Consumer content

Hulu pulls content from TV.com

Update at 11:38 a.m. PST, with comment from Hulu.

Hulu.com has pulled its content off CBS-owned TV.com, which relaunched last month, Hulu confirmed Wednesday.

(Disclosure: CNET News is published by CBS Interactive, a unit of CBS.)

Attempts to access episodes of Heroes and other content from NBC and News Corp. partners in the Hulu joint venture, displayed a "video unavailable" message.

In a statement, Hulu said:

Hulu has contractual rights with regards to our relationship with TV.com and we are exercising those rights. Out of respect for their confidentiality, we will not disclose … Read more

Despite 'delay,' DTV transition starts today

Just last week, President Obama signed the DTV Delay Act into law. But despite appearances, the delay isn't mandatory: about one-third (650-plus) of the nation's TV stations will be pulling the plug on their analog towers by the end of Tuesday. The remaining stations will be taking advantage of the new legislation, transitioning to digital between March 14 and June 12.

Which stations are switching early? An updated document at the FCC's DTV Web site will let you know which (if any) stations are in your area (PDF). Here in New York--as in most large metro areas--no … Read more

Omnifone rolls out music service for broadband

U.K. music provider Omnifone, which offers unlimited music downloads to cell phone users, on Monday extended its reach to the broadband arena.

A new service called MusicStation Next Generation will let European consumers stream songs and music videos to their computers and television set-top boxes.

Omnifone is teaming with Internet service providers and cable companies to provide the service, but it did not yet name those partners. It did say it is in talks with satellite provider British Sky Broadcasting.

At a time when ISPs and cable providers are under increasing pressure to eradicate piracy over their networks, Omnifone … Read more

Viacom to shut off MTV music video API

Media giant Viacom plans to restrict the embedding of music videos from MTV Networks.

Justin Tormey, a staff member for MTVN developer services, announced in a blog posting Friday that starting next month, the company would no longer make video embeds available through MTV's API:

We've got a number of changes coming on the MTVN Content API. If you're currently using the API for your site or application please take note of the changes and the timeline.

First, we want to thank everyone for their involvement with the API. You've provided valuable feedback and insight through … Read more

Facebook hits 175 million user mark

A little more than a month after announcing it had 150 million active users, Facebook has reached 175 million active users--the statistic the social-networking site prefers to use, rather than registered accounts overall.

Dave Morin, who runs Facebook's application platform team, announced the milestone Friday evening on his Twitter/FriendFeed. Facebook reached 150 million just more than two months after reaching 120 million and about four months after reaching 100 million.

While Facebook got its start at Harvard University in Cambridge, Mass., in 2004, most of this recent growth is coming from outside the U.S.

"This includes … Read more

LinkedIn traffic grows

With the economy reeling and layoffs piling up, business-networking site LinkedIn has been not-so-surprisingly hopping.

Market researcher ComScore reported that LinkedIn's unique visitors rose to 7.7 million, a 22 percent increase over December, TechCrunch reported Saturday. And not only are more people visiting LinkedIn, but they're hanging around longer as well. Total minutes spent on the site last month more than doubled from December to 96.8 million, according to TechCrunch.

More people are helping out friends looking for jobs as well. Recommendations were up 65 percent last month over December, TechCrunch said.

Yahoo MyWeb bites the dust

Yahoo said on Friday that it will discontinue its MyWeb service on March 18 and is encouraging people to use other Yahoo bookmarking services.

"As we have continued to innovate with the 2.0 release of Delicious and the upgraded Yahoo Bookmarks, we saw that MyWeb users' needs are being served by our newer products," the company said in a posting on its Yahoo Search Blog.

The company has been de-emphasizing the service since at least October 2006 when it started sending MyWeb users to Delicious and offering them the option of using Yahoo Bookmarks.

Yahoo launched MyWeb … Read more

Audio slideshow: Digg-ing Revision3

Inside warehouse studios and lofts in San Francisco's Dogpatch neighborhood, Internet television network Revision3 is leveraging the viral nature of the Web by chasing the latest memes and creating content that showcases the best of geek-tech culture.

Founded in 2005 by Jay Adelson, Kevin Rose, and David Prager, Revision3 is a TV network for the Web. It's on-demand content you can watch when you want and where you want.

We stop by the studio, as well as Kevin Rose's loft, to see what it's like to shoot The Digg Reel and Diggnation.

Rodeo group to pay $25,000 for YouTube takedown requests

A rodeo association has agreed to pay $25,000 to an animal welfare group to settle a lawsuit over the improper removal of videos from YouTube that showed roped calves being dragged off to die and tasers being used on tame horses to get them to buck.

In December 2007, YouTube removed dozens of rodeo videos after getting takedown notices from the Colorado-based Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association that claimed copyright violations under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).

The group that posted them, Showing Animals Respect and Kindness (SHARK), with the help of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, sued the rodeo group last summer. … Read more