Canvas, an online forum for sharing, remixing and commenting on images came out of private beta recently. The site was built by 4chan founder Christopher Poole (known online as "moot") and is intended as a more interactive, less unruly version of 4chan.
On Canvas, users can upload images, edit directly in the browser and add captions. Once published, they can be remixed and commented on by other users. The site employs a badge-like system of stickers, which can be applied to images as a way of casting a vote. Drag the "LOL" sticker onto an image you thought was funny. Or you can give a cookie sticker to images that "need a little condescending acknowledgement." Stickers contribute to aggregate totals and help determine each image's overall popularity and placement.
That streaming videos makes up a huge percentage of the Internet's traffic is by now well-known. Netflix alone makes up nearly 30% of all downstream traffic and we're now accustomed to hearing about the extraordinary amount of bandwidth eaten up by videos streaming during major news events.
For example, during President Obama's inauguration, content delivery network Akamai delivered 7 million simultaneous streams of video, with traffic surpassing two terabytes per second (Tbps), which broke records. The next year, Akamai's network traffic peaked at about 3.45 Tbps.
In an effort to make its service easier for children to use, Netflix has launched a new tab labeled "Just For Kids" which focuses on cartoons and other kid-friendly movies and television shows.
Its appeal for children goes beyond the strictly kid-centric content. Its interface is more simplified than the standard, all-ages UI, focusing more on the cover art for shows and movies and less navigational elements.
Three months after being promised the feature at Google I/O, owners of Google's Chromebook netbook can now stream movies and television shows from Netflix.
The Samsung Series 5, Acer AC700 and CR-48 Chromebooks can access Netflix, according to a Google Plus post by Chrome OS Community Manager Melissa Daniels.
Many people in the film and tech industries scratched their heads when movie studio Warner Bros. acquired film directory and critic app Flixster. It made a little bit more sense when Warner said that Flixster would be the primary driver of its UltraViolet offerings, but people were not sure what to expect from a so-called new and improved Flixster when Warner integrated it into its plans.
The product is now out. It is called Flixster Collections and it is a desktop application intended to be movie aficionados' everything - directory, film and show information (like IMDb), social sharing channel, viewing habit and history aggregator, new content explorer and download center. It is certainly an ambitious undertaking by Warner. The problem with Flixster Collections beta is that it is a cumbersome and probably unnecessary addition as a desktop application.
Zediva, a startup with a unique approach to online movie streaming, was ordered to shut down its service by a U.S. federal judge for running afoul of copyright law.
The site offers inexpensive movie streaming via a Silicon Valley-based data center that houses a number of DVD players and DVDs, which users could effectively rent and use over the Internet. Rather than physically shipping discs to consumers, Zediva would allow them to control their DVD players via their Website. It was this unusual model that, its founders believed, exempted Zediva from the usual streaming licensing rules faced by competitors like Netflix. It also enabled them to charge much lower rates for movie rentals and make those movies available sooner than other video on demand services can.
Netflix announced today that its movie streaming service will be available in 43 countries in the Caribbean and Latin America later this year. Members will be able to access Netflix.com in Spanish, Portuguese or English on a range of Netflix support devices. Interested users can leave their contact information with the company and receive reminders when the service is ready.
What does this mean for Netflix? Foremost, it is adding a huge new potential user base to its market demographic. Technology and content companies that do well in the era of Web 2.0 have significant sources of traffic in international markets, such as Facebook and Twitter which both have 70% or so of users overseas. The move will further cement Netflix as a go-to source for streaming content on the Web. With all the competition in that area, that will be huge for Netflix going forward.
Rumors have surfaced in the past 24 hours that premium content video provider Hulu has been fielding unsolicited offers to buy the platform. The question, of course: who in their right mind would want to buy Hulu?
Yahoo is the name that has emerged. The Los Angeles Times and Wall Street Journal both reported through unidentified sources that the Web portal reached out to Hulu. Yet, TechCrunch has cited sources that say Yahoo did no such thing. Sales of this size and complexity generate lots speculation with a plethora of moving pieces. Let's examine the possibilities to see who would make the best suitor for Hulu.
"Blogging is largely dead."
"There are a lot of stupid people out there ... and stupid people shouldn't write."
"There needs to be a better system for tuning down the stupid people and tuning up the smart people."
Serial entrepreneur and publisher Jason Calacanis has never been opposed to saying what is on his mind. In fact, it is the characteristic that has helped him rise to the top of the Internet publishing world. He sat down with our managing editor Abraham Hyatt onstage at the ReadWriteWeb 2WAY Summit on Monday and dished on his thoughts about the state of publishing, what Google's Panda initiative is doing to websites and what Web 3.0 will be about.
Popular iPhone photo sharing app Instagram captured the hearts of nearly five million users this year despite, or perhaps because of, a surprising lack of features. The super-simple photo app let you apply filters and post out to other networks. It didn't let you do much more than that.
The company has slowly added features over recent months and today unveiled a new version of its app with three big new features that could make a big difference in the ways we use Instagram. Those changes are upgraded user biographies, hashtag autocomplete and a new page to view all the photos you've clicked "Like" on in the past. Can Instagram keep its clean simplicity while adding more and more features? Time will tell, but these changes look to me like good ones so far.
