While MPAA watches SOPA crumble, digital rentals rise as physical rentals decline

As more consumers turn to streaming video rentals on services like Amazon Prime, Vudu and iTunes, physical disc rentals are falling and leaving movie studios wondering how to best distribute films.

According to a new study conducted by the NPD Group, video-on-demand and streaming video from services like Netflix were on the rise during 2011 and 31 percent of all rentals in North America are attributed to digital delivery options. Alternatively, total physical DVD and Blu-ray rentals fell by 11 percent over the year due to the decline in Blockbuster as well as flat Netflix growth. Redbox is the only bright spot in the physical rental market as unit volume increased by 29 percent over 2010, thus increasing Redbox’s share of the rental market to 37 percent.
According to Russ Crupnick, senior vice president of industry analysis for The NPD Group, he stated “There’s no doubt that Redbox has been the largest beneficiary of the collapsing brick-and-mortar store rental business, especially with ongoing Blockbuster store closings and the fact that there are also fewer independent stores than the prior year. The Netflix share erosion may have resulted from their recent well publicized challenges with pricing, and from their now defunct Quikster experiment; however, they are in the process of shifting customers to their Watch Instantly option, so not all of the physical movie rental share drop is a net loss.”
Movie studios have been in a constant struggle with physical delivery systems like Redbox and Netflix due to a general lack of control over pricing. For instance, Warner Brothers recently doubled its 28-day window for Redbox, Blockbuster and Netflix to receive newly released films in addition to halting discounted DVD sales of HBO discs to Netflix in an effort to help preserve falling DVD sales; approximately 15 percent of the studio’s yearly revenue. Studios have also been extremely slow in rolling out support for digital delivery and are currently pinning all hopes on a new technology attached to Blu-ray discs called Ultraviolet. However, the studios have had an extremely difficult time educating the public on the the cloud-based digital locker over the last few months.
The lack of innovation in regards to developing a studio-owned, industry created platform for purchasing movie rentals has allowed competitors like Apple, Walmart, and Amazon to cut into studio profits with user-friendly applications that are compatible across many popular devices like the iPad and Xbox 360. Sony has the strongest grasp on a digital platform to distribute films from Sony Pictures in the form of the PlayStation 3 and possibly the upcoming PlayStation Vita.
While movie studios stumble through the digital age vastly dependent on Internet companies to distribute its content, the MPAA has turned to piracy as the reason for loss of revenue, hence the support for SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act). As SOPA support is currently evaporating due to a massive outcry from Internet users, MPAA chairman Chris Dodd is calling for a summit between content creators, like movie studios and video game publishers, and Internet companies such as Google. Dodd is seeking a compromise on the issue and declared that he had never seen “an effort that was moving with this degree of support change this dramatically” over the past forty years.
Chairman Dodd is actually barred from attempting to influence any member of Congress regarding SOPA or any future form of the bill due to legislation that bars any former member of Congress from lobbying current members for two years after leaving office. According to Dodd, he has only been working in a strategic capacity in regards to pushing SOPA and PIPA (PROTECT IP Act) through Congress. Dodd has partially blamed Hollywood’s actors, directors, writers, producers, and support staff for not mobilizing support against the Internet movement in order to help the two bills pass.
One studio that is attempting to innovate the process of digital rentals is Lionsgate. They recently announced the simultaneous release of Taylor Lautner’s Abduction on Blu-ray and Facebook at the same time. The movie was released on the social network on January 17 and costs $3.99 for a standard definition rental of the film. While Warner Brothers have been streaming previously released, older films on Facebook such as Inception, this marks the first side-by-side release of a physical disc and a streaming counterpart on Facebook.

SOPA on the Ropes?

