Videogame Makers Seek to Recharge Industry

Microsoft Corp., Nintendo Co. and Sony Corp. are getting ready to show off an array of new motion accessories and 3-D technology next week in the hopes of re-energizing the slumping videogame industry.

At the E3 Expo videogame trade show, Microsoft will unveil its new camera-based motion technology, code-named Project Natal. Natal lets people play games and interact with Microsoft's Xbox 360 console through gestures and spoken commands.
Sony is expected to reveal pricing and a launch date for its PlayStation 3 console's new motion controller, called Move, and it will display some 3-D games. Nintendo, meanwhile, will promote a 3-D version of its DS hand-held game system.

The new products come as videogame sales continue to slump despite an improved economic environment. Videogame sales in the U.S., including hardware, software and accessories, have fallen nearly 11% this year, after declining 8% to $19.66 billion in 2009, according to research firm NPD Group.

Read more at the Wall Street Journal.

The Boston Globe's 3 Readers

The Boston Globe Tailors Print Edition for Three Remaining Subscribers. Watch it at The Onion.

Safari 5

Apple released a major update to its WebKit-based Safari browser on Monday. Safari 5 for Windows and Mac comes with several big feature announcements. There's the new Reader option for streamlining articles reading, broader support for HTML5, default support for searches on Bing, and performance improvements. However, the biggest new feature of them all--extensions--won't be available until later this summer, and depending on what you're looking for in a browser, Safari can be seen as lacking many helpful options.

The most interesting new feature in Safari is the Reader button. This button appears at the right side of the location bar when you load a site with pagination, such as a multipage article or gallery. Hitting it will open an overlay window that combines all pages into a single, scrollable format and tints out the site beneath, including ads and other distractions. Any embedded pictures or videos remain viewable, although like the text of the story they lose their site-specific formatting in favor of the Reader.

Read more at Cnet.

Americans Reject Newspaper Subsidies

A new Rasmussen Reports poll found that a majority of Americans oppose any kind of taxes or fees to subsidize the ailing newspaper business. 84% of respondents reject the idea of a 3% tax on mobile phone bills, 76% reject the idea of a tax on consumer electronics, and 74% reject the idea of a tax on "news aggregators." These results make it clear that Americans do not believe newspapers need or deserve help from the government.

Read more at Media Post.

Internet Video To Hit 193 Mil Users By 2014

Internet video users in the US will continue to climb in the next two to three years, at around 8% to 9% and more of their viewing is coming from longer premium TV and movie content. According to Internet researcher eMarketer, by 2014, 77% of all U.S. Internet users -- 193.1 million -- will be watching some video content monthly. This is up from 67% of all U.S. users, or 147.5 million.

The credit goes to the continued gains made by premium TV provider Hulu, which is second only to YouTube in overall video streams. Another strong factor is the increase in Internet-capable TV sets that allow viewers to screen video in a so-called "lean-back" environment.

Read more at Media Post.

Online Video Viewing Shifts to Long-Form

The number of US online video viewers has risen steadily for the past few years and is expected to continue climbing in moderate increments through 2014. eMarketer estimates that growth will slow from between 8% and 9% a year from 2010 through 2012 to about 5.2% in 2014, when 77% of US Internet users will be watching online video content at least monthly.

One factor behind the turn toward long-form content is the success of Hulu, which The Nielsen Company ranked second to YouTube in overall video streams viewed in April 2010. In addition, the increase in Internet-enabled TV sets and other viewing devices supports the trend.

The highest penetration of online video viewing is among 18- to 24-year-olds, with 25- to 34-year-olds and teens not far behind. By the middle of this decade, those age groups will be at saturation points of above 90% penetration. Not only do these demographics watch online video in massive numbers, but they are also the most receptive to TV content online.

Read more here.

Fox News Launches Social Media-Centric Website

Fox News has soft-launched a website, Fox News Insider, with a social media focus. The site, which as at www.Foxnewsinsider.com, is being constantly updated with reports from Fox News Channel, as well as info on FNC programming like "The O'Reilly Factor".

Users can sign into the site with their Facebook, Twitter, Yahoo! or MySpace accounts, allowing them to comment on or share stories. There is also a dedicated Twitter account @foxnewsinsider, which is feeding updates from the site directly to users Twitter feeds.

The site also features a "live wall" where users can post comments about what is happening on Fox News, as well as a Twitter tracker, which aggregates the tweets from FNC correspondents and shows.

Read more here.

Why Online Won't Kill the Radio Star

Vivian Schiller, president and chief executive of NPR: Our audience for just broadcast radio continues to grow. We hit our record ratings number in the last ratings period of almost 34 million people who tune in every week... It's very important for us to be on every platform. We are hoping this will lead to more and more creative forms of expressing, reporting and distributing journalism... We are agnostic about whether somebody listens over broadcast or listens to the exact same radio stream on the Internet. Because all of the legs of our revenue—and we have multiple revenue streams—carry with it... We're in the midst of this creative destruction. What's so exciting to me is all of the news organizations that are springing up—and it's happening everywhere.

Read more at the Wall Street Journal.

Community Journalism Site Shuts Down

An experiment in community journalism launched three years ago called myAdvertiser.com ends today with the demise of The Honolulu Advertiser and its website. myAdvertiser.com was the only place Hawai'i residents could self publish their own stories to promote community events. The website also featured a group of community-minded bloggers who wrote about their neighborhood activities, for better or worse. myAdvertiser had grown to about 100,000 page views a month and 15 to 20 story submissions a day.

Read more here.