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Today's Topics:
1. Boston: Police decide to investigate Pops brawl (George Antunes)
2. Thousands of Nuclear Arms Workers See Cancer Claims Denied or
Delayed (George Antunes)
3. Putting the Future Of TV Into Focus (George Antunes)
4. From Intel and A.M.D., Rival Boasts of Technology (George Antunes)
5. $45 Million Invested in Internet TV Venture Joost (George Antunes)
6. Out of Chaos, Order. Or So Google Says (George Antunes)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Message: 1
Date: Sat, 12 May 2007 10:20:38 -0500
From: George Antunes <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: [Medianews] Boston: Police decide to investigate Pops brawl
To: [email protected]
Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Message-ID:
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed
Police decide to investigate Pops brawl
By Suzanne Smalley
Boston Globe Staff
May 12, 2007
http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2007/05/12/police_decide_to_investigate_pops_brawl?mode=PF
Boston police said yesterday they have assigned a detective to investigate
a brawl that erupted at Symphony Hall Wednesday night, a reversal of the
department's earlier decision not to pursue charges.
Police spokeswoman Elaine Driscoll said yesterday that the original
decision to let the two men leave without facing charges was made by
officers at the scene. By Thursday, however, police Captain William Evans
decided to begin an investigation after reviewing the officers' report on
the incident, Driscoll said.
Driscoll said detectives plan to interview witnesses and summon both men to
court, where a clerk magistrate will determine who bears responsibility for
the fight.
The spectacle of two men brawling in the refined environs of Symphony Hall,
on opening night of the Boston Pops, has catapulted Boston and the Pops
onto the international stage, garnering jokes in headlines around the world.
According to a police report obtained by the Globe, one of the men involved
in the fight, Matthew Ellinger, 27, a Brighton man, told police that the
incident started when he told another concert goer, Bourne resident Michael
Hallam, to be quiet during the performance.
Ellinger told police that he repeat edly asked Hallam, 44, to stop talking
and tapped him with his program in the minutes before Hallam punched him,
according to the police report obtained by the Globe. Hallam, who owns a
boat construction business and convenience store in Bourne, could not be
located for comment yesterday.
Hallam's lawyer, Augustus Wagner, said Ellinger struck Hallam before Hallam
reacted.
"There's always two sides to a story," Wagner said. "There's a whole other
side which is prior to any video or anyone's attention being drawn to it
that precipitated a very unfortunate incident."
A neighbor at his home on the Cape Cod Canal in the affluent Gray Gables
section of Bourne, said Hallam told him Ellinger cuffed him on the back of
the head before announcing he had reported Hallam to an usher. The neighbor
declined to be identified.
The neighbor said Hallam does not plan to return home in the near future
because he is avoiding the media. Last night an acquaintance arrived at
Hallam's home, which he shares with his wife and children, to walk the
family's bulldogs.
Ellinger said yesterday that he went to Roxbury District Court to ask for
charges to be brought against Hallam, but court officials told him police
were already pursuing the matter. He said he spoke with a detective who
told him to be available for further discussion tomorrow or Monday.
Peter Fiedler, whose father, Arthur Fiedler, was a longtime Pops conductor,
was in attendance when the fight broke out.
He said he did not see the brawl because he was on the floor, and the fight
happened in the balcony. Fiedler said that he thinks his father might have
handled things differently from conductor Keith Lockhart, who stopped the
orchestra midsong as shrieks came from the balcony.
"He probably would have told him to shut up and kept playing," Fiedler
said. "Sometimes you're almost better off ignoring things and keeping
going. But that woman's scream was sort of blood curdling."
