Redbox is planning a Netflix-like subscription streaming movie service, could partner with Amazon or Walmart
According to Company Town, Redbox prez Mitch Lowe informed analysts yesterday that its upcoming online movie service would be subscription-based like Netflix and Hulu Plus instead of charging per-movie like iTunes, Zune or Amazon VOD (we can guess why.) Users would pay the monthly fee to stream to various devices (perhaps to the new iPhone and Android apps) and access discs at the kiosks. Lowe me
Inception & The Dark Knight Get iPad Special Editions
Get ready, Christopher Nolan fans. Special versions of the films Inception and The Dark Knight are now available for iOS.These two films are the first to get the “App Edition” treatment from Warner Bros. Digital Distribution. Not only do the apps include full access — streaming and via download — to the feature film, they also include access to special features, photos, behind-the-scenes trivia
Warner packages movies as iOS apps, starting with The Dark Knight and Inception
Online rentals and purchases of movies are still just a tiny fraction of the home video pie, but Warner's latest effort to expand that is similar to Paramount's recent efforts on Windows Phone 7 (Thanks SteveyAyo), offering its highest profile flicks as apps for iPhones and iPads. The Dark Knight and Inception are the first two releases out of the gate, offering free apps with some bonus content
Angry Birds Windows Phone and 3D Versions Coming
Angry Birds for Windows Phone 7 and a 3D version of the popular game appear to be on the way.A report from Pocket-lint‘s cites an interview with Peter Vesterbacka, the self-styled “Mighty Eagle” at Angy Birds creator Rovio. In the interview, Vesterbacka confirms that the company is working on a Windows Phone 7 version of the game, but that Microsoft has been holding up the release. “Let’s just
The Next Evolution in Mobile Search Will Be Built on Voice
In a crowded market for speech recognition apps, Vlingo has decided to focus on becoming a personal assistant, signaling an evolution from voice as a mere user interface and a means to avoid cramped keyboards on mobiles, to voice as a natural means of getting a computer to do what you want. Much like Siri, the personal assistant app that Apple purchased last year, Vlingo has decided its future res
iTunes stays on top of growing internet movie business in 2010, but 2011 could be very different
While much of the news lately has surrounded subscription internet movie and TV services the video on-demand market was up nearly 40% last year and is expected to keep growing. According to stats from IHS Screen Digest, video revenue for the Apple iTunes store grew 60 percent last year, but saw its overall market share shrink from from 74.4 to 64.5 percent. This is mostly explained as a side affe
Top 5 Social Media Game Plans for Super Bowl Advertisers
video Imagine you’re an advertiser contemplating spending $3 million or so on a Super Bowl ad. Maybe you’ve never done this before or maybe you do it every year, but at some point, you have to justify to someone — your CEO or maybe a procurement expert at the company — why this is a good idea.Now imagine there was a cheap way to get a better return on investment on that $3 million. All you had to do
Facebook Credits: Virtual Goods Are Just the Beginning
Facebook is ready to go big with its Facebook Credits virtual currency: the company announced that all developers will have to use the credits in their apps starting July 1. The move takes Facebook Credits out of beta and will make it the main payment system for all apps, with Facebook getting a 30 percent cut of the action. But the transition to Facebook Credits is not just about Facebook getting
This Morning’s Top 3 Stories in Social Media Business
Welcome to this morning’s edition of “First To Know,” a series in which we keep you in the know on what’s happening in the digital world. We’re keeping our eyes on three particular stories of interest today. Twitter Ad Revenue May Reach $150 Million This Year Twitter will triple its advertising revenue to $150 million in 2011, research firm eMarketer estimates. Palestinian Reporter On Trial For
Mashable Awards 2010: Announcing The Winners
With more than 1.3 million nominations and votes, we’re pleased to announce the 2010 Mashable Awards winners.The Mashable Awards, our annual contest highlighting the very best of tech and the web, received a record number of votes this year. After entering the final round, we narrowed the list to the top five nominees in each category based on your votes. The winners received the most votes fro
Why Every Brand Needs an Open API for Developers
Adam Kleinberg is co-founder and CEO at Traction, an interactive agency that aligns psychology with technology to create ideas that work. Catch him tweeting at @adamkleinberg and blogging at tractionco.com/blog.The most effective ads today are experiences that provide value to customers. The biggest challenge is providing that value at scale in a world where people are empowered to consume medi
Top 100 BitTorrent Searches of 2010 Revealed
Here’s an efficient way to put your finger on the pulse of the movie-watching and software-using public: Check out the top 100 search terms for 2010 on BitTorrent.While there are lots of torrent tracking sites, Kickass Torrents is one of the biggest, and it’s revealed its most popular search terms of the year to file-sharing news site TorrentFreak, giving us a nonscientific glimpse into the dat
Former Palm CEO John Rubinstein Joins Amazon’s Board
Former Palm CEO Jon Rubinstein was elected to join Amazon’s board, the company announced today via an SEC filing. Rubisntein is currently a senior VP and general manager at Hewlett-Packard, following HP’s $1.2 billion acquisition of Palm earlier this year. Before joining Palm, Rubinstein was in charge of Apple’s iPod division and was the company’s senior hardware executive. At Palm, he tried to
OpenFeint’s Game Channel Uses The Groupon-Model To Sell Its Mobile Games
