New York Times’s About.com cuts 9.5 percent of staff

NEW YORK (Reuters) – The New York Times Co’s About.com online encyclopedia laid off 19 people, or about 9.5 percent of its staff, on Thursday because of cost cuts in response to a prolonged economic crisis.

The job cuts came after About.com suspended pay raises, limited travel budgets and cut discretionary spending to compensate for lower revenue projections, a spokeswoman said.

The cuts came in About’s sales, client services, marketing and editorial units, she said.

New York Times shares rose 10 cents, or 2.09 percent, to $4.89 on the New York Stock Exchange.

(Reporting by Robert MacMillan, editing by Leslie Gevirtz)

Netflix says 1 million Xbox members use movie service

By Sue Zeidler

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Online DVD company Netflix Incon Thursday said that one million Microsoft Xbox 360 video game console users have activated Netflix’s movie streaming service in the past three months since the two companies formed a partnership.

Netflix said the Xbox LIVE community has watched 1.5 billion minutes of movies and TV episodes through its Watch Instantly video service, but did not say how many subscribers it has actually gained from the partnership.

Analysts have been watching for data on the alliance as an important gauge of the emerging market for movies delivered over the Web, particularly as traditional media companies like Walt Disney Co this week have reported declining DVD sales and said the traditional business for delivering home video needs to be revised.

Netflix last month said its stronger-than-expected quarterly results were propelled by growth in its Web video streaming service and that streaming was “energizing” its growth.

Netflix has offered the Watch Instantly streaming service for over two years, but it was originally only available on PCs. It has since offered streaming Netflix video from the Internet through various devices, including the Roku settop boxes, the Xbox, LG Electronics products and others.

The Netflix application offers Xbox LIVE Gold members, who pay $50 a year to Microsoft for various different applications, the ability to instantly view content from Netflix on a TV via the Xbox 360 system if they are also members of Netflix service, priced at around $9 per month to include Watch Instantly unlimited streaming.

Netflix, best known for renting DVDs by mail, is the only company offering a subscription-based streaming video service as other rivals like Amazon.com, Apple and Blockbuster compete with a la carte, pay-per-view rentals.

Netflix’s library of about 12,000 titles for instant viewing includes mostly older Hollywood titles as major movie studios have resisted making new releases available digitally for subscription services.

Netflix offers newer titles on DVD or high-definition Blu-ray Disc through its mail-order service, through a library of more than 100,000 titles.

(Reporting by Sue Zeidler; Editing by Gary Hill)

MSN bows gossip site Wonderwall

By Andrew Wallenstein

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) – The competitive world of celebrity-gossip Web sites got more crowded Thursday with the launch of Wonderwall, MSN’s answer to popular online destinations like TMZ and OMG.

The Microsoft-owned portal turned to production company BermanBraun to create the site, which will aggregate much of the entertainment-oriented content already dispersed throughout MSN Network into one new brand.

Many of the BermanBraun staffers who worked on the site have experience in this category, having toiled on OMG, a partnership between Yahoo and NBC Universal newsmagazine “Access Hollywood.” BermanBraun principal Lloyd Braun, who founded the firm with Gail Berman, served as chief of Yahoo Media Group.

“We looked at the same issues we had when we were at Yahoo in the formation of Wonderwall,” Braun said. “But we took it to the next generation of design and programing.”

Wonderwall will be led by Alex Flagg, founding editor of VH1’s “Best Week Ever” blog. MSN general manager Rob Bennett characterized its tone as a middle ground between the celebrity-friendly nature of People and the scathing nature of PerezHilton. “We’ll try to be edgy but respectful,” he said.

MSN and BermanBraun first announced their deal to create the site in June.

Reuters/Hollywood Reporter

Google launches software to track mobile users

BANGALORE (Reuters) – Google Inc released software on Wednesday that allows users of mobile phones and other wireless devices to automatically share their whereabouts with family and friends.

Users in 27 countries will be able to broadcast their location to others constantly, using Google Latitude. Controls allow users to select who receives the information or to go offline at any time, Google said on its website.

“Fun aside, we recognize the sensitivity of location data, so we’ve built fine-grained privacy controls right into the application,” Google said in a blog post announcing the service.