Feeling powerless these days? You're not. Outraged consumers forced Verizon to back off from an outrageous $2 fee for paying cell phone bills online. Now angry protests from all over the country are forcing Congress to back off from some of the worst provisions of SOPA, a law that would severely restrict free speech and the free exchange of content on the Web in the name of combating online piracy.
Among other provisions, the legislation would have empowered authorities to get a court order requiring U.S. service providers to block the domain name system (DNS) entries for any foreign website that was deemed to be hosting pirated content. But the volume of protests is beginning to force lawmakers to back off.
The DNS provision bit the dust Friday when sponsors of SOPA in the House, and of the similar Protect IP Act in the Senate, withdrew it. But the sibling bills are still alive, which is why there will be an unprecedented strike by Wikipedia, Reddit and thousands of much smaller Web sites on Wednesday. Google will remain up, but will proclaim its opposition to the bills on its home page, as will Scribed, the popular document hosting site. Demonstrations (of actual people) have been announced in San Francisco and New York.
Meanwhile, an anti-SOPA petition hosted on whitehouse.gov garnered 50,000 signatures and officials of the Obama administration responded with a strong statement against misguided provisions in the proposed laws.
They said, in part: "We must avoid creating new cybersecurity risks or disrupting the underlying architecture of the Internet. Proposed laws must not tamper with the technical architecture of the Internet through manipulation of the Domain Name System (DNS), a foundation of Internet security. Our analysis of the DNS filtering provisions in some proposed legislation suggests that they pose a real risk to cybersecurity and yet leave contraband goods and services accessible online."
The anti-piracy bills are largely the creation of Hollywood and the music industry, both of which are desperate to stem the flood of pirated content on the Web. While it's clear that piracy damages our economy, and hurts writers, artists, musicians, software makers and other "content creators" the bill is far too broad. It would, for example, make the owners of Web sites like eBay or Craig's list liable for actions by their users, a dramatic change from existing law. Other Web sites, even those that do not act as e-commerce sites could be affected as well, and would have to monitor and control content posted by users, an impossible burden for many organizations.
Who else supports the bills? One Mr. Rupert Murdoch, chairman of News Corp., which has admitted to hacking the phones of crime victims, politicians and others. In a number of tweets, Murdoch accused President Obama of working for the interests of his "Silicon Valley paymasters" and called Google a "piracy leader."
SOPA and its evil sister will be kicking around Congress for a while more. There's no better time to stand up for the Web, and more importantly, for yourself, than by letting the politicians know that they need to kill these bills and come up with a sane plan to stop online piracy.

Tips For Onboarding Remote Workers

The Digital Careers Series is supported by Elance, the world’s leading site for online work. Check out Startup Cloud for tips on how to build a remote team.
There might be an assumption that recruiting is easier when unemployment is high, but that’s simply not true. According to Manpower Group, 52% of employers reported having a difficult time finding qualified employees to fill jobs. Employers cast a wide net when it comes to finding candidates, and remote workers can be attractive to companies because they can fill an opening that’s difficult to place with a local.
It’s more important than ever to ensure that new hires become engaged immediately upon entering their new place of employment through a well-designed onboarding process. Successful onboarding programs aren’t just a paperwork-filled orientation: They create a connection between employees, their work and the goals of the organization. Here are a few best practices from companies that effectively onboard remote workers.

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1. Bring the Office to Them

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In a traditional office environment, it’s easy to forget what it’s like for a remote employee. Sometimes we take for granted the ability to walk around the corner and ask a quick question. David Lewis, president and CEO of OperationsInc, a human resources outsourcing and consulting firm, has several employees who work virtually. He says the key to a successful workplace is creating a way for new hires to experience the office regardless of where they’re located.
“We get them connected with the team, make sure they know who does what and bring the office to them,” Lewis says. “Slides with pictures. Organizational charts. All geared to paint a picture.”

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2. Connect Face-to-Face

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The ability to connect a face with a voice is an essential part of building relationships. For Cheezburger, the online humor publisher behind the wildly popular I Can Has Cheezburger?, the key to success is in building a team culture despite having employees all over the country.
Cheezeburger’s CTO Scott Porad says they typically bring remote employees to headquarters for the first week, but sometimes that isn’t possible. “We have onboarded several employees remotely,” Porad adds. “We use pair-programming through voice and video conferencing and screen-sharing tools to make this happen.”
Video conferencing also eliminates the stress associated with travel, especially if you’re working for a new company. Alison Sheehan, senior vice president of human resources at virtual meetings developer PGi, says it was a no-brainer to embrace remote onboarding: “As a collaboration company that provides virtual meeting tools to business, we took what we know to be effective in face-to-face meetings and applied it to remote onboarding and other HR processes.”
PGi uses a combination of email, video meetings and learning management system (LMS) tools to connect with and onboard remote workers. The cornerstone of its program is a proprietary video conferencing tool, iMeet. “Using iMeet’s group video capabilities is a great way for us to meet face-to-face in a virtual setting to connect with new hires,” Sheehan explains. “You can make eye contact (or note when others are not), you can observe body language, and you can even use the social media tools within iMeet to learn more about the people with whom you are meeting. This personal interaction strengthens their bond and enhances the synergy of the group — all without ever leaving their home offices.”

