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Category: YouTube
September 2nd, 2009
WSJ: YouTube and movie studios in talks over streaming rentals
Google-owned YouTube is in discussions with major motion picture studios, including LionsGate Entertainment, Sony and Warner Bros., to allow consumers to rent and stream movies for a fee, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal that cites unnamed sources.
The WSJ report stressed that negotiations are continuing and that there are no guarantees that a deal will be struck. Among the details still being hammered out is whether users will also be able to download movies, as opposed to just a stream over the Internet. Pricing would be around $3.99 or comparable to what people are already paying for video-on-demand titles.
YouTube, which isn’t yet profitable, has been looking for a solid revenue plan that goes beyond advertising on pages hosting free video clips. The site does include some full-length movies but those are largely free, lesser-known titles.
Currently, Apple, Amazon and Netflix offer some full-length motion pictures for download or streaming, though the titles and release dates vary based on a number of factors, including DVD release dates.
August 19th, 2009
Time Warner, YouTube ink distribution pact
Time Warner and YouTube said Wednesday that they have signed an online video distribution deal.
Under the pact, YouTube will distribute Time Warner short-form video content, including movie clips, television shows and news. Time Warner properties—Warner Bros. and Turner Broadcasting System—will program YouTube videos via an embeddable player.
According to a statement (blog), YouTube will get access to CNN news, the Cartoon Network and shows such as Gossip Girl. Time Warner video will appear across Google properties. Time Warner can also create separate channels on YouTube and sell ad time. The two parties will split ad revenue.
Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes said the YouTube deal was a good way to monetize short-form content.
The deal appears to be a win-win. YouTube gets more professional content and Time Warner is allowed to sell ads and control channels.
Also see:
July 20th, 2009
YouTube: Uploads don't hurt our bottom line
YouTube said Monday that speculation about infrastructure costs for the video site is off base. But YouTube didn’t divulge any additional details.
In a blog post, YouTube did a myth busters riff and said:
There’s been a lot of speculation lately about how much it costs to run YouTube. With revenue estimates ranging from $120 million to $500 million, and costs on an equally large spectrum, it seems people can pick any number to fit any theory they have about our business. The truth is that all our infrastructure is built from scratch, which means models that use standard industry pricing are too high when it comes to bandwidth and similar costs. We are at a point where growth is definitely good for our bottom line, not bad.
The takeaway: YouTube’s infrastructure can handle video on the cheap and Google can scale that business. Yet that infrastructure isn’t cheap enough to make YouTube profitable—if it was Google would tell us or at least drop a line on an earnings conference call.
The rest of the latest post focused on YouTube’s monetization, advertising progress and video quality. Why now? For starters, analysts have been openly questioning whether YouTube is a money pit that should charge for uploads. The other message here is that YouTube can compete with Hulu for high-quality advertising.
Consider this another volley in a YouTube PR offensive that kicked off on Google’s earnings conference call.
Also see:
July 17th, 2009
Google moves to show YouTube has 'a very credible business model'
Google on its second quarter earnings call went out of its way to say it was pleased with YouTube’s “trajectory” and indicated that the company would make money on the video site. The motive: Combat a bevy of worries about YouTube’s profit potential.
YouTube monetization has become a hot issue among analysts following Google’s second quarter earnings report. Some like Bernstein’s Jeffrey Lindsay and Piper Jaffray’s Gene Munster have talked YouTube implementing fees for uploads and all sorts of models. Fast Company call these fees a big awkward problem. Finding the business model for YouTube has become a bit of a parlor game these days. Munster reckons that YouTube will have $323 million in gross revenue in 2009, but that costs outstrip revenue. Munster writes:
July 8th, 2009
Judge puts kibosh on YouTube copyright damages dogpile
The world can’t sue YouTube for copyright damages—especially if they never registered the copyrights, according to a U.S. district judge.
The ruling (Techmeme), issued by U.S District Judge Louis Stanton July 3, curbs a class action suit brought by a laundry list of foreign entities looking for YouTube damages. The suit rides shotgun with Viacom’s $1 billion lawsuit against Google over YouTube copyright infringement.