“You not only control exactly who gets to see your location, but you also decide the location that they see.”

Friends’ whereabouts can be tracked on a Google map, either from a handset or from a personal computer.

Google’s new service is similar to the service offered by privately-held Loopt.

Companies including Verizon Wireless, owned by Verizon Communications and Vodafone Group Plc, already offer Loopt’s service, which also works on iPhone from Apple Inc.

Latitude will work on Research In Motion Ltd’s Blackberry and devices running on Symbian S60 devices or Microsoft Corp’s Windows Mobile and some T-1 Mobile phones running on Google’s Android software.

The software will eventually run on Apple’s iPhone and iTouch and many Sony Ericsson devices.

In 2005, Google acquired, but subsequently shut down, a location-finding service that used text messaging to keep mobile phone users aware of their friends’ proximity.

(Reporting by Ajay Kamalakaran, editing by Dan Lalor)

Yahoo launches search tool like one Google killed

By Alexei Oreskovic

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Yahoo Inc is panning for gold in waters that Google Inc abandoned.

Yahoo said in a blog post on Wednesday that it was testing a new tool to help people better organize the bounty of information that crops up while doing research on the Web.

Search Pad is similar in concept to Google Notebook — a product the Web-search leader opted to halt development on last month.

But the fact that Google threw in the towel on a product does not mean Yahoo is wasting its time, say some analysts. The companies’ differing financial and competitive positions mean what is right for one might not make sense for the other.

Google, which controls roughly 63 percent of the U.S. search market, is taking a hard look at its operating expenses to preserve its operating margin in a slowing economy, including the slew of non-essential projects it traditionally supported.

Yahoo, whose 2008 revenue rose 3 percent to $7.2 billion, is in dire need of a new growth strategy, say analysts.

Investors might be more tolerant of projects that pressure profit margins at Yahoo if there is a chance of a payoff, said Sandeep Aggarwal an analyst at Collins Stewart, speaking in general terms and not of Search Pad specifically.

“Yahoo cannot give up on other projects,” he said.

Yahoo, which recently hired Carol Bartz as chief executive to revive its fortunes, is in a “transformation phase” after turning down a $47.5 billion buyout offer from Microsoft Corp last year and seeing a search advertising partnership with Google fall apart under antitrust scrutiny.

Search Pad predates Bartz’s arrival, said Yahoo Search Senior Director of Product Management Tom Chi.

It stems from a realization that Web surfers use search engines not just to find the link to a particular site, but to conduct research on everything from buying a new car to learning about a medical condition.

The product detects when a person appears to be doing research on a specific topic and offers to catalog the findings in a special window within the Yahoo search page.

A person can use Search Pad to clip a portion of a website, such as a book review on Amazon.com Inc, add notes to various clippings and save the results as part of their online profile.

Yahoo will begin offering Search Pad to a limited set of Web surfers on Wednesday.

Google continues to support Notebook for existing users but no longer updates the product with new features and will not allow new users to sign up for the service. 

Nine-year old whiz-kid writes iPhone application

SINGAPORE (Reuters) – While most children his age sketch on paper with crayons, nine-year old Lim Ding Wen from Singapore, has a very different canvas — his iPhone.

Lim, who is in fourth grade, writes applications for Apple’s popular iPhone. His latest, a painting program called Doodle Kids, has been downloaded over 4,000 times from Apple’s iTunes store in two weeks, the New Paper reported on Thursday.

The program lets iPhone users draw with their fingers by touching the iPhone’s touchscreen and then clear the screen by shaking the phone.

“I wrote the program for my younger sisters, who like to draw,” Lim said. His sisters are aged 3 and 5.

Lim, who is fluent in six programing languages, started using the computer at the age of 2. He has since completed about 20 programing projects.

His father, Lim Thye Chean, a chief technology officer at a local technology firm, also writes iPhone applications.

“Every evening we check the statistics emailed to us (by iTunes) to see who has more downloads,” the older Lim said.

The boy, who enjoys reading books on programing, is in the process of writing another iPhone application — a science fiction game called “Invader Wars.”

(Reporting by Melanie Lee; Editing by Bill Tarrant)