Russia’s Videomore Wants More: From Social TV Network To Hulu-like Streaming Service

November 16, 2012 by Yonah · Comments Off
Filed under: Announcements & Events, Digital Media, Mobile Phones, P2P technology, Movies, MP3, Digital Audio & Games

Initially launched as a social TV network, Videomore now strides to become the Russian version of Hulu.

December 2010: CTC Media Inc. launched Videomore, a service providing with features such as chat and sharing through your TV set. Aside from these functionalities, Videomore also aired catch-up shows from CTC’s Domashniy and Peretz TV networks, but now they want more.

CTC Media Inc. confirmed that they’ve made a deal with RTL’s National Media Group (NMG). The purpose of this deal is to allow both parts air catch-up and archive shows from its channels – Ren TV and Channel 5.

It’s a great leap for Videomore, especially that they’ve claimed an average of 9 million monthly unique visitors for 2012’s first nine months. However, NMG’s Channel One – which is Russia’s top broadcast channel – is not included in the deal.

Viacheslav Sinadski – CTC’s strategy chief – said:

These two years have given us invaluable experience and a better understanding of the modern viewer’s demands. We have come to the conclusion that our future success depends on three factors:

1. the availability of high-quality new content

2. the ability to advertise on television

3. as well as the overall scale.

The first two criteria have always been at our disposal, but we can significantly expand the scale of our business only by attracting new strategic partners including media holdings, TV channels and copyright holders.

Whether this effort proves to be successful or not, remains to be seen, but the truth is that it wouldn’t be a surprise if the partnership will not bear fruit. For example, Project Kangaroo – the attempt of a British broadcaster to form a single JV portal – was crushed by regulators on grounds of advertising antitrust. Hopefully, this will not be the case of Videomore.

Tags: movies, social networking, video streaming

Russia’s Facebook Loses Appeal: Court Rules It Infringes Copyright

May 21, 2012 by Yonah · Comments Off
Filed under: Announcements & Events, File-Sharing Programs, Networks & Services, Legal P2P News & Issues

Russia’s biggest social networking website, vKontakte (compared to Facebook mostly due to its design) – has more than 135 unique million users that cover Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, and Belarus.

Latest reports show that the website just lost a court appeal in which they’ve tried to overturn an earlier ruling saying they’re eligible for copyright infringement, as the portal enabled file-sharing services.

The case was brought by EMI’s subsidiaries – namely SMA Music Publishing and Gala Records, complaining that vKontakte’s users were sharing their content (music) without any legal authorization. Thus, St. Petersburg’s Commercial Court ruled in favor of the labels in January, a decision that was agreed upon once more on May the 17th.

vKontakte is probably going to shut down or restrict its file-sharing service, and that’s not going to make them happy; its integrated file-sharing service was one (if not the only) key features that drew millions to sign up with them.

An interesting fact is that vKontakte is more popular in Russia than Facebook (probably the size of the country has something to do with it), and the company is valued somewhere around $1.5 billion to $3 billion, according to a release by the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry which, by the way, took sides with SBA and Gala in this case.
According to PaidContent, VK’s trump over similar platforms in Eastern Europe has been exactly this music-sharing function.

“Russia is a potentially exciting growth market for music, although it is currently being held back by a culture of copyright infringement,” the IFPI claimed in a statement.

“If Russia’s burgeoning legitimate business can effectively protect itself against such infringement, the country could become a top 10 music market.”

Tags: copyright infringement, file sharing sites, file-sharing, legal, social networking

Facebook Releases “Groups for Schools”

April 17, 2012 by Yonah · Comments Off
Filed under: Announcements & Events, File-Sharing Programs, Networks & Services

Facebook has recently launched a collaborative campus tool called “Groups for Schools”. At the moment only U.S. colleges and universities (soon to include worldwide institutions) can create groups related to their activities (dorms, classes, student events).

Back in Facebook’s early years Mark Zuckerberg attempted to launch a file-sharing service called Wirehog, and failed, but did not give up. Yesterday Facebook came out with yet another feature – Groups for Schools. As part of this program, students can upload files, but Facebook included some limits: you cannot send any .exe files (from obvious reasons – to avoid viruses spread), and a 25MB upload limit. Lastly, Facebook is going to monitor all uploads in order to avoid copyrighted files from getting shared.

