Michael's Insight

The Cable Show starts tomorrow in Washington DC

On on my way to Washington, DC today to get ready for the cable industry's annual convention, the 2009 Cable Show which officially begins tomorrow. This year's Cable Show is being held at the Washington Convention Center, and will be co-chaired by my good friend, TV One CEO Johnathan Rodgers and me.

I'm looking forward to blogging from the convention, and bringing you a glimpse of some of the newest technologies that will be on display from the exhibit floor. The Cable Show will also feature Broadband Nation, a technology showcase of Main Street America highlighting the advanced broadband, video and phone services provided by cable companies. Broadband Nation will showcase DOCSIS 3.0 broadband speeds, tru2way interactive television and more.

Stay tuned here the next few days for posts from the Cable Show. If you're looking for more coverage of the Show, check out the Cable Show blog or Cable Show on Twitter.

Disney and YouTube make a deal for short-form content

It's official: Disney offers short-form YouTube channels [CNET News]

Yesterday, I posted about reports that Disney was considering striking a deal with Hulu for long-form video content. Later in the day, YouTube and Disney announced a deal for short-form content from Disney to appear on YouTube. The agreement will bring "multiple ad-supported channels featuring short-form content from ESPN and the Disney/ABC Television Group" to the Internet's most popular video sharing site.

YouTube is looking to become more like Hulu, providing content partners with ad supported options for long-form video. In fact, YouTube is said to be negotiating with Disney for rights to long-form offerings. But, as I blogged about yesterday, Hulu is also interested, promising a stake in the site to Disney if they can make a deal. Fox and NBC Universal already have exclusive video content deals with Hulu, so it remains to be seen whether the site can balance all the content providers' interests.

In the meantime, ESPN highlights and ABC show clips are will be showing up on YouTube, for millions to watch and share.

Encarta's demise due to rise of Wikipedia

Microsoft Encarta Dies After Long Battle With Wikipedia [NYT Bits Blog]

Microsoft's Encarta encyclopedia was living on borrowed time, and yesterday the company announced that it is phasing the product out by the end of June. An accompanying web site will come down at the end of October. Encarta's demise was at the hands a non-profit, volunteer driven competitor - Wikipedia.

Encarta's been around since 1989, starting out as one of the first CD-ROM titles. But Wikipedia's vast volume of information, all compiled by thousands of volunteer contributors proved to be too potent for Encarta to compete with, even though Microsoft attempted to retool Encarta with a web site several years ago. Currently, Wikipedia receives 97 percent of online encyclopedia queries, compared to less than 2 percent for Encarta.

The Internet's information revolution has changed the model for many content producers - record companies, movie studios and newspapers among them. Encarta offers an example of a product that didn't adapt quickly enough to the changing environment, and won't live to see a 20th birthday.

NCTA weighs in on white space rules

Cable Industry Jumps Into White Space Fight [Broadband Reports]

Last year, the FCC unanimously approved plans for a rule-making process for so-called white space devices. If approved by the FCC, white space devices would operate in the frequencies between digital television channels, for the purpose of providing wireless broadband Internet. But, there's a problem with white space devices. Because the white-space devices operate in a band of frequencies used by other things - like broadcast television, cable television systems and wireless microphones, there is the strong possibility that white space devices could interfere with these other things.

When the FCC released their engineering test report on some prototype white space devices, there was ample evidence that at certain power levels, the prototypes had the ability to interfere with nearby cable television viewing. Because of all the potential problems that this interference presents, the National Cable and Telecommunications Association (NCTA) has weighed in with the FCC on white space device rules. Here's an excerpt of NCTA's filing with the FCC:

the 100 mW power output level adopted for personal/portable devices will interfere with cable television viewing, especially in adjoining housing units, and could adversely impact cable modem Internet access and other cable services in the home. . .while the Commission took several important steps to mitigate potential harmful interference to cable headend facilities that bring distant broadcast signals to communities, especially in rural areas, its cable headend protections are inadequate and some provisions need further clarification.

If approved by the FCC,  the white space devices will be unlicensed, so its especially important that the FCC make sure that the devices aren't able to turn cable television to snow, interfere with cable headends, or disrupt cable broadband. Because, the Commission's own engineering report indicates the potential for the devices to interfere at higher power levels, the FCC should carefully weigh power limits of the devices in drafting white space rules.