Download Judge Stanton’s rulling (PDF)
Stanton ruled that plaintiffs couldn’t request damages for videos that didn’t have U.S. copyrights attached to them.
The ruling, however, doesn’t address the elephant in courtroom—whether YouTube should have allowed the videos to be posted in the first place. That issue is front and center in this class action and the Viacom suits. Neither trial has been scheduled.
July 6th, 2009
Now's the time to manage your online brand
“Managing a Brand through Social Networks” sounds like it should be a training course designed for corporate marketing professionals. Such a course, though, might as well be targeted at an average Joe or Jane, the everyday person who - intentionally or not - is building an online brand of his or her own.
For the average Joe, that brand is him - his name, his reputation and the conclusions that people might draw just from reading his tweets, watching his videos or reading his posts on Facebook. Let’s face it. If this Joe has a beer in his hand in every picture, poses with rifles and dead animals and is a member of the Girls Gone Wild fan club, you might draw a different conclusion about him than you might about Jane, the executive who posts Wall Street Journal news stories, tweets about a networking conference and is a member of a group working to preserve business ethics.
It used to be that young people were warned to be careful about what they posted on their MySpace pages. Pictures of you doing Jello shots at a strip club might be misunderstood by the hiring manager of a Fortune 500 company someday.
None of this is new, of course. We’ve been hearing stories about employers digging into job candidate social network sites for some time now. So why bring it up now? A couple of reasons, largely tied to recent news.
- Social Home Pages: Last week, I posted an entry about GizaPage, which allows users to create a social home page, a single Web page with a single URL where a user can showcase all of his social network profile pages for all the Web to see.
- Social Business Cards: Like GizaPage, up-and-coming social sites DandyID and Retaggr are offering users a clickable business card with all of the user’s social pages that can be embedded on blogs, Facebook profiles or email signatures.
- Facebook’s Vanity URLS: Last month, the company allowed users to choose a custom URL (such as www.facebook.com/myname) so that outsiders can easily find their profile pages, as opposed to searching through the entire Facebook network to see a person’s page.
- Facebook’s new privacy settings: Facebook is about to launch new privacy settings and it looks like the user will have far more control over who sees what on a profile page.
I’ve actually been wanting to chime in about responsible management of our social presences on the Internet for some time. But it was the privacy settings announced by Facebook last week that really drove it home.
Facebook is giving everyone an opportunity to re-examine their privacy settings by allowing them to determine who will see their pictures, posts, notes and so on. Here’s a moment when you’ll be forced to think about what you’re sharing on the Internet.
Do yourself a favor and take this time to re-examine your privacy setting across all of your social networks. Ask yourself how you might come across to people who “know” you online but might not necessarily “know” the real you. If you’re OK with that perception, then keep doing what you’re doing.
But if you suddenly see yourself as the as the drunken, ultra-political loudmouth and don’t like what you see, now’s the chance to change that perception of you.
Suggested reading:
June 26th, 2009
YouTube reports exponential growth; issues viral video challenge
YouTube had been seeing astronomical growth of video uploads from mobile devices, up 1700 percent - yes, 1,700 - over the past six months. But since the launch of the iPhone 3GS last week, mobile video uploads increased by 400 percent a day, according to a post on You Tube’s blog.
So what’s driving this growth? Aside from the fact the more video-enabled phones are on the market today, YouTube also points to improvements to the “uploads flow” from a phone as well as the ability to upload and then instantly share among your social networks.
To promote the ease of sharing a video from a mobile device and having it go viral, YouTube has issued a challenge on its blog. (Get this language in the instructions. Five years ago, this would have made no sense):
Can you make your test video go viral through your social networks? If you can, we’re willing to feature that video on our homepage. Upload a video from your phone, tag it with “mobiletest,” share it with your social network, and Tweet us the link (so be sure to put “@youtube” and “mobiletest” in your message). We’ll give you one week to spread your test video far and wide, after which we’ll take a look at the most popular clips and feature a few on our homepage in a special “mobile upload” edition of our Spotlight Video.