The fact that Facebook bought the file-sharing service Drop.io in 2010 could be a hint that Zuckerberg is planning out a cloud-based service, but we may be wrong.

And since we’ve mentioned Zuckerberg’s failed project Wirehog, let’s get a little into that. Wirehog was part of Facebook until 2006, when Sean Parker shut down the program so that Facebook stays online and far from copyright infringement lawsuits.

Groups for Schools may just revive one key section that Facebook lost during the years. Anything posted within this group can be accessed only by students who use their .edu e-mails in order to authenticate, a key feature if you don’t want your future employer to see compromising pictures of you at some party.

Lastly, Groups for Businesses could be a project in Facebook’s agenda, so companies like Yammer or Google should get busy pretty fast. More news about this as soon as we find out.

Tags: Facebook, file-sharing, social networking

New Social Music Network Solution For iPhone Enthusiasts: SoundShare

November 9, 2011 by Yonah · Comments Off
Filed under: Announcements & Events, Downloads, File-Sharing Programs, Networks & Services, Movies, MP3, Digital Audio & Games

Music is part of our everyday life, as Steve Jobs once said. This is the main reason he launched the iPod for the first time, thus pushing the boundaries of how we listen to music forward.

SoundShare continues his legacy by providing a new Social Music Network for iPhones.

“SoundShare app allows you to share your music experience with your friends just by listening to your songs,” the developer said.

“With a built-in Player, you can listen and share every song while using Safari or any other app. SoundShare also has its own Social Network, so you don’t have to worry about posting on Facebook/Twitter every song you listen, though, if you want, you’re just one tap away.”

The application’s features are similar to Twitter’s – in the sense that you’re provided with newsfeeds of people you want to follow. If you find yourself stuck on listening the same playlist over and over again all you have to do is to “spy” on other people’s preferences and pick your favorite tunes.

Just like any respectable social network, SoundShare allows you to post comments, rate songs and even show your favorite tunes on other social networking portals.

The app has a built-in music player which you can run in the background while using other applications. To download it, just install the latest version of iTunes and look-up SoundShare.

Enjoy!

Tags: Apple, digital music, iphone, social networking

Diglo: Sharing Your Digital Life

August 10, 2011 by Yonah · Comments Off
Filed under: Announcements & Events, File-Sharing Programs, Networks & Services, Movies, MP3, Digital Audio & Games

Update: April 11, 2013 – It seems that Diglo wants to cut loose from all its past filesharing ties as it has recently switched domains and has been reinvented as a web-browser. So, no swapping here anymore, you filesharers, you!

Diglo can be considered a newcomer in the file-sharing community. However, its usefulness is without doubt; by offering services such as social networking, host of massive amounts of data and a media search engine Diglo.com helps the file-sharing community to expand and to evolve.

In order to join the social network you must provide a valid e-mail address. By doing so, your confidentiality is guaranteed. After the account is created you can immediately begin to publicly upload files without transfer or hosting restrictions. Sharing a file with someone who doesn’t have an account is also possible by providing a public link to that person.

However, the private hosting imposes some restrictions – the storage limit is up to 15GB for files accessed only by the owner, 10GB for files shared among friends, plus an extra gigabyte for every friend one has.

Launched almost a year ago, Diglo has a considerable user database, sharing millions of files. As a matter of fact, the top 5 users share approximately 2.5 terabytes of data in public mode.

Diglo’s search engine provides direct download links to movies, music and more.

Talking to TorrentFreak, Diglo’s team said:

“Diglo is unique because it’s not a file sharing service with social add on, but a social network site where you can really share everything. It also doesn’t invade your privacy like all popular social media networks, but gives you perfect control over what you share with others.”

An outstanding feature is that users can access all files through a FTP account. Moreover, users can listen to their favorite music thanks to the on-site music-player, can create albums, join groups, and so on.

Last but not least, all these services are for free so don’t be shy and give it a go.