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3. Teach the Job in Steps

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Companies also have to figure out how to show remote workers the technical aspects of the work they will be doing. In a traditional office environment, employees might attend a class or be a part of on-the-job training, but neither are practical choices with remote workers.
Tracy Brisson, founder and CEO of The Opportunities Project encourages “scaffolding” as an effective learning process. In short, you break up the content into building blocks that are taught in chunks. “When students demonstrate they’ve learned the material and can do it independently, you teach the next step and build upon prior skills and knowledge,” she says.
In an office, a manager can see a new team member performing and provide immediate feedback. Brisson shares the process for virtual workers, too. “You have to know that they can do it on their own without that instant feedback loop,” Brisson explains. “It helps to create a learning plan before the person starts, where job responsibilities are introduced at a slower pace, but the result is faster overall mastery and a great work product.”

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4. Evaluate the Process

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Any time you create and actively use a process, it’s necessary to evaluate its effectiveness. Brendon Schrader, founder and CEO of strategic marketing consultancy Antenna, says his company’s onboarding assessment “is based on one metric: employee satisfaction.”
Antenna worked with enterprise social network Yammer to create a new onboarding process, largely due to that fact that the platform provides tools to measure each stage of hiring. When asked how employees respond to the remote onboarding experience, Schrader indicated the feedback has been one of their best sources of information. “Our consultants have time and time again expressed their happiness with our process and how the platform helps them stay connected with their colleagues,” Schrader explains. “We may not be sitting across a desk from our employees, but the Yammer platform allows us to redefine how we work together.”

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5. Constantly Refine the Process

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For many of us, working remotely isn’t a new concept, but the responsibility of onboarding a remote team is. That was the situation for Sara Sutton Fell, CEO and founder of telework job service FlexJobs. Fell figured out what worked best for her company through a combination of instinct, trial and error, and feedback from colleagues who already had experience hiring remote workers.
Fell says the most important step when adding a new technology to the onboarding process is test first, then implement. “The more we test a particular technology to see if it meets our needs, the better chance we’ll have of selecting the most appropriate and useful technology,” Fell explains. “And we’re sure to avoid headaches down the road!”
As more organizations recognize the value in telework arrangements, we’ll see more remote workers move from the status of occasional freelancer to full-time employee. Creating an effective, efficient onboarding process will benefit both the new hire and the company.
What advice do you have for companies looking to onboard remote employees? Tell us your thoughts in the comments below.

20 TV Shows With the Most Social Media Buzz This Week

ust by looking at the top television trends, you can tell awards season is upon us. The BET Hip Hop Awards and the Latin Grammys topped the cable and broadcast categories, respectively. The CMAs and MTV Europe Music Awards came in second and third in either category as well. We can’t wait to see how new Oscar host Billy Crystal affects the social TV rankings in 2012.
Also, we’d just like to say something else really quickly: Spongebob, really?
The data below is compliments of our friends at Trendrr, who measure specific TV show activity (mentions, likes, checkins) across Twitter, Facebook, GetGlue and Miso. To see daily rankings, check out Trendrr.TV

Steve Jobs’ Secret Formula: How He Won Over Critics, Scored 317 Patents & Changed the World

I arrived at Apple’s headquarters a little before 9 a.m. after a beautiful drive down the 280 from San Francisco on a sunny July day. This wasn’t any ordinary trip to One Infinite Loop. Steve Jobs was on stage, but he wasn’t going to announce any products.
Just two days earlier, Apple hastily called for a press conference to address the growing rumors and complaints surrounding the company’s newest product, the iPhone 4. It was a terrible couple of weeks for Apple. You may remember it better as Antennagate.
As I listened to Jobs speak about the antenna issues of other smartphones during his press conference at Apple Town Hall, it was clear he was far from nervous, panicked or upset. Rather he was poignant, focused and even humorous as he took question after question from the press.
He took the whole controversy in stride. He even opened the press conference with the hilarious iPhone antenna song. In the end, Antennagate proved to be just a bump in the road; the iPhone 4 became the world’s best-selling smartphone.
What I remember the most from that press conference was something he said. I think it exemplified everything that made Steve Jobs who he is:
“We care about every user, and we’re not going to stop until every one of them is happy.”

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The Many Faces of Steve Jobs

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I have had the honor, on several occasions, to see Jobs captivate an audience with his showmanship and his passion for the products he was showing off to the world.
I’ve also had the chance to chat with many people who have seen him work his magic in person. In some cases, Jobs ripped them apart for not reaching his incredibly high standards. But every single person I’ve talked to was been impressed by his ability to see the future in his mind and launch innovations that would bring the world closer to it.
Steve Jobs was many things: an innovator of ideas, an inventor of products, an entrepreneur who knew how to build a multi-billion dollar business, and a rare individual with the capability to see the future.