June 17th, 2009
Microsoft to scale back Soapbox video service
I think I may have been on vacation back in 2006 on the day that Microsoft announced Soapbox, a video service that was going to challenge YouTube. Soapbox was never on my radar and, it appears, it really never made it to anyone’s radar.
Now, Microsoft says it’s planning to scale back the video service, citing tough economic conditions, according to CNET. When all else fails, blame it on the economy, I suppose.
CNET’s Ina Fried brings us up to date on the history of Soapbox:
Soapbox launched in 2006–the same year Google announced its deal to buy YouTube–but never emerged as a significant threat to the market leader…
In 2007, Microsoft stopped allowing new users to access the site while it added filtering technology aimed at reducing the amount of copyright content posted on its site. It returned a few months later, but has been largely an afterthought in the video market, except as a home for Microsoft’s own videos.
Microsoft Vice President Erik Jorgensen told CNET that the company hopes to transform Soapbox into a forum where bloggers and citizen journalists can chime in, via video, on topics of interest.
June 15th, 2009
Email of the day: How should I respond?
Time for a little group participation. Earlier this month I detailed Bernstein analyst Jeffrey Lindsay’s theory that YouTube could make money by charging for uploads. The general idea was to make YouTube more professionals.
I received a few emails about the concept, but this one has me a bit stumped. The email subject was “Not a death threat,” which I found so comforting I just had to open. Unfortunately, I’m not sure how to respond to this so I’m taking suggestions. Best reply from the talkbacks will be used. Here’s the letter:
I assume you have received enough death threats from people over your article encouraging (or pasing on Lindsay’s encouragement) for YouTube to completely DISMANTLE ITSELF in favor of creating a TOTALLY DIFFERENT entity by charging for uploads. The idea is born of a feeble mind, perhaps on drugs, perhaps lacking proper nutrition and/or sleep. Whatever the reason for your lapse in reason, I wish you a quick recovery and I hope you will apologize for that embarrassment. I have nothing mean-spirited or evil to wish upon you. No death threat. Just my sympathy for your seeming to have gone absolutley nuts, forgetting that YouTube was created to give EVERYONE with a computer and internet access the means of exposure that otherwise only people like yourself are afforded. Even silly mouse videos have their place on YouTube which is what makes it what it is, a true public forum. Google is a big enough company to be able to afford a “lost leader”, if YT truly is one. But I have faith that they can come up with ways to keep YT free to use and still have it pay for itself somehow, some way that doesn’t make it an exclusive tool of the well-to-do and their bratty spoiled kids.
How should I respond?
June 1st, 2009
The cure for YouTube's ills: Charge for uploads
Business models that revolve around “free” are never free since someone always foots the bill. Meanwhile, far more companies think they have more growth and scale to lower costs than they actually do. YouTube may be one of those companies that merely thinks it has the scale to eventually make money. In fact, those 20 hours of video uploaded every minute on YouTube costs money—too much money. The solution? Charge a small fee for uploads.
That’s the crux of an argument by Bernstein analyst Jeffrey Lindsay. He maintains that YouTube’s business model is doomed and that network effects—the increased value derived from increased usage—are never an excuse to avoid coming up with a business model. The argument is notable given all the hubbub over free vs. subscription (micropayments and otherwise) are front and center. Let’s dismiss the backlash that would ensue if YouTube started charging and listen to the argument.
In his weekend missive, Lindsay wrote:
In contrast to the latest wave of business articles about “free” as the new business model, we would argue there is no such thing as free – someone always pays. YouTube is an interesting case in point. Revenue estimates for 2009 are in the $200 to $250 million range, but costs are estimated to be somewhere in the $400 to $700 million range. Who makes up the difference? Google shareholders, of course. For those of us who lived through the “new economics of the Internet” in the late 1990s, seeing it happen all over again with Google brings a wry smile. In fact, what seems to be emerging is an Internet variant on an old GM adage: “we lose money on every car – but we make it up on volume.” Substitute video for car and you have a pretty accurate description of YouTube’s current business model.
