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      Google picks up Aardvark

      February 13, 2010 /

      Aardvark logo.Google made another acquisition this week, this time in the form of Aardvark. Aardvark is an answer service that relies primarily on crowd sourcing to get the job done. It can be a fun way to kill some time, especially if you’ve got it on your iPhone, but people tend to ask fairly vague questions that can be difficult to answer.

      Aardvark is joining the Google Labs line of products but will continue to function as normal. That’s a bit of a shift for Google. Acquisitions usually have a hold put on new memberships or even go through a period of service outage before being re-released under the Google name. Really the only change is that Aardvark will be getting some Googlers in addition to its current staff.

      The best news in it all is that changes to the Aardvark service will come a lot faster now that it’s in Google’s hands.

      Source: Google

      Apps, News

      Google pays Apple more than $100 million annually for iPhone search

      February 12, 2010 /

      Jobs and Schmidt.Rumors have been flying ever since Android launched that Apple will be replacing the search giant’s services on the iPhone. The latest, which seems completely ridiculous for a reason, is that Apple is going to build a search engine. The Business Insider says the biggest reason to keep Google on is that the search provider pays Apple upwards of $100 million a year for the iPhone deal.

      For a company like Apple, $100 million isn’t exactly a lot. It’s more like mortgage payment, but it’s enough to keep Apple from entering an already saturated search market. There’s no denying that Google and Apple now have a contentious relationship. As Business Insider has it, it only took two weeks to nail down the original Google Maps deal for the iPhone. When the 3GS launched it took six months.

      Source: Business Insider at Gizmodo

      Apple, iPhone, Mobile, News

      Google Buzz: The followers you never knew you had

      February 11, 2010 /

      Buzz LogoI was a little alarmed when I opened my Google Reader and found eight new followers. Nearly everyone I know has used Gmail for years, and I’ve had a few followers since Google rolled out more social networking features, but eight in two days? Madness.

      When I opened Google Buzz I understood. The service creates a profile for you and automatically follows the people you have conversed with in the past. Thankfully, it’s transparent enough that I realized what I was doing and cancelled a few follows that I just don’t want. It’s strange, though, since your followed profiles can be viewed publicly unless you mess with your privacy settings. Not a bad thing, unless you have particularly jealous friends/roommates/significant others.

      Just remember to dig through whatever Buzz automatically sets up for you. It could save you a lot of “and who the hell is she” arguments down the road.

      Apps, News, Websites

      Apple to drop TV shows to $1

      February 11, 2010 /

      iTunes TV programming.Currently if you want to watch a TV show from iTunes you’ll be paying two bucks per show. That’s just the standard def content – high def will run you an extra dollar per episode. Apple may be ready to change that, though, dropping the price of television content to just a dollar per episode with the potential for bundled services down the line.

      The news comes courtesy of the Financial Times, which claims that the price change will come at the end of April to coincide with the iPad launch. The pricing shift would include a “best of TV” subscription service for $30/month that would potentially replace your cable bill. Oddly enough, it’s Apple that has left the Apple TV out of the discussion and not the media. Apparently the company is concerned with scaring content providers away from the lower prices once they realize that content could be viewed on full-size television screens.

      Source: Gizmodo

      Apple, Digital Media, News

      Digital music price flexibility resulted in slower sales

      February 10, 2010 /

      iTunes sales slow with price flexibility.Warner Music Group delivered some interesting news in the wake of the Macmillan/Amazon standoff. When Warner was finally given pricing flexibility for its iTunes content last April it kicked off a slow decline in sales growth.

      As Warner put things, year to year “digital track equivalent album unit growth” was down from 10 percent in the September quarter to just 5 percent for the December quarter. We can still blame the recession in part, but the decline didn’t begin until prices went up. As Peter Kafka at AllThingsD notes, the digital music business is much more mature than the ebook industry. Also, despite the decline in sales growth, Warner CEO Edgar Bronfman Jr. said the change has been a net positive for his company.

      Despite the warnings for publishers in this news, I still think the ebook industry is young enough to pull of the price increase without much negative impact.

      Source: AllThingsD

      Digital Media, ebooks, News

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