GhostNet spy network offers lessons for regular users

Electronic Spy Network Focused on Dalai Lama and Embassy Computers [Wired: Threat Level]

The Internet is has become the preferred espionage playground for international spies in the 21st century. That fact was driven home this weekend with reports of a widespread spy network, nicknamed GhostNet, that was revealed to have been spying on embassies around the world. A group of computer researchers at the University of Toronto have exposed the existence of GhostNet in a detailed report that included the researchers infecting one of their own systems to trace the spies back to the source.

GhostNet, which infiltrated systems by social engineering users to open malware attachments or surf to infected web sites, targeted more than 1,200 computers in more than 100 countries around the world - including the United States. The infected computers included computers of the Dalai Lama's organization in India. Once infected, computers were systematically probed for documents and email sought by GhostNet operators, which were then transmitted back to the GhostNet servers.

In a related article in the New York Times, it was reported that GhostNet can even turn on a built-in camera and microphone in a computer and watch and hear everything that's going where the device is located.  Sounds like a real-life version of the technology regularly utilized in "24."

The researchers who probed GhostNet's activities traced the GhostNet server location back to the island of Hainan in China. But the researchers were not able to conclusively prove whether GhostNet is operated by the Chinese government or independent hackers.

While most users aren't using machines that store the kind of sensitive government secrets that GhostNet appears to have been seeking, there are lessons here for all users to learn about avoiding a malware infection. If you receive an email from an unknown or suspicious sender asking you to open an attachment or visit a web site - don't do it. It's just that simple to catch an infection. And even if you don't store government secrets on your computer, hackers can steal personal financial information that might be on your computer with malware.

Facebook to sign up 200 millionth user today

Facebook Surpasses 200 Million Users [All Facebook]

It's a staggering statistic.  Nearly a million people join Facebook daily, most from outside the U.S. Today, estimates indicate that the popular social networking site will surpass 200 million users. At the current growth rate, there will be more Facebook users worldwide than the U.S. population at some point in August of this year.  I'm not surprised.  Never a week goes by that I'm not contacted by several people from my past who just joined up and found me.  I've been in contact with more than a handful of high school friends who I haven't spoken to in decades.

This weekend, the New York Times published a story about Facebook's fifth birthday and the growing pains it is experiencing with its ever increasing users base. The story included some great graphics that detailed how Facebook started with only a few million university student users for the first two years of its existence. When Facebook opened its doors to the Internet at-large, growth exploded to the point that Facebook is quickly becoming as ubiquitous as email to most users.

Facebook has had its hiccups with two controversial site redesigns that have sent some users ballistic.  But I'm impressed with the way Facebook is enduring the redesign complaints by reaching out and listening to those who are critical of their changes.  And even with the site redesigns, Facebook growth has not shown any signs of slowing. However, in order to project future growth, it would be interesting to understand the statistics of active vs. inactive members.

Hulu may be getting Disney programming

Report: Disney Could Join Hulu [NewTeeVee]

Hulu's programming library could be getting a big shot in the arm if the rumors are true. Currently the site features content from NBC Universal and Fox, but according to paidContent, Disney is in talks with the streaming portal to add programming to the site. Disney could provide programming from ABC and ESPN to Hulu. The paidContent report indicates that Disnet would provide its programming in exchange for a 10 percent stake in Hulu.

Adding Disney's content to Hulu would cement the site's reputation for television programming on the web. But, Hulu's exclusive content deals with NBCU and Fox mean that those companies might have something to say about Disney coming into their space. We'll wait to see whether this rumor pans out.

P2P movie piracy goes mobile

Android App Equals Easy BitTorrent Downloading [Wired: Threat Level]

As if there were any doubt that peer-to-peer application users are primarily interested in pirating copyrighted content, Wired brings us a story about another resource P2P'ers have to pirate movies. P2P enthusiasts use BitTorrent clients like uTorrent to find and download illegal copies of movies from other P2P'ers around the world. Now those P2P'ers with an Android-based mobile phone have another tool in the piracy arsenal.