================================
George Antunes, Political Science Dept
University of Houston; Houston, TX 77204
Voice: 713-743-3923 Fax: 713-743-3927
antunes at uh dot edu
------------------------------
Message: 2
Date: Sat, 12 May 2007 10:25:42 -0500
From: George Antunes <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: [Medianews] Thousands of Nuclear Arms Workers See Cancer
Claims Denied or Delayed
To: [email protected]
Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Message-ID:
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed
Thousands of Nuclear Arms Workers See Cancer Claims Denied or Delayed
By Michael Alison Chandler and Joby Warrick
Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, May 12, 2007; A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/11/AR2007051102277_pf.html
Walter McKenzie's assignment toward the end of the Cold War was to mop up
after mishaps at a nuclear weapons factory. With a crew of other laborers
from rural Georgia, he swabbed away leaks and spills inside the secret
buildings, until one day his body became so contaminated with radiation
that alarms at the factory went off as he passed.
"They couldn't scrub the radiation off my skin -- even after four showers,"
McKenzie, 52, recalled of his most terrifying day at the Savannah River
nuclear weapons plant near Aiken, S.C. "They took my clothes, my watch and
even my ring, and sent me home in rubber slippers and a jumpsuit."
Later, when doctors discovered the first of 19 malignant tumors on his
bladder, McKenzie followed the same torturous path as thousands of nuclear
weapons workers with cancer: He filed a claim for federal compensation. It
was denied.
Unable to access secret government files, or even some of his own personnel
records, McKenzie could not sufficiently prove that he was exposed to
something that may have made him sick. Nor can most of the 104,000 other
workers, retirees and family members who have sought help from a federal
program intended to atone for decades of hazardous working conditions at
scores of nuclear weapons facilities around the country.
Since its inception in 2000, the compensation program has cut more than
20,000 checks and given long-delayed recognition to workers whose illnesses
were hidden costs of the Cold War's military buildup.
Yet, of the 72,000 cases processed, more than 60 percent have been denied.
Thousands of other applicants have been waiting for years for an answer.
Overall, only 21 percent of applicants have received checks. Even as the
nation continues to close and dismantle many nuclear weapons sites, a
growing number of those who helped build the bombs are turning to lawyers
and legislators to argue they are being treated unfairly.
Many complain that the compensation process is slow, frustrating, even
insulting. "You get exposed to something that's so bad you have to leave
your clothes behind," McKenzie said, "then they try to tell you it's not
their fault that you got sick."
Some evidence suggests the government has tried to limit payouts for budget
reasons. Internal memos obtained by congressional investigators show the
Bush administration chafing over the program's rising costs and fighting to
block measures that would increase workers' chances of compensation.
But Labor Department officials who oversee the program say it has been
successful, pointing to the large sums distributed: about $2.6 billion in
payments in five years, far more than some early estimates. Missing or
unreliable records and the murkiness of cancer science, the officials say,
make it difficult to satisfy all the claimants.
"In a compensation program, you get benefits out to people who are eligible
and you inevitably have to deal with the fact that some people are not
eligible," said Shelby Hallmark, director of Labor's Office of Workers'
Compensation Programs. "As for the assumption that the program is somehow
trying to block people from getting compensation, nothing could be further
from the truth."
David Michaels, a former Energy Department official who helped launch the
program in the late 1990s, said it is designed to "bend over backward" to
award compensation to deserving workers. "Most of the people who should be
compensated are being compensated," said Michaels, now associate chairman
of George Washington University's department of environmental and
occupational health.
Still, Labor's management of the program has drawn bipartisan, and often
fierce, criticism from members of Congress.
Former congressman John N. Hostettler, an Indiana Republican who chaired a
House subcommittee overseeing the program, said at a hearing last December
that Labor Department memos reflect a "culture of disdain" toward workers
and raise questions about whether the department exceeded its authority by
using "legalistic interpretations" to limit eligible workers.
"To the bean counters, I would remind you that these aren't normal beans
you are counting," Hostettler said. "These funds are a small acknowledgment
of the sacrifice by workers whose lives were put at risk to make this
country safe."
Clear Line on a Murky Issue
The compensation plan was unveiled in September 1999 by then-Energy
Secretary Bill Richardson. "We're reversing the decades-old practice of
opposing worker claims and moving forward to do the right thing," he said
in 2000.
The shift was prompted in part by a drumbeat of reports about hazards at
nuclear weapons plants, including articles in The Washington Post that
showed how the government for years fought lawsuits from workers in
Paducah, Ky., who were exposed to plutonium 100,000 times as radioactive as
they were trained to handle.