Did you know that Steve Jobs has 317 patents to his name? His name appears on the patent for the first iPod design. His name is on the patents of various laptop designs. He even holds 13 different patents for the unique packaging of iPhones and iPods.
What made him excel in all of these areas wasn’t his genius or some magical formula. There were plenty of times he missed the mark.
What made him successful, and made up for any qualities he lacked, was that he kept trying. “I’m convinced that about half of what separates the successful entrepreneurs from the non-successful ones is pure perseverance,” Jobs once said in an interview in 1995.
It’s that rare combination of passion and skill that changed the world and made Jobs a legend. It’s that rare combination that helped him change the world by making our lives easier and connecting us in ways we never knew was possible.
Here’s to Steve Jobs, the world-changer.

Dalai Lama Joins Google+, Plans Hangout With Desmond Tutu

The Dalai Lama has officially joined Google+ — and he’s already planning a Hangout with South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu.
The Hangout, announced Friday on the Dalai Lama’s Google+ profile, will take place Oct. 8 at 10:30 a.m. South African time (GMT+2.00). That’s 4:30 a.m. ET in the U.S. The live video conversation will be part of the Inaugural Desmond Tutu Peace Lecture in Cape Town, South Africa. The event coincides with the archbishop’s 80th birthday on Oct. 7. A link to the Hangout will be available approximately 20 to 30 minutes before it starts.
The Dalai Lama had originally planned on visiting South Africa in person this weekend, but visa woes prevented the holy leader from entering the country. However, that didn’t stop the Dalai Lama from posting a video (below) on Google+, wishing the archbishop — an activist who first rose to prominence opposing apartheid in the 1980s — a happy birthday.
This was all done on the same day the Dalai Lama joined Google+. Another post on the social network welcomes the Dalai Lama’s potential Google+ followers with a mission statement of sorts: “He frequently states that his life is guided by three major commitments: the promotion of basic human values or secular ethics in the interest of human happiness, the fostering of inter-religious harmony and the welfare of the Tibetan people, focusing on the survival of their identity, culture and religion.”
While the Dalai Lama may be new to Google+, this isn’t his first social media presence. He also has a Twitter account with more than 2.5 million followers, along with a Facebook page with more than 2 million fans.

You Spend 8 Hours Per Month on Facebook

Google may still be the world’s most visited website with users spending nearly 2 hours on the site in a given month. But the average U.S. Internet user spends nearly 4 times the amount of those hours on Facebook, according to a new study.
Nielsen says 176.2 million people in the U.S. visited Google in August. That’s more than Facebook (163.2 million), Yahoo (149.0 million), Microsoft (134.4 million) and YouTube (128.0 million).
However, in the race for user attention, Facebook is king. The average U.S. user spent a whopping seven hours and 46 minutes on Facebook in August. That’s a full 15.5 minutes the average American spends on Facebook every single day. Compare that to the average Google user, who spent just one hour and 46 minutes on the site.
Another surprise: YouTube wasn’t the second-biggest Internet time waster (one hour, 41 minutes). That title goes to AOL (two hours, 53 minutes) and Yahoo (two hours and 12 minutes).
Overall, U.S. Internet users spent 30 hours online in August, visited an average of 99 domains and viewed an average of 3,123 web pages. And 216 million Americans spent time on the web out of an estimated total of 275 million people who have access to the web.
Facebook has been the web’s ultimate time sink for a while now, but it’s becoming clear that Facebook is taking up more and more of our lives. In August 2010, the average American spent five hours and 46 minutes on the social network. In just a year, that number has grown by three full hours.
How much time do you think you spend on Facebook per month? Give us your guesses in the comments.

Google+ Updates via SMS

How to enable?

It is simple.Just go to your Google+ Settings page.In the Set delivery preferences Click on Add phone number.In The country,Select India.Input your mobile number and click Send verification code.

Once you verify your number with your Google+ account, your public profile will be linked to your Mobile number.You can also choose what kind of notifications you want through SMS in the same page.

Once you activate your mobile number on google+, You will receive notifications.