A program called BarTor, which runs on the Android OS, allows users to snap pictures of barcodes on DVD cases with their mobile phone. The program looks up the movie title associated with the barcode, and sends that information to a uTorrent P2P client running on the user's desktop computer with instructions to search out and download an illegal copy of that movie title. The implication behind the software is that a P2P'er can take a trip to a movie rental store or retail outlet that has DVDs to quickly queue up a long list of titles to download.  To me, this highlights the fact that P2P sharing copyright protected content is nothing more than stealing.  In this case you even walk into the store to perpetrate the crime.  You might as well have slipped the DVD into your coat pocket.

And frankly, I don't get it.  This is a neat technology.  I can think of a boatload of ideas of how to use it for, shall we say, more legitimate applications.  Scan the barcode and receive price comparisons?  Or product information?  Or even point and order a refill of one of your household items from your favorite vendor with one quick scan?  Why develop something with so many potential uses simply to increase the ease of which people can steal content? 

Of course, not only will this specific use of the new software make it more difficult for content producers to rightfully protect their work, it may also increase the disproportionate amount of network resources that P2P'ers consume. I've written here in the past about the amount of bandwidth that P2P applications consume and Insight's efforts to ensure that every user on our network has the opportunity to have an enjoyable broadband experience. As issues like the BarTor program multiply P2P bandwidth consumption, it increases the chances that, in the long run, we will move toward a usage-based billing system.  Bandwidth resources cost real money and ISP's will continue to provision to fill that demand.  But as usage patterns continue to increase dramatically, it becomes only fair that those who consume heavily pay more for it while others who use less, don't. For Insight customers, remember though -- you'll have plenty of notice if and when we decide to go there and we'll provide you with the tools to manage your consumption effectively.

Comcast clarifies DMCA infringement policy

A Few Words About Copyright [Comcast Voices]

In the past couple of days, there have been several stories bouncing around the blogosphere about several large ISPs planning to implement a "three strikes, you're out" policy when it comes to use of their networks to infringe upon copyright owners. Among those said to be contemplating a policy of jettisoning users with three alleged violations of the Digital Melinnium Copyright Act (DMCA), was Comcast, the nation's largest cable operator. Comcast has recently unveiled a new blog called Comcast Voices, and my friend, the company's Senior VP, External Affairs and Public Policy Counsel, Joe Waz has blogged a clarification to the stories about Comcast's policy. 

[Note to Joe -- Welcome to the blogosphere!!]

In short, while Comcast is still, and should be, responding to requests from copyright holders to protect their content under the DMCA, the company doesn't have any plans to implement a "three strikes" policy when it comes to repeat offenders. Waz does say that the company is working with content producers to develop policies to deter copyright infringement, including educating users and pointing users to legal outlets for the content they are seeking.

The other story here is how Comcast communicated this clarification.  They used the blogosphere!   Comcast joined the ranks of bloggers earlier this month.  Welcome!  I'm sure they'll find it a great place to interact with customers about issues just like this one - as I've had the good fortune to do with Insight's customers (and many others who simply are interested in our business) for the past year. 

Columbus television station profiles savings by bundling cable services

Bundle Packages Can Lead To Cable Savings [WBNS 10 TV - Columbus, Ohio]

Columbus television station WBNS did a story last night on cable customers in that market who are saving money by bundling their cable television with broadband Internet and home phone. With the economic downturn, many consumer are looking to save money in many areas of their household budget, and this story outlines one way they can.

Though the cable customer in this story uses a different provider, he says that by bundling all three services together, he manages to save $800 over the course of a year on all three bills. And even though he's a Time Warner customer, the moral of the story is the same for Insight customers - they get the best price for each product when they're bundled together.

If you're interested in finding out how much you might save by bundling, I suggest you head over to this page that describes Insight's product bundles.

Motorola to demo 3D TV at next week's Cable Show

Exclusive News: Motorola Brings 3D TV to The Cable Show [Motorola - mediaexperiences2go]

Next week, I'll be heading to Washington D.C. to chair the cable industry's 2009 convention - The Cable Show. The Cable Show offers a great opportunity to see and experience the cutting edge of video technology, and based on some of the preliminary announcements that exhibitors are making, it sounds like this year will be no different. As this year's co-chair, along with TV One CEO Jonathan Rogers, I have a jam-packed schedule.  But I definitely intend to find time to walk over to the Motorola booth to check out their display of 3D TV.

