Today's initiative has been variously billed as "iTunes for Magazines" (correct philosophically, but wildly overstated) and "Hulu for Magazines" (incorrect, since Hulu is free). Basically you can now go to this digital storefront and buy all your favorite Conde Nast, Meredith, Hearst, Time Inc., and News Corp publications, to read on your "portable digital device" of choice. Your crappy mobile phone, or iPhone, or upcoming Apple tablet, or, hey, Time Inc. is making its very own tablet, & ad infinitum.

And, of course, this is not the only "digital storefront" thing—Hearst, a partner in this venture, is also going forward with its own personal digital storefront called Skiff , and there are similar services already operating, although, hey, there's not dominant iTunes-type player yet, so you never know.

This could be a successful venture. Then again, it could fade into irrelevance in months. Somebody will make the dominant digital storefront for content like this, just like someone will make the dominant digital reader. Magazine publishing companies, one would think, are likely to get smoked by someone like Apple in this particular sector. But they think it's worth the gamble, after watching what happened to the music industry.

But it'll take a few years. How much would you pay to read Sports Illustrated on your E-reader right now? You don't have an E-reader. And you can read Deadspin for free. So, you'd pay nothing. Changing that dynamic is what media companies need to worry about.

And here's Time Inc's announcement to employees, just because we have it:

December 8, 2009
To: Time Inc. Employees
From: Ann Moore
Re: New Digital Venture

Today, five leading publishers including Time Inc., Conde Nast, Meredith, Hearst and News Corporation announced the formation of a new venture to develop a digital storefront and a common reading application that will allow consumers to enjoy their favorite magazine and newspaper content on any platform they choose.

We already know that the next generation of mobile devices will be loaded with color touchscreens, flexible displays, video capabilities and other features that will make them ideal for consuming rich content and an appealing environment for advertisers. These devices will allow us to combine the best of what consumers love about magazines – quality, curated journalism, engaging content and beautiful photography – with the speed, convenience and portability of the latest technology.

While Time Inc. is pursuing a number of initiatives that will help us expand our current digital businesses and develop new products and revenue streams, our participation in this venture is an important part of our efforts. You'll be hearing more about it in the coming weeks and months.

In the meantime, for a look at some of the work Time Inc. is doing around portable devices, check out the demo Sports Illustrated developed, which will give you an idea of how our digital content might be enjoyed in the near future.

www.si.com/tablet

A.M.

This started when Microsoft and Google paid for access to Twitter's millions of tweets and Bing paid Facebook and Twitter for access to their pages. Think about this perspective, if you ran Fox the WSJ and other major content makers, wouldn't you think that your content is worth more than all those 140 character posts? Right, you would. And if those sites are charging 100s of millions and up, for their content, wouldn't you ask for a lot more? You probably would, and if you're Murdoch, the most powerful man in media, you'd probably get what you want. Pulling out of Google would be just another part of Murdoch setting up his paywall. But it's going to set a nasty precedent for the rest of the short tail of mega media companies to get a lot of Google's cash. Maybe a lot of these companies value Google's help in promoting their stuff, but it never hurts to ask for money, especially when media and publishing are super duper hard up on cash these days, in general. I'm not an investor in big media or any tech companies, so its not a problem to me, in that way. But it is a problem to me as a guy who lives and works through search engines.

Microsoft is just being evil again. Now, this isn't typical Microsoft bashing — someone has to fight Google. And in a way, you have to hand it to Microsoft. They're the underdog here fighting a Google that grows in power every day, and their Facebook content deal won't likely be matched by Google any time soon. But this is so typically Bad Microsoft, because they've cleverly short cut the straightforward fight for marketshare by features and gone for a deal-based solution to the problem. Like the PC and OS fight in the 80s they're competing with business tactics instead of quality. (And Bing is great, so I'm not making a complete 1:1 comparison to Windows.) We're sort of left with—instead of a David and Goliath—a Clash of the Titans situation with pieces of rock and lighting falling from the sky and crushing us. Microsoft fails to see/care that the fragmentation that Microsoft is trying to achieve is not only going to hurt Google — it is going to hurt YOU AND ME.