And then there’s this history lesson:
May 20th, 2009
Video technology gets boost from Elemental
There’s a lot of computing power that goes into processing video for playback on a growing list of devices - from TV screens and laptop computers to mobile phones and portable gaming systems. But much of that work is not only unnecessary but also a waste of energy, computing power and money, according to the executives at Elemental Technologies.
The company has developed massively parallel video processing solutions – which basically utilizes both the central processing units and the graphics processing units to simultaneously work on formatting the video. The idea is that graphics chips are better equipped to handle some of the jobs involved and can lighten some of the demand on the CPU, speeding up the process.
Today, the company is announcing the beta release of an appliance – called the Elemental Server – which would reside in the data center of broadcasters, studios, online video platforms and major web video publishers, enabling them to quickly process video clips for playback anywhere the viewer wants to see it. The server will have two Intel microprocessors and four Nvidia graphics chips. The company also licenses the software, without the appliance, for customers who choose to go that route.
April 16th, 2009
Reports: New deals could help YouTube's revenue model
It appears that a revenue stream might finally be heading You Tube’s way - in two forms.
CNET is reporting that Google-owned YouTube will soon have some payment mechanisms built into the video-sharing sites. After Google reported first-quarter profits today, company CEO Eric Schmidt said of YouTube:
With respect to how it’ll get monetized, our first priority is on the advertising side. We do expect over time to see micropayments and other forms of subscription models coming as well. We’ll be announcing additional things in that area literally very, very soon.
Right around the same time, word was starting to get out about a deal between Google and Sony Pictures to offer full-length motion pictures on the site and build a section of YouTube that would be devoted to professionally made content. The announcement actually included other studios - including ZDNet parent company CBS, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Lionsgate, Starz, and the BBC - that would offer thousands of TV episodes and hundreds of films to U.S. viewers, according to a CNET report.
YouTube also said it was launching a test of Google TV Ads Online, which would enable advertisers to bid on and place commercials in the “ad breaks” within an online stream of a TV show, according to CNET.
March 30th, 2009
Disney, YouTube forge video distribution pact
Updated throughout: Disney and Google’s YouTube said Monday that they have forged a short-form content deal that includes ESPN and ABC.
Under the pact (see statement, Techmeme) Disney will be able to sell ad inventory on YouTube’s Disney/ABC and ESPN channels. The rollout starts in mid-April for ESPN and early May for Disney/ABC.
Other details:
- ESPN’s video player will be integrated into the sports network’s channel on YouTube.
- ABC will use Google’s tools and analytics to explore monetization models.
- Disney/ABC and ESPN can use YouTube’s ad overlays or test pre-roll ads.
March 24th, 2009
China reportedly blocks YouTube access
YouTube reportedly has been blocked by authorities in China for reasons unknown to parent company Google, according to various press reports.
The Chinese government isn’t known for discussing its actions when it comes to blocking its citizens from access to what it considers to be questionable content. The Wall Street Journal quotes a Chinese official responding to a question about the ban: “What I could tell you is, [the] Chinese government has taken up management of the network according to the laws.”
The BBC, in its own report, said the site has been blocked because YouTube has a video of Chinese soldiers beating monks and other Tibetans. The authenticity of that video has been questioned and the news agency couldn’t confirm when and where the video was shot.
YouTube has been blocked in the past during high-profile government meetings and following last year’s unrest in Tibet, the WSJ reported.
March 16th, 2009
Twitter: A fine 'pre-business' but un-monetizable and a deadly acquisition target
Dear Google, Yahoo and any other potential buyer of Twitter. Bernstein analyst Jeffrey Lindsay says it’s a bad idea. A really bad idea.
In a research note, Lindsay delivers an interesting history lesson of Internet “pre-businesses.” You know the ones: The companies with large user bases, a lot of attention and no scheme to make a profit. Twitter—the latest Facebook and Google killer—falls into that pre-business category.