According to this post, Motorola will be using a television and a Motorola set-top that's already on the market to deliver 3D video. Motorola claims that a high end set-top capable of MPEG-4 compression support and video delivery of 1080p at 60 frames per second can deliver 3D content without using any more bandwidth than high definition video. 

I'm looking forward to writing about the 3D TV technology as well as some of the other neat technologies that will be on display next week.

Department of Justice sues Dish Network for alleged violations of telemarketing law

Justice Department Calls In Suit Against Dish [Multichannel News]

The U.S. Department of Justice has filed a civil suit against satellite television provider Dish Network accusing the company of multiple violations of the federal Do Not Call Registry. The suit was filed at the request of the Federal Trade Commission, which has alleged that Dish and its dealers called customers on the Do Not Call list. Specifically, the suit alleges that Dish assisted dealers in robocalling potential customers with a telemarketing message.

The suit seeks to stop Dish and its dealers from continuing to make calls to households on the Do Not Call list and assess the company civil penalties for violations of the Do Not Call Registry.

For its part, Dish Network maintains that an independent audit has found that it is in compliance with the Do Not Call Registry and that the FTC is unfairly accusing the company of facilitating violations simply because they do business with independent retailers.

Concerned about Conficker? Here's some advice about protecting your PC

Conficker time bomb ticks, but don't expect fireworks [CNET News]

Are you concerned about the Conficker worm, and the April 1st activation date for the worm? According to this article from CNET, don't expect Conficker to attempt to start attacking the Internet infrastructure when it activates. The malware authors responsible for the worm likely have a profit motive, using the botnet of infected machines to send out spam or some other malicious, revenue-generating activity. For these activities, Conficker needs Internet for its malicious traffic.

There are further details about the Conficker worm in this article - its history and how it infects computers and spreads across networks. But toward the end of the article is some of the most important information - how to remove a Conficker infection from a PC. Conficker's latest version is designed to remove commercial antivirus software and disable Windows' security features, so removing the worm is not easy. This article has instructions, removal software and patches to rid your machine of this unwelcome guest.

DTV coupon program now taking new requests

DTV Coupons Are Here Again [NYT Gadgetwise Blog]

All is right with the world again.  The federal agency responsible for the DTV converter box coupon program has cleared the backlog of millions of households that had requested a coupon after the program ran out of funds in January. The waiting list for DTV coupons was one of the main reasons Congress voted to delay the planned February 17th digital television transition deadline until June 12th. With the passage of the economic stimulus package, Congress and the Obama administration provided an additional $650 million in funding for the coupon program.

Now that the waiting list is cleared, the program is ready to process new coupon requests. There are two changes to the program that are designed to make it more user-friendly for those seeking a coupon. The first change amends the rule that prohibited those holding expired coupons (they have a 90-day expiration period) from requesting replacement coupons. Now, if you've requested a DTV coupon but procrastinated buying your converter box, the government will replace your expired coupon. Second, the coupons will be mailed using first-class postage rather than being sent bulk rate. That means everyone that requests a coupon should receive it within nine days of the request.

Even though some of the red tape is eliminated from the coupon program it's still not the easiest way to prepare for the digital transition. Households with televisions connected to cable are already prepared for the transition, at least on those TV's that are connected. If you need help preparing for the digital transition and want Insight to be your solution, just give us a call.

Boxee and Hulu go to round three in content blocking dispute

Boxee springs new API, Hulu work-around [CNET News]

In a meeting with enthusiasts of his company's product, Boxee's founder announced a new Boxee API last night along with a work-around to allow Boxee users to view content from Hulu. Hulu has been in a back-and-forth dispute with Boxee regarding the ability of Boxee users viewing Hulu's video content. A few weeks ago, Boxee voluntarily agreed to remove Hulu content, but later reversed course. Hulu responded by blocking Boxee users. Later, Boxee engineered a somewhat reliable work-around that allowed Boxee users to subscribe to Hulu content using Hulu's RSS feeds. Hulu then blocked Boxee users from its RSS feeds.

