Microsoft is temporarily shutting Soapbox, its video sharing site, to new users. After two months, Microsoft will open up the service to new users again. Current users however, will still be able to access the site and upload videos. Apparently, too many users were uploading clips from TV and movies, which is what got YouTube in trouble and sued by Viacom for over a billion dollars. Microsoft is expected to use some filtering technology to prevent users from uploading copyrighted videos.
Content delivery provider Limelight Networks filed for an IPO looking to raise $201 million. In 2006, Limelight raised $130 million in a financing round led by Goldman Sachs Capital Partners.
Angel investors provided $25.6 billion in funding to companies in 2006, That’s an 11% increase from 2005, Healthcare and medical devices accounted for the largest share of angel investments (21% percent) followed by software (18%) and biotech (18%). About 51,000 businesses received angel funding in 2006.
TV Guide announced that it was launching an online video search site next month. It would feature video from TV networks but not user-generated content like YouTube. Seems like TV Guide is trying to be relevant again especially since the company recently changed the format of its print TV Guide magazine. This new venture puts TV Guide in competition with Blinkx.
Seems like its the end for viral video company iFilm. Parent company Viacom said it was folding iFilm into its Spike TV brand and launching a redesigned SpikeTV.com. iFilm was one of the early viral video hosting sites on the Internet, which MTV Networks acquired in 2005 for $49 million.
Last week satellite radio company XM was sued by the National Music Publishers Association (NMPA) with both organizations saying that XM isn’t paying royalties for its music download service. The record industry (RIAA) sued XM last year. XM’s service called “XM+MP3″ allows subscribers to download music to their receivers equipped with hard drives.
Movie Gallery, the second-largest movie rental chain behind Blockbuster, announced that it was launching an online movie rental service later this year. Just this month, Movie Gallery acquired Disney’s failed movie service, Moviebeam.
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