Under the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program, the
government agreed to provide $150,000 and medical benefits to claimants who
developed certain diseases and cancers. Another part of the program covers
those exposed to toxic chemicals.
For each claim, government investigators review the evidence and decide
whether a worker's illness was more likely than not caused by exposure to
radiation or toxic chemicals at work. Under the act, the claim is denied if
the probability is ruled to be less than 50 percent.
The complex task of coming up with such estimates through reconstructing
the conditions inside secret plants as much as 60 years ago was assigned to
the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, or NIOSH.
The estimates are based largely on personnel files and historical radiation
measurements at the plants. But the records are often so incomplete and
unreliable that it can be impossible to determine a worker's true exposure.
For example, workers would sometimes remove the badges they were supposed
to wear to monitor their cumulative doses of radiation.
"At every site, you hear stories about workers being told to put their
badges in their lockers," said Mark Griffon, a radiation-safety expert who
advises the government on worker exposure. "If workers wore their badges
and ended up exceeding their quarterly radiation limit, they could be laid
off or put in a different job."
Another obstacle is that records are becoming harder to track as plants are
dismantled. Early this year, for example, more than 400 boxes of medical
records that had been contaminated by radiation at an Ohio weapons facility
turned up in a landfill in Los Alamos, N.M. The government is deciding
whether to exhume them.
Long Wait in Colorado
The compensation program does provide a path for the government to help
workers if records are lost or questionable. But critics say officials are
reluctant to pursue it.
NIOSH and a White House-appointed panel on radiation exposure can recommend
groups of workers from a particular site for a "special exposure cohort,"
making them automatically eligible for compensation if they suffer from
leukemia, thyroid cancer or one of 20 other cancers.
So far, groups of workers from 18 sites have been added to the special
exposure cohort, and petitions are pending for workers from a dozen other
sites. The process can be difficult, as people who worked at the Rocky
Flats nuclear weapons plant who applied for that status have learned.
On the rugged foothills outside Denver, there's little sign now of the
sprawling plutonium facility that once employed as many as 7,000 people.
The site was dismantled in a $7 billion, 10-year effort that ended in 2005
and is being turned into a wildlife refuge.
With the plant gone, many workers are struggling to re-create what happened
in the 800-building complex that manufactured plutonium triggers for
nuclear bombs. Thousands of fires were recorded in the plants' 40-year
history, including one on Mother's Day 1969 that burned for several hours
and released massive amounts of radioactive material.
Of the more than 5,100 Rocky Flats claims filed, about 1,400 have been
approved. Many applicants who were denied blame missing or inadequate
records and petitioned two years ago for special cohort status.
NIOSH officials recommended against the special status for Rocky Flats,
reasoning that they could account for missing records by altering their
models and overestimating exposures. Then, earlier this month, the
radiation advisory board recommended the special cohort for a small number
of workers -- those employed from 1952 to 1958, when gaps in the
recordkeeping apparently were the largest.
Advocates for the Rocky Flats workers point to multiple cases to illustrate
the difficulty of meeting the government's standard for compensation
without being part of the special cohort.
One worker, Donald Gabel, contracted a rare form of brain cancer at age 29,
after nearly 10 years at the plant, and died in 1980. Months before his
death, he testified that his job required him to climb several times a day
to the top of a furnace, his head inches from a pipe expelling radioactive
exhaust. Government contractors said they could not find his records and
could not take new measurements because the pipe had been removed.
After Gabel died, his wife requested tests of plutonium levels in his
brain, but she says government scientists told her they had lost most of
the tissue and could not take an accurate sample.
Despite the problems, Gabel's widow, Kae Williams, won a rare victory in a
traditional workers' compensation lawsuit, getting about $15,000 for her
three children. But when she applied for additional benefits under the new
program in 2001, the claim took four years to process and was ultimately
denied. A government computer program found only a 41.73 percent chance
that her husband's brain cancer was work-related.