This is the Microsoft we know from the last century, before great underdog products like Xbox and Zune. This is from a company who's CEO recently told us that sales are more important than critical acclaim, preferring profit over better product. And this is a company that gets in its anticompetitive digs when it can: For example, in Internet Explorer, it's really hard to set Google as your default browser, not being listed in the alternative choices to Bing. Yet, in Google Chrome, it's easy to set Bing as the default search.

Again, imagine that half of the top 500 media companies are delisted from Google. And imagine that Google stoops to this strategy and buys out the other half of that 500. Now imagine you have to search for something and now have to type it in twice because who the fuck is going to remember (no one) which search engine covers which content? *

People, I'm telling you, this is bad news. People talk about net neutrality like it's only about the data's prioritization over the pipes. But what good is equivalence in data speed and prioritization if you can't find it in the first place?

*the fix for all this is that we'll use search engine aggregators, which is just another layer of bullshit to sort through.

Hulu, the joint venture between News Corp.'s Fox, GE's NBC Universal and Disney's ABC, doesn't plan on charging people to watch the stuff it's currently airing on the site–a mix of first-run shows from broadcast TV, a limited number of cable TV shows and a smattering of movies. But Hulu is trying to figure out how to create some kind of premium offering where you'll pay for stuff that isn't on the site right now.

This jibes with Carey's adjacent reassurance that "not all content on Hulu would be behind a pay wall," which hints at the addition of some kind of subscription or pay-per-view system, that could conceivably leave current offerings untouched. This is a plausible possibility, but far from sure: Kafka's sources says Hulu doesn't actually have a plan yet, so anything is possible.

Plan or no plan, telling everyone what they aren't going to do would do Hulu good—vague threats of fees for "broadcast content" are just terrifying everyone. [AllThingsD]

Here's the money quote from NewsCorpian Chase Carey, so there's no confusion:

It's time to start getting paid for broadcast content online. I think a free model is a very difficult way to capture the value of our content. I think what we need to do is deliver that content to consumers in a way where they will appreciate the value. Hulu concurs with that, it needs to evolve to have a meaningful subscription model as part of its business

An optimist might interpret this as a move toward tiered access, or even the decidedly good addition of paid premium content, like HBO and Showtime. But read carefully:

It's time to start getting paid for broadcast content online

It doesn't get any less premium than broadcast content, which is exactly what Carey says we'll soon be paying for—sometime in 2010, he supposes. (Though to be fair, there's a scrap of reassurance later in the same article: "not all content on Hulu would be behind a pay wall." Cool?) This is extra-extra-foreboding next to last week's statements about a paid Hulu from Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes, highlighted by TVBizwire: "That's not an if," he said "that's a when." It was fun while it lasted, I guess.

On a totally unrelated note, here are some neat articles, for pleasure reading!

Update: Reader Frank pinged Hulu about the issue, and got this not-quite-specific-enough-to-contradict-Carey's-statements response:

Don't worry, Hulu's mission has always been to help people find and enjoy the world's premium, professionally produced content. We continue to believe that the ad-supported, free service is the one that resonates most with the largest group of users and any possible new business models would serve to complement our
existing offering.

Thanks,

Betina Chan-Martin
Hulu

It's a purposely vague reassurance, but a definitive, public "we're not going to charge you for what is currently free" statement would be awfully easy to make, and would quell the concerns of people like Frank. Hint: They haven't made it. [Broadcasting Cable via TVBizwire]

More ominously, while revealing the paid app switcheroo at a Goldman Sachs conference, Rupert Murdoch also predicted a pay-per-view or subscription model for Hulu. (His News Corp. owns the WSJ, and partners with NBC Universal on Hulu.) Yikes. [paidContent via Editorialiste]

As CDO, Miller is in charge of figuring out how News Corp properties like Fox leverage their offline content to make money, online. His words:

I don't see why over time that shouldn't happen. I don't think it's on the agenda for Monday [but] it seems to me that over time that could be a logical thing.

