The New, New Thing

Rovi announced the launch of its TotalGuide xD, a customizable media guide for cable operators that will allow their subscribers to access their programming and media guides via tablets and other hand-held devices, including access to broadcast TV, video-on-demand, and streamed content.

Armstrong, a cable operator based in Pennsylvania, will be the first multiple-system operator to test the TotalGuide xD, which will initially be rolled out as an app for the Apple iPad. Rovi said it will be made available for trials by other cable operators during the second quarter.

Among the features available to subscribers: robust search functionality; “six degrees” discovery and recommendations, guiding them to relevant content from various sources; dynamic recommendations, including most popular, similar, and recommendations from friends and the Rovi editorial team; integration with Facebook, Twitter, and email; remote connections to set-top boxes for setting DVRs, tuning channels, or starting VOD sessions; and cross-device access to their profiles.

Read more

Join Baratunde Thurston (left), The Onion’s Director of Digital and author of How to Be Black, for an entertaining look at creative social media campaigns in our Social Media Marketing Boot Camp starting February 16. Other speakers include Morin Oluwole (Facebook), Tim Devane (bitly), and SocialTimes' writer Devon Glenn.   Register now.

Local news network Examiner.com will be a key launch partner for Facebook’s new Commenting Plug-In, which incorporates comments from the News Feed on the social network into the comment threads of publishers and Web sites, as well as adding replies to comments on those sites to the News Feed.

The collaboration will allow users to comment under their true identities, increasing engagement. Comments on Examiner.com stories will be published to friends on Facebook, and friends’ comments on the Facebook News Feed will appear in the comment threads for Examiner.com articles.

The Commenting Plug-In also offers moderation tools, with every comment having the option of being either public (all users) or private (only the commenter and friends).

Read more

Got a minute for the news? OneMinuteNews, which, as the name suggests, offers one-minute news bites on-demand to Web and mobile users, will make its debut Tuesday.

OneMinuteNews content will consist of trending and breaking news, lifestyle, entertainment, sports, personal finance, and technology. The site was developed by veteran media executive Douglas J. Greenlaw, who has held senior posts with MTV Networks and Viacom, and it employs eight full-time correspondents, two part-time correspondents, and writers and bloggers on the community level, from established media outlets including CNN, Fox News Channel, MSNBC, MTV, and Current TV.

Content from the correspondents and bloggers will be supplemented with fare from all of the major wire services, but the goal of OneMinuteNews is to become a legitimate news source, and not just an aggregator, hoping to do so by trying to find unique angles to appeal to generation Y, as well as making sure its videos offer the concepts behind the facts.

The site was created with a mobile focus, hence, the simple layout. The goal was to create a mobile space that rivaled the desktop space, along with a seamless desktop-to-mobile experience. There will be no apps at launch, but they will follow soon after, with the iPad one especially targeted to be unique.

OneMinuteNews aims to create a true dialogue among its users, and co-founder and correspondent Mackinley Greenlaw pointed out that users must join the site (free-of-charge) in order to comment, and those comments can be simultaneously shared via Twitter, along with links to the videos. There will also be integration with Facebook and YouTube.

Read more

The latest addition to the list of online content-syndication services comes from Free Range Content: Repost.Us, a Web-based solution that debuts Tuesday, is fully automated, removing the human element and allowing publishers and content creators to share content.

However, the original content does not appear on syndicators’ sites: Repost.Us issue embed codes, loading content directly from its origination site into the reader’s browser, guaranteeing content integrity and ensuring that the original publisher remains the primary search destination.

Publishers and content creators can choose from four monetization options: embedded advertising from Repost.Us; embedded advertising from the publisher; paid syndication with tiered pricing based on number of impressions (page views); or free syndication (including open licenses such as Creative Commons).

Partners at launch include Worldcrunch, The EDGE Gay Media Network, Spot.us, and FanSided.

The CEO of Free Range, which was founded in January 2010, is John Pettitt, founder of Cybersource and Beyond.com.

Read more

Is there a way to quantify Internet buzz prior to events or the release dates of movies, books, and TV shows? New York parent New York Media and Trendrr hope to find out with their launch of the Vulture Anticipation Index

The index will track Internet activity every hour, using a proprietary algorithm to change the rankings and remove items once the release date or event has passed.

The top five entries in the Vulture Anticipation Index will appear on the Vulture homepage, with the entire list accessible by clicking through. Items can also be viewed over several days to determine their trends.