"They make it sound like they are doing the right thing," Williams said.
"For a glimpse, you think they are. And they are not."
Ill and Unaided
At South Carolina's Savannah River plant, workers may face longer odds than
most. They lack the organization and lobbying advantages found at some
larger sites where workers tended to be white and represented by strong unions.
"Black workers in these plants were put in high-exposure areas without
proper protection or monitoring," said Robert W. Warren, a lawyer who
represents dozens of Savannah River workers. "They worked in some of the
most dangerous places, but there are no records today to show that."
When it opened in 1951, the Savannah River nuclear complex was one of the
first employers in South Carolina's rural midlands to offer African
Americans a shot at relatively good wages and benefits. But not all jobs at
the plant were created equal.
The jobs offered to black workers in those days were often menial ones:
cleaning spills, scraping paint, removing waste, sometimes in the most
dangerous parts of the plant, said Wayne Knox, a radiation-safety expert
who was a contractor at the Savannah River plant for nearly two decades. In
the '50s and '60s, he said, workers often were kept in the dark about risks.
"Not just blacks, but also [white] people from poorer neighborhoods were
put in a position where they had a lot of unnecessary exposures," said
Knox, who now advises some families filing claims.
The sprawling, 300-square-mile site still contains one of the highest
concentrations of radioactive waste of any weapons plant in the country,
most of it in swimming-pool-size tanks. Special exposure cohort status has
not been granted for the plant's workers; in a region that remains very
poor, there are few advocates available to argue the workers' case in
Washington.
McKenzie, the Savannah River laborer, was angered when government officials
calculated the probability that his work caused his bladder cancer at only
28 percent. He became even angrier when he learned that the plant had been
unable to locate many of his files -- including records for the day he
became so contaminated his clothes had to be destroyed. "There were whole
months where the data is missing," he said.
McKenzie has asked a Labor Department appeals panel to reconsider the
decision, while he struggles to pay hefty medical expenses that include
regular visits to the urologist to see whether his cancer has returned.
Having mostly given up hope for a government check, he now works a second
job, cleaning up spills and leaks in private homes a few miles from the
weapons plant.
"At first it looked like I had a good claim, but it didn't go anywhere,"
McKenzie said wearily. "A person doing it by himself has no wind."
================================
George Antunes, Political Science Dept
University of Houston; Houston, TX 77204
Voice: 713-743-3923 Fax: 713-743-3927
antunes at uh dot edu
------------------------------
Message: 3
Date: Sat, 12 May 2007 10:30:02 -0500
From: George Antunes <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: [Medianews] Putting the Future Of TV Into Focus
To: [email protected]
Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Message-ID:
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed
Putting the Future Of TV Into Focus
Many Make Switch to High Definition
By Sam Diaz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, May 12, 2007; D01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/11/AR2007051102226_pf.html
There's nothing flashy about "Sunrise Earth," a show that airs weekdays at
7 a.m. on Discovery HD Theater. As the name implies, the program simply
captures a sunrise. No narration, no music, no host. What's special about
it is that it's captured in vivid high definition. And for an increasing
number of viewers, that's enough.
In the past few months, consumers have found new reasons to upgrade their
television-viewing experience. The number of channels broadcasting in HD
are on the rise, spurred by the drastic drop in price of high-definition TV
sets. Plasma screens priced near $4,000 three years ago now go for about
$1,500.
Today, 26 percent of U.S. households are watching sets that offer
higher-resolution pictures, according to the Consumer Electronics
Association. HD sets being shipped in the United States are expected to
more than double by 2010.
With more viewers comes increased pressure to make more channels available
in high definition. The average cable subscriber receives fewer than a
dozen channels that can broadcast in high definition, and then not every
show on each channel is produced in the higher-quality format. But that's
changing, as the rollout of more HD channels and shows becomes one of the
top priorities for the studios, as well as cable and satellite providers.
DirecTV, for example, has pledged to offer 100 HD channels by the end of
the year.
Like the introduction of color TV in the 1960s and cable TV in the late
1970s, the shift to the new format will transform mainstream television
viewing. The improved quality comes with a higher price tag, however, not
just for those buying the sets, but also for those making and transmitting
the programs.