Lindsay writes:
March 2nd, 2009
White House 2.0: Working through tech challenges
It’s only been a little over a month since the tech-savvy Obama administration moved in the White House, so it’s no surprise that WH staffers might still be experiencing some growing pains on the tech front.
Here you have this group of people that were using Twitter, Facebook and MySpace, as well as text messages and e-mail blasts, to stay connected with supporters during the election. As a private individual in a political campaign, Obama and his staffers were able to use any tool available to reach voters. But as the President of the United States, there are government rules and policies in place that dictate how and when the Office of the President communicates with the public at-large.
Ah, bureaucracy. Sure, the Obama staffers likely had heard the red-tape nightmares but there’s nothing like experiencing it first-hand. Jose Antonio Vargas, a former Washington Post colleague, has a great read about those lessons in today’s Post. In it, he writes:
Beyond the technological upgrades needed to enable text broadcasts, there are security and privacy rules to sort out involving the collection of cellphone numbers, according to Obama aides, who acknowledge being caught off guard by the strictures of government bureaucracy.
There are plenty of groups that are watching the Obama administration, largely because of the president’s repeated statements about his commitment to transparency and accountability in government. And that’s sure to lead to some pressure on aides to deliver.
We’ve already seen one example where the commitment to transparency has clashed with government bureaucracy - the President’s weekly video address to the public. The videos initially had been hosted on YouTube but privacy advocates expressed concerns about the use of cookies by YouTube parent Google. According to a CNET report, the White House is now using a Flash-based video system using Akamai’s content delivery network.
Also see: Whitehouse.gov’s YouTube cookies: The wrong privacy fight
Video: Can Obama bring tech respect to Washington?
The shift away from YouTube does say one thing about the tech team over at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. They’ve only been in Washington for a little over a month and managed, in that time, to listen to their critics, study the issue, explore alternatives and pull the trigger on a new system.
By Washington standards, that’s warp-speed action. For the rest of the nation, it serves as hope that the administration might be able to cut through Old School bureaucracy when it comes to the use of Web 2.0 tools.
February 12th, 2009
Did YouTube just find some monetization help?
YouTube will allow users to watch videos offline and even buy downloads for a small fee.
Can you smell the monetization, which is YouTube’s biggest priority?
Many video creators on YouTube want their work to be seen far and wide. They don’t mind sharing their work, provided that they get the proper credit. Using Creative Commons licenses, we’re giving our partners and community more choices to make that happen. Creative Commons licenses permit people to reuse downloaded content under certain conditions.
We’re also testing an option that gives video owners the ability to permit downloading of their videos from YouTube. Partners could choose to offer their video downloads for free or for a small fee paid through Google Checkout. Partners can set prices and decide which license they want to attach to the downloaded video files (for more info on the types of licenses, take a look here).
YouTube also said that it has added a “My Purchases” tab.
Now we’re not talking iTunes here and it’s unclear whether folks will seriously buy many videos. But the potential is there. Advertising will still be YouTube’s primary revenue model, but selling a few videos is a nice addition. In addition partners are likely to sign up just because of YouTube’s scale.
Download: YouTube’s video ID system: Is 75 percent accuracy good enough? Video ID system cost benefit and revenue calculators.
More reading:
January 30th, 2009
Whitehouse.gov's YouTube cookies: The wrong privacy fight
I’m the last person who would ever want the government snooping around my computer. But this controversial thing over YouTube cookies on whitehouse.gov has really become bigger than it should be and I think privacy advocates - no matter how much I agree with them on the larger scale issues - may be fighting the wrong fight here.
For those catching up, the White House has issued an exemption to the no-cookies rule on whitehouse.gov. The rule, of course, allowed visitors to freely visit the site without any identifiable information being left behind on the government’s site. But Google-owned YouTube, which hosts President Obama’s weekly video address, is being granted an third-party exemption from the policy so it can “help maintain the integrity of video statistics.”
