Facebook app enables Web TV viewing on site

Facebook now allows users to watch Web-based TV channels directly within Facebook, through an app. The service is all free, FreeCast.com, the service provider, said.

FreeCast did not specify any channels but said the service includes "content originates from numerous sources around the world, such as TV and cable networks, YouTube, Vimeo, movie channels and radio stations -- all major content distributors."

The revenue will stream from display advertising, not video advertising, Media Post reported.

Facebook users can opt in for getting alerts when the new contents they are interested are available.

Apart from Facebook, FreeCast recently launched as a program guide targeting users' networks and videos that are free.

Netflix wants to tell your friends what you’re watching

Hoping to become the video version of Spotify, Netflix wants to let your friends know what you’ve watched, sending a constant stream of updates via Facebook.

However, a U.S. law requires a company to have permission before it discloses videos you have watched, and Netflix is backing a bill that would change the law from requiring permission each time you watch a video to giving blanket permission once.

The Video Privacy Protection Act states a customer must get written consent from a customer when disclosing personal information, such as rental history. The new bill was past by the House last week, The New York Times reported.

The bill is “really is meant to empower the consumer to be able to share with their friends,” said David Hyman, Netflix’s general council, according to The NY Times.

But not everyone agrees. Privacy advocates say the bill takes away an individual’s ability to decide what to share, and with whom. Should the Senate pass the bill, the law would “undermine consumers’ control over information collected about them even as it empowers customers to create and share more detailed customer profiles. Netflix isn’t lobbying for a mere amendment, they argue; it wants Congress to dismantle a gold standard among privacy statutes,” the article explained.

Legal and privacy issues aside, this also means streaming media with friends via Facebook could happen soon, PCWorld reported.

There are already many ways to share movie choices on Facebook, whether through link-sharing, likes or third-party apps, and a blanket permission from users to automatically share what they’re watching via Netflix streaming is the next logical step, the article stated.

HuffPo partners with El País for Spanish version

The Huffington Post has made a deal with Spanish newspaper El País to launch a new version in Spain.

El Huffington Post will have a space in the Madrid offices of the market-leading newspaper for its local website team. The Spanish version will be “very, very rooted in Spanish culture and politics, but with The Huffington Post template of curation, original reporting and blogging,” Arianna Huffington told Capital New York.

HuffPo has “reached a mass audience in America thanks to a mixture of original content, news aggregation, involvement of users and an important platform for bloggers and experts from all areas,” said Rosalia Lloret, CEO of PRISA Digital Development News, which owns El País, according to the newspaper.

“Both partners will also enhance the original editorial content through a network of journalists and blogger affiliates. The Huffington Post is bringing together an editorial team before its release,” the article explained.

In the United States, HuffPo hasn’t always had a smooth relationship with newsmedia companies, as its aggregation practices make up a good portion of the website’s traffic. However, outside the U.S. HuffPo will benefit from partners’ “infrastructure, credibility and resources; their partners in turn benefit from HuffPo’s digital savvy and from having access to the prodigious volume of content it is known to churn out on a daily basis,” Capital New York reported.

HuffPo has already partnered with Le Monde Group and Les Nouvelles Editions Indépendante for a French version of the site; however, in that deal, the French publishers will share equity with AOL in the site. The Spanish version does not appear to be sharing equity, paidContent noted. The French site has not yet launched. Huffington Post UK launched in the summer.

China’s state TV pursuing international audience

China’s state broadcaster is expanding, increasing its overseas staff by fivefold by the end of 2012, and almost tenfold by 2016, MediaGuardian reported today.

China Central Television is going after an international audience, especially in the United States and Africa, with its English-language services produced in Washington and Nairobi.

Not content to be a global economic powerhouse, China wants to compete culturally as well, MediaGuardian noted.

But will audiences be interested? The new president of CCTV has not won friends lately, when he urged journalists to “drop their pretensions of professionalism and submit to being mouthpieces of the government,” The Lede NY Times blog pointed out Monday. Hu Zhanfan, a former newspaper editor and former vice minister of the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television, has been compared to Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels.

While Hu’s comments may reflect the norm in Chinese media, the public wants “objective, neutral, and diverse media,” said Jiao Guobiao, a former journalism professor at Peking University, according to The Lede.

Image via Popsci: CCTV’s headquarters went under construction in 2004 in Beijing

Amazon adds self-publishers to Lending Library

User generated content’s new frontier, book publishing, is expanding even further.

When self-published authors make their e-books available exclusively on Kindle for 90 days, Amazon is allowing them to add their books to the Kindle Owners’ Lending Library, which gives them a chance to earn extra money.