"People want to justify their expense," said Phillip Swann, president and
chief executive of Virginia-based TVPredictions.com. "They're sitting
around saying, 'I've got to watch something in high-def because I just
spent $2,000 on a high-def TV.' "
The leader in high-definition channel offerings today is Dish Network, with
more than 30. DirecTV and Dish Network plan to add channels later this year
and early next year, including offerings from ESPN, ABC Family, the History
Channel and the Disney Channel.
For networks, especially those with numerous niche channels under their
umbrellas, the payback is becoming more evident.
Discovery Communications, for example, has noted that viewers are tuning in
to the five-year-old Discovery HD Theater to watch shows like "Sunrise
Earth" and "Deadliest Catch," a show about Alaskan crab fishermen that they
otherwise might never have discovered, said Clint Stinchcomb, executive
vice president for the HD network at Discovery.
Ratings are carrying over to Discovery's other standard-definition channels
after segments from those channels appear on Discovery HD Theater, he said,
pointing to a boost at "Animal Planet" after one of its shows was broadcast
on the theater channel.
Viewers who experience television in high-definition tend to stick with it,
he said. It's hard for them to go back to regular old programming.
"What that enabled us to do . . . was to develop a deep emotional
connection with the 11 [million] to 12 million who are able to access the
service today," Stinchcomb said.
But as the number of channels offering HD shows increases, so does the
strain being put on the technology that delivers those shows to viewers.
The number of channels that a cable or satellite provider can offer on its
lineup is limited by the amount of programming transmitted to set-top boxes
at any given moment.
High-definition programming, because of the amount of data needed to create
the higher quality, eats up six to seven times the capacity of standard
programming.
To increase capacities, DirecTV and Dish Network are launching more
satellites. DirecTV said the first of two satellites is scheduled to be
launched next month and the other later in the year, a timetable that is
critical to ensuring that it can deliver on its 100-channel promise.
DishNetwork's parent company, EchoStar, has said it plans to launch two
satellites before the end of the year.
"We will continue to supply as much HD as is possible," EchoStar
spokeswoman Cory Vasquez said, noting that the company would have the
capacity to offer as many as 200 HD channels nationally next year.
The cable industry, meanwhile, is developing its own technology to help it
deal with increased demands on its system.
Comcast is set to begin testing a technology called Digital Switch Video
that helps it preserve capacity. Instead of delivering all channels to all
subscribers simultaneously, the technology would send the channel as the
viewer tunes into it. Until that technology is widely available, Comcast is
trying to sell consumers its On-Demand service, which allows users to pull
up a listing of high-definition programs without taxing the network.
Over time, consumers will be able to find high-definition content from a
number of sources, not just cable, satellite, or high-definition signals
broadcast by the over-the-air networks.
As video programming over the Internet also expands, consumers will be able
to see Web-based content on their HDTV screens. AppleTV, introduced this
year, allows users to wirelessly transmit movies and television shows
downloaded from iTunes. High-definition DVDs, while still limited in their
selection, are made for the higher-resolution screen.
-----------------[BOXED FEATURE]---------------------
HDTV in U.S. Households
26% in 2007
How Households Receive TV Signals
11% receive signals only over the air
18% have at least one TV that receives signals over the air
58% have at least one TV that receives signals via cable
26% have at least one TV that receives signals via satellite
================================
George Antunes, Political Science Dept
University of Houston; Houston, TX 77204
Voice: 713-743-3923 Fax: 713-743-3927
antunes at uh dot edu
------------------------------
Message: 4
Date: Sat, 12 May 2007 10:32:16 -0500
From: George Antunes <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: [Medianews] From Intel and A.M.D., Rival Boasts of Technology
To: [email protected]
Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Message-ID:
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"; format=flowed
May 10, 2007
From Intel and A.M.D., Rival Boasts of Technology
By LAURIE J. FLYNN
NY Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/10/technology/10chip.html?pagewanted=print
SAN FRANCISCO, May 9 ? The fierce rivalry between the chip makers Intel and
Advanced Micro Devices is ratcheting up as both companies claim superiority
in technology used for notebook computers.