Read more

Citing limited resources, competition from Rockville Patch, and the confusion of having “two different conversations going on,” hyperlocal news site Rockville Central, which covers Rockville, Md., announced that all of its content will now be housed on its Facebook page, Nieman Journalism Lab reported.

Rockville Central editor Cindy Cotte Griffiths told NJL 2,000 of the site’s average of 20,000 monthly hits come from Facebook, adding that rather than duplicating efforts on the Web site and Facebook page, the staff will focus on community building and conversations around the news. She added:

There are always two different conversations going on. (Facebook is) where the people are. Everyone’s always trying to get people out of Facebook, and we’re like, “Well, we’re already here.” It seems like a place where people are themselves. We’re curious to see what happens with that.

For entities and organizations that are trying to turn a profit, or have other institutional or organizational reasons to have a separate identity, it can make sense to have a separate Web space. But Rockville Central is different and, as we thought hard about it, we realized we could find no compelling reason that Rockville Central needs to exist as a separate rockvillecentral.com site.

There’s this big party. It’s likely only to get bigger. And we want to be in there.

Read more

MTV announced an addition to its stable of awards shows: the O___ Music Awards (OMAs), recognizing creativity and technology in digital music. The inaugural event will be held Thursday, April 28, across multiple platforms, honoring artists, technology innovators, fans, and Web celebrities.

The OMAs will appear on MTV Music & Logo Group platforms including MTV.com, VH1.com, CMT.com, and LOGOTV.com, along with a major social-media presence.

Read more

The one-time “undisputed king of Tumblr” and member of NBC New York’s 20 to Follow Anthony De Rosa, founder of blog SoupSoup, was frustrated by the content on local news sites, so he and friend Richard Blakeley decided to do something about it. De Rosa spoke with Chris O’Shea of sister blog FishbowlNY about his latest initiative, Neighborhoodr.

De Rosa told FishbowlNY:

(Blakeley’s) idea was to crowd-source the content from any neighborhood by making it user-submitted. He designed the look of the site, and I put together the user interface and coding. We originally launched with 40 or so neighborhoods in New York City, which eventually grew to 60 because of demand.

Patch is bleeding money. They think that if you spend enough, you can breathe life into a long-dead top-down newspaper model. Even with the amount of money they’re spending, the people writing for them can’t live off that small a stipend. We spread the work out amongst the entire community, and the updates are frictionless. Anyone can submit content, and there’s a ton of content a click away for us to share. It allows us to get all the way down to the neighborhood level in even the smallest town without having to reinvent the wheel.

For the complete story, please see FishbowlNY.

Aol, foursquare, Hunch, Thrillist, TechStars, Yipit, and The New York Times are set to do battle — in Xbox Kinect ping-pong as part of BackSpin 2011, a charity event organized by Techies Give Back and The Daily editor of apps, games, and technology Peter Ha, to be held Saturday, Feb. 26, at General Assembly in New York.

The event will benefit nonprofit Child’s Play, which provides books, games, and consoles to children in hospitals. There will also be an all-star squad featuring Naveen from foursquare, David Tisch from TechStars NYC, Gawker’s Richard Blakeley, and NY Tech Meetup’s Nate Westheimer, and the MCs for BackSpin 2011 will be Jeff & Pat from CollegeHumor’s Bleep Bloop.

Tickets will be available starting Wednesday, at $50 to enter the singles tournament or $25 to attend as a fan.

Local news network Examiner.com will jump into the daily-deal fray by partnering with LivingSocial to offer its readers discounts of up to 90 percent at local businesses including restaurants, bars, spas, and theaters.

Examiner.com will offer the discounts in all 130 markets where LivingSocial is currently active, via a mix of feeds and local media placements. LivingSocial will also be the lead daily-deal provider in Examiner.com’s Insider Deal marketplace.

Examiner.com CEO Rick Blair said:

Our readers come to Examiner.com to connect with what they are passionate about. Now they also have access to discounts that let them experience more of what they love doing in their communities.

LivingSocial co-founder and CEO Tim O’Shaughnessy added:

We are excited by the opportunity to engage the Examiner.com community with the same great deals that are available through LivingSocial. As users enjoy interacting within their local communities, they can take advantage of outstanding deals on all the services and experiences LivingSocial offers in their area — from restaurants and spas, to travel and outdoor adventure.