Zite on Thursday released a long-expected port of its curated reading app (Google Play). Like the iOS version, it lets users pick from popular categories of Internet news to get news and sites optimized for mobile. Its navigation is similar to the iPhone's and uses a carousel of categories at the top with sideways swipes to change sections.
Netflix just revealed that its subscribers watched over two billion hours of TV shows and movies in the fourth quarter of 2011, leading one analyst to name it as the 15th largest TV 'network.' Richard Greenfield from BTIG believes Netflix is replacing TV viewing time in households and is the second-most watched in homes with cable and the subscription service. He had previously expected it to be 25th rather than 15th in the quarter.
Flipboard's use is set to triple in the wake of the iPhone version, the company mentioned Wednesday. The app writer told paidContent that the title reached over a million downloads in the first week and could more than triple the number of page "flips" from 650 million a month to two billion. While the smaller iPhone screen means more flips as a matter of course, it still hints that iPhone use might already be going beyond the iPad.
Zite, which makes the namesake iPad magazine app (free, App Store), has now added a new feature that lets users create and switch between more than one user profiles on the same iPad. Called Sybil, it's meant to recommend personalized content to each member of a household rather than keep contents private. The feature was born after Zite's survey of over 300 iPad users found that about a third share their tablets with others.
CNN on Tuesday confirmed rumors that it had bought Zite. The deal gives it control of the iPad news curation app (free, App Store). Zite will continue to run as a separate entity under CNN's wing but will get both the added reach and "advance the industry in a meaningful way," CNN's digital manager KC Estenson said.
Disney is following in the footsteps of the Fox book by requiring online TV show viewers to be pay TV subscribers and log in with a cable ID. According to a Wednesday GigaOM report, the company is working on deals with content distributors to allow this. Thus far, cable networks like CNN and HBO are already requiring such logins.
CNN will now stream its news broadcasts to viewers over the Internet as well as cable. The company is making its programming available all day, every day on computers, iPhones, and iPads to individuals who are existing subscribers to the network through cable, IP, and satellite TV. CNN is also launching a new video player that offers simultaneous multi-window HD streams.
Time Warner Cable on Friday shot back at the need to pull some channels from its TWCable TV iPad app by adding 17 new ones. Although it had to pull some key Discovery-, Fox-, and Viacom-owned stations, it now has major networks such as A&E, CNN, Disney, ESPNnews, IFC, and MSNBC, among others. It also managed to add Fox News despite the apparent deadlock.
PlayOn today brought its mobile app to Android for the first time. PlayOn Mobile now lets users tap the service's remote media library from a Google-running smartphone or tablet with a similar amount of control. The approach optimizes video both from traditional providers with web video, like CNN and Comedy Central, as well as digital-first services like Amazon VOD, Hulu and Netflix.
CNN has released an official iPad app via the App Store. The title presents the news network's content in a more convenient interface, split into sections for top stories, featured stories and video. Users can switch between headline and slideshow views.
Apple fired a shot at Adobe on Thursday by posting a list of iPad ready sites. All of the pages support HTML5 for video when seen on the iPad and either show a special site without Adobe Flash or have already dropped Flash in favor of the plugin-free option. In addition to known sites like Vimeo and Virgin America, it also confirms that CNN, Flickr, the New York Times and several other major sites have made the switch.
Syabas preluded CES today with its most ambitious media hub to date. The Popbox replaces the Popcorn Hour as the flagship media hub and revolves around a major, much more polished interface overhaul designed by Moxie's inventor and former Microsoft executive Dewey Reid. In addition to showing visual thumbnails of virtually everything and universal search, the interface has applets known as Infopops that show weather, Twitter feeds and other data whenever the viewer pauses what's playing. As with the previously available Popapps, new Infopops can be added over time.