With last night's announcement, Boxee hopes to have a permanent fix for Hulu - using a Firefox browser variant to find video content on a web page, then pulling the content into full-screen view on the Boxee software.

This article speaks to Boxee's current lack of a business model to generate revenue for the fledgling company. At last night's meetup, Boxee founder Avner Ronen spoke about the possibility of creating a application store for Boxee and adding advertising to the product.

Chrome browser withstood attacks in browser hacking contest

Chrome comes out on top in browser-hacking contest [Sherman's Security Blog]

It's been less than a year since the original release of Google's Chrome web browser, but it appears that by one standard Chrome is the most secure browser available to users. Sherman has posted an article regarding the CanSecWest security conference, held recently in Vancouver, Canada. The security conference hosted a contest for white hat hackers (the good guys) to determine which web browser was most impervious to hacker attacks. Chrome, Internet Explorer, Firefox and Safari were all subjected to a hacking test by the contest participants.

Officially, the contest "winners" were the hackers who could demonstrate a successful exploit on one of the browsers in the shortest amount of time. One participant was able to exploit a security hole in Safari on Mac OS X in less than two minutes. Another hacker took down Internet Explorer 8, Safari and Firefox in succession. Chrome was the only browser that was not successfully exploited by contest participants

All the participants in the browser hacking contest signed agreements to disclose the bugs they exploited to the browsers' manufacturers but not to those who might use the information maliciously. Chrome, which has had several high-profile bug fixes from Google during its first year was recently given a regular release without a beta designation.

Online video viewing continues to grow

Hulu Grew 33% in February [NewTeeVee]

According to the latest Nielsen Video Census, Hulu.com managed to grow the number of videos it streamed in February by 33% over January's totals, vaulting the site into second place among all streaming video portals. Hulu visitors streamed over 300 million individual video streams last month, averaging over two hours of content per visitor. Hulu is attributing its February growth to its Super Bowl advertising that featured Alec Baldwin.

The web's most popular video destination remains Google's YouTube, streaming over 5.3 billion videos to nearly 100 million unique visitors in February, according to ComScore's traffic measure. CBS Interactive's TV.com, which launched in January, is already the 10th most popular video streaming site in its second month. TV.com streamed over 100 million separate videos during February.

Overall, online video continues to grow in popularity. Of all the streaming sites surveyed by ComScore, over 13 billion individual videos were streamed by 145 million individual web users, averaging 312 minutes (a little over 5 hours) of online video viewing per user. And while 5 hours of time spent watching online video sounds like a lot, compare that to the 151 hours of traditional television viewing that the average American watches each month.

Scammers use fake virus warning to steal credit card information

Rogue antivirus software pays off for scammers [CNET News]

Have you ever surfed to a legitimate web site, only to be quickly redirected to a site that proclaims that your system has a virus and the only way to fix it is by clicking on a button to download an antivirus? I'm sure most users immediately recognize this as a scam designed to grab your credit card number via the $50 the site charges for the "antivirus." And even if you do have a virus on your system, the "antivirus" isn't going to help. It's likely going to make things worse, since it's probably malware itself.

Have you ever wondered why scammers come up with such elaborate social engineering schemes?

Security researchers have discovered that scammers in Eastern Europe made around $10,000 a day via the fake antivirus scam, and that only counted the money affiliates made by redirecting legitimate web traffic from compromised web sites. During a 16 day period, a computer security firm monitored such a scam, tracking 1.8 million users who were redirected to the malicious site. Of those, somewhere between 7 and 12 percent installed the fake antivirus, and nearly 2 percent gave the scammers a credit card number.

Legitimate antivirus software is available for purchase and download via the web. Sherman would insist that you never trust a web site that appears out of the blue to tell you that you have malware on your computer.

DOCSIS 3.0 hits the 160 Mbps mark

Japan Cablenet Swims Upstream [The Bauminator]

The second largest cable company in Japan, Japan Cablenet Ltd., has announced a new DOCSIS 3.0 speed tier that appears to offer speeds up to 160 Mbps downstream, based on the product's name. They're calling it "Speed Star 160,"  and it goes on sale to customers there later this month. While the downstream speed alone would be remarkable, this article implies that Cablenet may be planning to offer an upstream speed of 120 Mbps with the product. If you're interested in the technology that powers these broadband speeds, check out this companion article.