It’s also important to note that the cookie only installs if the user clicks on the embedded video to watch. (see image below) If you don’t want a cookie installed, the you can download it to your computer and still maintain your privacy. This is the only place where the cookie issue comes into play.
Privacy advocates are holding President Obama’s administration to its promise for a more open and transparent government - as they should - by calling on the administration to provide a copy of the waiver referenced in the new policy. This stemmed from a language change in the policy a few days ago that took out references to YouTube and instead used “third-party providers.” Chris Soghoian, who writes CNET’s Surveillance State blog, writes:
…the White House has yet to actually provide a copy of the waiver (something this blogger has requested from White House officials informally, as well as via the Freedom of Information Act). The text of the original privacy policy implied that a specific waiver had been issued for the cookies forced upon end users who intentionally viewed YouTube videos embedded within the White House Web site. The text now implies a far broader waiver for multiple video-sharing Web sites. However, it remains unclear if a new waiver has been issued, or if the old waiver was broad enough to cover multiple sites.
My two cents:
- First, the White House ought to just cough up the waiver and be done with it. It’s just a policy waiver related to videos on a Web site. It shouldn’t be a big deal. Repeat after me: Open and Transparent.
- Second, the issue of the cookies exemption has already been addressed - and isn’t that the bigger issue here? There’s a go-around. Just download the video and watch it offline if that makes you feel safer.
- Third, if privacy advocates want whitehouse.gov to do more, shift the focus to calling for a redesign of the page, specifically how the “Click to Play” is displayed, compared to the “download video” link. Make sure visitors know that cookies are involved when you Click to Play and give them the option to download instead (and then be able to stop future warnings.)
It’s also important to note that the whole YouTube video thing is part of President Obama’s attempt at a more open and transparent government. Look at how many tech-savvy people were caught up in the campaign because of Web 2.0 tools like Facebook, MySpace, Twitter and YouTube. The president could have chosen to walk away from the online world after he won and gone back to the old-school radio address. But wouldn’t we rather have his weekly update accessible around the clock, on a site where millions of people already go to watch videos.
As an after-thought, I’m feeling reassured that someone in Washington knew enough about embedded video technology and the language of the privacy policy to make changes. There have been a lot of technology changes - and new issues surrounding privacy - since the original one was put in place in 2000.
Has it been updated regularly? Maybe it’s time for Privacy Policy 2.0.
January 22nd, 2009
Advice for Obama: Keep the Blackberry; Get a Mac
The newly sworn-in leader of the broadband generation and his faithful staff of Facebookers, MySpacers, YouTubers and Tweeters (Twitterers?) showed up for work yesterday to discover that the White House is still living in a dial-up world. Among the findings: computers with six-year-old versions of Microsoft software, a scarcity of laptops, disconnected phone lines and no access to Facebook, outside e-mail or instant messaging. I love this quote from Obama spokesman Bill Burton in a Washington Post story: “It is kind of like going from an Xbox to an Atari,”
President Obama was elected to the nation’s highest office, in part, because of a successful campaign on the Internet - from participation on social networking sites to e-mail updates to Twitter feeds. Silicon Valley - myself included - believed that, under Obama, cutting-edge technology would finally get some respect from Washington. Finally, we had elected someone who understood that the value of YouTube reached beyond teenagers posting videos from the skateboard park.
But, wait. There’s still hope that the Obama administration will reset the Washington mindset when it comes to tech. Just this morning, reports are surfacing that a government agency has added a “super-encryption package” to the standard Blackberry. No one is confirming that the device is actually for the President himself but I’m sure - given how adamant he was about hanging on to his Blackberry - that he’ll get his hands on one of these super-encrypted devices. Adding the upgrade had to be easier that sending a senior staffer in to the Oval office to tell the most powerful man on the planet to “hand it over.”