"That," of course, being a monetary intrusion on one of the best services on the internet. He makes sure to qualify all his statements with a blanket "in my opinion" clause, but his hedging shouldn't be comforting: this is a guy who attends Hulu board meetings, and sets digital policy for one of the three biggest owners of the video venture. His opinion matters.

As frightening as his statements sound, the pay system Miller envisages is a subscription model, and his words don't necessarily imply that non-subscribers will lose any of their current access to content. After all, News Corp owns a large movie studio, so perhaps this theoretical "pay wall" would sit outside of regular TV programming, between users and films, or maybe premium cable shows. That'd be fair, but somehow, I don't get the feeling that's what Murdoch and Co. have in mind. [Daily Finance via Gawker]

The statement, gleaned and confirmed by AllThingsD's Peter Kafka, is a surprise to everyone, and wasn't accompanied by many real details. A crucial fact here is the News Corp isn't designing an eBook reader; they're investing in a company that makes them. Kafka puts forward a few possible names, including Plastic Logic and Hearst, but both of their planned products are said to be black-and-white only.

Fujitsu has a color reader on the market already, but it's of a different breed than Murdoch seems to be talking about, with 260k colors and an exorbitant $1000+ price tag. We'll have to wait and see on this one, but probably not for too long—this is a guy who, for better or for worse, means what he says—and the Kindle is begging for some decent competition. [AllThingsD]

He says that he was just hired to write pirate programs to make DirecTV's own network more secure, but one of his projects for News Corp., the "stinger," can talk to any smart card in the world. Another hacker claims that he bragged about using the stinger with News Corps.'s people to reprogram a bunch of Dish's cards, but Tarnovsky claims he's being set up to take the fall.

Dish says the hack attack has cost them over $900 million. Either way, this whole thing is some serious material for a TNT movie of the week. [Reuters via Valleywag]

CANAL+ Chooses the Latest Generation of NDS Middleware to Transform Subscribers' Set-Top Boxes into Digital Video Recorders

¶ Highlights: ¶ — CANAL+ GROUP has deployed the latest generation of NDS' MediaHighway(R) middleware, allowing subscribers to easily transform their HD set-top boxes (STBs) into HD digital video recorders (DVRs) ¶ — CANAL+ and CANALSAT subscribers in France can now add an external hard drive via the USB port on their HD STB to have a fully functional HD DVR ¶ — CANAL+ has also deployed NDS' MediaHighway to support its latest dual-tuner HD STB
LONDON & PARIS —(Business Wire)— Feb. 26, 2008 NDS (NASDAQ:NNDS), the leading provider of technology solutions for digital Pay-TV, today announced that CANAL+ GROUP, France's leading Pay TV provider, has chosen the latest generation of MediaHighway(R) middleware to enable subscribers to transform their HD STBs into DVRs. CANAL+ launched its first HD STB two years ago and currently there are about 250,000 HD satellite STBs installed in subscribers' homes.

CANAL+ subscribers can connect an external hard disk to their HD STB via the USB port. Only external hard disk units which meet the requirements of CANAL+ for performance, stability and security will be integrated to provide the service. On its website, CANAL+ GROUP publishes a list of approved hard disks that are now available to buy in retail outlets.

As part of the adoption of the new version of MediaHighway, the middleware has automatically downloaded new software to each HD STB. The HD STBs now detect the addition of a new external hard drive and format the drive for use as a DVR. Subscribers may use more than one external hard drive if they wish.

CANAL+ has kicked off a marketing program to encourage customers to upgrade to HD and DVR functionality.

In addition, NDS today announced that CANAL+ has deployed NDS' MediaHighway to support its latest satellite dual-tuner HD STB for the French market.

MediaHighway is the market-leading middleware for digital pay TV worldwide. There are currently over 76.4 million NDS middleware clients deployed, and there are over 10.4 million NDS-powered DVRs in viewers' homes around the world.

