Au Revoir

Time to make it official... due to time constraints, I can no longer update this blog. However, feel free to visit my personal blog Tech Enthusiast, where I share tidbits from around the web, or follow me on Twitter.

Special thanks to those that contributed to Googly News by participating in a "Third Thursday Interview":
           Katie Siegel, MTV Networks
           Kristen Sosulski, NYU Stern
           Norman White, NYU Stern
           Greg Marsh, Google

Extra thanks to Professor Sosulski, whose class assignment initiated Googly News! :)

Thank you to all that visited, followed, liked, commented, and shared! I leave you with my favorite Google Doodle (honoring Salvador Dali)...

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Google in Preliminary Talks To Buy Hulu [REPORT]

Google in Preliminary Talks To Buy Hulu [REPORT]: "Google already owns the most-viewed online video site, YouTube. Now it might be picking up the video site with the most ad views as well.

The company is in preliminary talks to buy television streaming site Hulu, the L.A. Times reports.

According to the newspaper’s sources, Hulu has been meeting with potential buyers that include Google, Microsoft and Yahoo.

Hulu holds the rights to stream popular current TV shows like Glee and Modern Family that make it appealing to advertisers and thus potential buyers. It also launched a subscription service last year that offers extended archives.

Earlier this year, CEO Jason Kilar said that the site is on track to hit $500 million in revenue in 2011 and had 50% more advertisers in the first quarter of 2011 than during same period in 2010.

Hulu was reportedly preparing for a $2 billion IPO last year, but it pulled back due to concerns about its deals with the networks.

Since then, the company has renegotiated deals with some of its licensing partners and expanded its original programming. But some analysts still see the uncertain long-term future of the network relationships — that make the site valuable — as something that could deter a buyer.

“If you had those deals for 10 years, OK, you have time to build a business,” Arash Amel, research director for digital media for IHS Screen Digest, told the L.A. Times. “But look at what they are trying to do to Netflix. They help you until you are successful then they want most of what you make or they try to kill you.”

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Google Takeout

Google Takeout: "Google wants to differentiate from Facebook by offering a lot of ways to export your data. Google Takeout is a feature that's included in Google+, but it's also available as a standalone service. You can use it to export your contacts, Google Buzz messages, Picasa Web photos and Profile data with one click.

'Google Takeout lets you take your data out of multiple Google products in one fell swoop. Moreover, you’ll find that all your data is in portable and open formats‚ so it's easy to import to other services quickly,' mentions the Data Liberation blog.

I've downloaded my data in a huge ZIP archive that included all my Buzz posts saved as HTML files, VCF files for my Gmail groups and the first 100 photos from each of my Picasa Web album. What's the point of downloading the first 100 photos?"

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