The group-buying model that was pioneered by Groupon has entered the world of mobile gaming and apps. A few months ago Y Combinator-backed TapZilla launched to apply the deal of the day model to paid mobile apps. And today, mobile social gaming platform OpenFeint is joining in with the launch of Game Channel, a group-buying site for mobile gaming apps. Game Channel lets developers that build gam
Lexus to Sponsor “Halo: Reach” Marathon
Lexus is using Xbox 360 to promote its CT 200h hybrid during an all-night gaming marathon for Halo: Reach this weekend.The sponsorship, which takes place on Saturday, December 18, includes a branded destination experience within Xbox Live where gamers can access “Darkcasting,” an in-car talk show hosted by comedian Whitney Cummings. That show launched on November 4 and features interviews inside t
Fanhattan Promises Better Internet TV Through The Power Of Data
The TV is the last screen in most people’s homes to be conquered by the Internet. Although with so many companies both big and small going after that screen—Google, Apple, Boxee, Roku—it seems like someone will eventually figure it out. Now you can add to that list Fanhattan, a new company spun off from Vuze, the maker of the popular Bittorrent client which has been downloaded 150 million times
First-Run Movies at Home? Sure, For $20,000
Need to watch Burlesque immediately, but aren't in the mood to trudge to your local cinemaplex? Never fear! You'll soon be able to rent it from home the day it's released for a mere $20,500. Wait, what? More »
Rovio CEO: We Have 40 People Working On Angry Birds
In an on-stage interview at Le Web 10 in Paris, Rovio CEO Mikael Hed talked about one of the most popular games ever to hit mobile phones all around the world: Angry Birds. Our notes: What’s the story behind Angry Birds? It started off with a screenshot from one of our game designers. He drew a picture of some really angry-looking birds. He explained the game mechanics behind his idea. I didn’t u
MOD Systems' Download2Go kiosks now hawking DRM-free music
You'll need to pop into a Quick Chek in New York or New Jersey to take advantage for now, but if you and iTunes just aren't on speaking terms, a hear-to-heart with a MOD Systems' Download2Go kiosk may be your best alternative. Planted in ten locations across aforementioned states, these kiosks work a lot like the movie-equipped ones that were installed in various Blockbuster locations and in 30 U
Netflix Continues To Save the Movie Industry, So Why Do Studios Continue To Hate It?
It’s always slightly flattering when a ten billion dollar company tweaks its business model just to please me. Well, ok, that’s a slight exaggeration: not just to please me, but to please me and the other writers at TechCrunch. I’m referring of course to Netflix’s decision to offer a streaming-only subscription package; the first time they’ve allowed members to view movies online without also havi
Netflix: Will This Movie Ever End?
By Dian L. Chu, EconForecast After driving Blockbuster out of business and taking a good chunk of subscribers from cable TVs, Netflix (NFLX) is now setting sight on the streaming video business. On Monday Nov. 22, Netflix announced a new subscription service--$7.99 a month for unlimited downloads of movies and television shows, while raising prices (by one dollar) on its existing DVD-related servi
Apple Unifies The iOS Line With iOS 4.2 For iPad
Back in June, Apple unveiled something that was both a blessing and a curse for the company: iOS 4. It was a blessing because it was the most stable, fastest, and most feature-rich version of iOS yet. But it was also a curse because it wasn’t yet ready for the iPad. That meant that Apple’s latest flagship device was left running old software. For months. Well, not anymore. Yes, after rumors of an
“Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows” Extended Clip Leaks onto Torrent Sites
Can’t wait until Friday to check out the latest installment of the Harry Potter film series? Well, if you have any knowledge of torrent sites at all, you should be able to view the first 36 minutes today, as a goodly chunk of the film has leaked online. The leak comes one day after the New York City premiere of the film.According to TorrentFreak, the beginning of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallo
Charter Follows Comcast With Broadband Usage Caps
Charter Cable plans to start enforcing monthly data caps on its users in December, according to a company spokeswoman. The cable operator will also implement a congestion management plan similar to the one Comcast designed after it got in trouble with the Federal Communications Commission for blocking P2P files in 2008. Charter spokeswoman Anita Lamont emailed me and said Charter will likely post
IMDb Goes Global With New iPad and iPhone Apps
Amazon-owned IMDb released a nifty iPad App earlier this year which allowed customers to access more than 1.5 million movie and TV titles with information on millions celebrities, actors, actresses, directors and crew members. The Movies and TV app also allowed users to access movie trailers, find localized movie showtimes in the U.S., and more. Today, the company is releasing brand new iPhone and
5 Media Format Flops Destined To Be Forgotten
video As Sony ends production of the audio cassette Walkman, and we witnessed the demise of the 3.5-inch floppy disk only a few months earlier, we got to thinking about formats that haven’t lived to see any meaningful milestones.Since the first face-off between cylinder and disc records back in the late 1800s, the path of progress has been littered with corpses of failed tech. For every VHS, there’s a B
How to Make Myspace Relevant
In the realm of might-have-beens, Myspace shows even more promise than Friendster. But as I discuss at GigaOM Pro, by returning to its roots, a move suggested by its recent relaunch, Myspace may yet be salvageable. It shouldn’t try to challenge Facebook for social network leadership, but it can still be a valuable consumer media business, if not a technology driver. Myspace’s relaunch is smart