Here in the U.S., DOCSIS 3.0 modems are going on sale at retailers. Comcast, the largest cable operator in the U.S. has already announced plans to upgrade some markets it serves to DOCSIS 3.0 service by the end of 2009, offering speeds up to 50 Mbps downstream. Other cable operators have followed suit - Charter Communications is rolling out a 60 Mbps service and a Canadian cable company is offering a 100 Mbps tier.

Here at Insight, we're following the DOCSIS 3.0 deployment very closely and already are doing some preparatory work on our network to prepare for DOCSIS 3.0 speeds.

Stay tuned, and buckle up!

Mark Cuban debates Boxee founder

a lively debate with mark cuban [boxee blog]

My buddy Mark Cuban and the founder of the open-source Boxee online video browser software have a debate of sorts going about the future of Internet video distribution. Mark has posted a piece entitled, Why Do Internet People Think Content People are Stupid? To which, the Boxee founder, Avner Ronen has responded and created a dialogue with Mark on the issue.

Basically, Ronen thinks that the future of video distribution is going to move completely to the Internet, with customers getting de facto a-la-carte video by virtue of the numerous options that will be available to them on the Internet. Mark takes a different tact, arguing that cable operators won't let free programming (ad supported) on the Internet eat their lunch because they'll introduce better and richer video on demand offerings. Mark also argues that the Internet infrastructure - both the last mile connections into homes and the streaming sites like Netflix can't handle the amount of traffic that would be directed at them if everyone threw away their television and relied solely on the Internet for their video needs.

I think the day is coming when the Internet infrastructure - both last mile and at the video source - will be better capable of sustaining the streaming video bandwidth needs that Ronen envisions. DOCSIS 3.0 will help a lot.  However, it likely will take years until that infrastructure could handle the quantity of data that would be transported if everyone watched TV that way.

And let's not forget -- The economics of online a-la-carte are the same as cable provided a-la-carte. They just won't work.  In my previous post about the problems with a-la-carte distribution, I wrote about how the economics of advertising dollars, which are an important percentage of programmers revenue, are supported by channel surfing - accidental viewing of channels in a cable lineup. Most networks rely on those accidental viewers. Take them away by only offering the channels a-la-carte, and many niche channels - full of rich, diverse content - lose significant advertising revenue and cease to be profitable.

Today's modern cable systems are simply a more efficient way of delivering on demand programming.  They are a contained platform serving finite geographical areas and network operators can efficiently provision for the on demand usage on a neighborhood by neighborhood basis. 

Mark and Avner's debate offers some thought provoking discussion. But, given the current online video offerings and the ease-of-use for the average customer, traditional cable television continues to win this debate. Only cable offers the wide diversity and quality of programming for only a few dollars a day. Plus, it works when you turn on your television. Compare that to Boxee, which requires a user to buy and set up and program their own version of a computerized set-top box, and still only offers the limited programming of YouTube and occassionaly Hulu.com.

CBS cuts away from last night's U of L game

CBS cuts away from U of L game in second half [Louisville Courier-Journal]

It sounds like last night was a long one for Louisville's WLKY-TV. WLKY is the local CBS affiliate in Louisville, which was broadcasting the U of L versus Sienna matchup in the second round of the Men's NCAA Basketball tournament to thousands of Cards fans when CBS inexplicably switched the broadcast feed to other games that were going on simultaneously.

Louisville was in an up and down game with the upstart Sienna College Saints, and was in the middle of making a crucial run when CBS cut over to the Marquette-Missouri and USC-Michigan State games. According to this article, WLKY was flooded with calls from irate fans trying to find the game. However, give the local affiliate a break.  WLKY didn't have access to a separate satellite feed of the U of L game, and had to explain that they were at the mercy of the CBS feed. I understand from some of my Facebook friends that WLKY started running a crawl at the bottom of the screen explaining the situation and directing complaints directly to CBS where they belong.