This is part of the new KDP Select, an annual US$6 million fund for Kindle Direct Publishing Authors and Publishers, which gives independent authors and publishers a way to reach more readers and royalties, Amazon said in a statement.  The authors can earn money from the $6 million fund when they agree to the deal. The fund for this month is $500,000.

Authors can enroll a single book, select items or their entire catalog.

Amazon launched the Kindle Owners’ Lending Library last month. With this system, customers with a yearly $79 Amazon Prime membership and a Kindle device can borrow e-books for free. They are limited to one e-book per month, one at a time, and any notes or bookmarks are saved if the reader re-borrows the book later on, PCMag reported.

"By choosing KDP Select, independent authors and publishers have an opportunity to make money in a whole new way and reach the growing audience of Amazon Prime members," Russ Grandinetti, vice president of Kindle Content, said in a statement. "A short 90-day commitment allows authors and publishers to experiment at very low risk. In addition, free promotions are a new tool for KDP Select authors, and we hope to add more such tools over time."

Mobile opens the doors for Google Maps

Just when you thought Google Maps was finished mapping every inch of the globe, they’ve opened up a whole new world to map: the indoors.

The latest version of the Google Maps application for Android phones and tablets offers floorplans of some large indoor public spaces, such as airports and shopping malls.

Google Maps 6.0 for Android also shows users where they are within the floor plan, with a blue dot that updates as the person moves, PC World reported. The app refreshes when users move to different floors within the building. Labels within the maps include bathrooms, ATMs, airport gates, store names and more.

Although only a handful of indoor spaces have been mapped so far, Google accepts floor plans from any venue that wishes to be included, so the space is sure to grow quickly.

Google Maps went indoors for two main reasons: the spread of mobile accompanied by the increasing privitisation of public space, according to Fortune. The move also “further solidifies Google’s lead over AOL’s MapQuest.”

Image: Before and after Google Maps went indoors at the Mall of America

News Summit: Balancing cost cutting with great journalism

HONG KONG - Staff reductions have been the rule for the last 10 years and many times, the “do more with less” motto has threatened editorial quality.

“Managers have to cut costs but continue to produce great journalism pieces,” Martha Stone, CEO of World Newsmedia Network in the USA, told the Tuesday morning session of News World Summit 2011, hosted by the Global Editors Network, in Hong Kong.

Stone also revealed the results of the latest World Newsmedia Innovation Study 2011, which indicates that “on the top of the heap for investment is the notion of developing journalism skills,” followed by developing skills of sales people and iPad/tablet products.

According to the study, the top areas for media companies to cut costs include printing, administration, materials, distribution, office spaces, as well as content generation.

More than 50 percent of the media companies who participated the study pointed out social media and paid-for e-reader/tablet products as opportunities, while 47 percent said so for paid-for mobile services.

Within the next five years, over half of the respondents said more than 20 percent of the revenue will come from sources other than traditional media.

The global study is in its third year and available in 9 languages.

Economist’s digital successes translating into profit

More than a million readers access the Economist on a mobile device each month, and more than three million of its iOS and Android apps have been downloaded, the magazine announced. At the same time, its digital-only subscribers now total more than 100,000.

At the same time, its half-year operating profit is up 6 percent, to £26.2 million, and its revenues are up 4 percent, to £164.3 million, according to the interim financial report, released by The Economist Group.

The success with increasing its digital readership across platforms and seeing increased profits can be attributed to investing in digital editions, launching new apps for Android smartphones, Barnes & Noble’s Nook and Amazon’s new Fire reader, in addition to apps already available for the iPad, iPhone and Kindle devices. At the same time, the demand for digital editions has “exceeded our expectations,” Rupert Pennant-Rea, the group’s chairman, said in a statement.

Tablets, e-readers and smartphones aren’t the only devices attributing to digital success; The Economist’s website is also growing, with a 45 percent rise in monthly visitors, to more than seven million, since September 2010.

And, up to a point, The Economist’s success is also due in part to “being in the right place at the right time with the right product” – an international magazine, written in English, Roy Greenslade wrote today for MediaGuardian. Add an aggressive digital strategy to that mix of good fortune, and we arrive at where The Economist is today.

“We suddenly realised that if we were making a distinction between lean-back and lean-forward, here was lean-back digital or lean-back 2.0. We made a conscious choice to avoid the web-style interactive approach. Instead, we saw the potential of delivering a better lean-back experience than we have ever achieved in print,” Economist group Chief Executive Andrew Rashbass told Greenslade.