More Ebook Prices Rise

It seems that Amazon’s ability to offer ebooks at a lower price than Apple’s announced iBook shop is being eroded more quickly than even dire predictions had supposed it might.

Looks like physical books could turn out to be cheaper...

Word comes from Gizmodo that more of Amazon’s “big six” publishers have been pushing prices up to the higher price point for “hardcover bestsellers,” which is an interesting term to use in an entirely data environment. After MacMillan’s move on Monday to see prices bumped to the $15 mark on certain titles, it seems that other publishers have come pouring in with similar requests to make of Amazon’s Kindle Store.

YouTube Gets a Makeover

It seems that YouTube is already moving on its revisions to the service, announced two days ago, in an attempt to give the whole site a more unified look and feel.

The YouTube blog has been a hive of activity over the past few days, between announcements that we’d see the service revamped and the announcement that it would be offering movies from independent filmmakers for rental. Still, it seems as though the biggest change so far has been to the video page (that is to say, the video that anyone using the service might currently be viewing). The whole aim of the redesign seems to have been to emphasise the content being delivered, which is fairly evident.

YouTube to Offer Rentals

YouTube is stepping out into the online movie rental business, with its latest move to offer video independent movies through its web-based services.

According to a posting to the YouTube blog, the service is pleased to be able to offer something that’ll make a little money for independent filmmakers, who have long been its bread and butter. Indeed, the folks at YouTube seem to acknowledge the extent to which the two have been reliant on one another, with indie filmmakers pulling in users for YouTube and YouTube directing traffic at those filmmakers. It’s an interesting ecosystem.

Mass Effect 2 to see Free DLC?

It seems that BioWare’s upcoming sequel to is hit role playing game, Mass Effect, could well see some free downloadable content made available at launch.

It might seem a strange thing to announce, but according to BioWare’s official twitter feed, the company won’t be charging for any launch day downloadable content available for the upcoming Xbox 360 exclusive. To quote the tweet that manages to have stirred people up so much, “Addressing rumours: BioWare will not be charging extra for any Mass Effect 2 content on launch day. More DLC details next week.”

Amazon Rolls Out Self-Publishing

Amazon has made the move to allow authors outside of the US to add their own works, presuming they hold the rights to do so, to its Kindle library.

Word comes from the Register of Amazon’s latest Kindle service to be pushed out outside the US, which should see European authors looking to add their own work to the company’s by now vastly profitable Kindle library pleased. Those who throw their own content up on Amazon’s Kindle library are to be allowed set their own prices, with 35% of those sales going to the rights holder… the other 65% presumably going to Amazon.

Cinema Sales Outpace Discs in 2009

It’s been a long time since cinema sales last managed to outperform sales of disc-based media for movies, but it seems that in 2009 cinema has managed to push past discs again.

According to Adams Media Research, the strong performance from cinemas was bolstered by the release of “3D exhibition at a premium price,” which seems as though it could be a fairly roundabout way of saying that Avatar has been performing so very well that it’s managed to pull in crowds that cinemas haven’t seen in quite a while. Indeed, it seems that 3D cinema provides enough spectacle to draw in big crowds, with the news that Avatar has managed to pull become the fourth biggest grossing film ever, already.

Facebook Testing User Moderation

Facebook is moving towards a user-policed model in an attempt to make its content arrangement a little more efficient and a little easier to manage.

Word comes from InsideFacebook of the change, which sees Facebook moving towards a crowd-sourced model for conten moderation. Apparently, Facebook has created an app called Facebook Commuinity Council, which boasts as its motto, “To harness the power and intelligence of Facebook users to support us in keeping Facebook a trusted and vibrant community.”

For now, it seems that Facebook is keeping nice and quiet about it, but the social networking giant did respond to the inquiries about the nature of the Facebook Community Council, saying that,

Blu-Ray Gets Capacity Bump

Sony and Panasonic have managed to bump up the maximum amount of storage space on a single layer of a Blu-Ray disc, leading to a disc that can store up to 33.4GB on one layer.

At the moment, the limit on capacity for a single layer is somewhere around the 25GB mark, which means that dual layer discs have just jumped from an already respectable 50GB or so right up to 66GB, an increase of more than 20%. Of course, having researched the kit and actually being able to sell it are two very different things indeed, and we’ll be curious to see just how long it takes to push so significant a storage increase out to market.

YouTube Wants More of Your Time

YouTube might well serve over a billion videos a day, but it turns out the average user only spends fifteen minutes a day on the service… something that YouTube wants to rectify.

According to the New York Times, the folks at YouTube are working on tightening up the suggested videos that the video streaming service shows its users in an attempt to have them spend more time on the site per day. YouTube’s director of product management, Hunter Walk, aside from having a very impressive name, is working on the problem, and he sees telly as the model to emulate, saying,

“Our average user spends 15 minutes a day on the site. They spend about five hours in front of the television. People say ‘YouTube is so big,’ but I really see that we have a ways to go.”

Prey Sold Out… on Steam

Thanks to a massive price drop as part of its Christmas sale, Steam has managed, bizarrely, to end up “Sold Out” of 2K Games’ portal-throwing first person shooter, Prey.

Strange stuff...

One of the biggest reasons to opt with digital distribution for games is convenience, not only on the part of the end user, but for the distributor itself. Steam’s model, one would have thought, prevents it from ever having to post a sold out sign, since games should be practically infinitely reproducible. Apparently that’s not the case for 2K Games’ Prey, though so far the reason seems to be a little vague.