Klout Adds Google+ To Its Social Scores

The third social network icon on your Klout dashboard is now Google+, just behind the Twitter and Facebook buttons. Latching onto news Tuesday that anyone can sign up for Google+, Klout CEO Joe Fernandez revealed the Google+ integration via a tweet: “Boom! I just connected my @klout account with Google+.”
Fernandez told  it will take a few days for Klout — which calculates users’ social influence and assigns a score from 0 to 100 — to pull in everyone’s data and “normalize it across the population.”
“We have always believed that influence was the ability to drive people to actions and Google+ has great signals such as +1s and comments,” Fernandez continued. “One thing we have noticed is that the conversation frequency and quality on Google+ really sets it apart from other platforms.”
Fernandez has always been open about his desire to add Google+. He and his team were just waiting for Google to release the platform’s first developer application programming interfaces. Google made that Google+ API available last week.
In August, Klout doubled the number of services it measures, adding Blogger, Flickr, Instagram, Last.fm and Tumblr to its scoring system. With the addition of Google+, Klout users can connect to 11 services. Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Foursquare and YouTube are the others.

Not Google+: The First Antisocial Network [PARODY VIDEO]

Do you feel like there’s simply too many social networks you have to manage? You aren’t alone.
On the heels of Google opening Google+ to the public, the people over at College Humor decided to create their own social network: Not Google+.
Joining Not Google+ is simple: “Don’t join Google+.” The next step is simple as well. “Once you’ve done that, don’t invite your friends to join Google+.”
While College Humor picks on Google for the entire two minute video, it does make a good point: do we really need another social network?
Google seems to think so. College Humor thinks you should play tetherball with a small Portuguese child instead. Let us know what you think of the phenomenon of social networking overload in the comments.

Google Quietly Rolls Out The Chrome Extension To Bring +1 To The Entire Web

You may recall that back in May, we spotted something in Google’s “Dear Sophie” commercial: an unreleased +1 Chrome extension. This was pre-Google+, when the +1 button still didn’t do a whole lot, so even I forgot about the extension over the past few months. But very quietly, Google actually launched it yesterday.
There was no blog post, no featured placement in the Chrome Web Store — pretty much no fanfare beyond Google SVP of Chrome, Sundar Pichai, posting a link to it on Google+. But it has the potential to be a bigger deal than it seems on the surface.
As the tagline indicates, the Google +1 Button extension allows you to “+1 a web page, anywhere you go on the web”. That’s important. You no longer have to rely on a site to implement the +1 Button, you can invoke the functionality through your browser. Imagine if Facebook made their own browser and offered an extension to “Like” any page on the web through it — same idea (and one that I still suspect will happen sooner or later).
Right now, the +1 Button just shares content you like on the web. But eventually, the plan is to look at this data as a way to affect Google Search itself potentially. That’s huge. The button also is starting to play a role in how Google serves up advertising to you. Again, huge — though these concepts may make people wary of such a button.
As Google notes in their description of the app:

In addition to the practices described in the Google +1 Button Privacy Policy, by installing this extension, all of the pages and URLs you visit will be sent to Google in order to retrieve +1 information.

Yes, you read that correctly, “all of the pages and URLs you visit will be sent to Google” — and that’s even if you don’t click the button. Nefarious or not, that will worry some people.
And while the +1 Buttons for websites just added the functionality to share your Google+ Circles, the extension doesn’t yet offer that — but I assume it will. It does offer +1 counts though already, which is nice.
Find the extension here. Again, it’s Chrome only for now, we’ll see if they create ones for Firefox, IE, and Safari as well.

Twitter CEO On Google+: It’s Complicated

Twitter CEO Dick Costolo held a press briefing at Twitter HQ this morning in order to talk about the Twitter’s path moving forward. Costolo indicated how important it was that Twitter focus if it wants to compete in today’s saturated social ecosystem, “We used to say if you don’t know where you’re going, any road will take you there,” he said, implying that was a bad thing.
When asked what he thought about Google+ after the talk, Costolo, who was briefly a Googler after the acquisition of Feedburner, said, “There’s no doubt that they’re going to draw in a large amount of users. You can’t not see that red notification alert on the sandbar,” he said, referring to the fact that you could basically advertise any product on the Google homepage and it would draw in a significant amount of people.
He said that Twitter takes a different route than current social contenders, preferring to pare down its services, “We’re thinking about how we can simplify the product even further. That’s what makes it different. [We're looking] for what can we ‘edit’ out.” He said. “These other products are adding services and we are trying to simplify ours down.”

Google+ Rolls Out Verified Profiles, Still Struggles With Real-Name Policy

William Shatner, rejoice! Earlier today, Wen-Ai Yu from the Google+ team announced with a post on Google+ and an accompanying YouTube video that the social network now boasts ‘verification badges’ for celebrities, public figures, but also people who have been added to an (undefined) ‘large’ number of Circles, with the promise to expand the verified profile system in the near future.

