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Last week was relatively busy with news about Apple and its products. Here’s a quick consolidated look at what came out of the shareholder meeting and what else is brewing from Apple-land in Cupertino:

Beatles are coming to iTunes

Not officially yet, but soon.  The rumors have been swirling since Steve Jobs played the Beatles song Lovely Rita during the announcement for the iPhone in January (not to mention Apple resolving its issues with Apple Corps and EMI).  But this week, Paul McCartney confirmed that a deal is imminent.  He said the Beatles library would be available soon in an interview with Billboard magazine.  He characterized the deal as “virtually settled.”   The report also confirmed McCartney’s next solo album “Memory Almost Full” will be available for download.  The press reports would lead me to expect the Beatles music will be available within the month but I wouldn’t be surprised if Apple waited to announce a deal until it rolls out the iPhone in mid June.  That kind of two-pronged high-profile announcement fits well with the company (and its CEO’s) showmanship style.

Two Sided Device Possibly in the Works

News of a January patent filing specifying a hand–held device with a smaller touch sensitive screen on one side and a larger touch/pressure-sensitive input screen on the back, flooded the web.  The basic concept of the patent was a device with user controls on one side and user-displays on the other. The most likely application is to allow the use of a full virtual keyboard on future devices (something that’s long been wished for, but that would be difficult to use even as on overlay on a full screen device) Speculation abounded as to whether this might be for a next-generation iPod (Nano or Full Size), or even a second generation iPod, or a new device altogether.   As is sometimes the case with patents, what has been filed may be defensive and never implemented – accordingly, speculating on what device this is for may be futile. The one sure conclusion is that Apple remains committed to improving and advancing user-interface technologies (and defending their IP in the space). Click to Read More

New York celebrity, gossip and news blog Jossip was reporting today that CBS News (CBS Corporation) was acquiring Jossip’s fellow New York blog Wallstrip for approximately $5m in cash with a formal announcement likely early this week.

I try to stay away from reporting on rumors but sources and information regarding this deal are credible enough to suggest it is highly likely the rumors are dancing around truth – though the price may be exaggerated.

Wallstrip is a video blog characterized as one part Saturday Night Live and one part CNBC.   It’s comedic, off-beat approach targets Generation Y and the so-called "YouTube Generation" with 3 minute episodes covering stock market news or corporate with a less than traditional tone.

Wallstrips’s audience is growing but it is not yet substantial and its content is considered inconsistent. It’s most popular episode was a show spoofing CNBC’s Jim Cramer. That episode generated 30k viewers in January. According to a Business Week article Wallstrip did reach 10k viewers in its first three months.  

While Wallstrip did receive 500k in Angel investment, from a technology standpoint there is little to no innovation worthy of acquisition – the site is built using Revver (a YouTube competitor) for its video technology and the open-source Wordpress platform is the foundation of  its website. Wallstrip’s website at this time is not directly ad-supported leading to reports that the company has revenue of $0. Jossip got that part wrong. Revver, the platform Wallstrip is built on (and distributed through) shares revenue from ads incorporated into the video 50/50 with the content creator. Revver’s revenue sharing system is well documented in their sites Frequently Asked Questions section. Still, Wallstrip’s revenue is likely small.

The rumor being reported is that CBS wants the services of Wallstrip’s host, 29 year old actress Lindsay Campbell for its own online, and possibly TV, news services.   (Lindsay’s bio and background can be found here on her personal site. She is originally from Northern California, has a degree from Stanford, and has appeared a number of New York based TV shows including Law and Order and the Sopranos.)

It’s not unrealistic that Lindsay’s caught the eye of folks at CBS. She extremely attractive and manages to comes across as more than just a pretty lady. She is well educated, credible and articulate, balanced with a style that feels hip, casual and light-hearted enough to appeal to younger audiences in Gen X and Gen Y. It’s certainly true that CBS is actively developing its online presence, including last weeks investment in Joost.  Lindsay may fit into that, and based on the rumor, would only sign a contract if Wallstrip was acquired.   

It’s unclear what underlies a price tag of $5m, or if that information is accurate.  Even as a relatively low dollar number, it seems exorbitantly rich for a start-up of Wallstrip’s stage based on available information, and likewise, however talented Ms Campbell may be, and however creative a method of recruiting/hiring personnel, $5m is an exorbitantly high cost for corporate headhunting.

Joost has been in the news a good amount lately. I’ve spoken on their activities, including a detailed look at their financing here.

For all the news, and all those curious to try Joost, the big roadblock has been the invitation-only nature of their current beta test. That’s still there but I can help.

