Hulu Adds “Coming Soon” Page
Catching episodes of your favorite show(s) on Hulu just became a little easier. The site’s introduced a "Coming Soon" page so that early bird users can figure out when the stuff they want to see will actually become available.
One might argue that this is a very minor feature – essentially a redundant online TV guide, given that most Hulu users know episodes become available the day after they air. Still, even if that’s the case, it should prove handy for folks who are new to the site.
Amazon Completes Acquisition of Zappos
Update: Amazon announced the completion of its acquisition of Zappos.com today. The Zappos management team will remain intact, and Zappos will operate independently with its headquarters in Las Vegas.
Original Article: Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh sent an email to Zappos employees today informing them that Amazon is becoming the only shareholder of Zappos stock. The following video from Jeff Bezos was also posted on the Zappos Blog:
Newsday Writer Leaves Due To ‘Pay For Access’ Decision
Here’s an interesting twist on the ‘pay for access to conten’t dilemma that faces the newspaper industry these days. Newspapers who do this may actually lose a writer or two! While it’s not likely that staffers at any newspaper are looking to just walk out the door to another job because there really aren’t any but you may get some that are going to walk n principle.
UPS Launches App For iPhone Users
UPS has introduced a new application for iPhone and iPod touch users that ships and tracks packages and also uses built-in GPS features to find the closest UPS store.
Available at the APP Store, the new UPS Mobile APP for iPhone allows users to track shipments, create shipments using the My UPS address book, calculate shipping rates and time-in-transit.
Google Search By Voice Learns Chinese (In Limited Fashion)
Many products are initially available in English, and then branch out into languages like French, Italian, German, and Spanish. (There’s even an acronym, FIGS.) But Google Search by voice broke with tradition – and started to make its way into a huge market – by moving straight from English to Mandarin Chinese today.
New Twitterers Down, Tweets Up in October
Last month we looked at Twitter’s numbers for user registrations and total tweets for the month of September. We saw a small decline in new user registrations, but tweeting appeared to be on the rise again following the previous month in which tweeting declined.
The numbers for October follow a similar trend. The information was supplied by Matthew Daines, the lead developer of the Twitter app, Twellow.
Google Checkout Gets a New Promotions Feature
Google has launched a new feature for Google Checkout, which allows merchants based in the US to create and run their own Checkout promotions at any time.
Users simply need to sign in to their Checkout merchant account, go to the "Tools" tab, and click the "Promotions" link to create a promotion. Google says the process takes less than a minute. Users can specify the date and time they’d like the promotion to run, and choose from different dollar-off discounts to offer their buyers.
Online Retailers To Have Better Holiday Season
Overall retail sales are expected to show no gain this holiday shopping season, while online retail sales in the U.S. will reach $44.7 billion during the holiday season, an eight percent increase over last year, according to a new report by Forrester Research.
The growth rate represents an increase from 2008, when, on the heels of the global financial crisis, online holiday retail sales in the U.S. grew just five percent. Forrester defines the holiday shopping season as months of November and December.
Microsoft Partners With OpenX On Ad Deal
Microsoft has entered into a partnership with advertising start-up OpenX, focused on promoting each other’s products to their respective customer base.
Under the terms of the multiyear agreement, OpenX will expand its distribution of its technology for delivering ads on websites. In addition, OpenX will promote Microsoft’s Content Ads monetization products.
YouTube And Hulu See Record High Video Views
Online video viewing reached another record in September, driven largely by TV season premieres, according to the latest report from comScore.
More than 168 million U.S. Internet users watched online video during the month. Nearly 26 billion videos were viewed in September, as Google sites accounted for more than 40 percent of videos viewed online by Americans.
Google sites continued to rank as the top U.S. video property in September with nearly 10.5 billion videos viewed. YouTube accounted for 99 percent of all videos viewed at Google properties.