On Wednesday, Intel introduced an upgrade to its popular Centrino chip set
for notebook computers that it says is far more energy-efficient, uses a
faster processor and features much improved graphics.
The new chip set, which Intel called Santa Rosa while it was under
development, also supports a new version of Wi-Fi that executives say can
be five times as fast as the current version and can communicate over twice
the distance.
Last week, A.M.D. held its own news conference here to show new features of
its Turion notebook processor and a branding campaign with the theme Better
by Design. Among other things, the new A.M.D. notebook technology offers
improved graphics ? which executives say stems from the company?s
acquisition of the graphics developer ATI last year ? and longer battery
life. This month, A.M.D. is expected to announce further improvements to
its notebooks that will be introduced at the end of the year.
Intel?s original Centrino chip set, introduced for notebook computers four
years ago, helped popularize wireless communications. While the company has
upgraded Centrino nearly every year since, it considers the latest version
a vast leap in performance.
?Its breakthrough performance meets energy conservation,? said Mooly Eden,
an Intel vice president and general manager for mobile products.
With the new Centrino, Intel ?moves the mobile platform forward another
notch,? said Nathan Brookwood, founder and principal analyst at Insight64,
a research and consulting company in Saratoga, Calif.
A.M.D. offered fewer details on its long-term strategy for the mobile
market, Mr. Brookwood said. ?A.M.D. attempted to rain on Intel?s parade,
but it remains to be seen if it was a storm or a drizzle.?
A significant new feature of Centrino is the optional Turbo Memory, which
uses flash memory chips to help notebooks load applications and boot up faster.
Intel?s notebook offerings include two new brands, the Centrino Duo, for
consumers, and the Centrino Pro, which has enhanced security and technology
management tools and is aimed at business customers. Intel said notebook
manufacturers, including Hewlett-Packard, Lenovo and Dell, were building
more than 230 new systems using the chip set.
Both Intel and A.M.D. are hoping to stay ahead of the enormous demand for
notebook computers, the hottest part of the computer business. Sales of
notebook computers rose 26 percent last year, while desktop systems
increased just 2 percent, according to the market research firm IDC.
Notebook computers are expected to account for more than half of all
computer systems by 2011.
More than two years ago, A.M.D. was first to market dual-core chips, which
use multiple processors for faster performance while keeping energy
consumption down.
As Intel stumbled to get its dual-core strategy on track, A.M.D. began to
gain market share, particularly in the desktop and server markets. Largely
because of the strength of the Centrino chip set, Intel has managed to keep
a somewhat firmer grip on the notebook market.
In recent quarters, Intel has begun to strike back at its competitor,
introducing wave upon wave of dual-core processors. Its share of the
overall market increased to 80 percent in the first quarter, from 74
percent in the fourth quarter of 2006. Over the same period, A.M.D.?s share
fell to 19 percent, from 26 percent, partly as a result of an inventory
glut, according to Mercury Research.
================================
George Antunes, Political Science Dept
University of Houston; Houston, TX 77204
Voice: 713-743-3923 Fax: 713-743-3927
antunes at uh dot edu
------------------------------
Message: 5
Date: Sat, 12 May 2007 10:34:31 -0500
From: George Antunes <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: [Medianews] $45 Million Invested in Internet TV Venture Joost
To: [email protected]
Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Message-ID:
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"; format=flowed
May 11, 2007
$45 Million Invested in Internet TV Venture
By MATT RICHTEL
NY Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/11/technology/11video.html?_r=1&oref=slogin&pagewanted=print
SAN FRANCISCO, May 10 ? Joost, a start-up that delivers television
programming over the Internet, said Thursday that it had received $45
million in financing from venture capitalists and content partners
including CBS and Viacom.
The company, based in Luxembourg and started by the creators of the
Internet telephone service Skype, plans to use the money to expand its
advertising, programming and marketing operations, said David Clark,
executive vice president for advertising at Joost.