This is in line with an earlier report from CNN’s Mark Milian, who caught wind of Google’s ‘celebrity acquisition plan’ a month ago.

The badges are basically grey Twitter-type check mark that expand to say ‘verified name’ when you hover over them (see screenshot of my profile – I’ve apparently been added to enough Google+ Circles to make the list). People who don’t yet have a verified profile should ‘hang tight’, Yu says.

Things that are not clear:

- How celebrities and public figures are being asked by Google to verify their identity, although the CNN report mentioned that one option that was being considered by the Google + team at the time involved asking a celebrity to fax a copy of his or her driver’s license.

- Exactly how large the number of circles on has to be added to needs to be, and why some high-profile users seem to have fallen though the cracks. It doesn’t make any sense to give me a verification badge but not people like Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg (he’s the most followed person on Google+, ironically) and entrepreneur celebs like Kevin Rose and Tom Anderson.

- If there will be a dedicated page listing all verified profiles (or at least those of celebrities and public figures) so people can discover more people to follow, particularly when they’re new to Google+

According to a tweet from Louis Gray, who has just been hired as Google+ evangelist (update:but only starts next Monday), there may well be no plans to build a ‘default’ (aka suggested user) list based on which profiles are verified by the Google+ team and which are not.

Meanwhile, the debate about the real name policy on Google+ rages on. Joining the social network requires mandatory real name and gender disclosure, and Google has already suspended accounts because it believed users were using a pseudonym.

These days, when Google finds that a profile name does not adhere to its policy, users are given a 4-day grace period to change it before they get booted off the social network.

Power user Robert Scoble this morning sent an open letter to Google’s Vic Gundotra – and published it on his Google+ profile to boot – providing several suggestions for change to the real name policy, which Scoble says is not being enforced fairly, or properly, and causing distraction.

(Hat tip to Michel over at WebSonic)

UPDATE: Google says that it is continuing to roll out verification badges, and since we wrote this post both Zuckerberg and Anderson have been verified.

Google Responds To Microsoft’s “Gotcha”: They’re Diverting Attention With A Trick That Failed

This back and forth between Google and Microsoft is getting good.

Yesterday, Google wrote a post calling out Microsoft, Apple, Oracle, and others for using “bogus” patents to try to kill Android. Some of the patents Google’s Chief Legal Officer David Drummond mentioned included the ones Microsoft acquired from Novell (not to be confused with Nortel, which happened later). When Microsoft saw this, two senior officials took to Twitter to effectively pants Google. You see, Microsoft had tried to get Google to partner with them to buy the Novell patents — Google turned them down. And Microsoft had the email to prove it.

But there was an obvious reason for this rejection, which Microsoft conveniently left out, Google now says.

Drummond has addressed the pantsing incident in an update to his original blog post from yesterday. He kicks the update off with:

It’s not surprising that Microsoft would want to divert attention by pushing a false “gotcha!” while failing to address the substance of the issues we raised.

But then comes the substance:

If you think about it, it’s obvious why we turned down Microsoft’s offer. Microsoft’s objective has been to keep from Google and Android device-makers any patents that might be used to defend against their attacks. A joint acquisition of the Novell patents that gave all parties a license would have eliminated any protection these patents could offer to Android against attacks from Microsoft and its bidding partners. Making sure that we would be unable to assert these patents to defend Android — and having us pay for the privilege — must have seemed like an ingenious strategy to them. We didn’t fall for it.

So what Drummond is saying is that Microsoft’s offer to team up with Google to buy the Novell patents was more or less a trick. By teaming up on the Novell patents, Google would have them, but they wouldn’t have been able to have been used to protect Android, because Microsoft would have had them too.

Should Google have just gone along with that anyway, since ultimately Microsoft did get them (along with Apple, Oracle, and EMC)? You could argue that. But fortunately for Google, the courts intervened in that deal and made Microsoft sell off the patents they bought and made the others in the group license the rest, Drummond notes.

This may go a bit deeper too. It’s conceivable that Microsoft knew Google would never go for this joint-acquisition plan, but offered it anyway so that when the DoJ did look into the deal, Microsoft would point to the offer sent Google’s way. These companies are very smart and calculating, don’t put something like this past either of them.

In his original post, Drummond said that the DoJ was also looking into the more recent Nortel patent acquisition by Microsoft, Apple, RIM, and others. Clearly, Google hopes the same type of thing will happen here, but that’s still being decided. While Apple was cleared by the DoJ to buy the patents ahead of the auction, Microsoft could face a similar ruling as the Novell situation since they already had a licensing agreement on the patents, just as they had on the Novell patents before they tried to buy them. We’ll see.

