The music industry video portal Vevo will launch December 8th. The site, associated with both Sony and Universal, uses YouTube's platform to host and stream high quality, official music videos from artists. Vevo's goal is to reclaim the "premium luster" of music videos, which are often low quality bootlegs on video networks.
Microsoft's new Azure cloud system will be available to customers on New Year's Day 2010. The new service, which offers customers cloud storage systems and applications, has been in beta testing for a year. Azure will be free to registered users for January, and will begin charging customers for access in February.
Apparently Sony's new Daily Edition Reader is so popular the company is not sure it will be able to ship all orders before the Holidays. The eReader was expected to begin shipping December 18th, however, Sony could not guarantee the Daily Edition Reader to arrive at Christmas for all customers. The Daily Edition Reader is competing against Barnes & Noble's Nook and Amazon's Kindle this year, as the eReader market expands.
While wireless providers like AT&T plan to sell netbooks in the US, don't look for them be be free. While providers offer netbooks for very little to free with a service plan in Europe, AT&T clearly stated they will not give away netbooks on contract. Unfortunately for customers, netbooks will not be treated like cell phones, often laden with rebates, rather like the flat retail price.
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