Originally, invitations were allocated and limited by quota. Those who got them could only invite a few more people. Now, the restrictions are off. There’s no limit to the number of invites that can be forwarded on. That means, if you’re itching to try Joost and you need an invite, Metue can help. Send an email to info@metue.com or use my Contact Page. Be sure to put Joost in the title. I’ll forward anyone interested an invite to try their service. There is no email-farming, data-collection here, no strings — just a request that you come back and read the articles here on Metue again.

There are links for Digg, Technorati, Del.icio.us and other bookmarking agents on Metue. Feel free to use them, bookmark Metue with your browser, or come back. Also, feel free to send along your thoughts on Joost. I have no relationship with the company and am curious to see how people will receive their new offering.

It’s been an up and down week for the year old IPTV startup Joost but it’s ending on a high note; a very high note.

After several big announcements were made about content and advertising partnerships, the web was abuzz at the beginning of the month that the supposed broadcast-quality, free, peer-to-peer,  net-television service was officially going live (from beta).   Those announcements were slightly misleading (as access was dependent on invitation) but there was a spike in traffic, and interest.    Shortly thereafter, the Joost blog reported that the company’s central servers, which are located in Luxembourg, were having problems handling the demand and load. 

While Joost may be struggling to get it’s systems tuned to scale with demand, Joost released news that will likely leave the week, and the month, on a positive note no matter what happens next.  Earlier Thursday, the company announced the closing of a substantial Series A financing round.  In total, $45m was raised.

The venture round was led by Sequoia Capital and the European firm, Index Ventures (which also invested in the Joost founder’s prior company, Skype).

Though, as is the norm for private/venture transactions, little information was announced regarding valuation, it is clear  that the pre-money valuation accepted by the investors was substantial. The $45m dollar investment was characterized as buying a minority stake in the company which translates to a pre-money valuation of greater than $45m – though it’s not clear how much money was invested previously by the founders (who were flush with cash from the sale of Skype to eBay).  $45m pre-money is still  a staggering number for a year old company yet to have revenue or roll out its product in a wide release.   

Perspective on just how big a transaction this is comes with a comparison to investment in Joost’s competitor Veoh Networks.  In April 2006, Veoh a rival P2P IPTV company closed its Series B round. That transaction raised $12.5m from venture investors Shelter Capital and Spark Capital as well as Time Warner and other corporate partners. That round also resulted in two board seats going to industry heavyweights Michael Eisner (former CEO of Disney) and  Art Bilger (the former vice-chairman of Akamai and current managing partner at Shelter.).

The Joost deal is nearly 4 times the size of the Veoh investment – and it’s an A–round financing, not a Series B.   In what should be the understatement of the month,  Joost co-founder Janus Friis said “This funding represents a tremendous vote of confidence in Joost’s platform.”  Sequoia, which recently saw a tremendous return on its investment in YouTube, and hasn’t been scared to take large gambles in its transactions,  is clearly betting big on Joost.

In an indication that, like Skype, Joost’s has global plans from the start, Click to Read More

Everyday seems to have at least a few headlines about Google.  Much of yesterday’s Google-related news centered on the announced release of Google’s redesigned web analytics platform, Google Analytics.  The improved user-interface and tools made with the added assistance of the folks brought on in the acquisition of Measure Map will no doubt be a help to web marketers and web masters from beginner to pro. 

The torrent of news drowned out a small, whisper of information: Google has ported its RSS reader/Feed Aggregator, Google Reader, to work with the Nintendo Wii and the Opera browser embedded in it.  The Google engineers even went so far as to insure that it works with the buttons and interface of the Wii’s innovative controller.   News of the effort was mentioned on the Google Reader’s official blog

The original Google Reader is technically still a Google Labs development project and not a fully functional, supported service/feature.  The Wii, for all its strengths and popularity, is for now (for most users) a gaming device and not a home-media PC/Device or a platform for web surfing.   Combined, those facts mean the unannounced side-project to join the two is well below the radar – probably less notable than hackers modding Apple TV to run non supported video formats as reported in March.  Still, the effort at Google might prove meaningful, or at least a glimpse of the future.

For one thing, Nintendo has been active in adding functionality to the Wii beyond its highly demanded gaming abilities and user interface.  Back in January, Nintendo partnered with the Associated Press and other news agencies to provide news through the Wii’s integrated Opera web browser.  (See the Metue article here  for more info on that announcement).