More importantly, this battle is not going to end anytime soon. Novell was part one, then things intensified significantly with the Nortel auction, part 2. But part 3 should be the most intense yet, as both Google and Apple are going after the InterDigital patents. The Nortel patent purse had over 6,000 patents, but InterDigital has over 8,800. If the winning bid on Nortel was $4.5 billion, InterDigital should be well north of $5 billion.

Google Threw A Punch, Microsoft Fires Back With A Missile

Earlier today, Google came out swinging. Seemingly sick of being continuously slapped in the face by the patent issue, Google’s SVP and Chief Legal Officer, David Drummond, wrote a blog post calling out several of Google’s rivals for attempting to use “bogus patents” to destroy Android. Chief among the rivals called out was Microsoft. Drummond noted that the software giant had been getting in bed with other rivals to hurt Google.
Among the accusations was that Microsoft teamed up with Apple to buy Novell’s old patents, implying that they did so in order to keep them away from Google.
Microsoft didn’t take too kindly to that remark.
“Google says we bought Novell patents to keep them from Google. Really? We asked them to bid jointly with us. They said no,” Brad Smith, Microsoft General Counsel tweeted out in response.
Damn. Shit just got real.
Just in case that wasn’t enough, Frank Shaw, Microsoft Head of Communications, followed up with the real heat-seeker. “Free advice for David Drummond – next time check with Kent Walker before you blog. ,” Shaw tweeted, referring to another Google SVP and General Counsel. Attached to that tweet was the picture of an email Walker apparently sent to Smith on October 28, 2010. It reads as follows:

Brad –
Sorry for the delay in getting back to you — I came down with a 24-hour bug on the way back from San Antonio. After talking with people here, it sounds as though for various reasons a joint bid wouldn’t be advisable for us on this one. But I appreciate your flagging it, and we’re open to discussing other similar opportunities in the future.
I hope the rest of your travels go well, and I look forward to seeing you again soon.
– Kent

While it’s only one instance, this really does undercut Google’s entire argument. Google was attempting to set up a pattern of Microsoft teaming up with other Google rivals to damage them. But the first instance listed was actually the result of Google turning Microsoft down, as the email shows. That does not look good for Google.
Does that mean Google’s totally wrong and Microsoft is totally right? Of course not. But it sure makes Google look pretty stupid. And it reinforces something that many observers think about Google’s position here: that they simply weren’t taking the patent situation too seriously until recently, and now they’re all up in arms about it.
God I love it when Google and Microsoft take these fights to the streets.

Get Ready for Google+ Games

It looks like Google has some big features planned for Google+, including a Google Games product.

Engadget dug up some interesting pieces of the Google+ code. Specifically, I was interested in the references to “Google+ Games.”

The references to game invites and Google+ Games seem pretty clear. And while Google could always choose to scrap a Google+ Games product before its launch, we don’t think that’s what will happen here. The reason being Zynga, the creator of FarmVille, CityVille and many more social games.

Google invested more than $100 million in Zynga last year. The investment was designed to be part of a larger partnership, sources have told us. That partnership, we believe, will culminate with the launch of Google+ Games. And you can bet that Google+ will prominently feature games from the social gaming giant.

We doubt it will be long before we learn more about Google+ Games. Zynga is expected to file for its IPO in the next few days, and we bet there will be a few references to what kind of partnerships it’s exploring with the search giant.

Google+: The Numbers Driving Its Growth [STATS]

New data from Experian Hitwise shows that Google+ is growing fast, thanks to a young demographic and lots of traffic from other Google properties.

The web analytics firm has released its first set of data regarding Google’s new social network. Although the data only extends to July 16, it provides a detailed picture into the numbers that are driving Google+’s growth.

