|
|
The collegiate men’s basketball tournament has spurred big spikes in traffic to web sites, according to Nielsen//NetRatings. March Madness is directly responsible for boosts in visits to SportsLine.com, SportingNews.com, ESPN, Fansonly.com, CNNSI.com and, of course, FinalFour.net. SportsLine.com saw a 36 percent spike in traffic, to 1.4 million visitors during the week ended March 10. SportingNews.com attracted 440,00 unique visitors, a 21 percent increase over the previous week, and ESPN.com saw an 11 percent increase, bringing in 3.4 million visitors. FansOnly.com received 9 percent more visitors during the week, or 550,000 visitors, and CNNSI received 2.6 million visitors, a 3 percent increase. Some 198,000 people logged onto FinalFour.net, the official web site of the NCAA Final Four Tournament, but traffic figures for the previous week weren’t available.
Morpheus adds anti-piracy feature for indie bands
Possibly looking to improve its station with record labels and artists in general, file-swapping company Morpheus MusicCity has added a new service that will expire some downloaded songs from users' computers. Starting next month, artists who do business with Morpheus to promote their music will enjoy the benefit of technology that will erase certain songs from hard drives after a set number of listens. To permanently obtain the tunes, users will have to pony up some cash. Users of the popular file-sharing application will still be able to continue downloading everything from software to Hollywood movies, which fails to impress record labels and their representative organizations. They note that Napster tried a similar tack on the eve of its downfall last summer, offering small acts the promotional spotlight while copyrighted material continued to be swapped in the background.
AskJeeves UK's user base posts 174% growth
Plain English search site AskJeeves is starting to look just plain British. The U.K. version of the search engine has proved to be quite popular across the pond, with its user rolls increasing some 174 percent in the last year. In all, half a billion questions have been posted on the site since its launch in 2000. Subjects include education, shopping, health, finance, automobiles and travel. The most sought celebrities aren’t necessarily British, however, as their ranks include Jennifer Lopez, Britney Spears and Brad Pitt. It has become the eighth-largest domain in the U.K., with 4.7 million unique visitors, and the No. 2 search engine.
Pirated Oscar nominees for sale on eBay
In anticipation of the upcoming Academy Awards, entrepreneurial types are peddling video and DVD versions of nominated movies on auction sites such as eBay. The problem, however, is that most of the nominees haven’t been released on video or DVD yet and won’t be for at least a few weeks after the March 24 awards ceremony. One seller, for example, lists 10 copies of "The Fellowship of the Ring" for sale for an opening bid of $50 on eBay. "That is right, you heard me the Widescreen DVD for the Hit Movie!!!" reads the description. Pirated DVDs are rife on the U.K eBay site as well, with versions of "Monsters, Inc.," "The Fellowship of the Ring" and "Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone" for sale. EBay policy bans the sale of pirated goods, and is asking its users to report violations.
Canadian site to put TV shows online
The internet holds both the promise and the threat of putting television shows online for convenient access. But except perhaps on the file-swapping networks, already-broadcast programming and full episodes remain hard to come by. ICraveTV.biz, a Canadian web site, aims to change that when it launches on May 1. The site will give surfers access to TV programs, movies, news and more. The site first went online in 1999, but went dark because media and entertainment companies lobbed a barrage of copyright lawsuits against it. This time around, the company says it has permission to rebroadcast these things. But there will be restrictions to what people can access and when. The site will not allow people in a given market to access a broadcast of, say, a local NFL game if the game is being broadcast on local stations.
March 18, 2002 © 2002 Media Life
Send to a
Friend| Printer-Friendly Version
Cover Page | Contact
Us
