The Online TV Market Is Becoming Crowded!

To me, the success and widespread use of TV, movies and internet being accessed from one common place is only a matter of time. The technology is there, and as more and more companies realize this, there is an increased demand for a piece of the online TV/movie pie.

The latest name to add itself into the mix is Sling Media, who has launched a revamped version of their Sling.com video viewing website. The website allows users to watch popular shows and even films online. It’s competition for companies like YouTube and Hulu, who have already been providing these services.

The service is only available within the US at this time, which is a little annoying, but not surprising to those of us North of the border. I wonder if Canadian’s will get to join in the fun anytime soon?

Apple Participates In Black Friday Online

It seems like just about everybody is talking about “Black Friday” shopping right now. I suppose it is somewhat exciting to get up early and stand in a crowded line for the chance at a great bargain. That’s not even sarcasm, as I have considered doing so myself, if the right deal is offered on a great electronics item, or something similar.

However, lucky for me, and other “tech heads” we might be able to grab a great deal from Apple without even leaving the house (which is kind of nice, considering the inclement weather as of late) You see, Apple is holding a one-day-only Black Friday deal online, promising some great bargains.

Unfortunately, if you are weighing whether or not to go out shopping or stay in shopping, the information they are providing may not be so helpful. Apple is not releasing which products they will discount, or how many will be available. So whether you’ll be able to get a brand new iPod dirt cheap, or merely an iPod case is unknown.

Twitter Scales Back On SMS

Twitter has removed outbound SMS “tweet” updates for its Canadian users due to the high cost involved. On their blog they posted that, “We can’t afford to support this service given our current arrangement with our providers (where costs have been doubling for the past several months.) As a result, effective today we are no longer delivering outbound SMS over our Canadian shortcode (21212).”

While this may be a little disappointing for Canadians who love to tweet, it’s not a huge surprise - as its a restriction the company has recently imposed on its users in Europe. In fact, at that time Twitter claimed it would cost over a grand per user every year to continue to allow outbound SMS. Users are still able to update their Twitter status via mobile phone, but cannot receive SMS “tweet” updates.

I would expect that barring a cost-saving mobile partnership, US Twitter users may soon also be dealing with a similar SMS restriction.

YouTube Goes WideScreen

YouTube is continuing their transition from a simple video-sharing website, to a full-circle media experience. That’s to say, YouTube will soon begin providing a full wide-screen mode for their videos.

YouTube, which is owned by web-giant Google, has posted the news on their blog. Their intent is clearly to have users viewing wide-screen content on their television sets as well as computer monitors. Here’s a quote from their blog,

“We’re expanding the width of the page to 960 pixels to better reflect the quality of the videos you create and the screens that you use to watch them,” the posting said. “This new, wider player is in a widescreen aspect ratio which we hope will provide you with a cleaner, more powerful viewing experience.”

Now, videos that are already posted will continue to be displayed in their classic format, however as far as future uploads are concerned, most will be defaulted to the new, wide-screen option.

Using PayPal Just Got Safer

Here’s some good news for you online shoppers, or anyone really who uses PayPal as a method of payment. Today the eBay owned online payment company, PayPal, announced that they have extended their deal with VeriSign, and will introduce a new authentication process mobile phones.

PayPal users are now able to make their accounts more secure by either using a portable token or providing PayPal with a code that is sent to the user via text message.

In either case, the user will have two pieces of login information, which is their user-name plus password, in addition to the new security key. Basically, it is an extra layer of protection, and should help to curb identity related offences through PayPal. The service is currently available to any US PayPal member who wishes to sign up for it.

Facebook Spammer Owes Big

No doubt the folks at Facebook are sporting big smiles today, as the penalty for “Facebook spammer” Adam Guerbuez was announced. The number he’ll have to pay to the giant social-media company? $875 million dollars! Now, it’s unlikely that the spammer will ever be able to make such a large payment, but the judgement does send a strong message to would-be spammers that the consequences of online spam can be real, and very large. Also, no real surprise, but Adam Guerbuez has been hard to find since the time the lawsuit was filed.

Facebook had claimed that the spammer had tricked their users into handing over their user names and passwords to him, by the means of “spoof” or “phishing” websites. After gaining access to his victims’ Facebook accounts, he would then use them to advertise a large variety of products — you know, the unsavoury kind of products you’d receive in a spam email.

If You’re An Internet Addict, Use This Airline

… Virgin Airlines! The company is in the process of launching their Gogo in-flight Internet service, and plan to stream the event live, making it the first in-flight streaming online video produced.

The first flight won’t be to Paris or Milan, but will rather fly a circle pattern over San Francisco while members of the media try out some of their new web-features. A portion of the event will be streamed Live to YouTube. That is, 35000 feet high to users on ground level. Pretty amazing.

When can you enjoy the new in-flight interent? One aircraft equipt with the technology will be available to flyers after November 24th, with the full fleet expected to launch in the second quarter of 2009.

Canadian Province Says “No” To Facebook

Well, at least during school hours. The Canadian province of New Brunswick has put a block on both student and staff access to Facebook between the school hours of seven AM to three-thirty PM. All computers belonging to, or owned by the Department of Education will have the block in effect.

Reportedly, this choice was decided on due to an overwhelming amount of negative feedback regarding student use of Facebook during class hours.

If you’re a Facebooking loving student (and what student these days isn’t?) don’t be too concerned. The block will only effect computers owned by the Education Department, and won’t pertain to the student’s own laptops or other internet-able equipment.

Internet Traffic Shaping — Decision To Be Made Tomorrow

If you’re a Canadian, you may have heard of this. If not, you’re sure to find it interesting anyway, as internet traffic shaping is something that, if allowed, could eventually effect all of us.

Tomorrow (Thursday) an important decision is to be made by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission, in regards to net neutrality. You see, this past April, it was alleged that Bell Canada was purposely slowing down the connection speed of of certain users, based on their web activities. Ex. smaller ISPs that lease space from Bell.

Bell’s explanation, is that they are doing this in order to combat those that engage in peer-to-peer down downloading, so that their entire network is not slowed down for regular users. The question to be answered is: what is the truth, and should any type of traffic shaping be allowed? Well, we’ll find out one very important opinion on this tomorrow - the CRTC’s.

Some Web Traffic Tips (For Newbies)

We all want more people to visit our websites, and view our content. This is true whether you operate a personal hobby blog, or an e-commerce store. I think about web traffic on a regular basis, and wanted to offer a few tips today. Be forewarned, these are mostly geared toward newbies.

Probably the most important factor in creating traffic to your website is the building of relevant inbound links. One way to do this is by publishing your content on article directories. While you may receive a little traffic and recognition when your article is posted somewhere, the real value comes in the form of the link it will include. You see, most article directories require the publisher to provide credit in the form of a link back to the original author’s website.

Google looks at how many links point to each site, and ranks them based on the number and quality of links. This ranking comes in the form of Google PageRank, and higher search engine rankings.

It’s also important to understand your visitors and deliver what they like. Do you notice certain posts or pages on your blog are much more popular than others? Study these pages and try to deliver similar (but original) content in the future. This approach may not bring in much new traffic, but will create reoccurring visitors and a loyal reader-base.

These are just a couple of thoughts I had in my head today. If you found them interesting, take a moment and subscribe to my RSS feed, so that you’ll be sure to catch future postings.