Here are some of the most interesting stats from Experian Hitwise’s report:

• As of July 16, Google+ is the 42nd most-visited social networking site in the U.S. and the 638th most-visited site on the web. We suspect that Google+ is even more popular now and will gain steam when it opens to the public.
• According to Hitwise, Google+ had 1.8 million total visits last week, an increase of 283% from the previous week. Google+ has grown by 821% from the week ending on July 2, the first week Google+ was made available.
• 56% of Google+’s upstream traffic came from other Google properties last week, with 34% of that traffic coming from Google.com. And 37% of its upstream traffic came from search engines, while 21% of its traffic was driven by email.
• Google+ may not be as much of a sausagefest as some early estimates claimed. According to Hitwise, 57% of visits to Google+ were from males for the four weeks ending on July 16. That doesn’t mean that 57% of its users are male, but it’s a sign that previous estimates were off the mark.
• Google+ is dominated by young adults. Its biggest age group for the four weeks ending July 14 was the 25-34 age bracket, which accounted for 38.37% of all visits. The week before, the entire 18-34 age bracket made up just 38.11% of total visitors.
• Los Angeles, New York City and San Francisco are the most dominant metropolitan areas driving traffic to Google+. Other areas with a higher proportion of visitors to Google+ than the general online population include Bowling Green, Kentucky, Portland, Oregon, and Bend, Oregon.

The truth of the matter is that none of these stats are official and Google+ is still very new — so it’s anybody’s guess as to how accurate these figures are. Still, we think the company’s numbers make sense. While Google+ is gaining in popularity, it is still minuscule compared to Facebook, Twitter, Zynga, Tagged or even MySpace.

Google’s Facebook competitor may have 18 million users, but it still has a lot of room for growth. 

Google to Businesses: Don’t Create Google+ Profiles Yet

 Google has revealed that it is working on a Google+ experience for businesses and is asking brands not to create Google+ profiles just yet.

             In a post and accompanying YouTube video on Google+, Product Manager Christian Oestlien says that the Google+ team is working on creating a unique experience for businesses that includes deep analytics and the ability to connect to products like AdWords. “How users communicate with each other is different from how they communicate with brands,” Oestlien argues.

As a result, Google is asking businesses to put their Google+ ambitions on hold.

          “The business experience we are creating should far exceed the consumer profile in terms of its usefulness to businesses,” Oestlien says in his post. “We just ask for your patience while we build it. In the meantime, we are discouraging businesses from using regular profiles to connect with Google+ users. Our policy team will actively work with profile owners to shut down non-user profiles.”

            Several prominent brands have already joined Google+, including Ford, Breaking News and yes,  which is now one of the top ten most popular users on Google+.
          While the new Google+ experience for businesses won’t be ready until “later this year,” the company intends to launch a “small experiment with a few marketing partners” to test the brand-oriented accounts over the next few months. It even has opened up a Google Spreadsheet where “non-user entities” can apply for the program. It’s unclear when Google will shut down non-user profiles or how the process will work.
           We’re not surprised that Google is building an optimized Google+ experience for businesses, but we are surprised that Google wasn’t more prepared for the wave of brands that have been joining its social network. The same thing happened with Google Buzz and has happened on Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare and countless other social networks.

GOOGLE ADDS GOOGLE+ PUBLIC POSTS TO ITS SOCIAL SEARCH RESULTS

In a move that was pretty much inevitable in Google’s overall strategy of eventual Google+  integration into most if not all Google products, the search engine has announced that it will now be including publicly shared Google+ posts in its “social search” results.

Users logged into their Google+ accounts will eventually see a “Blah blah shared this on Google” if they’re searching for a keyword that matches up with something that’s been posted by someone publicly in one of their Google+ circles. As someone who rarely paid attention to my “social search” results before, I’m pretty meh about how useful this is. But, since the “social search” results already included Twitter, Flickr LinkedIn and Quora, this isn’t at all a earth- shattering move. In fact, as Search Engine Land’s Danny Sullivan points out, the service may already have been live and what we’re seeing today is just the public announcement of it. Google says they’ll be rolling out the feature over the next couple days. What I’ve really got my fingers crossed for is the return of Google Realtime Search.

Inside Anon+,the world’s first anonymous social network

Earlier this week, Google banned pages related to loose-knit hacker group Anonymous from its hot new social network, Google+. Fed up with the apparent censorship, a group of like-minded hackers, programmers and other digital underground activists decided to take the realm of social networking into their own hands by creating the world’s first-ever anonymous social network. Still in its infancy (version 0.8 alpha, to be exact), the new network is currently calledAnon+, but that name will soon change, according to “Higochoa,” a self-professed hacker, Web developer and computer programmer from Galveston, Texas, who is leading a core team of 12 to 15 other developers, plus freelance specialists, to build Anon+. We had a chance to speak with Higochoa via IRC chat, and he gave us the low-down on what the team hopes Anon+ will become. Contrary to many of the reports about Anon+, the project is not being built by members of Anonymous, said Higochoa during our interview, at least not in an official capacity. The Anon+ dev team does have ties to Anonymous, but they have distanced themselves from the group because they were “getting  attacked by those who don’t like Anonymous,”