability, the instant streaming disc will be delivered for free by first-class mail, generally one business day after members request it.

The streaming requires a disc? It’s not be the most elegant solution, but it’s cool news on a few fronts.

First, game consoles are predicted to be a dominant force in the over-the-top delivery space, which is predicted to hit $2.9 billion by 2013. Second, it hooks Netflix streaming up with a content partner in Sony, so hopefully that will encourage Sony to free up more content on the streaming side. (Maybe we’ll see Crackle content offered via Netflix?)

Xbox, meanwhile, has been ramping up video features to stay out front of the competition. The PS3 may now have Netflix, but the Xbox is the only game console with the Netflix party social viewing option (which we have yet to try out), and added 1080p streaming to its own Zune video marketplace.

Looks like our upcoming conversation with Netflix CEO Reed Hastings at NewTeeVee Live just got a little more interesting. This is one you won’t want to miss. Last year’s show with Hastings was a sell-out hit, so make sure you get your tickets today.