One thing to keep in mind throughout the tournament is that each game is available in its entirety streaming online at mmod.ncaa.com. The quality of the stream is fairly good, and you won't have to worry about the network bumping you over to another game in progress.

Go Cards!

Comcast reveals details of planned streaming video portal

Comcast: Net TV Plan Supports Cable [Multichannel News]

Multichannel reveals more details about the planned 2009 launch of Comcast's online streaming video portal. Comcast is calling the streaming video portal On-Demand Online, and it will be designed to convince Comcast customers not to abandon traditional cable television for online video offerings - so-called cord cutting. In truth, cord cutting isn't a large movement, but Comcast and other cable companies are preparing their answer to the growing popularity of video portal sites like Hulu.com and TV.com, both creations of programmers.

The On-Demand Online model is designed to be additive, meaning that it will be a companion to regular cable television - something like a DVR in the cloud that provides Comcast customers their favorite programming when and where they want it. While there's not yet a definitive release date for On-Demand Online, Comcast intends to launch the site sometime this year. Other cable operators are also in talks with programmers to provide their own streaming video portals for their customers.

YouTube streaming NCAA tournament games

March Madness! YouTube Gets Live Video Via Silverlight [NewTeeVee]

This year, March Madness is more than just a basketball tournament. Over at YouTube, the number one site on the web for streamed video, Google has opted to use Microsoft's Silverlight streaming technology to webcast YouTube's foray into live video. On the first day of the opening round of the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament, YouTube announced the new March Madness channel.

The Silverlight technology at YouTube is streaming the same CBS broadcasts available from the March Madness On Demand site. According to this article, YouTube has shied away from live events due to the strain that live streaming places on its video servers. The March Madness channel has had over 1.5 million views during the tournament's first day.  I was one of them, even though Louisville wasn't playing but I was curious to see the quality of the webcast.  It was pretty good on my desk computer in the office.

NewTeeVee notes that YouTube has strayed from its policy of mandating third-party video providers use its video player, and it's interesting that Google has turned to a Microsoft product to stream the tournament games. Adding to all the madness--the advertisements for the YouTube competitor TV.com that CBS is inserting into the commercial breaks of the video stream.

Conficker counts down to April 1st activation

The Conficker Worm: April Fool’s Joke or Unthinkable Disaster? [NYT Bits Blog]

The ticking time bomb that is the Conficker worm continues to count down toward events unknown. With an estimated 12 million machines infected with the worm worldwide, gathered into a massive botnet, computer researchers have discovered that Conficker's code contains a deadline of April 1st for activation. But it's still an open question what will happen when Conficker activates.

Users with an active, updated antivirus had been protected from Conficker until the release of the latest variant, called Conficker C. Conficker C contained code that allowed the programmers to automatically update the virus remotely and uninstalled commercial antivirus and disabled Windows malware protections. Conficker's new ability to mutate and protect itself from antiviruses have made it very difficult to remove.

Malware researchers can still only speculate about the plans that Conficker's programmers have for it. Will it turn infected computers into a giant spamming botnet or denial of service tool to take down web sites? Conficker also contains a peer-to-peer file sharing system that researchers are studying to determine what role it may play in Conficker's plans. Security experts are preparing for a multitude of possibilities from Conficker on April 1st, as they continue to attempt to track down the programmers responsible for the worm.

Twitter user growth exploded in the past year

Nielsen: Twitter's growing really, really, really, really fast [CNET News]

The growth of Facebook is astounding - approaching 500,000 new users a day last month. But Facebook's growth rate in the U.S., around 228% in the last year, has nothing on Twitter. As measured by Nielsen, Twitter's user base has grown by an astounding 1,382% in the previous year. The site that popularized microblogging has grown from just less than a half million users in 2008 to over 7 million this year.

Nielsen's blog post on the rapid growth of Twitter noted that around ten percent of Twitter users don't access the site via computer but rather their mobile phone. And the largest demographic of all Twitter users are in the 35-49 age range. Nielsen notes that the average visitor to Twitter's web site visits 14 times a month.

To catch Facebook (which has rumored to be considering the purchase of Twitter), Twitter still needs on the order of 60 million more new users in the U.S.