"MediaHighway was the only middleware that enabled CANAL+ to offer its consumers the choice of industry-leading pay-TV solutions it required. MediaHighway has demonstrated yet again that it can handle complex requirements," commented Caroline Le Bigot, NDS Vice President, EMEA.

About CANAL+ GROUP

CANAL+ GROUP is the leader in Pay-TV in France with more than 10 million subscriptions to a wide range of offers including CANAL+, CANALSat and the former TPS. Within its offer, CANAL+ LE BOUQUET, the first multi-channel premium offer in France, available via satellite, cable, digital terrestrial television and ADSL networks, features six premium content channels built around the leading premium general-interest channel, CANAL+. CANAL+ GROUP also produces a range of channels dedicated to subscribers' favorite themes which include films (CineCinema), sport (Sport+, Infosport), news (i>Tele), series (Jimmy), documentaries (Planete) and programs for young people (Piwi, Teletoon). CANAL+ GROUP distributes CANALSAT as well, a multichannel offering available on satellite, cable, ADSL, DTT through a minipack and adapted for third generation (3G) mobile telephones. CANAL+ GROUP is also a major producer of French pay-TV channels and, through StudioCANAL, a significant contributor to the financing, acquisition and distribution of films. A pionner in new technologies, CANAL+ GROUP is the first Pay TV operator to have launched HD programs via satellite in Spring 2006 and have today the largest offering in the French TV market with more than 10 HD channels.

About NDS

NDS Group plc (NASDAQ:NNDS), a majority owned subsidiary of News Corporation, supplies open end-to-end digital technology and services to digital pay-television platform operators and content providers. See http://www.nds.com for more information about NDS.

"Once an industry initiative is formed, Google will be forced to accept the common model rather than use its own solution as a competitive differentiator," Forrester Research analyst James McQuivey said. "The pressure on Google to go along with this cooperative initiative will be intense, as the fate of existing lawsuits will likely hinge on Google's acceptance of the common solution."

According to Reuters, the service will be a combination of Google News and Digg, both aggregating the most popular news stories around the Web and adding "a social element to traditional news consumption by giving readers the ability to determine what becomes the top news on MySpace." In other words, in spite of there being 25 categories and 300 subcategories, it still might end up "all K-Fed, all the time." If it does, you have only the kids to blame.

Something is definitely going on. Follow the jump to see what happened when visited news.myspace.com.

By a not terribly wild guess, we determined that the URL of the new site will be news.myspace.com. This morning, the following dialog box confirmed our guess:

Keep checking that URL, because the MySpace News beta may start today. Just remember, News Corp. didn't make its name by giving people the news; it made it by selling ads. The more you participate in MySpace, the more exciting you will be to advertisers. That, according to the story, is Murdoch's main motivation. If you don't think you're being targeted, pay attention to the word "target" in the following quote:

"Many advertisers have expressed interest in the service, which allows them to target the MySpace community in a more direct way," Brian Norgard, co-founder of Newroo, a company purchased by News Corp. last year, which created MySpace News' technology, said in an interview.

Go ahead, it's okay to sell your soul. All we ask is that you vote for a Gizmodo story or three each and every time you're on MySpace News. Thanks in advance. – Wilson Rothman

MySpace to test news service to boost ad revenue [Reuters]

Zucker whines that "YouTube needs to prove that it will implement its filtering technology across its online platform. It's proven it can do it when it wants to." It sounds strange, considering NBC has an official deal with YouTube, but not when you consider how wishy-washy NBC has been, pulling clips not officially uploaded by the channel.

Murdoch's criticism is more of the same old, same old: "How do you monetize it?" It's still the question du jour for sure. Then again YouTube's founders, who each walked away with over $320 million seem pretty monetized. – Matt Buchanan

NBC blasts Google's YouTube over copyright [CNET]
Murdoch the latest media mogul to take on YouTube [CNET]