Google's GMail service went down for a few hours yesterday. The service error sent many into a panic, as millions of people rely heavily on Gmail in order to conduct business. The outage, which last for a good portion of the afternoon, had Twitter in an uproar, with Gmail making the trending topics list, giving some reason to believe that a massive Gmail outage could cripple the vulnerable Twitter infrastructure.
While the NFL noted that in-game tweeting would be outlawed this year, the league has now announced a new rule that would make tweeting from a game not only illegal for players, but also for the media. The new rule specifies that "forms of accounts of the game must be sufficiently time-delayed and limited in amount so that the accredited organization's game coverage cannot be used as a substitute for, or otherwise approximate, authorized play-by-play accounts." While the league is trying to protect coverage of games, its ban poses an all too valid question: exactly who is the media? Journalists? Professional bloggers? Amateur bloggers live tweeting the game, either from home or the stadium?
Apple has approved the Vonage iPhone application. The app will allow users to make phone calls over the Internet, circumnavigating AT&T's built in mobile plan. While Vonage's application is not yet available to the public, in the wake of Apple's rejection of the Google Voice application, one has to wonder exactly what the different the two services are.
AMC renewed its hit series Mad Men for a fourth season. The critically acclaimed series, which has helped AMC become a major cable destination, recently drew a record 4.5 million viewers, as well as 16 Emmy nominations. As the show continues to grow in popularity, AMC hopes the domino effect will heat up its other programs, increasing revenue across the board.
eBay announced that it intends to sell 65% of Skype to a private equity group. The deal, worth over $2 billion, finds eBay selling off an asset many believe it had no place in purchasing in the first place. While eBay will keep a 35% share of the company it purchased in 2005 for $2.6 billion, the company has yet to find many synergies between the communications service and its auction business.
Shelly Palmer is a consultant and the host of MediaBytes with Shelly Palmer a daily show featuring news you can use about technology, media & entertainment. He is Managing Director of Advanced Media Ventures Group LLC and the author of Television Disrupted: The Transition from Network to Networked TV. Shelly is also President of the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences. You can join the MediaBytes mailing list here. Shelly can be reached at shelly@palmer.net For information about Get Digital Classes, visit www.shellypalmer.com/seminars