It’s also no secret that Google, like many companies, sees’s a convergence of technologies leading to some form of set-top appliance integrating the Internet, the Entertainment Computer and our Television.  (Note: I use the term appliance and set-top very loosely, it’s far to soon to know whether streaming technologies, hardware, set-top boxes, gaming platforms, DVR’s or the other potential competitors will bring the best-in breed solution for making all this happen).

Google’s first major recognition of the value of gaming, and PC-TV convergence came a few months back when they followed Microsoft’s lead and bough an In-game advertising company.  In Google’s case – Adscape Media (see here for more information)

Google’s application of its RSS Reader/Personal news aggregator to the Wii may be nothing more than a group of engineer’s “amusement-project.”  There’s no reason to insinuate it’s part of a master plan being implemented at Google.  I’m not reading much into it.  I definitely wouldn’t speculate on an upcoming Nintendo and Google partnership, but the development is fascinating.

I’d love to check it out, if only the Wii wasn’t so hard to get.

Video sharing site YouTube is the 4th most visited website on the planet (According to Alexa Rankings).   It’s now going to give something back to some of the users who helped create that popularity (and who helped the company get the $1.65b purchase price Google paid to acquire the company last November).

Late last week, YouTube announced it was finally making good on a promise made in January to share advertising revenue with some of its more prolific and well known members.   The people behind such magazine-cover-spanning, pop-culture hits like Lonelygirl 15 (actress Jessica Rose was on the cover of Wired, etc) and LisaNova (star Lisa Donovan has been all over the press and is now appearing on MadTV) will be getting nearly the same benefits as commercial content partners who broadcast on the site.

Specific details have not been disclosed yet but at the heart of things, the benefits are suggested to include an approximately 40 to 50% share of revenue generated from ads wrapping the members individual broadcasts. 

Unlike smaller competitors Revver , which shares ad revenue with all its uploading members, or Guba, which pays affiliate fees for registrations referred by its users,  the revenue sharing agreements at YouTube will not extend to any (or arguably even many) YouTube users.  Only a small selective group will get the rewards, at least initially.

Until more information is revealed, any guesses about what this will actually entail, or what will follow, are largely pie-in-the-sky speculation.  Still, there is some small basis for believing that this is a measured first step towards a possible roll out to a wider portion of YouTube’s users.  Dating back months, and including a speech co-founder Chad Hurley gave in Switzerland, there has been talk around and inside YouTube about providing more incentive for users to create and present their original user-generated content.  Revenue sharing, mixed with the popularity of the site relative to competitors, makes an easy and obvious means for doing that.

While I have little basis other than intuition and guess work to justify the argument, I think YouTube may actually be contemplating (or trying to build) an Adsense-like platform to allow the administration of video-wrapping ads for a much wider pool of users within their site. Click to Read More

Sometimes I have to go with the tangent and see where it leads.  Every now and then, you have to go outside your range and push the boundaries.  Today, I’m off topic and off the cuff.  Consider that fair warning.

I grew up in a family of gadget-fiends.   If it had lights or buttons and required some form of power, chances are someone in the house lusted for it.  Today, I still like my tech-toys.  Gadget tech-toy websites like Engadget or Gizmodo remain a guilty pleasure but I like to think I’ve grown up some too (yes, some might argue that point).   Today, my pallet of interests is wider.  I build furniture with a style that borrows more from 100 years ago then 100 years from now.  I appreciate the new and the old (which I do recognize probably goes with not being so new myself anymore.)  I like originality.  I like things that have some battle scars just as much as things so futuristic that I can barely identify them.  My most recent find is a product that shares the DNA of both.  It’s a computer, but not like many others.

When two worlds collide the results can be breathtaking.  The resulting mutt can also be downright scary.  When the furniture maker’s art collided with computing in the Frankenstein labs of Canadian company Suissa Computers the result is striking.  The wood cased computers won’t suit every taste (not sure all the models suit mine) and they definitely won’t suit every budget.   The limited edition models are expensive.  They run at prices upwards of 2-4 times comparable components in an assembly line box.  Still, these products are a welcome retreat from the I-wanna-be-Bang-and-Olufsen-or-copy-Apple approach to product design that seems stamped on nearly every new gadget. 

Now, don’t get me wrong.  I love my iPod and other tech toys. I’m all for über-cool modern stylings but it’s nice to see a product with a little life to it.  In a world of increasingly A or B, organic vs. mass produced, form vs. function, it’s intriguing to see a marriage of different extremes. 

I’m of the school of thought that: simply because something is new or cutting edge, it doesn’t have to look that way.  Click to Read More