Sure, security is a big issue. The President’s communications definitely need to be protected and kept away from bad guys who want to do harm to our nation. But there’s also a compelling reason to keep that device in the President’s hand. In a CNN interview before the inauguration, Obama himself said it best:
I want to be able to have voices, other than the people who are immediately working for me, be able to reach out and … send me a message about what’s happening in America
There’s no word yet on whether restricted access to Facebook, Gmail or Yahoo IM will be lifted any time soon. And, as far as the concern about outdated Microsoft software on the White House computers, here’s my advice: Wait for Windows 7 or, better yet, buy some Macs. According to a Washington Post story, staffers were working on Macs on the campaign trail, so this downgrade to and old version of Windows has got to be tough for them.
Here’s a thought: instead of a government bailout for the tech industry - hey, everyone else is getting one - maybe the government can inject some funds into the tech sector with a full systems upgrade for the federal government. If the White House is in this bad of shape, I can only imagine what’s on the desks in offices at the Senate, House, EPA, FDA, FBI and other government agencies offices in DC.
Of course, money is tight and the economy is bad. But it sounds like Washington is due for a major upgrade. Call it an investment in the future and a sign of change and citizens will surely rally around the cause.
Maybe I’ll start a Facebook group.
Also see:
Andrew Nusca: Obama staff: White House in tech ‘dark ages’
Christopher Dawson: Welcome to our world, President Obama
January 19th, 2009
Internet Inauguration: The Interactive Introduction of the Obama Presidency
Watching Barack Obama on television be sworn in as the 44th President of the United States seems so 1960. Particularly when the first-term Illinois senator ascended to the highest office in the land based on a masterful use of every available tool on the Internet, from raising funds to delivering updates about his thoughts and whereabouts via Twitter.
So, if you’re planning to stick with the new media consciousness of the Obama Administration and watch or listen to his inauguration online, here are some options:
Fox News: Complete coverage, plus “fresh, fair inauguration analysis.”
CBS: Live webcast with audience able to ask questions of anchor Katie Couric, via text message.
ABC News: Live coverage, plus recordings of prior swearing-in ceremonies.
C-Span: Live coverage starting at 6 a.m.
CNN: Live coverage starting at 8 a.m.
PBS’ Online Newshour with Jim Lehrer: Live coverage starting at 11 a.m.
MSNBC: Live coverage, interactive map of events, transcripts of past inaugural addresses.
Also promising live coverage: The New York Times, the Associated Press, Joost and Comcast.net
Updates from friends: CNN is working with Facebook, so you can send out your status during the inauguration and get updates from friends and other Facebook users on what they’re doing.
Tweets from the crowd:You can sign up here to see an “official” stream of tweets or watch here to see what various visitors to D.C. have to say.
Your contributions: If you want to contribute, you can of course. CBS offers a variety of video, text message, photo and other options. The Obama Adminstration is looking for “PicMobile” and text comments.
Fox News wants your reports. And YouTube has its own channel you can subscribe to. Photobucket wants your help on a book project.
Live blogging: Some commentators still will try to compete with the video. Sites that will try to add different kinds of insight: Fox News will have four views from four cities, MTV covered the Inaugural Concert, and Canada’s National Post is on the scene.
Mobile TV: Here’s how information on how to get stuff on your iPhone and the UStream app. You can also watch live TV casts on Alltell, Sprint and AT&T phones, via MobiTV and on Verizon, through its VCast service.
Past Perspective: If you want to see how inspiring Presidential predecessors have been, MSNBC has lined up prior addresses from Bush, Clinton and Reagan for playback. And you want to go all the way back to 1960,here’s the Kennedy inaugural address in black and white and a slow pace at Hulu.
Black Perspective: Comparisons between Dr. Martin Luther King, Barack Obama and other black leaders – as well as a countdown to the inauguration of the nation’s first African-American president — at BET.
Inaugural quiz: You think you’re smart? The National Archives and Records Administration has this test for you.
Game on: And if you want to take a break, but get into a little bit of the President’s competitive spirit, here are a variety of online basketball games you can play during the day.
Tom Steinert-Threlkeld is editor-in-chief of Securities Industry News, as well as a long-time media, technology and business journalist. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
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