Joost was founded 18 months ago and has signed up 500,000 users in its test
phase. Unlike YouTube and other video sites that mostly display
user-submitted clips, Joost distributes shows in traditional television
formats, like 30-minute or hourlong programs.
Like broadcast and some cable television, the service is supported through
advertising. But the commercials consume about three minutes of each hour
of programming, versus 15 minutes on standard TV, Joost investors said.
The investors said the new investments, in the company?s first
institutional round of financing, indicate that the concept had enough
momentum to make it worth the risk.
The financing ?signifies this is ready for prime time,? said Danny Rimer,
general partner in London with Index Ventures, a venture capital firm that
led the financing round along with Sequoia Capital of Menlo Park, Calif.
Mr. Rimer said he believed that Joost would benefit from the spread of
high-speed Internet access and from the increasing ability of marketers to
aim their advertisements at specific audiences over the Internet.
But among the questions for Joost is whether consumers will want to watch
longer-form programming on their personal computers, rather than their
televisions.
Mr. Clark of Joost said the company had 36 advertisers, including Nike,
Coca-Cola and Intel, along with 100 content partners, including CBS,
Viacom, Turner Broadcasting and Warner Brothers Television.
Some of the content is new and older television programming, including
?C.S.I.,? and ?Laguna Beach? from MTV, while some is independent
programming drawn from Internet-only producers.
Viacom said in a statement that it had invested in Joost because the
service was set up to protect copyrighted content and to profit from
selling advertising around longer programs.
Viacom has clashed with YouTube, owned by Google, over the Viacom-owned
material that users have posted on the site.
================================
George Antunes, Political Science Dept
University of Houston; Houston, TX 77204
Voice: 713-743-3923 Fax: 713-743-3927
antunes at uh dot edu
------------------------------
Message: 6
Date: Sat, 12 May 2007 10:36:19 -0500
From: George Antunes <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: [Medianews] Out of Chaos, Order. Or So Google Says
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May 11, 2007
Out of Chaos, Order. Or So Google Says.
By MIGUEL HELFT
NY Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/11/technology/11google.html?pagewanted=print
MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., May 10 ? Over the years, Google has carefully
cultivated the image of a zany company in which innovation and new products
? lots of new products ? emerge from a bit of chaos.
Now Google is trying to put some order into that chaos ? or at least appear
to do so.
Speaking at the annual shareholder meeting on Thursday, Eric E. Schmidt,
the chief executive, said Google?s long array of initiatives was organized
around three ideas.
?Our next strategy evolution is to really think about three components,?
Mr. Schmidt said. ?Search, ads and apps,? he said, using a common shorthand
for applications, or software programs.
The move is less a strategy shift than a new message ? a way for Google to
talk about its disparate initiatives in a way shareholders and the public
can readily understand.
?It is worth saying that our underlying mission has not changed,? Mr.
Schmidt noted.
The first two ? search and ads ? are well known to shareholders, and they
account for virtually all of the company?s success. The third ? apps ? puts
under one umbrella Google?s growing business of offering an eclectic mix of
software.
Mr. Schmidt said the unifying theme behind the seemingly disparate programs
was that they resided on the Web, rather than on users? PCs, and were
available wherever there is an Internet connection.
The programs include photo storage, social networking, online calendars,
e-mail, instant messaging, word processing and spreadsheets. Most are free,
and many compete with paid offerings from Microsoft. But Google has started
charging businesses for some of them. ?That is a business that looks like
it is going to grow very nicely for us,? Mr. Schmidt said.
A shareholder proposal to force Google to resist censorship in countries
with authoritarian regimes like China was defeated by an undisclosed tally.
But Patrick W. Doherty, an investment official for the City of New York,
which sponsored the resolution, was greeted with applause by many of the
few hundred shareholders present when he made the case for it. He said
afterward that it was ?a moral victory.?
================================
George Antunes, Political Science Dept
University of Houston; Houston, TX 77204
Voice: 713-743-3923 Fax: 713-743-3927
antunes at uh dot edu
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